Don't worry, guys. I'm not becoming Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox.
But, I do think we have much to learn from our more traditional, liturgical brethren.
The topic of worship, and how it relates to the Scriptures, has been swimming around my mind lately, so you should take this post as exploratory and not dogmatic. At risk of sounding like a YRR (which I am not), rethinking everything after reading a few of the Fathers, I am beginning to believe that worship as it is found in the average American Evangelical church has little to do with the historical practices of the Early Church, or really the Church at any point in Christian history before, let's say, the 19th Century. Now, that doesn't necessarily invalidate modern worship a priori, but I think it is noteworthy and concerning.
Let's talk about the Regulative Principle of Worship for a moment. I was raised in a church that held strictly to this principle, which, to summarize it crudely, states that everything the Church does in corporate worship must have a Biblical precedent--either a command or example--to be valid. Exactly what constitutes such a precedent is a matter of constant debate, and many who hold this view demand the command or example specifically from the New Testament because, they claim, the worship of the Old Testament (Temple worship, anyway) is not applicable to worship in the New Covenant. Ignoring the fact that this goes directly against the traditional Reformed hermeneutic, which emphasizes continuity between the Old and New Testaments, I'd like to discuss the historical problem with the RPW.
Jewish Christians of the Apostolic era did not exist in a vacuum. Let me say that again for the folks in the back. Jewish Christians of the Apostolic era did not exist in a vacuum. They didn't just invent Christian worship out of thin air, anymore than they created Christian doctrine out of thin air. They were Jews who had established practices and ideas about worship that were carried over into Christian worship, guided by the Holy Spirit, our Savior, and the Apostles. There is nothing unbiblical or un-Reformed about acknowledging that.
I think it's time to stop viewing the New Testament as a book of church order. That's not what it is, anymore than it is a systematic theology. It's a collection of letters written by the Apostolic authors in specific situations to specific groups of people for specific reasons. They were intentionally preserved for us by the Holy Spirit through our spiritual forefathers so that we can draw principles from them to apply to our personal and corporate lives. Over time a number of these writings (note the plural) were collected and confirmed as our canon (note the singular) in the 4th century.
While this Spirit-led-yet-organic process of canonization was occurring, the Church was still fully operational. Christians were worshipping, doctrines were developing, etc. Many Evangelical Christians, for whom their faith is primarily focused on individual acts of piety like reading the Bible, can't imagine a Bible-less Christianity, but not only was that the case for Pre-Nicene Christians, but, due to illiteracy, persecution, etc., such has been the experience of many Christians throughout history, even into our modern day. Sola Scriptura! was the battle cry of the Reformers, but many Reformed folks have never stopped to realize how novel it is to have a completed Bible in the hands of every parishioner. Even today many of our brethren throughout the world would marvel at this concept.
Here are a few questions I would pose to proponents of the RPW: How did Christians determine proper worship before the canon was confirmed? If I were a Christian in northern Africa in the 3rd Century, how would I determine what is acceptable in worship? If I were a bishop in 2nd Century Syria, how I would direct the worship of my diocese? Why doesn't the New Testament tell us more about the worship or polity of the Early Church?
I am not implying, of course, that the Primitive Church didn't have or utilize different portions of our New Testament canon. These writings were circulated intentionally as Apostolic instructions from the earliest period of Church history. Nevertheless, early Christians certainly didn't conceive of Biblical authority in the way that Evangelicals and the Reformed do today. The idea that everything the Christian does, both in faith and in practice, can and should be founded directly upon the Scriptures is itself nowhere found in the Scriptures. Chapter and verse! they cry, but there's no chapter and verse that indicates that the New Testament authors intended their writings to absolutely comprehensive in the way that the Reformed doctrine of Sola Scriptura frames them. The RPW, which is sort of the extreme application of Sola Scriptura to worship, completely ignores the uniqueness of living in the Western Hemisphere after the invention of the printing press.
Forgive me for this obvious and awkward interpolation, but having read what I wrote in that last paragraph, I find myself a bit startled. Have I just denied Sola Scriptura? That wasn't my intention when I began writing this post, but I think it might be what happened. It appears that the problem with the RPW is also the problem with Sola Scriptura. You'll have to forgive my half-developed train of thought here, as I am left with more questions than answers, but reading about the development of worship, to say nothing of doctrine, in the first four centuries of Church history, it becomes difficult to see how Sola Scriptura, at least the way many people define it today, could possibly be accurate.
Let's talk about Easter for a second. I think it illustrates my point well. Easter was a big deal--like, a really big deal--in the Early Church. So far as we can tell, it is of Apostolic origin. The proper way to set the date for Easter was one of the earliest debates in the history of the Church, and a vehement debate it was! People were literally breaking fellowship with each other over when Easter was celebrated, so eventually the Council of Nicaea determined the formula for when Easter should be observed (of course, the debate was never really settled as the East and West still observe it separately). Interestingly, the New Testament is totally silent on this issue. How could something that was so important be completely absent from the canon? Again, Easter was most likely instituted by the Apostles themselves, but none of the New Testament authors even mention it.
Moreover, what is even more pertinent to our conversation is the reasoning we find employed by the Fathers in this debate. Both sides argued that Apostolic tradition supported their case. Not only is it significant that by the 2nd Century Easter had been celebrated long enough that the precise dating could be ambiguous enough to be debated, but it is noteworthy that neither side turned to the Scriptures to support their view. They pointed to the tradition handed down from the Apostles through the bishops. The Scriptures, of course, played a role when attempting to establish something as Apostolic, but they were not the only way to prove apostolicity. As Paul tells the Ephesians, the Apostles taught both by spoken word and by letter.
Proponents of the RPW would tell us that the absence of Easter (or the Episcopate, etc.) reveals its unimportance, but that simply doesn't account for the way the Early Church viewed it. I would propose that the New Testament authors had no intention of speaking to every issue in their writings, nor did the Early Church believe them to have been so exhaustive. When you step back and contemplate the canon, it is remarkable how many things are not clearly stated, or stated at all (check out this interesting article). We can develop doctrines of the Trinity from the New Testament, but none of the New Testament authors, not even Jesus Himself, took the time to lay out a specific doctrine of the Trinity. We see many people baptized in the New Testament, but we aren't specifically told whom to baptize or how to baptize them. We are told some of the particular character traits needed in the leaders of the church, but we're never given a thorough description of how church government should be structured. Remember, the Scriptures were being written while the Apostles and their immediate followers were still alive and leading the Church, and while persecution raged. The New Testament assumes as much as it states, which makes perfect sense when you consider the audience and contexts behind it. The New Testament, a united whole only in the minds of those who live after the collation of the canon, was never designed to be an exhaustive, dogmatic document to determine doctrine, worship, polity, etc.
It's a shame that Scripture and Tradition are dichotomized so often. In our efforts to run as far away from the Roman Catholic Church as possible, we often go too far. Scripture and Tradition are both important for the Christian life, corporately and individually speaking, and should be taken in harmony with each other. As one wise man I know put it, we read the Bible in conversation with the generations of Christians who went before us.
This is one of the great things about being an Anglican (I love ending with a shameless plug for Anglicanism whenever I can justify it). The Fundamental Declarations of the ACNA offer a fine summary of the Anglican view of Scripture. The first declaration affirms our belief in the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments, the sufficiency of Scripture for all things necessary for salvation, and the role of Scripture as the final authority and unchangeable standard for Christian faith and life. The ACNA here boldly and unabashedly recognizes the importance, the primacy, of Scripture in the life of the Church and of the Christian. Subsequent declarations, however, acknowledge the importance of Apostolic and other traditions in establishing principles of worship, doctrine, church government, etc. The third declaration confesses the godly historic Episcopate as an inherent part of the apostolic faith and practice, while the fourth and fifth declarations recognize the importance and authority of the Creeds and Ecumenical Councils respectively.
Returning to our primary topic, worship in the Anglican Communion centers around the Book of Common Prayer, every page of which drips with Scripture, but which also acknowledges the liturgical traditions that have developed throughout church history. A normal Anglican service contains far more Scripture than its average Evangelical counterpart, but it also unabashedly contains traditional elements, some of which date back to the 2nd Century. There is no dichotomy for the Anglican between Scripture and Tradition. We don't have to pick one or the other. We don't have to be slaves to arbitrary traditions, but we are also free to embrace and enjoy those traditions that we find beneficial.
Comments
Post a Comment