“We are embodied creatures. Physical rituals are important to bridge the way to what we can’t conceptualize. Faith and Ritual by L’Ombre de l’Olivier. The sixties stripping of ritual and “senseless” tradition, pretty much across the board of most Western religious observations, was a grave error and an example of removing Chesterton’s fence. It turned out we hadn’t evolved away from needing it…From Sarah Hoyt.
Chesterton argued that when making significant decisions, we must understand the previous choices leading us to where we are. If we don’t know how we got “here,” we risk worsening things. We haven’t evolved away from needing that fence, which can help mitigate the proliferation of unintended consequences. These usually flow from not comprehending all the factors that flow into and out of our current decision.
The public rituals and long-established traditions of Christianity play a vital role in connecting believers to their faith. These practices, often repeated, can become rote expressions; they serve as a tangible reminder of the spiritual reality they represent. They ground us in this reality, constantly reminding us of what we may have forgotten or even abandoned. We may think we are interjecting freshness into our worship and avoiding unthinking repetition, but we then lose the touchstone it once gave us.
What I find amusing about the vagarities of Christian worship and expression is that those churches that say they are non-liturgical have their liturgical form of expression. They do things in a very similar sequence with similar expressions. While they may take pains to avoid obvious repetition, their prayers and statements of faith share a similarity that identifies them and their worship to their congregants. It’s like we need a ritual. We need a liturgy. As I said earlier, it helps to ground us in our understanding and belief. One disadvantage of these ad hoc rituals created by these non-liturgical liturgies is that they miss the profound significance of the established tradition and its liturgy refined over the centuries into a compelling statement of worship and belief. Somebody may express inspired things in any given service, but that will be an irregular event, and the burden of being “special” will soon wear on those tasked with leading the worship.
h appreciate our Anglican liturgy, its depth, and its theological significance. But we also allow space for extemporaneous expressions that add immediacy to our worship service. Since we are Charismatic, this can take many forms, but the scaffolding of the liturgy keeps us both grounded and on track as we progress through the service, always in decency and order, as Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 14:40. It also helps us to avoid unintended consequence and can stop our drift into error if we let it serve its intended purpose.
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