Liturgy and Spiritual Awakening, Part Three

Before reading this blog, the reader should look at the previous two blogs, especially the last one, which is a synopsis of Bishop Bo Giertz’s argument on the relationship between liturgy and spiritual awakening. Once we are familiar with Bishop Giertz’s argument, we can ask whether these words from mid-20th century Sweden have any relevance for us today.

We have to note the differences. Nearly every Swede of Giertz’s generation had been baptized and was a member of the (Lutheran) Church of Sweden, although many Swedes had but tenuous ties with the church. Giertz himself had been baptized as a child, even though both of his parents were atheists and he was raised in a largely secular environment. Thus, one of the major purposes of awakening movements in Sweden was to reconnect youth and adults with the church of their baptism that they knew little about. Now it still happens in the United States that children are baptized and then their spiritual growth is entirely neglected. But that is not as often the case here as in Sweden, since there is not the same social pressure to have children brought to baptism and made to belong to the one church that is integrated with the entire social fabric of the country. As the Church of Sweden has lost its standing in its society, there is a growing percentage of unbaptized Swedes. One can expect that future awakenings in Sweden (May God grant them!) will not be exclusively a re-conversion of the baptized, but also in large measure a conversion of the heathen.

In addition, awakening movements in Sweden had often been connected, sometimes rather tenuously and not altogether harmoniously, with the Church of Sweden. But in the United States, each awakening movement has turned its back on established churches and founded new ones. Revivalism itself has become an institution—and one spiritually impoverished by its substitution of new forms and a “new liturgy,” as well as its open hostility to creeds and liturgy. Consequently, each awakening movement is unable to pass on the faith to the next generation and the movement burns itself out—just as Giertz had so insightfully seen and warned.

Thus, we in the United States live in a situation where awakening and liturgy are not just rivals living in tension with each other, but where they have become bitter foes. We have evidence of where this leads, and it is just as Bishop Giertz had predicted. “Liturgy without awakening” has indeed become “the most dangerous of all church programs” (p. 28), as is evident in the Episcopal Church and in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), as well as many other mainline denominations. Churches that had never had lectionaries have adopted them. Liturgical worship has become more common in mainline churches, and there is a fascination with ritual. But at the same time orthodoxy and traditional Christian morality have never been so marginalized in those church bodies. The fascination with ritual has led not only to a recovery of ancient Christian rites, but also to the adoption of bizarre, half-pagan rites (such as labyrinth walks).

Meanwhile, American Evangelicalism has demonstrated the truth of Giertz’s contention that wherever the traditional liturgy has been discarded, “the new forms that grow up…are usually less attractive and more profane than the ancient liturgy” (pp. 17-18). Moreover, “they contain less of God’s Word, they pray and speak without Scriptural direction, they are not so much concerned about expressing the whole content of Scripture, but are satisfied with one thing or another that seems to be especially attractive or popular” (p. 18). Anyone who knows the history of American Evangelicalism knows how it has latched onto a particular idea in any given generation to the exclusion of the full counsel of God and how it has tended to be driven from one fad to another until finally the substantial theology of a Gresham Machen or a Carl F.H. Henry is replaced by that of a Robert Bell.

Where does that leave confessional Lutheranism, especially in the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod? There have been several forces at work in the last decades. There was a liberal liturgical movement (much akin to what predominates in the ELCA now), but it failed to take over the synod and is largely a spent force now. But those who opposed the liberal liturgical movement were not all united as to how to move the synod forward, especially as it became apparent that the synod had stagnated in the late 1960’s and entered a stage of mild decline in the decades that followed. Some argued that the church needed an awakening to stem both liberalism and a decline in membership. These people saw American Evangelicalism as the antidote and embraced its trends—the charismatic craze, spiritual gifts inventories, the church growth movement, the seeker church paradigm, the megachurch phenomenon, contemporary Christian music, the house church trend, and the emergent church, to name a few. Granted, the Missouri Synod participants have tried to “Lutheranize” these movements, but (as their critics have rightly noted) they have tended to follow Evangelicalism as slavishly as the liberals followed mainline theology.

Others returned to the Lutheran confessions, which they saw as the antidote to the serious theological flaws of both liberalism and Evangelicalism. They tended to be mildly liturgical in the sense that they followed the Divine Service as printed in the hymnal but without any real interest in liturgical matters. But as the 1980’s and 1990’s unfolded, robust interest in theology was coupled with a robust interest in the riches of the liturgy. Unlike the liberal liturgical movement, where the rich liturgical language masked the unbelief of the celebrant, this conservative liturgical movement used the liturgy to express the fullness of its faith. And thus the most avowedly confessional people in the synod (those who can say what Solid Declaration Article III is about without having to look it up) are also the most likely to be very liturgically conscious. For them, those who have followed contemporary Evangelical trends are minimalists not only in worship, but in confessional commitment. But those who have followed more of Evangelicalism’s trends look at the confessional liturgical movement as aloof and unable to reach out to the lost who so desperately need the message of the gospel.

Bishop Giertz’s herdabrev may offer a fruitful proposal for dialogue between these two groups in our synod. He suggested that the liturgy of the common Divine Service held on Sundays and other festivals should be kept intact, but he allowed greater freedom for other, more informal gatherings of the church. The Divine Service is the common heritage for all Christians and is rich in biblical quotations and symbolism that give real sustenance to the mature. It should not be abandoned or drastically changed. But the church also needs to “speak to the children of the age in the language of the age about those things which have been forgotten but need to be heard again” (p. 14). This will take place outside of the Divine Service, in informal Bible studies and prayer groups and other activities that bring the unchurched, the de-churched, and the unbeliever into contact with God’s Word.

Bishop Giertz’s herdabrev will not end the worship wars, but it may serve as the basis for discussion that could lead to a just and lasting peace.