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Faith Admirer
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| Joined: | Mon Oct 29th, 2007 |
| Location: | Florida USA |
| Posts: | 16 |
| First Name: | Ryan | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Non-denominational Christian convert to Catholicism |
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Posted: Fri May 2nd, 2008 07:39 pm |
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This is an excellent article about the necessity of Liturgy from the Senior Managing Editor of Christianity Today.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/may/36.38.html?start=1
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Steven Barrett
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Posted: Fri May 2nd, 2008 10:16 pm |
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 Ryan, thanks for having the quick eyes to point it out. Great heads up action. I'm not sure I would've given it as high an opinion from what I was able to get read so far. I'm going to look it over more later on. But there was something that really ticked me off so I let them have a piece of my "papist-almost-baptist'd" mind.
Posted: May 02, 2008 4:51 PM
 (Had to be charitable, CT was trying to be likewise.)
"Small wonder Catholics and Evangelicals Together have a lot of work left to do when Christianity Today publishes a long article about Liturgy and includes lines like this: "... and the high point of the service is taken up with eating the flesh and drinking the blood of a Rabbi executed in Israel when it was under Roman occupation. ..." This line, published in a Protestant magazine, albeit one of the most open-minded Protestant evangelical publications, only serves to perpetuate the continuing misconceptions Protestants have with Catholics over the Eucharist. In the eyes of many, if not most, "Bible Christians" we're not sufficiently Christian enough because we don't follow the Bible as our supreme guide. Well, take a look at St. John's Gospel, especially Chapter Six and the Last Supper and ask yourselves who the real Bible Christians are when it comes to understanding the true meaning of the Eucharist. The liturgy isn't "relevant:" It's timeles and priceless."
This article practically reduced us to cannibals. And this is the same misconception and objection the Jews had when Jesus first spoke of himself as the "bread of life" and they skeedaddled, leaving Jesus to look at Peter and asked the fisherman if he was planning on bolting, too.
That protestants still take the Lord's specific mention of himself as the bread of life as some symbolic meaning only, shows that a lot of mental plowing is left to be done. Sure, there was symbolism, but it came from the same God Who condemned cannibalism, so why wouldn't He have used bread as an acceptable symbolism and push his people into BELIEVING beyond a book's pages (or rolls of a scroll back then) that He's in that piece of bread? So much for one of Bible Christianity's first tests. IT's been blown by everyone who's read the same words only to come away thinking Jesus was only speaking allegorically.
It's not by accident. When you can reduce something to an allegorical meaning, you can desacralize it and so forth. When I hear Protestant teachers and ministers use the term "human constructs" to deride Catholic practices, it reminds me of John 6 and all the other tactics used by revolutionaries, be they spiritual or simply ideological, to reduce an argument to a bare-bones level of absurdity with hopes you, or whomever they're trying to justify their rebellion to, of how "absurd" the "old ideas" were in the first place.
If Protestantism isn't a "human construct" -- what is? And this article about the liturgy's "relevance" while editorially allowing the writer to get away with giving any hint of cannibalism, well there's a lot of human (de)construction at work here. But presented ever so slyly, and the more I think about, the more I find it upsetting. Let's hope others do, too.
Great eye-work, Ryan. Drop in more often!
Steven (STU-Miami grad)
Last edited on Fri May 2nd, 2008 10:19 pm by Steven Barrett
____________________
For anyone suffering from a mental illness or has a loved one with a mental illness, my book "Lead kindly Light: A Devotional For The Mentally Ill" might be of some help: http://www.lulu.com/ (Use search box at the top of page.)
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JillD
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| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Visalia, California USA |
| Posts: | 600 |
| First Name: | Jill | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | heathen, EvFree, Messianic, LC-MS, Catholic 2007 |
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Posted: Fri May 2nd, 2008 11:22 pm |
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I could be misreading the article, but I think that the line you quote is meant to express what a lot of non-liturgical church folks THINK of the liturgical service. The rest of the article is quite favorable toward liturgy. 'Good to see!
Jill
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"The alternative to obedience is to turn the conversation into a cacophony of Christians making it up as they go along." - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus
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tedjenczewski
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| Joined: | Thu May 10th, 2007 |
| Location: | Richmond, Virginia USA |
| Posts: | 162 |
| First Name: | Ted | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Catholic, Presbyterian, Catholic |
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Posted: Sun May 4th, 2008 02:14 am |
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| I read the article. The author sounds like he wants and needs a liturgical worship that is focused on God rather than a "contemporary worship" that is focused on man, which is the emphasis in fundamentalist protestantism. He doesn't know it yet, but he wants a worship in which the believer transends this life, and joins with fellow believers and all the angels, and saints in the true heavenly worship established by Jesus at the last supper. Someone should send him a copy of "The Lambs Supper" by Scott Hahn. That book, along with a couple of good books on Catholic apoligetics, might "bring him home".
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"...the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth." 1Tim 3, 15
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Steven Barrett
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Posted: Sun May 4th, 2008 09:11 pm |
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I agree with you both, and I might be wrong in saying this, but it seemed like he's also an Episcopal cleric putting forth an argument in favor of the liturgy. It was a good article over all, and he sure did a good job in contrasting the ancient form and continual need for a liturgy (also based on the ancient TRUTHS) with the more informal, and make it as up to date as possible evangelical approach.
Looking back I'll confess to being a little too rough since Galli might've been only trying to capture much of what passes for a lot of the present-day evangelical thinking towards the Eucharist--and it is indeed a horrible misconception, and sometimes a downright deliberate misrepresentation. Gotta admit it, if he was just trying to get my attention with the line I quoted, he sure got it, by the throat!
Take a look at this response by a strong critic of our position and that of Galli's as well. He represents the "new" or should I say "contemporary" view that's rising in popularity within evangelical circles. Too bad I couldn't find a "button" enabling me to post a follow up comment to this gem.
Posted: May 02, 2008 1:36 PM
liturgy has developed over the years, author says. But he refers to liturgy that is 100's of years old. Where is today's lituryg? burried in the 1000 year old Eastern or Western Catholic traditions. Consider the need for form and direction that liturygy offers: People who wish for direction, need comfort of the old, and are fearful of an age that is changing faster than the days turn to nights -- these people need the old liturgies that help them stay steady in a world gone topsy-turvy! But that is just the word that the Word came with: the Kingdom of God is here, the Kingdom that is constantly changing and always steady. Changing because the new has come and the old wine skins cannot contain the new. But steady because the Rock of Ages is our foundation, a foundation that does not change but whose manifestation is constantly evolving into the new. Go back to the 1000 year old liturgy? Sure if you cannot stand today's world -- return to the safe haven of the old church.
This sure looks like a battle-cry call for a return to that "old time religion" -- but in new garb and style. I've heard this said in gentler terms, but it's still (to say the least) a bit high on arrogance and low on patient humility. In other words, we're the dottering old dolts who are holding back the thoroughbreds of progress in God's church and we'd better adjust.
And as for going back to, or sticking with "... the safe haven of the old church ... " what's wrong with that? At least we know it's built on the Real Rock of Ages, Jesus Christ, and his immediately hand-picked vicar, St. Peter, and not primarily a collection of books, albeit Sacred indeed, that was collected and published for the first time as One Bible four centuries after Jesus walked the earth.
And just what is this "Rock of Ages" this man's referring to? Jesus, the Bible, or both? Notwithstanding the objections of many Protestants, they make a crucial error by resting the security of their faith in Christ primarily upon what they've learned in the Bible because some of them actually believe the Bible came before the Church (using the Jewish scrolls and Lawl of all things to establish their claim that the Bible is older than the Church and therefore we must shift our allegiances accordingly.) Oddly, they don't see the glaring contradiction in this position and St. Paul's writings exhorting the Church to move forward and away from the old law.
Protestant rightly say the story of the Bible points to Jesus. I wouldn't go so far as to say all of it. (What do all those "numbers" for this and that thing the ancient Israelites had to do really have to do with Jesus, not to mention some of the old "kosher" rules that were wiped out for Christians in Acts, really have to do with Jesus, except to serve as reminder's of God's continual presence in the life of Israel and the need for His people to pay attention to Him for their survival? Some people might see a lot just in what I mentioned now; but compared to what St. Paul tried to straighten out for the new Church, not to mention what the early Church Fathers had to work with when there was no formalized and final New Testament until the fourth century--I just don't see how some Protestants can use the OT as proof that the Bible predates the Church, and its liturgy.
Evangelical Protestantism also misses out on a lot of the very thing it promises so much and winds up in some places, delivering so little of: Scripture that's contained throughout the (ancient) western liturgy, of which much is shared by Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans and I'm told, some Presbyterian branches and even the older/more traditional Congregationalist parishes.
I love that little emoticon showing the rolling eyes look, but in all seriousness, I can't count the number of times I've had to pull myself together and maintain the most decorous replies whenever I've heard the familiar "Wow, that (Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, etc.) church I/we belonged to never gave us the gospel like Pastor Jones does here." And, sometimes I've let go with a politely (meaning gently smiling) response to the effect that what they sang and said in their previous church's liturgies was Scripture, writ large and in person. I also wanted to ask them if (in all sincerity) they really liked Pastor Jones' (or his co-participants) long warm-up prayers, never mind his regular 30-to-45min long "messages" that seem invariably punctuated with power-point A/V aids and those never-ending praise n' worship variations of old hymns.
They're hearing what that new church calls the gospel for "the first time" but in spades far and beyond what the Church would dare even think of imposing on Her faithful. We have the REAL PRESENCE OF CHRIST and that right there is THE Rock of Ages that can't be topped, yet He offers us the only true security, and that's because HIS SECURITY is as timeless as HE IS. How, ironic it is that we don't have to go backwards as this man said, but only to a Catholic Mass to get the Real Rock of Ages, and NOW.
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For anyone suffering from a mental illness or has a loved one with a mental illness, my book "Lead kindly Light: A Devotional For The Mentally Ill" might be of some help: http://www.lulu.com/ (Use search box at the top of page.)
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Steven Barrett
Member
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Posted: Sun May 4th, 2008 11:32 pm |
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My apologies to anyone reading my last post: I quoted a fellow and forgot to put the "hooks" at the end of where it says "we'd better adjust."
He thinks "we'd better adjust." Ohhhkaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy
Sometimes my size 13s have a bad habit of stepping on too many toes, but I wasn't going to get mixed up with this kind of boneheadedness. 
____________________
For anyone suffering from a mental illness or has a loved one with a mental illness, my book "Lead kindly Light: A Devotional For The Mentally Ill" might be of some help: http://www.lulu.com/ (Use search box at the top of page.)
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