Why do certain Protestant churches reject Liturgical worship?

  • Thread starter Thread starter JustaServant
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Doctrine and Practice go together, each influences the other, the churches that reject liturgical practices also rejects church doctrine, such as reciting the Creeds, Lord’s Prayer in their services and they reject that Christ’s Body and Blood can be in the bread and wine.
 
Outside of Catholic, Lutheran, and Anglican liturgies (don’t mean to exclude the beautiful Orthodox liturgies), we are living in a very different world as regards to worship than more non-denominational ecclesial communities. Very different.

And for the sake of Christian unity, alot of work is starting to be done to address the misrepresentation of the Liturgy by various kinds of Protestant pastors and ministers who mislead people to think other than what liturgy is.
 
KathleenGee said:
Outside of Catholic, Lutheran, and Anglican liturgies (don’t mean to exclude the beautiful Orthodox liturgies), we are living in a very different world as regards to worship than more non-denominational ecclesial communities. Very different.

And for the sake of Christian unity, alot of work is starting to be done to address the misrepresentation of the Liturgy by various kinds of Protestant pastors and ministers who mislead people to think other than what liturgy is.
Click to expand...
I join my voice to yours in this. The liturgy of the Catholic Church is a beautiful and wonderful historic treasure of the Church universal.

Jon
 
The Lord said love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and love your neighbor as yourself.

That kills this thread.
 
Thanks Jon…

Love is the greatest essence of God…and our source of love is the Blessed Sacrament.

I pray that more and more will come to understand the liturgy, its form, its profound work of bringing us into the very life of Christ Himself.
 
ltwin said:
There is something mechanical to it. Something artificial. Like its too easy to get into a routine and go through the motion. To value the ritual and the pattern but lose the real meaning behind it.

Does that make sense?

I mean the truth is that in reality all of the above can be said about non-liturgical worship as well. Every non-liturgical church, even the most free flowing, still has a set pattern that they use. Open with prayer, sing songs, take up the offering, preach a sermon, altar call, etc. You can get lost in the motions and lose the meaning. You can value the non-liturgy at the expense of the true reason for worship.

Oh and some would argue that simple is better. That we should keep worship as simple as possible, which makes it easier to keep the focus on God.

That might be a generic answer.

As a Pentecostal, I would respond that a liturgy could stop the Holy Spirit from doing something that he wanted to do. What if he wanted to speak through someone with a word of prophecy?

Or he spontaneously blessed the socks off someone and they couldn’t contain their joy and just started shouting. Then other people just started gettin blessed to and then the whole church just loses itself in God …? In a setting like that, liturgies would be too constricting. I guess Pentecostals value the spontaneity of the Spirit.

Anyway that was what I’d say.

And that’s not to say that I don’t like liturgy. I’ve been to Episcopal churches twice and thought the service was lovely and uplifting. Its not what I’m used to and I enjoy the different atmosphere. Someday I might visit a Catholic service.
Click to expand...
Well said. 🙂
 
JustaServant said:
Ask your preacher sometime to try an experiment. Have him lead the people in the Lord’s Prayer, or read the Apostle’s Creed (with that word “catholic”:eek: in it).
And watch what happens.😉
Click to expand...
I went to a Christian school run by a Pentecostal church. We were taught the Apostle’s creed . “Catholic” began with a lower case “c”. It simply means universal, as in the universal church. Protestants do believe that ya know.
 
A great book on the liturgy of the Eucharist is Scott Hahn’s book “The Lamb’s Supper”
 
ltwin said:
I went to a Christian school run by a Pentecostal church. We were taught the Apostle’s creed . “Catholic” began with a lower case “c”. It simply means universal, as in the universal church. Protestants do believe that ya know.
Click to expand...
😃
 
ltwin said:
I went to a Christian school run by a Pentecostal church. We were taught the Apostle’s creed . “Catholic” began with a lower case “c”. It simply means universal, as in the universal church. Protestants do believe that ya know.
Click to expand...
The apostles’ creed in our missal uses a lower case “c” also.
 
mark_a said:
The apostles’ creed in our missal uses a lower case “c” also.
Click to expand...
I think Itwin missed the point.
I know in Baptist churches, if you were to even consider doing anything remotely liturgical, they go ape.
I remember as a Baptist pastor once I dared to read a prayer as opposed to ‘winging it’. One fellow was in a rage. “prayers susposed to come from the heart.” I asked him to use the same logic in our hymns, which are prayers sung. Should we all reject it because it is written and everybody sings each verse in unison? Should we all sing different hymns making up the words as we go along?
Many evangelicals are so opposed to anything that looks like order and liturgy they dive into illogic.
 
Being a member of the Church is having form and structure and discipline, and lawful authority to ensure the truth of Christ is being professed in all the forms of faith expression.

Liturgy goes all the way back to the Apostles…farther back to the Jewish people who were instructed by God to have liturgy.

God Himself is the source of liturgy…that has norms, directives, sanctions, reason…all to provide proper and acceptable worship to the Lord, not that which serves the interests of man for his sake.

I just find it very sad to see good Christians hold such prejudice against liturgy when its inception goes all the way back to Exodus.
 
JustaServant said:
I think Itwin missed the point.
I know in Baptist churches, if you were to even consider doing anything remotely liturgical, they go ape.
I remember as a Baptist pastor once I dared to read a prayer as opposed to ‘winging it’. One fellow was in a rage. “prayers susposed to come from the heart.” I asked him to use the same logic in our hymns, which are prayers sung. Should we all reject it because it is written and everybody sings each verse in unison? Should we all sing different hymns making up the words as we go along?
Many evangelicals are so opposed to anything that looks like order and liturgy they dive into illogic.
Click to expand...
I think this fear you mention (if it was ever there to begin with) is loosing its hold. For example, 2 churches I have attended would produce a prayer/declaration on the overhead projector at offering time which the whole church said in unison. If that isn’t “liturgical” then I don’t know what is. And it was the same prayer every service.
 
Yes…the blog, 'Catholic in the Third Millenium, ‘Meaning of Liturgy’, April 25, 2009, states, Yes Baptists do have liturgy, but Catholic liturgy is different…
 
ltwin said:
I think this fear you mention (if it was ever there to begin with) is loosing its hold. For example, 2 churches I have attended would produce a prayer/declaration on the overhead projector at offering time which the whole church said in unison. If that isn’t “liturgical” then I don’t know what is. And it was the same prayer every service.
Click to expand...
It might not be there in the circles you are in, and that’s great news. But down here in BaptistLand, liturgy is a dirty word.😉
 
JustaServant said:
It might not be there in the circles you are in, and that’s great news. But down here in BaptistLand, liturgy is a dirty word.😉
Click to expand...
Well, they didn’t call it “liturgy.” They probably wouldn’t even know what “liturgy” meant.
 
**
God speaks to us in liturgy his word is True , when we quote his Word we teach his children to daily read his Word in the am &pm of each day, this is what he means when he says " come to me" come closer be intiminate with the Lord who Loves you…**
ltwin said:
There is something mechanical to it. Something artificial. Like its too easy to get into a routine and go through the motion. To value the ritual and the pattern but lose the real meaning behind it.

Does that make sense?

I mean the truth is that in reality all of the above can be said about non-liturgical worship as well. Every non-liturgical church, even the most free flowing, still has a set pattern that they use. Open with prayer, sing songs, take up the offering, preach a sermon, altar call, etc. You can get lost in the motions and lose the meaning. You can value the non-liturgy at the expense of the true reason for worship.

Oh and some would argue that simple is better. That we should keep worship as simple as possible, which makes it easier to keep the focus on God.

That might be a generic answer.

As a Pentecostal, I would respond that a liturgy could stop the Holy Spirit from doing something that he wanted to do. What if he wanted to speak through someone with a word of prophecy?

Or he spontaneously blessed the socks off someone and they couldn’t contain their joy and just started shouting. Then other people just started gettin blessed to and then the whole church just loses itself in God …? In a setting like that, liturgies would be too constricting. I guess Pentecostals value the spontaneity of the Spirit.

Anyway that was what I’d say.

And that’s not to say that I don’t like liturgy. I’ve been to Episcopal churches twice and thought the service was lovely and uplifting. Its not what I’m used to and I enjoy the different atmosphere. Someday I might visit a Catholic service.
Click to expand...
 
If people could only study the Liturgy…it is incredible…you have to grow in understanding…When we stand with the Lord, Who stands at the altar in heaven with the Heavenly Father at Mass, our greatest work on earth is participating with Christ at the Mass…fulfilled in Revelations…with the Lord and His atoning Blood we are withstanding the forces of evil.

Padre Pio said the world will see what it is not when the Mass is no longer…I hope I am not alive to witness such a world.

Scott Hahn, a former anti-Catholic Protestant minister, became obviously a great convert…and in his words, the Mass is the ‘atomic bomb’ against evil in this world…It is at Mass that Christ continues to preside in the Perpetual Sacrifice, the Daily Sacrifice in Revelations…that Melchizedek long ago prophesized that would come to us…

People should study what the liturgy is in the Catholic understanding before knocking it down by some sweeping phrase…that God hates rituals…going back to OT…calling for conversion of hearts is what the Lord was calling for, not the end of rituals which continued up to Christ’s crucifixion…
 
KathleenGee said:
People should study what the liturgy is in the Catholic understanding before knocking it down by some sweeping phrase…that God hates rituals…going back to OT…calling for conversion of hearts is what the Lord was calling for, not the end of rituals which continued up to Christ’s crucifixion…
Click to expand...
I would like to hear evangelicals provide proof that “God hates rituals”.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top