liturgy and language ii
Mark raises some good points in his comment on the post below:
…parts of the Eucharistic Prayer were extemporised in the early church. So this is part of our tradition, and we might be wise to think about how we appropriate it for present times… There is also a great difference between top down liturgy where the words are handed down by elite committees, and bottom up – where in an organic community new and vibrant liturgical voices are heard in the places where liturgies are authorised… in the words of the 1989 New Zealand Prayer Book liturgy might be a deliberate attempt ‘to allow a multitude of voices to speak’.
I agree that we should hold planned and authorised liturgies in tension with local colour and some degree of spontaneity (see my post Planning v. Spontaneity for more on this). But I suppose another element in this is that we need a corporate voice. It’s very difficult, in a society that recognises the importance of individual voices, within a world that is culturally varied yet closely in touch across cultural divides, to find a way to speak as one body. That is precisely the current dilemma for the Anglican communion. It seems that many CHristian communities take it as unquestionable that we should adopt a policy of freedom of expression in liturgical settings. But going back to what AKMA said in his post, we shouldn’t underestimate the value of having some core at the centre that we can all "say" – that we can speak as one body, not as a collection of individuals all of whom want to define the terms. In addition, there are issues of beauty-as-truth involved here – liturgy that emerges from multitudes of voices can be beautiful, but all too often it turns into a homogeneous mush. That’s a strong reason for placing a high value on our artists, our poets, our theologians and our liturgists. There are weaknesses as well as strengths in a democracy of expression.
3 Responses to “liturgy and language ii”
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I never knew of liturgy till I came to college. I have been to many churches back home in New England but it was not till I came to a Wesleyan school in western New York that I even hear the term liturgy.
I still think they are rather weird, speaking in huge groups as one makes me feel like a robot, but after a few weeks ago, when I was part of an Organization that fallowed such said set order of worship I feel more comfortable.
Back home liturgy does not happen, I believe, because New England is very liberal in its mind set (though not as liberal as I have been led to think about England), and to conform to one voice is to say we are one. The church should be one, and mine really was/is, but speaking in one voice, or fallowing a traditional method of worship (we don’t sing hymns) is against the very nature of most people. Those who think hymns are amazing, think this only when the hymns are set to a jazzed up beet.
My Two Cents
-Chase
I would tend to cut the middle. Extemporaneous prayers in the early Church often drew upon patterns and familiar wordings of Scripture and prayers, such that their “innovativeness” is actually often recycling. By having familiar wordings, patterns, shapes, we prevent ourselves from completely off the wall prayers. Personally, I prefer rather set forms and repetition as these get in the bones and free one up for a certain contemplation in worship.
CHase, I agree about some of the “robot” feeling when you all read out together! It works better in some places than others. But that wasn’t quite what I meant by “one voice” – I was more trying to get at the thing that there is something that we can all subscribe to and affirm together as one body, not just in one local community but all over the world, whether that’s said out loud by one person or by everyone.