WorshipConcord Journal, volume 2, number 2 — February 2010

+++

A Model Theological Conference: Toward a Theology of Worship That Is . . . for the Church!

As a result of having just recently attended the Model Theological Conference on worship sponsored dually by the LC—MS Commission on Worship and the Commission on Theology and Church Relations, I have become even more aware that debates about worship in the church are ultimately debates about the church itself and its life. Or at least they ought to be! So when these debates go very badly (ie. disintegrate into rejecting a baptized brother/sister in Christ), they manifest church life that has gone very rotten as well, at least when held up to New Testament standards. Discussions about worship within the church should be serious debates about what best embodies and witnesses to the church’s true life. They should not be wars, a term completely at odds with the very idea of church (so you also ought to love one another) and destructive of the very notion of a church gathered together around Word and sacraments (worship). The sainted, former Lutheran, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus’s comments regarding the way in which the people of God ought to talk to one another, while not directly addressed to worship issues, have always seemed to me trenchant for how the people of God ought to conduct their life and conversation with one another:

Within this community the celebration of ambiguity does not preclude contestation over differences. The choice is not between schism for the sake of truth or superficiality for the sake of unity. One serves the community poorly if one does not contribute to it the most vigorous advocacy of what one believes is right. Disagreement is not to be tolerated but to be nurtured. As John Courtney Murray was fond of remarking, disagreement is an achievement. What we call disagreement, said Murray, is usually just confusion. It takes clarity, integrity, and hard work to arrive at real disagreement. But in all our disagreements and confused agreements the unshakable  confidence is that our unity—like the peace the angels announced to the shepherds—is a given. That confidence rests on our sacramentum, our mutual pledge of allegiance, to reverence one another within the mystery of our being a people led by God toward that time in which we shall “know even as we are known.” Only then will the wheat be separated from the chaff and our disagreements illuminated as diverse perceptions of the landscape through which we pass on our pilgrim way. [Richard John Neuhaus, Freedom for Ministry (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1992) 112]

Disagreement and serious argumentation about the church’s worship is to be embraced, but that disagreement can never be allowed to be the source of schism in the unity we share in the gospel and the sacraments (AC VII). This unity frames our debates about worship and constrains them, so that when we cannot agree about what is best for the church we cannot part from our brother or sister without first celebrating the given of our unity as those fed by the one loaf and the one cup of Christ. “Lord I lift your name on high” and genuflection are not the basis of the church’s unity.

The Model Theological Conference on Worship certainly demonstrated what constitutes the foundation for unity in worship: a common theology of worship. Responding to a 2007 synodical convention resolution (2-01) “To Foster Greater Understanding of Worship through Theological Conferences,” this conference was organized jointly by the Commission on Theology and Church Relations and the Commission of Worship of the LCMS. The goal of the conference was taken from the 2007 resolution: “to build greater understanding of our theology of worship and foster further discussion of worship practices that are consistent with that theology.” Opening comments by the Executive Directors of the Commissions, Rev. Joel Lehenbauer and Rev. David Johnson, further underscored that goal, particularly the focus on building understanding of our theology of worship. Rev. Johnson’s comments focused on the common theology of worship that the LCMS shares: a common life in the divine drama enacted through our pilgrimage together in common fellowship around the Lord’s Table. As he noted, this means that we need to consciously discuss issues of worship with the operative and formative assumption that we are brothers and sisters in Christ gripped by the same unrelenting love of God. The conference was intended to allow brothers and sisters to walk a path of discovering our common theology of worship as reflected in a diversity of practices (as represented by a video montage of worship scenes throughout the synod’s current life in the Word-filled Means of Grace). This pilgrimage toward a proper theological understanding of worship was subsumed under the practice of reconciliation. Led by Ted Kober, participants were led to embrace a process for working through substantive theological issues regarding worship, without ignoring relational issues, so that common understanding and labor toward consensus might be the result. The process was engaged with the understanding that unity in the body of Christ, and reconciliation when that unity is broken, are the non-negotiable way of life for Christ’s Body when discussing conflicted issues. If nothing else, this modeling of how to discuss worship issues should put to an end, once for all, the extremely troubling practice of brothers and sisters in the synod, including pastors in circuits, whether on the “left” or “right,” refusing to commune together because they do not share the same practices in worship.

The conference was constructed like a bicycle wheel. At the center of the wheel was the desire to understand and express a Lutheran theology of worship. The spokes emanating out from the center were the six papers/presentations focused on the shape of that theology of worship, seeking to address different aspects of that theology. They moved toward a theology of worship that is, respectively: scriptural and confessional (Rev. Dr. Jeff Gibbs); pastoral and sacramental (Rev. Larry Vogel); personal and contextual (Rev. Dr. Dien Ashley Taylor); missional and vocational—approach #1 (Rev. Mason Beecroft); missional and vocational—approach #2 (Rev. Jeff Cloeter); practical and theological (Rev. Dr. Charles Arand). Participants were encouraged in various ways to discuss the theology of worship expressed in the papers and the implications for the practice of worship in the synod: responders to various papers and question and answer sessions; mixed-group and district-group table discussions with suggested questions; and post-presentation panel discussions with question and answer sessions. Through these the conference aimed to bring clergy, commissioned ministers, and lay participants from all 35 districts, representatives from all the synodical schools of higher education and the seminaries, the entire Council of Presidents, and various commissions of the synod into conversation aimed at eliciting a consensus regarding a common theology of worship.

So what kind of theology of worship emerged from the presentations? Dr. Gibbs took a narrative approach to the worship of God’s people. Corporate worship must be set within the right story—the story of God coming down in Christ for the world. That God is the God of all history and therefore Christian worship must be shaped by the gaps between Scripture and the confessions that are the tradition over which God is Lord. Corporate, Christian worship is uniquely the event when God’s people become part of that story from the beginning to the final day.

A theology of worship that is pastoral and sacramental is one where the Church enters into the presence of Christ, according to Rev. Vogel. Since His Word and His meal are two of the primary experiences of his presence, they are central to Christian worship. Where Christ is present the pastoral priorities belong to Him. And the chief Pastor’s priorities are His mission, His doctrine, and His vernacular forms of worship that enable people to believe and praise and thank Him. A sacramental and eucharistic practice (Lord’s Supper centered) is the primary way in which Christ’s priorities shape His people’s calling to live together.

Life together in worship is personal and contextual and communal and catholic, never individualistic and private, according to Dr. Dien Ashley Taylor. Each human being is a person in the context of the assembly of which one is a baptized member. There the prayer of Jesus becomes our prayer and the personal prayer of one member becomes the personal prayer of all. The Word and body and blood that are for you also are for us all within the contexts in which we all live. In that culture the one true faith is believed and confessed as the spirit’s ministry leads and guides. Yet, that context is embraced within the catholic ministry of the Spirit. In all times and places of the church’s worship, the personal meets the communal in the cultural context within the breadth of the catholic expression.

Being contextual in worship begins with an orientation to mission and vocation in worship. Rev. Mason Beecroft challenged the participants to consider the rich theology and practice of worship that is the heritage of the LCMS as something compelling to the post-modern, bored consumer. At the center of that heritage are ritual forms oriented toward the sacraments that should shape a sacramental faith and piety. Sacramental ritual forms, as expressive of our theology of worship, should permeate our worship practice. They should allow for these juxtapositions in worship: complex simplicity, mediated immediacy, intelligible mystery, tacit and intuitive knowledge informing cognitive knowledge, opaque transparency, habitual practices enabling creativity, formal spontaneity, and relevant reverence. Such things should be considered for worship that is missional and vocational in a post-modern context.

Rev. Jeff Cloeter provided another take on worship that is missional and vocational. Working out of the premise of Martin Luther that our (Lutheran, Christian) theology is a theology of two kinds of righteousness, Cloeter stressed that worship fundamentally expresses that distinction and therefore could be considered our theology. The two kinds of righteousness—passive in relationship to God and active in relationship to our neighbor—is reflected in the sacramental and sacrificial rhythm of Christian worship. If worship embodies both passive righteousness in sacramental reception of God’s good gifts in Christ and active righteousness in sacrifice toward the neighbor, then worship is by very nature missional, vocational, and the shape of the entire Christian life. As our theology and life, worship is missional by serving as the means by which God encounters his missionaries. Worship is vocational because the sacramental gifts free us to serve the neighbor. And worship is the entire Christian life because corporate worship on one day invites a life of worship on every day. While there were different nuances between the two presentations on mission and vocation, the same assumptions about worship embedded in Word and sacraments came to expression in both.

Cloeter’s holistic focus encouraged the conference to remember that theology of worship, and worship itself, is for the church. Dr. Arand’s essay, “All Adiaphora are not Created Equal,” pursued this holistic, ecclesiological focus in terms of adiaphora, those things that are free to us. The primary question he raised is that there is not, nor ought there to be, a level playing field when it comes to adiaphora. Just because they are neither commanded nor forbidden, does not mean that there are not criteria for judging how some adiaphora might be better than others. Focusing on Melanchthon’s rhetorical strategy in Article 24 of the Apology, Arand explored the final cause or purpose behind adiaphora. One point of value for adiaphora is that they teach in an orthodox way.

Yet, there are other principles that can guide the church’s use of adiaphora: do they proclaim the evangelical story (Evangelical); do they reflect the expansion of the church into other cultural contexts (Contextual); do they reflect the life of the church throughout time and space (Catholic); do they allow the church to walk together in that story (Collegial). By applying such criteria to adiaphora they are enabled to serve the church’s unity, something upon which the confessions place a significantly high value.

What assessment then might one provide of the Model Theological Conference on worship? First, it hit the mark in terms of its goal, at least for the most part. Its primary goal was to affirm and build consensus around the contours of a Lutheran theology of worship. It did that. I was quite pleasantly surprised by the fact that the speakers, the plenary discussion, and the small group conversation (at least at the table I was located) conveyed a unified understanding and affirmation of a Lutheran theology of worship. There appeared to be little dissent from this. Second, the conference enabled discussion on the basis of that theology amongst committed laity, teaching theologians, pastoral theologians, commissioned ministers, worship leaders, district presidents, and synodical executives and staff, all of whom may possess somewhat different attitudes and approaches to liturgical practice. This is significant if for no other reason than conversations on worship across this broad of an ecclesial spectrum have been rare in the LCMS.  Third, the conference was grounded on the assumption that what creates the unity of the church is Word and Sacraments as represented in the conference by the absolving Word and that a reconciled and constantly reconciling community is always the assumed ground for conversations about a conflicted topic such as worship. Finally, central to this model conference, more so than at the previous conferences, was the worship itself. The worship services were representative of one congregation’s practice, in this case Concordia Lutheran Church of Kirkwood, MO, and afforded a glimpse into how the body of Christ there attends to its cultural context within the matrix of the church catholic and its tradition. Truly this was a model theological conference for the church and her life. Hopefully it will encourage and give shape to the church’s ongoing discussions of worship.

Nonetheless, since it is a model conference it must be assessed so as to enhance future worship conversations. First, one must ask whether the structure of the conference actually invited self-examination and critique and a desire to work toward mutual understanding and unity in both theology of worship and worship practice? This requires self-sacrifice in consensus building for the sake of the church. Am I willing to forego a worship practice I consider helpful for the sake of synodical unity? Am I willing to recognize that it is alright if a brother and I disagree about the acceptability of certain worship practices? Those kinds of searching questions were not directly engaged, at least not in my experience at the conference. Part of the reason for this is that the strength of the conference was also its weakness. The conference rightly established fundamental perspectives on a Lutheran theology of worship. However, it failed to focus on actual, specific worship practices (specific adiaphora) that seemingly flow from that theology of worship. Ultimately it is in genuflection and praise songs, in liturgical dance and the profuse use of the sign of the cross, in the silent prayers of the celebrant and the structuring of a service where the Lord’s Supper precedes the preaching that convictions about the practice of a Lutheran theology of worship reside. The conference did not foster some way for conversation about specific practices such as these, which are often the launching ground and centerpiece of disagreement, conflict and accusations of heterodoxy and disunity in the synod. Perhaps we are not ready for such conversations. At some point we have to discuss them, lest we remain a synod divided over such issues.

In concert with this weakness, I am not sure the conference represented the full range of practices within the LCMS. It did not appear that those most interested n fostering the full breadth of the ceremonial tradition of the church and those most interested in inculturating the church’s worship either for moderns or post-moderns were fully represented at the conversation table. This is regrettable. This is not to mention the growing non-western cultures that are representative of the Missouri Synod’s life and worship, who also were inadequately represented. If we are to model conversation about worship, then all the practitioners must be brought to the table. And, in the end, we must be willing to determine when practices are outside of the bounds of a Lutheran theology of worship, when they may or may not be best for the unity of the synod’s life, and how best to build consensus around worship practices while, in Neuhaus’ words, cultivating differences and disagreements that enrich the church’s life.

In this regard the conference’s worship, while one of its strengths, was also one of its weaknesses. In representing one congregation’s practice and therefore a decided unity and consistency of approach, the worship minimized and leveled the significant diversity one finds in worship practice in the synod. Representing the breadth of practice would most certainly have encouraged conversation about specific practices and what might be the best practice reflective of a Lutheran theology of worship within a given cultural context. (The closest we seemingly came to this was a question about the best vessels for distributing the Lord’s Body and Blood. Are disposable, plastic individual communion cups the best practice for a Lutheran theology that celebrates the Lord’s holy presence in the Eucharist?)

Finally, while Dr. Arand’s essay very helpfully pointed to the need to walk together the minefield of adiaphora in a way that serves the church, one area of woefully inadequate exploration has been attending to theological aesthetics. In many ways adiaphora inevitably invoke the field of aesthetics, that is, traditionally a way of accounting for beautiful things and the fine arts. There are many elements of worship that can and ought to be discussed from the vantage point of aesthetics, including ritual, art, architecture, etc…. And inevitably aesthetics are bound up with issues of taste. Ultimately, there should be a theological and liturgical aesthetics that informs Christian taste and use of all the elements of worship. Yet, we have not attended to such a theological and liturgical aesthetic in worship. As a result our discussions of worship forms are informed only by our own tastes and we do not have a common language for negotiating differing tastes.

In the end, this model theological conference has started a long-overdue conversation about our theology of worship and, hopefully, our worship practices. It provided the unified, central contours of a theology of worship that is for the Church. It planted a Spirit-filled hope that theology will lead all of us—those who genuflect, those who raise holy hands in prayer, and those who do both—to discuss the specific practices of Christian, Lutheran, and LCMS worship. Such conversation will hopefully lead to an appreciation for the gifts that the differences in worship bring to the body of Christ and to a desire for unity in practice as we worship together in spirit and in truth.

Kent J. Burreson

+ sdg +

Advertisement