Saint Patrick, Devoted to Christ "at the Margins"

Glorious Lord, I give you greeting!
Let the church and the chancel praise you,
Let the chancel and the church praise you,
Let the plain and the hillside praise you,
Let the world's three well-springs praise you,
Two above wind and one above land,
Let the dark and the daylight praise you.
Abraham, founder of the faith, praised you:
Let the life everlasting praise you,
Let the birds and honeybees praise you,
Let the shorn stems and the shoots praise you.
Both Aaron and Moses praised you:
Let the male and the female praise you,
Let the seven days and the stars praise you,
Let the air and the ether praise you,
Let the books and the letters praise you,
Let the fish in the swift streams praise you,
Let the thought and the action praise you,
Let the sand-grains and the earth-clods praise you,
Let all the good that's performed praise you.
And I shall praise you, Lord of glory:
Glorious Lord, I give you greeting!
           ~ Welsh poem, eleventh century, as found in the compilation 
      Daily Readings from Prayers and Praises in the Celtic Tradition, edited by Allchin and de Waal



The above is a hymn of praise that is not from the time of Saint Patrick, nor is it Irish (of course, neither was Patrick himself originally; he was born a Roman Briton in what is today Wales).  Nonetheless, I think it well reflects the spiritually of the patron saint of Ireland, a spirituality that is broad and embracing, knowing God as both intimate daily companion and Lord of Creation, praised by all that is.

The success of Thomas Cahill's book How the Irish Saved Civilization, is well deserved.  It is a wonderful little book, beautifully written in a way that makes scholarship accessible to a broad audience.  The excerpts below are from the chapter in that book entitled, "Good News from Far Off: The First Missionary".

Patrick really was a first -- the first missionary to barbarians beyond the reach of Roman law.  The step he took was as bold as Columbus's, and a thousand times more humane.  He himself was aware of its radical nature.  "The Gospel," he reminded his accusers late in his life, "has been preached to the point beyond which there is no one" -- nothing but the ocean.  Nor was he blind to his dangers, for even in his last years, "every day I am ready to be murdered, betrayed, enslaved -- whatever may come my way.  But I am not afraid of any of these things, because of the promises of heaven; for I have put myself in the hands of God Almighty."

According to Cahill, Patrick was not only the first true missionary beyond the borders of the Roman Empire,  he was also "the first human being in the history of the world to speak out unequivocally against slavery."  Surely, Patrick's own experience as a slave in Ireland played a part in his unmitigated condemnation of slavery.  That experience during his formative years, which also occasioned his conversion, wrought in Patrick an unswerving devotion to Christ and a "core of decency" that was to serve him well in his mission to the Irish.  For, says Cahill, Patrick was at heart "a good and brave man, one of humanity's natural noblemen."  As with all such men and women, he stands out as one who did not conform to many of the conventions of the day, especially if they were an offense to justice and humanity.

His love for his adopted people shines through his writings, and it is not just a generalized "Christian" benevolence, but a love for individuals as they are.  He tells us of a "blessed woman, Irish by birth, noble, extraordinarily beautiful (pulcherrima) -- a true adult -- whom I baptized."  Who could imagine such frank admiration of a woman from the pen of Augustine?  Who could imagine such particularity of observation from most of those listed in the calendar of saints?

He worries constantly for his people, not just for their spiritual but for their physical welfare.  The horror of slavery was never lost on him: "But it is the women kept in slavery who suffer the most -- and who keep their spirits up despite the menacing and terrorizing they must endure.  The Lord gives grace to his many handmaids; and though they are forbidden to do so, they follow him with backbone."  Patrick has become an Irishman, a man who can give far more credibility to a woman's strength and fortitude than could any classically educated man.

In his last years, he could probably look out over an Ireland transformed by his teaching.  According to tradition, at least, he established bishops throughout northern, central, and eastern Ireland: he is primatial bishop at Ard Macha (modern Armagh), a hill away from Emain Macha, seat of the Ulster kings ... By placing his bishops next door to the kings, Patrick hoped to keep an eye on the most powerful raiders and rustlers and limit their depredations.

With the Irish -- even with the kings -- he succeeded beyond measure.  Within his lifetime or soon after his death, the Irish slave trade came to a halt, and other forms of violence, such as murder and intertribal warfare, decreased.  In reforming Irish sexual mores, he was rather less successful, though he established indigenous monasteries and convents, whose inmates by their way of life reminded the Irish that the virtues of lifelong faithfulness, courage, and generosity were actually attainable by ordinary human beings and that the sword was not the only instrument for structuring a society.

Though Patrick's immense influence on his adopted homeland is widely recognized today, Cahill writes that, "In his own time, only the Irish appreciated him for who he was."  In fact, when the tables turned later in the century and the kings on the western coasts of Britain began slave-raiding into Ireland, Patrick's attempts to halt the practice by appealing to his Briton brethren's Christian faith went largely ignored.  Patrick laments, "Can it be that they do not believe that we have received one baptism or that we have one God and Father?  Is it a shameful thing in their eyes that we have been born in Ireland?"   In fact, the British eventually respond to Patrick's "meddling" by seeking to discredit him through a smear campaign.  It is in this context that Patrick writes his Confession, the primary source of our information about him.  In assessing Patrick's confrontations with the people of the land of his birth, Cahill writes:

Patrick, whose awkward foreignness on his return to Britain had been the cause of numerous rebuffs,  knows in his bones the snobbery of the educated Roman, who by the mid-fifth century had every right to assume that Roman and Christian were interchangeable identities.  Patrick, operating at the margins of European geography and human consciousness, has travelled even further from his birthright than we might expect.  He is no longer British or Roman, at all.  When he cries out in his pain, "Is it a shameful thing ... that we have been born in Ireland?" we know that he has left the old civilization behind forever and has identified himself completely with the Irish.

In Saint Patrick, we have more than mere legend.  We have a life lived honestly, faithfully, compassionately, and sacrificially.  It is a life that stands out, both in the Church and in human history, such that it rightly becomes legendary.  Cahill concludes,

In becoming an Irishman, Patrick wedded his world to theirs, his faith to their life.  For Augustine and the Roman church of the first five centuries, baptism, the mystical water ceremony in which the naked catechumen dies to sin, was the foundation of a Christian life.  Patrick found a way of swimming down to the depths of the Irish psyche and warming and transforming Irish imagination -- making it more humane and more noble while keeping it Irish.  No longer would baptismal water be the only effective sign of a new life in God.  New life was everywhere in rank abundance, and all of God's creation was good.  The druids, the pagan Irish priests who claimed to be able to control the elements, felt threatened by Patrick, who knew that a humble prayer could even make food materialize in a barren desert -- because all the world was the work of his Creator-God. 

Almighty God, whose will it is to be glorified in your saints, and who raised up your servant Patrick to be a light in the world:  Shine, we pray, in our hearts, that we also in our generation may show forth your praise, who called us out of darkness into your marvelous light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.
~ The Book of Common Prayer, from the Common of Saints, Of a Missionary

    

  

St. Gregory the Great: Be Not Possessed By Your Possessions

Pope St. Gregory contra materialistic consumerism!  Oh, those Fathers, so ancient and so timeless ...

"I want to advise you to leave everything, but I do not want to be presumptuous.  If therefore you are unable to abandon everything which the world offers, you must so hold those things that are of this world that you may not be held by them in the world; that earthly interests may be possessed, not be the possessor, and that what you have should be under the control of your mind.  Otherwise, if your mind is bound by the love of earthly things, it may itself rather be possessed by its own possessions.  Therefore, let temporal possessions be what you use, eternal things what you desire ...

"To carry out these things, we have a mediator between God and men, our helper, through whom we shall more quickly obtain everything, if we burn with true love for him, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.  Amen."         ~St Gregory the Great, Book 2, Homily 36

 

C.S. Lewis: 'Old Books', a Bulwark Against the Nonsense of the Present

"It is his glory that he did not move with the times; it is his reward that he now remains when those times, as all times do, have moved away."
- C.S. Lewis, on St. Athanasius

In my classroom, I always start the hour with an appropriate quote to get students thinking about the day's topic, or to review what we learned the previous class.  One of my favorites is from C.S. Lewis.  I've forgotten the source, but he writes,

"Most of all, perhaps, we need an intimate knowledge of the past.  The man who has traveled widely is less likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in many times, and so is to some extent immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age." 

If ever an age could be justly accused of spewing forth a "cataract of nonsense", I think it must be our own.  Lewis, of course, has a way of expressing things with irresistible wit, but this is really 'History 101'.  In the introductory chapter of his book, The Church in History, John E. Booty writes,

"If we ignore history, we deteriorate, becoming less than fully human.  If we refuse to study the past, we abdicate from the power and authority, which we rightly possess, over the historical forces that impinge upon us, and we are in grave danger of being led like dumb oxen into the future.  There are strong tendencies within us, as individuals and as groups, to conform to the dominant intellectual, moral, and cultural trends of the present age, without thought, without criticism, and without control."

It is disciplined historical study, a consciously developed "historical sense", as Booty goes on to say, that enables us to escape the controlling forces of the present.  We should not think, however, that true historical study is escapist; on the contrary, we engage in such study so that "traveling away from ourselves into that past we gain necessary perspective on the present."

And there is no better method for gaining that perspective than by reading old books.  C.S. Lewis wrote a preface to an English translation of St. Athanasius's fourth century treatise On the Incarnation, in which he develops this idea further.  It is one of my new year's resolutions to make a more conscious effort to be always reading at least one "old book".  Lewis's preface is not long, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in becoming immune to the pervasive microphone of the press that would treat us as unthinking cattle.  Of course, reading said preface will undoubtedly lead to the reading of St. Athanasius, which is really the whole point.

"Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books.  But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old.  And I would give him this advice precisely because he is an amateur and therefore much less protected than the expert against the dangers of an exclusive contemporary diet.  A new book is still on its trial and the amateur is not in a position to judge it.  It has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down through the ages, and all its hidden implications (often unsuspected by the author himself) have to be brought to light... The only safety is to have a standard of plain, central Christianity ("mere Christianity" as Baxter called it) which puts the controversies of the moment in their proper perspective.  Such a standard can be acquired only from the old books.  It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between.  If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.

"Every age has its own outlook.  It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes.  We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period.  And that means the old books.  All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook -- even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it.  Nothing strikes me more when I read the controversies of past ages than the fact that both sides were usually assuming without question a good deal which we should absolutely deny.  They thought that they were as completely opposed as two sides could be, but in fact they were all the time secretly united -- united with each other and against earlier and later ages -- by a great mass of common assumptions.  We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century -- the blindness about which posterity will ask, "But how could they have thought that?" -- lies where we have never suspected it, and concerns something about which there is untroubled agreement between Hitler and President Roosevelt or between Mr. H.G. Wells and Karl Barth.  None of us can fully escape this blindness, but we shall certainly increase it, and weaken our guard against it, if we read only modern books.  Where they are true they will give us truths which we half knew already.  Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill.  The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books.  Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past.  People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as any mistakes as we.  But not the same mistakes.  They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us."  C.S. Lewis, Preface to On the Incarnation, by Saint Athanasius the Great of Alexandria

Happy reading, and Peace of Christ.

Priorities for the Next Presiding Bishop?

I just finished filling out the survey recently issued by the Joint Nominating Committee for the Presiding Bishop.  A link to the survey can be found on the Episcopal Church website here.

The survey ends with two questions for respondents to answer by typing in a text box.  Those questions, and my responses, are below.


What are the three most important issues for the next Presiding Bishop during the term of office?


1. Providing leadership that is authentically Christian, that affirms and guards the Christian faith as a precious gift, and that is unashamed to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ as the hope and salvation of the world.  I believe this is needed at this time in the history of TEC, when there are increasing numbers who wonder (not without justification) whether we will continue to view ourselves as members of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, or whether we will move into a vague, unrooted spiritualism, devoid of recognizably Christian doctrine.  Our identity is in Christ, or it is in nothing.

2. Vision for the future of the church, as regards its institutional shape.  This work (such as that being studied by the Task Force for Church Structural Reform) must be a priority.  In light of the massive cultural shift of the last several decades (post-Christendom, here we are!), we must seek to reshape our common life in ways that are pragmatic and viable, wisely discerning the difference between those things which can and should be changed, and those things which are essential to the health and integrity of our faith.

3. Serving as an example to help begin a healing time.  The bitterness attending the recent divisions in our church (and with much of the Anglican Communion) is a tragedy and a scandal.  This does not mean we need to go back and rescind decisions we have made, or to abruptly "change course".  It does mean that we should be moving always with humility and grace, not self-congratulatory triumphalism.  It means sincerely acknowledging the pain that has been caused to so many faithful Christians of goodwill, and seeking their forgiveness, while nevertheless continuing to walk the path to which we feel called.  It means NO MORE LITIGATION, but rather a radical, boundless charity, such as we are called to in our Lord Jesus.  It may take a while, but we should be laying this groundwork now.  Reconciliation (sooner or later, to a fuller or lesser extent) must occur.



What are three ways the Episcopal Church could improve?


1. Be honest and unashamed of our identity in Christ.  We are Christian people, who should affirm and be able to articulate what we believe about God, as well as about ourselves and the world.  I do not think our church is helped by a constant, public questioning of those beliefs which constitute the core of our faith (e.g. the articles of the Creed).  

2. Cut the 'relevant' crap.  Yes, the Church should be culturally conscious, and use that consciousness to bring the love of Christ to people.  But the Church should not seek to pander to the prevailing culture (that is a hopeless task anyway; before we've even got it figured out, it's on to the next thing); the Church is called to transform the prevailing culture by offering to it a way of life that is radically different: the way of Christ.  I think we Episcopalians have a way of being the Church that is distinctively beautiful, generous, and faithful, if we will but have the wisdom to know and live into our Anglican tradition.  (Btw, I'm 28 years old).

3. Provide more focused direction to Episcopal Church resources that exist for individual and family spiritual development.  In my home, we often turn to the educational and spiritual resources of other traditions (e.g. Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox), simply because TEC seems to lack the depth and coherence of message that can be found there.


Thoughts?


Gracious Father, we pray for thy holy Catholic Church.  Fill it with all truth, in all truth with all peace.  Where it is corrupt, purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in anything it is amiss, reform it.  Where it is right, strengthen it; where it is in want, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it; for the sake of Jesus Christ thy Son our Savior.  Amen.
~ A Prayer for the Church, BCP pg. 816

To Be Shining Stars in the World

"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Do all things without murmuring and arguing, so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars in the world. It is by your holding fast to the word of life that I can boast on the day of Christ that I did not run in vain or labor in vain."
~Philippians 2:12b-16


Shining like stars in the midst of a broken, tarnished world. Unfortunately, I do not think that is an accurate description of many Christians in America today. It certainly is not true as regards the popular image of Christians in society. We seem rather to be viewed as judgmental, superior, lacking compassion, self-interested, and small-minded. In one way, this is a very unfair characterization, as I know so many faithful Christians who do not in any way match such a description. But there are enough who do fit the description (and not surprisingly, they are often quite vocal) to compel me to feel that the stereotype is justified. So, how do we change this, and become those who shine like stars in the world?

The answer, I believe, lies in the same passage above. It is not found in wielding the sword of righteousness and club of truth as a bold culture warrior. It is found in great humility, great dependence upon God, great charity, generosity of spirit, and above all else, holding fast to the word of life.


Peace of Christ.

Reflections on Isaiah Chapter One

Therefore, the Lord GOD of hosts,
The Mighty One of Israel declares, 
"Ah, I will be relieved of my adversaries,
And avenge myself on my foes.
I will also turn my hand against you, 
And will smelt away your dross as with lye,
And will remove all your alloy.
Then I will restore your judges as at the first,
And your counselors as at the beginning;
After that you will be called the city of righteousness,
A faithful city."
~Isaiah 1:24-26

A couple of things in this passage grabbed my attention during Evening Prayer yesterday.  First, God fights His own battles.  Second, He purifies His unfaithful people (a painful process) in order to bring them again to a place of faithfulness.

Regarding the first observation, I'm reminded of Archbishop Michael Ramsey's words: "Whenever exponents of the Christian faith treat it as something which we have to 'defend' like a beleagured fortress or a fragile structure they are making God to be smaller than he is."  These words resonate with me, as I observe the incessant "culture wars" into which many Christians continue to insert themselves.  I presume that they do so with the best of intentions, but I have felt for some time now that this does more harm than good.  I don't hear many people these days saying, "See, how these Christians love one another!", but rather wondering what piece of controversial legislation we will support or oppose next.

In times such as these, I tend to gravitate toward the words of wise Gamaliel in Acts chapter 5.  When the Sanhedrin is considering how to respond to the "threat" of the preaching of Peter and the apostles, Gamaliel counsels, "Stay away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or action should be of men, it will be overthrown; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them; or else you may even be found fighting against God."  Sounds like good advice to me, given the disrepute which we have brought upon the Church in the eyes of so many by now openly aligning ourselves with this political messiah, now taking our stand on this issue upon which the very existence of our civilization depends, now railing in the name of God against this cultural shift.  Unfortunately, no sooner do I settle comfortably into Gamaliel's advice, confident that I have chosen the better way, than I am reminded of the oft-quoted words of Edmund Burke: "All that is needed for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."  Well, shoot.  Those words resonate with me as well, though in a way that weighs uncomfortably on the shoulders of my timid, be-at-peace-with-all-men soul.  I think of men like William Wilberforce, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and many others.  I think of the prophet Amos, who cried out, "Hate evil, love good, and establish justice in the gate!"  So, how to remedy this conflict between simply trusting in the ultimate triumph of God's truth and the duty of publicly aligning myself with that truth?  How do I quietly and peacefully "leave room for the wrath of God" while also faithfully proclaiming God's truth in the face of sin and injustice?  Well, the answer is ... ha! yeah, I don't know.  But I'm trying to find that place.

Something I can say with confidence, though, is that the Christian life is a life of hope.  Even in suffering and hardship, when the walls are crumbling, when it seems that we have been abandoned, the Christian lives in hope.  It may be that this time of pain and uncertainty is "the smelting away of (our) dross."  For myself, I think of the on-going struggles within Anglicanism.  I don't know how the shape of the Church will change in the years to come, and things certainly can look bleak at times, but I am convinced of the never-failing love and faithfulness of God, who is ever purifying and renewing His people, that we may be "a faithful city".

Peace.  

"The Monk is Not an Anachronism"

I just recently began reading The Rule of Saint Benedict, the fifth century classic of Western monasticism.  I'm kind of surprised it's taken me this long to get around to it, since I've been fairly enthralled with the idea of the monastic life since I was a kid.  During my most recent excursion to Eighth Day Books, I bought an edition published by Vintage Spiritual Classics, and the following is from the preface by Thomas Moore.

"The emphasis in The Rule on contemplative practices gives it its exceptional value and, of course, over the centuries has inspired many reformers, organizations, and individuals to create fresh ways of being contemplative.  The Rule refers to the chanting of the psalms as the Opus Dei, or Work of God, and for the monk it is certainly true that common prayer, carried out in a spirit of contemplation and with beauty, is his or her central work ...

"The combination of being aware of the divine presence everywhere, chanting the Divine Office with special care to art, praying briefly but devotionally, reading contemplatively, and treating manual labor for the community as a part of spiritual practice -- all these five daily give life a special quality, a tranquility and calm that are difficult or impossible to find in the non-monastic world.  It seems true that ours is still an age of anxiety, not a psychological problem but an existential condition created by the busy, productive, and unthoughtful style of modern work, play, and home life. ...

"The monk is not an anachronism, nor is The Rule of Saint Benedict antique and irrelevant.  It is modern life, rather, that is not in accord with the fundamental needs of the human heart.  From the viewpoint of the human soul, our modern style of living is the irrelevancy.  By not enjoying a genuine common life and by not giving ourselves a degree of contemplation, we wound our need for emotional quiet and for meaning.  And so it is appropriate to return to this ancient sketch of an alternative life, to reread it and discuss it, and, with imagination and reflection, bring its spirit into the workplace, the home, and the city, where it could transform a culture of anxiety into a community of peace and mutual regard."

To that I say a hearty "amen."  And as Moore suggests, I hope occasionally to "discuss" The Rule here on this blog, insofar as I'm given grace for some insight, or simply to voice questions.  A happy Saint Andrew's eve!
Peace.

Changing Culture, Changing Worship?

I just finished reading Opening the Prayer Book, by the Rev. Jeffrey Lee.  It's part of "The New Church's Teaching Series."  It's the second book of the series that I've read (The Anglican Vision by James E. Griffiss being the other), and so far I've been pleased.  They are well-written as to style, and short enough to read fairly quickly, while remaining very informative.  They're popular, not scholarly, but I've never felt like I'm just reading an expanded version of a visitor's welcome pamphlet; the books strike a good balance between basic introduction and in-depth study.  I recommend.

In the last chapter of the book, Lee writes of "looking toward the future".  He notes succinctly that "One of the identifying marks of the Anglican way is its willingness to engage the realities of contemporary experience."  I would certainly agree.  But's it's another statement from the chapter that I've been chewing on.  Writing about change and revision to the prayer book (something of a continuous reality if we look at history, as Lee documents earlier in the book), Lee references a quote from the late Leonel Mitchell: "Language changes.  Culture changes.  Our worship is conditioned by both and must change in order to remain the same."

This is a thoughtful and challenging statement, and one with a couple of things to unpack.  First is the assertion that our worship is conditioned by language and culture (which, unarguably, are forever changing).  This may seem a bit threatening.  After all, is not our faith "an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast", as the writer of the letter to the Hebrews puts it?  Consequently, Paul writes to the Ephesians that "we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves."  For myself, the idea of a culturally-conditioned worship brings to mind (to borrow from Niebuhr's typologies) the "Christ of Culture", ever-changing (one might say even manipulated), according to the shifting currents of society; not a happy vision, as I see it.  However, I think this is an overreaction.  To say that worship is conditioned by language and culture is not to say that worship is at the mercy of either.  It is, rather, an acknowledgment of what, on reflection, is quite obviously true.  The Christian faith, perhaps more than any other, has at least one foot firmly standing on the ground of this earth, for the whole of our faith points to this Man who walked the dusty roads of first century Palestine.  In the Incarnation, God enters our world and its culture.  Jesus lived within a specific and historically identifiable culture, and while He certainly challenged that culture, to maintain that the early church was not conditioned by its cultural setting is surely an exercise in self-deception.  Likewise, to read the Bible without a basic grounding in the varied cultural and historical backdrops that inform it is to choose to miss out on whole layers of understanding.  The culture in which we twenty-first century Christians live is much changed from that of the first century Roman world.  Not surprisingly, the church has undergone changes as well.

Which brings us to the second assertion of Mitchell's: our worship must change in order to remain the same.  Even the most cursory study of the history of the church will reveal that the church has evolved and changed in many ways over the course of two millennia, with the exception of the Eastern Orthodox (just kidding; sort of).  This in itself is not surprising.  What Mitchell proposes is, I think, a unique way of explaining such change.  On the one hand, it seems reasonable to say that the changes we observe in the church's worship are simply due to the influence of a changing external culture.  While Mitchell acknowledges this to an extent (as per the first assertion), he also claims that there is a very intentional logic behind the change.  The church intentionally changes the outward form of worship in order to keep alive the spirit that lies behind the form.  As the church, we are called to render worship faithfully unto God, and I certainly believe that there are right and wrong ways to do so; a change in the church's established forms of worship is no flippant thing.  But the church is not called only to worship.  As Jesus reveals in His 'high-priestly prayer' to the Father, even though we are not of the world, we remain in it.  And it is in this world that we are also called to follow the way of Our Lord: to love our neighbor, to seek the lost, to make disciples, to stand in opposition to the injustices of the kingdoms of this world, to embrace the cross.  If a particular form of worship, which  empowered the faithful to do these things in another place and time, is no longer serving to facilitate this call, why should that form of worship not change?  Indeed, is it not necessary that it change "in order to remain the same", that is, to continue to enable the church to proclaim and live the Gospel?

The real question, as I see it, is neither to determine whether or not our worship is conditioned by culture, nor whether it should change.  The question is: How do we take part in a continual, intentional renewal of worship in a way that facilitates the mission of the church today while also preserving the integrity of the faith we have received?  At what point does a well-intentioned, missional attempt to change the form of our worship cross the line and begin to erode sound doctrine and the foundations of the faith?  Are there areas in the church today where this line has already been crossed?

What do you think?

Peace.