While Roman Catholics were going back to earlier liturgies to see if there was a way to reform their mass, American Protestants were going in a different direction. Never much to take history seriously, they have experimented with one innovation after another, all in a quest to find something more “alive” than past generations. But in order to evaluate this phenomenon, we have to do a little historical research ourselves.
Early Protestant worship (aside from that of the Quakers and Shakers) was not known for its emotionalism. Though ranging from the liturgically staid Anglicans to the more informal Congregationalists and Presbyterians, worship tended to be didactic. That would change with the First Great Awakening in the mid-1700’s, the first of several revivals that would sweep the country. The Congregationalist theologian Jonathan Edwards argued that since emotions play a role in conversion, it is appropriate to incorporate emotional appeals in worship. Of course, Edwards himself was hardly a torrent of wild emotionalism. According to his contemporaries, his famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” though causing his parishioners to break into paroxysms of weeping, was delivered in a dreary, monotone manner.
By the time of the Second Great Awakening in the early 1800’s it was no longer the congregation alone that was swayed by emotions. The clergy too had caught the fever. Preachers like Charles Finney believed that he had the power to convert anyone without the Holy Spirit’s help. Like a good advertizing agent, Finney knew to appeal to a potential customer’s—I mean, congregant’s—emotions rather than his intellect. Ever since that time, American Protestantism has been known for its search for wildly emotional experiences, whether through tent revivals or Pentecostalism or the new worship styles introduced in the 1970’s.
What are serious Christians like us to think of this tendency in American church life? Perhaps it would be good to consider why American Protestants went down this particular path. Calvinism was the predominant theology in our country’s early days, and it taught that God had predestined some to salvation and others to damnation, and a human being had no choice in the matter. But how could one know to which category one belonged? Looking to the Scriptures or the gospel didn’t help because the promises in the Scriptures were meant for the elect, not for those predestined to damnation. Moreover, Calvinism had taught that the Holy Spirit brings the elect to faith without the means of the Scriptures and so the elect shouldn’t need to rely on them for proof of their election. For an increasing number of people two centuries after Calvin, a feeling of being loved by God became the best assurance of election.
But Calvinism waned during the First Great Awakening and was largely supplanted by Arminianism, which still rules the English-speaking world. Arminianism rejects the idea that God predestines individuals to heaven or hell. Instead God offers salvation to all. Those who accept His plan are following God’s predestined path to heaven. Those who reject it are following His predestined path to hell. The question that confronts the believer now is no longer “Did God choose me for heaven?” but rather “Did I choose God so as to gain heaven?” But how does one know that one has a sincere faith and thus has merited God’s approval? The answer is the same as before: a deep emotional experience.
All of this is bizarre when judged by the Scriptures. The Bible does indeed teach that God elects some to salvation and that none can pluck the elect out of His hand (Acts 13:48; Mt. 24:22, 24). But it also teaches that God desires all to be saved and that Christ died for all (1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Cor. 5:14). Consequently, Lutheran Christians urge people not to consider the number or identity of the elect—which, after all, God has not revealed. Instead, we direct people to the clear promises of Scripture that God does not desire the death of a sinner, but wants all to be saved (Ezek. 33:11; 1 Tim. 2:4). We stress that Christ died for all sinners, not just a select few (John 3:16; 2 Cor. 5:14). Not only do we believe that these promises are genuinely offered to all who read them, we also believe that the Holy Spirit works faith and strengthens it through these promises of the gospel. When we doubt whether God can save us wretched sinners, we go to the gospel for comfort. We confess with Paul, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself” (2 Timothy 2:13, ESV).
We should not deny that we are emotional creatures any less than we are intellectual or social creatures. Our worship should reflect that truth. But we should resist the tendency in American Protestantism to make emotionalism the keystone for genuine worship. Real worship is hearing and meditating upon the Word of God, especially the gospel.
© 2010 James A. Kellerman
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