WORSHIP AS EXPRESSIVE FORM
A DISSERTATION
PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF
THE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY AT CLAREMONT
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE
DOCTOR OF THEOLOGY
BY
WILLIAM JACK COO GAN
JUNE, 1967
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This dissertation, written by
_ W. Jack Coogan _
under the direction o f ^- s Faculty Committee,
and approved by its members, has been presented to
and accepted by the Faculty of the Southern California
School of Theology in partial fulfillment of the re¬
quirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF THEOLOGY
Faculty Committee
. Chairman
Date April 1, 1967
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PLEASE NOTE:
Some pages have indistinct
print. Filmed as received.
UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFATORY STATEMENT.... . 1
SECTION ONE: CENTRAL IDEAS OF PREVIOUS LITURGICAL THEORY . 5
A* Theistic Theories of Worship •••••«••••••«•• 5
1. Worship as Structured by God through Tradition • • . • 6
2. Worship Structured by God through 3iblical Revelation • 8
3. Worship Structured by Man in Response to God’s Action . 12
B* Non-Theistic Theories of Worship 14
1. Earlier Psychological Theories of Worship.. . 17
2• Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Worship • ♦ 20
SECTION TWO: WORSHIP AS EXPRESSIVE FORM.24
A. Aspects of Langer f s Thought Central to this Study « ♦ • ♦ 24
B. Worship as an Extension of Artistic Fora.31
C« Special Problems ... • ... 42
1. Worship as a Composite Form.. « • 43
2. Worship as a Psrticipational Form.. 61
SECTION THREE: THE THEORY AS A CONSTRUCTIVE PRINCIPLE IN LITURGICS 83
A. A Specific Situation: The School of Theology Chapel . . • 87
3* General Principles Derived from the Theory 95
1* The Office Services ... « • • 99
2. Communion Services • 103
3. Other Services . • ••••••••••••# 105
C. Commentary on Specific Services.. . • 107
D. Response to these Services and Evaluation •••••••• 212
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SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION . 217
NOTES.226
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MATERIALS REFERRED TO IN THE TEXT.230
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FOR WAYNE
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PREFATORY STATEMENT
No one reading the classical guides to the conduct of public
worship can fail to be impressed and troubled by the variety and
general inconsistency of the suggestions and prescriptions these
works traditionally offer. Some are descriptive, others historically
oriented, yet others theologically oriented; few, however, if any,
can fairly be described as systematic, and none successfully accounts
for the wide diversity of worship practices characteristic of American
Frotestantism, much less those of the major world religions or of
primitive societies. The generic use of the word “worship” to describe
all of these practices suggests that traditional western theory of
worship has failed to comprehend the totality of its subject, and
the astonishing variety of the incarnations of this theory in the
practical guides suggests that it has been neither a safe nor consist¬
ent tool for the construction of liturgies.^
This situation is usefully analogous to that of classical
aesthetic theory. Here, writers have often seized upon a single
prominent aspect of aesthetic experience, and generalized this
aspect into a larger theory of art, A theory so evolved can usually
be maintained only at the cost of ignoring other significant aspects
of such experience, with the result that any two of these theories
may conflict at a number of points, or perhaps seem to be dealing
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with entirely different experiences. Consequently, such classical
theory is chaotic to the point of being proverbial when viewed as a
totality, and has only rarely been a useful tool for the major artists
in our tradition.
Certain contemporary aesthetic theory has decisively cut through
this confusion, however, by the adaptation of analytic tools heretofore
used primarily in language analysis to the specific needs of aesthetic
inquiry. Perhaps the most prominent example of this adaptation is
Susanne Langer f s use of symbolic logic, itself a derivative of the
application of traditional scientific method to the study of language,
as the basic method of understanding art in her important studies,
Z> *3
Philosophy in a^ New Key and Feeling and Form. This procedure resulted
in a theory that not only accounted for a larger range of aesthetic
experience than had any previous attempt, but also resulted in a
number of novel insights into such experience, and related it to many
other expressive activities in a very striking way.
The present study represents an attempt to clarify theory of
worship and consequently facilitate its practice by bringing to it a
number of Mrs. Langer f s insights, and thereby extending the boundaries
of her system by demonstrating its relevance to yet another form of
expressive activity* The basic thesis of the study is a definition of
worship which is in fact an extension of her definition of a work of
4,
art; while the explication of this definition will occupy many pages
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of the body of this paper, it may be helpful to state it in concise
form as preface to a statement of methodology. Worship takes place
when a group of persons participate directly in the creation of a
perceptible form which primarily expresses the nature of the feeling
associated with experiences which they have had in common. Thus under¬
stood, worship fits Mrs. Langer f s definition of an art form; it may be
distinguished from other such forms partly by t^e usual distinctions
of medium and structure, but primarily by the fact that it is a partic¬
ipations! form: it requires more than one person as creator, and it is
fully significant only to those directly involved in its creation.
The structure of this paper is derived from the above definition.
The first section attempts a brief survey of the central ideas of
previous liturgical theory, to acknowledge ~ the fact that these ideas
reflect important experience which any other theory must account for,
but also to reveal the inadequacy of this previous theory either as
analytic or constructive tool. The second section summarizes certain
of Mrs. hanger’s concepts which are directly related to the study of
worship, applies these to that study, and then explores two major
problems that arise out of the resulting theory of worship: the
question of the media of worship and their relationship to one another,
and the question of the realization in practice of the participational
character of authentic worship. The last section demonstrates one
possible application of this theory to practical liturgies in a
specific setting, and provides a means of evaluating the theory on
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a pragmatic level, since according to it purely discursive evaluative
tools are not adequate for this task. From the examination of a set
of liturgies produced under its influence, however, it ought to be
possible to form an opinion of its usefulness as an adjunct to the
creation of liturgical form, and an opinion of the importance of
Mrs. Langer f s thought as a guide to understanding and working with
such forms.
The study is conceived as an exploration of the relationships
between two fields, aesthetics and liturgies, and by its nature
requires reference to an unusually large body of supporting material,
the citation of which would probably double its present size. For
this reason, notes and bibliography are confined to materials
specifically cited in the text. Where possible, reference is made
to English translations of works in other languages.
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SECTION ONE
CENTRAL IDEAS OF PREVIOUS LITURGICAL THEORY
No comprehensive critique of previous liturgical theory or
summary statement of major figures or movements is possible within
the limited framework of this argument, but a topical summary of the
theory will be useful in identifying the ground already covered by
serious students of worship. For convenience in presentation, the
sunmary will be divided into two sections. The first will include
those concepts which presuppose the existence of the God of Judeo-
Christian tradition, and the second will include those which do not.
Each of these in turn may be further subdivided according to schemes
which will be made explicit as our exposition proceeds.
A. Theistic Theories of Worship
These theories, the simplest and perhaps the most primitive,
tend to view worship as a human activity ordained and to varying
degrees structured by the God of the tradition. Among them we may
distinguish three major thrusts: worship as structured by God through
revelation in tradition, a variant of this in which the Bible replaces
tradition as central authority, and worship structured by man in
response to God f s action in human experience or human history.
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1. Worship As Structured By God Through Tradition
For purpose of illustration, this point of view nay be identified
with that of popular Roman Catholicism, or that of the Church of Jesus
Christ of the Latter Day Saints. Here, the term "tradition" is under¬
stood in a technical sense as referring to the will of God mediated to
the saints, rather than the more usual meaning of the consensus of
opinion and practice evolved through experimentation in the past. God
has provided definitive guidance for human worship, as indeed he has
for other important conduct, and the liturgist's task is a simple one:
he has only to assemble the prescribed ingredients and combine them
according to formula. The high doctrine of ex opere operato often
associated with these systems takes on new significance when understood
as an extension of their basic premise.
Philosophical Roman Catholicism seems to be dissatisfied with
this theory, at least stated as baldly as it is here, for the litur¬
gical reforms of Vatican II have been characterized by judgments made
5
on other than traditional bases in many instances. The decision to
celebrate the liturgy in the vernacular rather than in Latin is an
example of this, for here pragmatic concerns carried greater weight
than the fairly uniform position of Roman tradition on the matter.
But the traditionalist theory of worship still has a strong hold in
many quarters, both Roman and Protestant; one manifestation of it
may be found in the theory that lies behind the ritual of the Lord's
Supper.
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Viewed apart from theological interpretation, the Lord’s Supper
appears to be simply another ritual meal, perhaps closely modelled on
the Jewish chaburah , as Gregory Dix has suggested.^ The New Testament
is well supplied with equally striking incidents suitable for incorpor¬
ation into ritual; the passion narratives alone suggest the cleansing
of the temple, the foot-washing, the watch in the garden of Gethsemane,
and so on. Yet it is the Supper which has become the predominant pattern
of Christian liturgy, even among those Protestant traditions which
historically have been most suspicious of ritual* Contemporary Protest¬
antism has not shown great enthusiasm for it, but even where enthusi¬
asm is markedly lacking, the rite is observed several times each year*
The best explanation for this lies in the claim of the tradition that
Jesus himself, understood as speaking as God, instituted the observance
and commanded its continuance. Martin Luther was inclined to look upon
the Roman Mass as a sort of epitome of all that was rotten at Rome, but
was not prepared to abolish it altogether as he later did its Canon.
For as he wrote in the preface to his Formula Missae , "This cannot be
denied, that masses and the communion of bread and wine are a rite
divinely instituted by Christ, which was observed, first under Christ
himself, then under the apostles..."^For this weighty reason, he turned
to the task of restoring what Christ had instituted.
Worship practices "specified by God" have played a very important
role in the history of Christian worship both before and after Luther f s
time; not only the .Lord f s Supper but also such rites as Baptism are
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viewed as being of divine origin t and often like Baptism, have far
less support from the New Testament than does the Supper* Yet as
impressive as the credentials of this approach to the determination
of the content of Christian worship may be, it has a very serious
drawback which may be described in a less serious way: If God has
indeed revealed the proper patterns of Christian worship, he has
either been inconsistent or highly inarticulate about the matter.
Even if one were to limit a survey of these patterns to one ecclesi¬
astical group and one specific period of time, he would discover a
great diversity of liturgical practice. Add to this diversity the
immense variety of worship of the Eastern Orthodox, Gallican, Mozarabic,
and Ambrosian traditions, not to mention the even greater diversity of
Protestantism; what results is hardly designed to inspire confidence
in revealed tradition. Important though it may be, the will of God
does not appear to be a safe or complete guide to the understanding
or structuring of worship, at least pending further and more detailed
instructions from on high.
2. Worship Structured by God through Biblical Revelation
This category is obviously a variant version of the above, but
deserves separate consideration for two reasons: it was strongly empha¬
sized by the Reformers as a solution to the ambiguity of non-canonical
tradition, and it appears to continue to be the rallying-cry of much
liturgical renewal in our own time.
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Faced with the abberations of late medieval worship, the
Reformers found it very useful to maintain the supremacy of Biblical
tradition here as in other areas of the Church f s life* "Doubtless, tf
says Luther, "our mass will be the better the closer it is to Christ f s
g
mass, and the more precarious, the farther it is from the same. f,w
Calvin, as is well known, saw in the Psalter the only appropriate
hymnbook for reformed Christianity, And the later reformers were
even more outspoken on this point; once the Revolutionary War cut
the American Methodist societies off from the Church of England,
John Wesley observed that these were now free to follow the example
of the primitive church in matters liturgical, ^
The usefulness of occasional reference to Biblical precedent
is not in question, but Biblical precedent as a guiding principle
in liturgy is. Its limitation can perhaps most dramatically be
observed in the origin and development of the American Protestant
denomination variously identified as the Disciples of Christ, the
Churches of Christ, and the Christian Church, During the second decade
of the last century, a group of Eastern clergymen and laymen involved
in the revivals characteristic of the time became disillusioned with
the divided state of the American church, and sought to remedy it in
a very simple way. It was patent that the Presbyterians were never
going to concede the ecclesiastical propriety of the Methodists, nor
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the Methodists renounce their Discipline and join the Baptists* There¬
fore, Alexander Campbell, Barton Stone, and others proposed that all
denominations renounce their distinctive features, and achieve the
unity of the mind of Christ by conforming their polity and worship
to the standard of the New Testament; Campbell went so far as to trans¬
late the New Testament from Greek into English to help this process
along. The result of this plea could have been predicted by any student
of St. Augustine. To begin with, no major ecclesiastical body felt that
its polity or worship was in any essential way unfaithful to the New
Testament witness, so that growth of the new movement was largely the
result of proselyting or conversion. But even within the movement, end¬
less debate raged over the intent of the New Testament writers as to
finer points of liturgy auad polity, and this debate regularly eventu¬
ated in schism and the free-church equivalent of excommunication. The
last and most spectacular of these schisms was formally recognized by
the United States Government in the 1906 census, when it listed as the
Churches of Christ those congregations in this tradition which were of
the opinion that the New Testament did not encourage the use of instru¬
mental accompaniment in hymn singing, and listed as the Disciples of
Christ those who felt either that it did, or that the matter was not
an appropriate topic for debate among grown men. There was later some
discussion about the advisability of the use of hymn books (also non-
canonical), but this debate never progressed beyond the stage of moder¬
ately heated discussion and polemic in most circles. Questions of
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polity, however, such as that of the relationship of the individual
church to the larger missionary enterprise, continued to be debated
with much feeling, and schism continued to result from such debate.
Ironically, the movement which began as a search for Christian unity
soon became noted for its schismatic tendencies, and the source of
most of its major schisms was the ambiguity of the New Testament on
matters of polity and liturgy.
Any such attempt to find workable patterns of liturgy within the
New Testament would appear to be beset by a number of hazards. The first
of these is the relative paucity of information on this topic in the
New Testament itself. Related to this is the problem that there seems
to have been considerable diversity of liturgical practice in the early
church; much of the information about worship in the Pauline epistles,
for example, seems to be part of an attempt to secure some kind of
liturgical uniformity in the churches, as in I Corinthians 11. It is
possible to supplement such information with materials from the Fathers,
but such a practice raises the whole question of the relationship of
scripture and tradition and the authority of each. And finally, even
if it were possible to distinguish some reasonably complete liturgy
within the New Testament, there would still remain the question of its
relevance to the situation of the modern church; the cultural situation
is much changed from that of the first century. Thus it is that today,
most churches look to the New Testament for guidance, but apparently
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only the Churches of Christ continue to look upon it as a complete
guide to matters liturgical.
3. Worship Structured by Man in Response to God's Action
This, the most popular theory among contemporary liturgists,
needs very little comment other than an appreciative reference to
Douglas Horton 1 s excellent statement in The Meaning of Worship , Under
this rubric we also include those who view view worship as a means of
achieving the T, experience of God," from the highly articulate George
Hedley (whose vagueness on this point detracts from an otherwise
splendid approach to practical liturgies)to the highly inarticulate
pew-warmer in our fashionable churches who goes to worship in hope
of having a religious experience in precisely the same way he goes
to the theater in search of dramatic experience. If pressed to explain
his position (as he certainly would be by Martin Luther) , this individual
is faced with either acknowledging God f s prior action or the superior
theological insights of Pelagius, and the average Protestant elects
the former. But' this .point of view is included at this point for a
more substantial reason, a reason which prompts inclusion also of those
who view worship as a means of pleasing, placating, or persuading God
to do something. The reason is that all three of these views represent
motivations for worship, rather than specific plans for structuring it.
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They seek to answer the question "Why worship?" rather than "How?"
or even "What is worship?"
This can be seen most clearly in an analysis of the first
category. Contemporary liturgists are not the first to address them¬
selves to the problem of responding to God's action; the 3ihlical
tradition itself has a number of emphatic responses to the question,
none of which are precisely the expected ones. Amos, for instance,
deprecates organized worship, and insists that proper response to
God!s demands upon us is right treatment of others? Micah echos this
concern in the famous definition of religion in 6:8, and there are
other statements in the same manner. Jesus himself lays great stress
on the question of interpersonal relationship, and the Parable of the
Last Judgment is certainly a vigorous statement as to the categories
of appropriate relationship between man and God. The only instance of
Jesus advocating traditional ritual that comes immediately to mind is
in connection with his healing of a leper, and the ritual act he suggests
is one that has disappeared from the tradition*
These considerations ought to prevent any glib identification
of worship as primary response to God's activity, if only because of
the reluctance of the tradition to make any such statement. More
significantly, they reveal the fact that the concept of response
really does not define the nature of response; in the above analysis.
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we were forced to appeal to the tradition even to consider the
content of response. And this is precisely the gesture of all
three parties included under this rubric; having decided, surely
more out of instinct than analysis of the tradition, that worship
is an appropriate response to God, they then turn to the tradition
to give form to this worship. And in selecting materials from the
tradition, they normally use one or more of the criteria outlined
in previous sections.
In summary, then, classical theory of worship does not present
the diversity of basic thrusts that it seems to at first glance.
Possibly because of the high theology characteristic of Christianity,
it tends to view the form and content of worship as having been largely
determined by God, and displays its most striking variety in the
selection of specific aspects of tradition as being authentically
representative of God f s purpose. Apart from such a position, there
appears to be only the possibility of structuring worship on the
principle of subjectivity, and while this may characterize much
liturgy-making at the local church level, it does not lend itself
to systematic theoretical formulation...nor does it need to.
B. Non-Theistic Theories of Worship
In addition to the criticisms noted above, these theistic theories
have certain problems common to all of them, which may be briefly
outlined here. To begin with, none of the theories accounts'for the
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diversity (or for that matter, even the existence) of worship outside
our tradition. One can always assume that God has spoken in other
ways to other cultures (although the primitive church was more inclined
to see the work of the devil in non-Christian worship), but to introduce
the concept of God into an analysis of primitive religious practice
very seldom illuminates such study. Christian theistic theory of
worship seems helpful primarily in understanding Christian worship.
This is as it should be, but the inability of a theory of worship to
explain any valid experience of worship.is. a serious weakness.
Secondly, modem Biblical studies suggest a much more cautious
approach to the use of the New Testament than that which our ancestors
employed. We are no longer prepared to give every Biblical statement
equal weight or validity, nor are we willing to accept a fact as the
revealed will of God simply because it is so labelled. This study has
been a very good thing for Christian liturgies in many ways; we have
recovered a number of primitive Christian hymns in the Epistles, and
our re-evaluation of Revelation has given us many new insights into the
the worship of the early church. At the same time, however, such study
has substantially changed the nature of any appeal to the New Testament
for definitive guidance in ecclesiological matters. One can only with
difficulty imagine .Alexander Campbell using the New Testament today
in the way he did 140 years ago, and yet the Reformers 1 appeal to the
Bible on liturgical matters seems inextricably bound up with the old
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understanding of Scripture. Any such attempt to establish authority
for liturgical procedure on this basis is today far more problematic.
Finally, all theologically-based theories must deal with the
serious questioning of the nature of God’s activity in history that
is characteristic of our time. Obviously, a theocentric theory is of
little use to a person committed to a "death of God" theology, or to
a scientist who rejects the possibility of the existence of God. And
even a less radical theology such as that of Paul Tillich is a
serious embarrassment to most of these theories. Thus it is that
we see them increasingly absent from serious studies of worship, and
increasingly confined to more pragmatically oriented worship guides.
As is so often and so regrettably the case, the secular
comnunity seems to have noticed these problems in theocentric theory
long before the church did, and consequently set about developing its
own understanding of this universal human phenomenon. Again, our policy
of broad survey suggests dividing these attempts into two groups,
the early psychological studies stemming f rom the work of Sigmund
Freud, and the later anthropological approach which currently is
in favor, and giving each a brief exposition and critique.
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1. Earlier Psychological Theories of Worship
One of the most significant intellectual journeys in human history
began when Sigmund Freud turned his gaze from the world outside of man
to the world within. No summary can do justice to the richness and sub¬
tlety of his thought in even so small an area as the problem of worship,
yet his key concept can be rather simply stated as it applies to this
area: ritual behavior is best understood as the exteraalization of an
inner, mental state. This concept could not be more lucidly presented
than Freud himself has done in an introduction to Theodore Reik’s book.
Ritual:
The picture of the mental mechanisms of the individual now become
clearer and more complete; it was seen that obscure impulses arising
in his organic life were striving to fulfill their own aims, and
that controlling them was a series of more highly organized mental
formations...which had taken possession of parts of these impulses,
...employed them in the service of higher aims...and utilized their
energy for its own purposes. This higher organisation, which we know
as the ego, had rejected another portion of the same elementary im¬
pulses as useless, because these impulses could not accommodate them¬
selves to the organic unity of the individual, or because they con¬
flicted with its cultural aims. The ego was not powerful enough to
exterminate those mental forces it could not control. Instead, it
turned away from them, leaving them on the most primitive psycho¬
logical level, and protected itself against their demands by means
of energetic defensive or reactive mechanisms, or sought to com¬
promise with them by means of substitute gratifications. Unsubdued
and indestructable, yet inhibited in every direction, these repressed
impulses, together with their primitive mental content, form the
underworld, the kernel of the true unconscious, ever on the alert
to urge their claims and to find any means for gratification. Hence
the nightly emergence of proscribed and repressed things in dreams....
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It requires but little consideration to realize
that such a view of the life of the human mind cannot
possibly be limited to the sphere of dreams.,.# If it
be a justifiable view, it must apply also to normal
mental phenomena, and even the highest achievements
of the human mind must have some relation to the factors
recognised in pathology#•• We cannot get away from the
impression that [Freud f s neurotic] patients are making,
in an asocial manner, the same attempts at a solution
of their conflicts and an appeasement of their urgent
desires which, when carried out in a manner acceptable
to a large number of persons, are called poetry, religion,
and philosophy#^
The expansion of this phrase to include worship is an easy matter,
even apart from the theory this study seeks to establish; Freud began
the process in his Totem und Tabu ,^knd Reik expands this position sub¬
stantially in the work cited, in his analyses of primitive and contem¬
porary ritual practices in Judaism,
In the assertion that ritual and worship are forms created to
express the content of the inner life, Freud has obviously given us
an insight of the highest importance# It is a basic, generative concept,
capable of organizing large bodies of experience into coherent wholes#
Yet Freud’s own use of it, and that of his followers, did not produce
the large and coherent theory of worship of which such a concept seems
capable# Moreover, contemporary study of primitive culture evidently
has not found the Freudian system particularly congenial, and has
sought other approaches to primitive ritual, partly for the reasons
which have caused the Freudian schools to modify his position# Freud
was both a product and a victim of the now-discredited nineteenth-century
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world-view that found its ideal expression in William Ernest Henley 1 s
poem, "Invictus." He seems to have felt, with many of the best minds
of his age, that the appropriate response to the demands of life
was a completely rational analysis of one’s situation, and then
unflinching performance of those acts which are seen to be logically
appropriate. In such a system, as Freud was ready to point out, those
elements-which we would call imaginative, the non-rational mental
processes, are often a serious hindrance to purely rational.behavior.
The goal, therefore, is to apply the tools of rational analysis, in
this case depth psychology, to the sub-rational'elements in an attempt
to understand them, and thereby control and minimize their influence
on the processes of living.
It seems probable that the circumstance of Freud’s evolving
his theories from his work with the mentally ill contributed to
this negative view of non-rational mental activity, since the most
striking evidences of it which he observed were unquestionably
pathological. But this negative view, whatever its source, found its
greatest use as evidence in support of the Freudian theories of
psychoanalysis; in the view of many later anthropologists, it contributed
little to a complete understanding of the nature of primitive religion.
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Moreover, it has a decidedly negative value, for practical liturgies.
If worship is seen as a manifestation of inner conflict, then Freud’s
proposal is to deal with this conflict using the splendid tools he
forged for this purpose during his work in Vienna. If this is
successful, then worship ought to become a matter of purely
historical interest. Carried to its logical conclusion, this theory
seeks not to control the practice of worship, but rather to eliminate
the need for it.
This view of worship is clearly a product of the age of the
old science and the old humanism, if not of the Age of Enlightenment,
with its determined rationalism. And just as it betrayed early psych¬
ology, late-Victorian science also provided early anthropology with
the wrong major premises to a number of its favorite syllogisms, as
we shall note below.
2. Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Worship
That the concept of cause and effect should have dominated
nineteenth century science was not in itself a bad thing; that it
should have been most popular in a highly oversimplified incarnation
we now describe as mechanistic was the source of most of the trouble.
Certain of the most prominent cultural anthropologists exhibited this
in their tendency to view human social behavior as an organized attempt
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to fill certain physical needs or psychological drives. Thus agri¬
culture could be viewed as a response to the need for food, and
courtship an expression of the sex drive. Worship was regarded
as largely magical attempts to realize the same goals; the rain
dance is an attempt to use magic to secure rain for the agricultural
process, and the prominent sexual motifs in so many primitive religious
rites were meant to assure fertility and the continuity of the race.
More recent anthropologists have been critical of this stance.
If social behavior is indeed need-directed in the cld sense, then
primitive cultures are incredibly inefficient, for they direct a
very large part of their energies to the patently useless "magical”
activities, and very little energy toward the direct satisfaction of
needs. The elaborate courtship rituals of many societies are a good
example of this; obviously, the continuation of the species can be
achieved in much more direct and efficient ways than these. It was
necessary to assume, therefore, that primitive societies were grossly
inefficient, and markedly defective at the point of dealing with the
demands of existence. The flaw in this, as the new anthropologists
have pointed out, is that the old anthropology judged these cultures
by the standards of nineteenth century European science, and consequently
misunderstood them. Very few cultures had any concept similar to our
idea of causality; they did not regard the rain dance as an attempt
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to cause rain, but rather as an attempt to participate in the whole
process of food production. Obviously, primitive cultures had a more
complex and sophisticated organizing principle, and it was this that
the new anthropology set out to discover.
Perhaps the most articulate representative of this new school is Dorothy
Lee: "...culture is a symbolic system which transforms the physical
reality, what is there , into experienced reality. ,f **\n this process,
needs and drives are assimilated into a unified structure of value
symbols, and these symbols are realized as far as possible in both
rite and life, although this latter distinction is never clearly made
by primitive societies. Worship, then, like the culture’s art forms,
is simply a realization or incarnation of some part of the value
structure, undifferentiated from the other processes of life, and
part of the whole gesture of organizing experience and behavior.
The old anthropology need not concern us here, since it was
not even a very useful tool for understanding worship, much less
shaping it. On the other hand, the new anthropology is an extremely
provocative and useful way of looking at worship, since it relates
it directly to the question of value, the question of life-orientation,
and to the obviously similar art forms which have always held so
ambiguous a position in worship. But Mrs. Lee does not press her
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analysis far enough to answer the question, in what way shall we
realize our value structure in worship? For obviously, the Platonic
dialogs, the Summa Theologiae and the Bill of Rights are also real¬
izations of value structures, yet are not to be identified with
ritual* The answer to this question will occupy the bulk of the
remainder of this paper*
i\ ’ ^Before"we leave this discussion of earlier worship theory,
it may be well to reiterate the point that these theories are not
here adduced in an attempt to discredit them, but merely to show their
inadequacy as guides to the practical problems of creating and
realizing a liturgy* Obviously, these theories do organize a great
deal of significant human experience, and to the extent that they do,
they force themselves upon our attention. In the closing pages of
section II we shall come to these theories again, and attempt to
relate them to the ideas presented in the section. The extent to
which this is possible will be some measure of the adequacy of
those ideas.
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SECTION' TWO
WORSHIP AS EXPRESSIVE FORM
It will be helpful to sketch certain of Mrs. Langer's concepts
which are directly related to the question of worship. With this as
basis, the theory of worship as expressive form will be developed in
some detail. Finally, two special problems arising out of this theory,
the relationship of the individual art forms comprising worship and
the significance of its participational nature, will be discussed.
A. Aspects of Langer's Thought Central to this Study
Mrs. Lee's central question is What is the symbolic system which
transforms physical reality into experienced reality? Mrs. Langer's
question is a direct extension: How do we convert experienced reality
into symbolic systems? The characteristic answer of our post-Nineteenth
Century culture is that we attempt to abstract salient characteristics
from a given experience, and then arrange these characteristics in
logical, discursive, syllogistic patterns; this is the traditional
method of science. This is very good, says Langer, but there are other
possible ways of arranging such characteristics; one of them is to
employ non-discursive forms, forms which correspond to the form of
human feeling itself, and which therefore can represent the feeling
component as well as the conceptual component of the original exper¬
ience, something which completely discursive forms cannot do.
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This is the method of art, and Langer can therefore define a work of
art as "a perceptible form that expresses the nature of human feeling—
the rhythms and connections, crises.and breaks, the complexity and
richness of what is sometimes called man's 'inner life,' the stream
|Q
of direct experience, life as it feels to the living.”
It is important to note a number of points about this definition.
To begin with, a work of art does not reproduce feeling; it "expresses
the nature of feeling," it presents a selection and organization of
the feeling components of an experience symbolically, just as a
topical outline presents a selection and organization of the con¬
ceptual aspects of topic symbolically. In each case, we are presented
with a symbol structure, not with the original experience, and the
ease of manipulation of the symbol plus its relative distance from
the reality symbolized permit us to deal with or work through the
experience on the intellectual level. The fourth movement of Beethoven's
d minor symphony is not a sonic manifestation of Beethoven's feeling
forever frozen in musical notation; it is a highly sophisticated
"statement" about joy. And Beethoven did not necessarily feel things
any more deeply or adequately than we do; we know for sure only that
he was incomparably better at articulating his feelings in expressive
musical forms than any of us.
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A second important point is that this dichotomy between concept
and emotion, while an extremely useful analytical tool, cannot be shown
to exist outside the realm of theory. In one sense, the mathematicians
appear to have achieved the age-old scientific dream of conceptual
structures uninfluenced by emotion, and some abstract art approaches the
polar state of expressing feeling without concept, but most communicative
forms, like the experience they symbolize, blend both concept and feel¬
ing into a unified whole. One seldom asks, therefore, "Is this a discur¬
sive or non-discursive form?,” but rather, "Do discursive or non-discur-
sive structures predominate?," or "Which of these is essential to an
understanding of the symbolic structure in all its fulness?"
Thirdly, the artistic process is here seen to parallel the discur¬
sive one in many ways, but is not finally dependent upon it for veri¬
fication. This may be part of the reason that contemporary popular
thought places art beyond the pale of practical concerns, and the
scientific community remains uneasy about the role of art in the common
life, that art can avail itself neither of the logical tools used to
criticise syllogisms, nor the empirical ones used to demonstrate the
results of physical science. But both popular and scientific thought
often miss the central issue: art, like science, is an independent and
self-contained system for organizing experience into meaningful and
existentially functional patterns.
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By way of illustration, one night trace the process of artistic
creation in a given situation. The artist, like everyone else, exper¬
iences physical reality through the process of perception. But when
contact with physical reality ceases, so does perception, and the
experience is lost forever, except for the human faculty of.creating
symbols. These symbols fixate experience, and give it a manageable
form; for they can be manipulated, transformed, communicated.
So important is this process that Langer calls man "the symbol-
19
making animal," unique because he has this incomparable tool for
dealing with his experience and his environment. The symbol is the
basic tool of thought, and where the ability to form symbols is
missing, as in even the most advanced sub-human species, the ability
to think and to reason is also absent. But symbol-making is not merely
a tool for man; it is a full-time occupation. From the time he is a
child, a man forms and manipulates symbols constantly, rain or shine,
at work and at play, awake and asleep. Thus the raw material of art
and science alike is always present, awaiting the moment of its
expression in some perceptible forms. And thus life is a continuing
process.of creating such forms; some, particularly significant to us,
are recorded and thus preserved; many vanish soon after their creation,
and apparently leave no trace behind.
The tendency toward the creation of these forms, the external-
ization of the internal life, is another characteristic of Langer*s
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symbol-making animal, and the results of its operation surround
and at times make bold to engulf us, as any librarian can testify.
Whether this is best understood simply as a way of fulfilling some
need for self expression, or on the other hand as an attempt to
achieve and develop meaningful relationship with others through
the sharing of experience, is a question which continues to be
much debated. But no matter how one chooses to interpret it, the
phenomenon clearly exists.
The formation of symbols, then, is the natural extension of
the act of perception, and the expression of these symbols in exter¬
nalized, perceptible forms the next step. But in order to take this
next step, the individual must decide which of the many symbolic
elements generated by perception he ought to employ, and how these
ought to be assembled into larger, unified forms. It is at this point
that the artist and the scientist part company. The scientist, trained
in the manipulation of discursive forms, selects those symbolic
materials which will best adorn his syllogisms, and then assembles
these into the most rigorously discursive structures of which he
is capable. The artist, however, has quite a different way of
treating his material. Informed by extensive exposure to art forms,
he selects those symbolic materials which have primarily affective
values, chooses among these according to the needs of his particular
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medium, and then a r rang es^ them into larger patterns that faithfully
reproduce the forms of human feeling. The result is a work of art,
either good or bad, depending on the insight and skill with which
this process is executed.
What, in essence, has our artist accomplished? He has, to begin
with, given a relatively more permanent form to an otherwise fleeting
yet significant experience. The Old Testament is full of these attempts
to freeze significant experience, and our parks are littered with mon¬
uments intended to accomplish the same end. This may well be puzzling
to the Oriental mind, but European culture and European religion are
saturated with the ideas of time and history, and reveal a decided
predilection for the landmark. Moreover, the artist has captured
the experience in far greater expressive fullness than the historian
or biographer normally does; the latter two are necessary for us to
understand the significance of the past, but the artist makes the: past
experience significant in the present, a matter of great interest, it
would seem, to the religious community.
Secondly, the artist has not merely reproduced or recreated
this experience; he has expressed it, interpreted it, given it
significant form. Although the analogy is dangerous, this process
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can be compared with the process by which the scientist articulates
and puts into meaningful relationship those elements he abstracts
and symbolizes from an experience. The result in both cases is greater
insight into the experience, the one on an affective level, the other
on a conceptual one; the experience is clarified for us, related to
similar experiences, assimilated into our total sense of what it is
to be human and to experience life. This process of expressing rather
than recreating experience has one other aspect of great importance;
it creates aesthetic distance, the sense of being an observer and
detached from the matter under consideration, while at the same time
experiencing it emotionally as well as intellectually. A simple
illustration will suffice; in the presence of death, few of us are
capable of functioning well enough to assimilate this as part of our
experience. On the other hand, discursive descriptions of death subord¬
inate or eliminate the affective element to the point where the
experience is lost in the analysis. But the significant artistic
statement about death, admittedly one of the rarest of all phenonema,
is faithful to the affective component of the experience, and yet
permits us to deal with the experience psychologically; because of
aesthetic distance, we are observers and participants simultaneously.
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Finally, the artist has created a vehicle capable of communicat¬
ing his experience and his understanding of that experience, and
through such communication, establishing relationship with others.
To be sure, those who employ primarily discursive procedures also
create such vehicles, but in doing so emphasize conceptual aspects
of experience at the expense of those aspects which do not lend them¬
selves to discursive ordering; computer language is a good if extreme
example of this. To the extent to which human relationships are based
on shared feeling, therefore, the more complete vehicles of the artist
are essential to such relationships; this is no doubt the principal
reason why artists write love letters to one another and computers
do not.
This summary, while manifestly unfair to the richness and
complexity of Langer’s thought, presents a number of its key issues
in a form useful to our discussion. It is to their application to
the problems of understanding and conducting worship that we now turn.
B. Worship as an Extension of Artistic Form
We have previously defined worship as taking place when a group
of persons participate directly in the creation of a perceptible form
which primarily expresses the nature of the feeling which is associated
with experience which they have had in common. It is thus congruent
with Mrs. hanger’s definition of art forms in general; whatever else
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men may do or think they are doing when they worship, they are making
perceptible forms expressive of inner experience, forms which are
primarily concerned with the articulation of the feelings associated
with such experience; in this sense, the basic dynamic of worship and
that of traditional art forms are the same. Once this identification is
made, other parallels between worship and art gain new significance;
Liturgy resembles the performance arts, for instance, in that both
employ a two-fold process of creation. The first stage of this process
is conducted by the composer or choreographer or dramatist or liturgist
and results not in a finished art-work, but rather a more-or-less
detailed blueprint for its realization. The second stage consists of
the realization by musicians, dancers, actors, or the gathered commun¬
ity of the creator’s original master symbol; while he may participate
in this stage, his role is virtually identical with that of the other
performers so far as the creative process is concerned. Yet another
striking parallel, to be developed more fully below, is the similarity
of liturgy to the composite arts like theater, opera, or film; in both
cases, the perceptible form has no unique medium, but rather is made
up of varying proportions of simpler art forms such as poetry, music,
and pantomime. Such parallels may be extended a number of analytic and
constructive principles associated with these forms, and much of the
rest of this paper will be given over to the demonstration of the value
of many of Mrs, Langer’s aesthetic insights to the study and practice
of liturgy.
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33*
If worship resembles the arts in many and varied ways, it differs
from them in one definitive and crucial respect* In the arts, the
principal value normally resides in the finished perceptible form;
its unique articulation of human experience is so treasured that
important paintings and sculpture are sold for fabulous sums of money,
and even autographs and first editions of music and plays are thus
regarded for lack of more tangible permanent forms of the works they
represent• But the principal value of liturgy resides in the exper¬
ience which the participants share as they recreate the expressive
form, and not in the form itself. No one but professional liturgists
collects or reads old liturgies, although occasionally portions of
a liturgy will be removed from it and appreciated on their own merit
as independent art forms, and only in the rarest instances is the
expressive form of liturgy given serious attention in its own right.
Even where participational forms are seriously lacking, as in much
contemporary worship, attention normally focusses on the performers
O/)
rather than the form.
So central is this principle of participation in liturgy that
liturgical reform in the West can be viewed as a continuing attempt
to recover it when it had been lost through increasing the complexity/
of the expressive form until only professionals could contend vrith it.
This was one of the major items in the program of the sixteenth century
reformers, and it is equally prominent in the thought of contemporary
reformers, especially since it seems that post-liberal Protestantism
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may achieve what even Trent never did in making worship into a basic¬
ally non-participational form. As this happens, the basic distinction
between liturgy and drama disappears, and the service becomes a play
or a concert, frequently a very poor one.
The unique values of participational art are several, and will
be dealt with in detail in part C 2 of this paper, but it will be help¬
ful to list them here. They include enhancement of the intensity of
the artistic experience, increased familiarity with the content of the
art work, the experience of creativity itself, both in the sense of
making a form that expresses inner experience and in shaping a pre¬
existing form so that it is more faithful to personal experience, and
perhaps most importantly, the creation and continuing enhancement of
relationships through the sharing of the creative process with others.
These values are always present in authentic liturgy, although they
in turn depend to some extent on the value of the created form itself;
the greater its excellence, the greater each of these participational
values. They form a sort of bonus value added onto the implicit value
of the art work itself; thus as significant as the St. Matthew Passion
may be to the hearer, it is potentially even more significant to the
performer, an observation which the experience of nearly all musicians
will bear out.
While the presence of these participational values makes a signi¬
ficant contribution to the total value of the liturgical experience
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the normal criteria of significance of experience symbolized, adequacy
of the symbolization of the experience, and technical skill in shaping
the perceptible form remain the most important tools for judging the
value of that experience, if only because the depth of the relationship
created is in large measure dependent on the significance of the
experience communicated and the efficiency of its communication. By
this standard, it would seem that most worship is very poor art and its
value small; moreover, the artistic and technical limitations of the
average congregation promise to keep it that way. This is a fair judg¬
ment on what exists, but not on what potentially could exist. During
the middle ages, the monastics gave a great deal of attention to the
liturgy, and if the cycles of Office and Mass are recognized for the
unified work they are, then it must be conceded that they created an
art work of incomparable scope and excellence; moreover, we have every
reason to believe that their recreations of this work were often of
equal technical excellence. Whether or not this quality of work is a
practical possibility in the local church is another question, but not
an aesthetic one. The participational values are there in any event,
although they are enhanced when the implicit quality of the form itself
is increased. And these are unique values, not otherwise readily obtain¬
able; a vastly superior non-participational art form may supplement a
participational form, but it cannot replace it. No one doubts that a
Beethoven symphony can express more than a pot, but few are prepared to
do without pottery on that basis.
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One other possible way of distinguishing between worship and
other art forms is to identify the content of worship as sacred in
some sense. While a widespread popular distinction, this has been
vigorously attacked by theologians from St. Paul to Tillich, usually
because it is in fatal tension with the central Christian teachings
about Creation and the Incarnation. Moreover, the experience articu¬
lated in warship cannot really be differentiated from the experience
in other art forms; topics which the popular mind would identify as
sacred are very prominent in non-liturgical art ( Paradise Lost , for
instance), while non-European ritual often deals with experiences
that would not strike the average person in our culture as being
religious. Being composite, worship is at least capable of dealing
with the materials its component arts can handle, and this includes
a very wide range of human experience both theoretically and in the
practices of the world religions.
The key characteristic of liturgy, then, appears to be its essen¬
tially participational nature. Perhaps this is why private devotions
are seldom referred to as worship; one might use a liturgical form as
a private expressive act just as one might read aloud a play or perform
a Beethoven symphony on the piano, but in each case the experience is
decisively changed by removing it from its normal context, and in no
case more than with liturgy. If the first formal requirement of art
is that its shape should be faithful to the shape of human feeling,
then the next most important requirement of this art is that its form
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be amenable to group creative activity.
One important implication of this fact is that the basic art
forms employed in worship must be those associated with the performing
arts. Primary creation of artistic materials is nearly always a soli¬
tary occupation, although it may well draw on group experience for
part of its material; because of this, primary creation occurs only
infrequently within the context of worship itself. The more character¬
istic pattern is that in which an individual creates a form outside
of the service itself, and then presents it to the group for adoption;
if the group finds it expressively useful, it may add it to the large
vocabulary of previously fashioned materials upon which it draws for
each worship service. Creation within the context of worship is possi¬
ble but difficult, for the participational nature of worship would
require that symbolic transformation take place along the same lines
in the minds of all who were present, which is not impossible but also
is not likely. The alternative is the reduction of those who do not
share in the transformation to the status of spectators. For this reason,
visual arts do not lend themselves to liturgy; not only do they offer
hazards to group creation, they also take their final and permanent
form from the hand of the originating artist, and do not present
opportunities for performance or recreation. Therefore, while a
painting or statue or building may be a valuable aesthetic stimulus
to the creation of liturgy, it only rarely becomes part of the liturgy
itself, for the group cannot participate in its creation. It may
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be used as an incidental part of liturgy, as a processional cross
or an altar, but in so doing it loses its integrity as a piece of
visual art per se , and becomes an object, albeit an expressive
object, subordinate to the liturgical art. There is yet another
reason for the peripheral nature of the participation of these
arts in worship, and that is that unlike the characteristic
liturgical arts, they do not exist in time, nor are they formally
an expression of narrative action. This distinction will be developed
more fully below in section C 1.
Thus, the process of liturgical creation is shaped by the
need to select art-forms that are suitable for congregational
performance. These have traditionally included poetry in the form
of unison reading or recitation and its variants such as responsive
reading, unison singing and its variants, and simple elements of
pantomime, such as processions, kneeling and rising, and various
gestures. Out of these simple forms and their combination has arisen
an art form of great complexity and subtlety, capable of expressing
an amazingly large scope of human feeling.
How shall we evaluate the completed form? The question is decep
tively simple, for we have the discipline of theology, ostensibly
dealing with the same basic experience, and equipped with a
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system of logical checks and tests that has proven extremely useful
in other human pursuits. Cannot worship be measured against theology
and subjected to its tests? In part, yes, but in a limited way. V/ith
the exception of abstract art, all art forms represent objects and
occurrences that correspond to those of perceived reality, and it is
possible to isolate these representational materials from the work
and subject them to logical tests. For instance, if a painting of
Jesus represents him as Nordic and clad in a long red wig and spotless
white bathrobe, we may infer a certain cavalier attitude on the part
of the artist toward the experience he seeks to communicate. But as
common as this sort of criticism is, it is fraught with danger. It
concentrates on those aspects of the work which are by Langer’s defin¬
ition those of least importance, the representational detail. Secondly,
it does not account for the artist who deliberately distorts such
detail for expressive effect; We may well imagine that Jesus was
physically not half as tall as El Greco characteristically paints
him—no one could be and live—but in betraying physical reality, the
artist has created a far more important affective reality; he has
chosen to be faithful to the forms of human feeling rather than to
those of perceived reality. This illustrates the basic problem: art
and logic, theology and worship, are basically different ways of
dealing with experience and of structuring experienced reality, and
the checks that are so useful in the discursive forms are largely
irrelevant in the non-discursive ones. They are condemned to super¬
ficiality, for the underlying organizing principal is different in
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each case. Because we are most comfortable when we can perceive some
rational coherence in our experience, liturgy and the arts have normal¬
ly cultivated the appearance of such coherence, and discursive tools
can aid in its achievement or criticism. In the case of liturgy, faith¬
fulness to the narrative action of the myth is a virtue since it
increases the amount and coherence of the group*s common experience,
and discursive tools can aid in achieving such faithfulness. But
beyond these subordinate functions, such tools have little use.
i
t
Criticism of technique offers yet another approach to the
evaluation of liturgical form. Equipped with defective technique,
expressive activity falters; one wonders how much important insight
into the emotive world has been lost because its possessor lacked the
ability to realize his vision in perceptible form. But here as else¬
where, history inculcates caution; Beethoven*s technique was only
barely adequate to his purpose, and sometimes less than that, while
the nineteenth century was rich in technically adept painters none
of whom evidently had any inner experience worth expressing. Technical
criticism, like logic, is a useful approach but not an ultimate guide.
The most useful criterion is unfortunately but understandably
the most subjective one, and may for want of a better word be ident¬
ified as congruence. If the affective experience of a work or service
is coherent with our own experience, increases our store of experience,
or helps us to relate it to ourselves or unify it, we assume we have a
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useful and valid piece of art. This is the point at which compar¬
isons between discursive and non-discursive inodes of expression
can most usefully be conducted, for we assume that both inodes begin
with the same experience, and therefore ultimately seek to express
the same experience, although in different ways. One can therefore
say that Bach and Luther are concerned with the same experience, and
one can even make comparisons between their work at this very broad
level; it is only when one seeks to treat individual aspects of a
work in this fashion that difficulty ensues. We nay affirm, therefore,
that the experience conveyed by worship ought to be recognizably
similar to the experience analyzed by our best theologies, so
long as the comparison is conducted at the level of experience and
not that of the formal characteristics of the two modes of symbolic
activity.
In this way, then, is the liturgy motivated, given content and
form, and evaluated. The result is unique from an aesthetic point of
view; it is a form that permits even a technically unskilled person
to participate in the creation of an artistic form expressing and
illuminating many of the most significant experiences in his life.
It permits him to share this experience with others, expressing and
at the same time enhancing his sense of community and fellowship with
them. Obviously, this form is of the greatest importance to the
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Christian community, for it provides an incomparable way of expressing
the experience which called the community into being. It gives perma¬
nent form to that experience in its expressive fullness. It interprets
and illumines the experience, and provides the aesthetic distance
necessary to assimilate the experience into one f s structure of meaning¬
ful reality. It provides a means of communicating experience, permit¬
ting both the discovery of shared experience and of new experience. It
allows everyone in the fellowship to do this, not just those skilled
in the creation of expressive form. And while doing all of this, it
contributes importantly and uniquely to the sense of community which
in itself is an expression of the significant experience to which
Christianity witnesses. One would think the church would pursue the
practice of liturgy with the vigor with which the Medici popes
pursued Michelangelo Buonarotti.
C. Special Problems
By viewing worship as an extension of traditional art forms,
one may apply certain insights derived from aesthetic analysis to
its characteristic problems. By way of illustration, two of the more
important liturgical problems will next be explored in some detail:
the relationship between the component arts in liturgy, and the
maintenance of the participational nature of liturgy. Both of these
discussions will be illustrated by reference to the contemporary
situation in the local parish.
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1. Worship as a Composite Form
In even the briefest survey of historic liturgies, one discovers
great uncertainty as to the way in which the component arts of poetry,
music, and pantomime ought to be combined* There are services dominated
by language, in which pantomime is reduced to an absolute minimum and
music eliminated altogether; there are choral services in which even
Scripture and prayer are sung; and we have the edifying spectacle of the
Anglican Church devoting the last half of the last century to a long and
extraordinarily bitter fight over the role of pantomime in liturgy.
As yet further evidence as to the basic similarity between art
and liturgy, this problem has always plagued the non-liturgical compos¬
ite arts. In the simpler forms, workable compromises have been evolved,
all of which may be summed up in Langer's aphorism on the matter,
"There are no happy marriages in art—only successful rape." Thus the
problem of the relationship of poetry to music in the song has normally
been resolved by vigorously subordinating the poetry to the music. But
the more complex arts have found no easy solution; the classical example
is opera, which might well be defined as the incarnation of this partic¬
ular problem.
Opera began as an attempt to add music to drama and thereby
recover the unique art of the Greek theater. It has thus since its
very beginning been the most complex of composite arts, made up of a
number of vigorous forms, each capable of declaring its independence
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from its brothers and operating quite nicely by itself. At various
times in the history of opera, each of these arts has risen into
dominance and subordinated the others to itself. Poetry, for instance,
was master in the works of the Florentine Camerata and in certain of
the early Wagner operas. Music dominates in the Mozart canon, Beetho¬
vens only opera Fidelio , and in Parsifal . Ballet traditionally domi¬
nated French opera. And even scene design had its moments of glory in
the English court masque and the Venetian opera of the last half of
the seventeenth century. Of all the component arts, however, that
peculiar one of the virtuoso singer has more often and more devastat-
ingly siezed control of opera than any other.
Many theorists and reformers have addressed themselves to the
problem of restoring peace to this unruly family, beginning with the
men of the Florentine Camarata themselves. These, for all practical
purposes the originators of opera, added their musical accompaniments
to plays in a very cautious manner, diligently preserving the ascendancy
of poetry. They were aided in this by the circumstance that they were
musicians of rather modest attainments. But once the greatest musical
genius of the age, Claudio Monteverde, took hold of the form, this
relationship was reversed. Now music dominated, and gave the operatic
stage its first masterpiece in Orfeo of 1607. After his death, the
rise of the virtuoso singer created still another configuration, often
described as a vocal concert in costume. It was against this that
Traetta, Gluck, and Calzabigi led their revolt in the first half of
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- 45 -
the eighteenth century, asserting the principle that the drama was
central and the music was to be subordinated to it* But Mozart allowed
his magnificent gift to dominate his operas, and this example was
followed up to the time of Wagner by all except those who preferred
to return to the singer 1 s opera, or who developed the grand opera
as a combination of the worst features of Neapolitan singer 1 s opera
and Venetian spectacle.
Wagner, however, turned his back on all of this, and wrote a
number of good, thick volumes to demonstrate his seriousness as a
IX
theorist* Among these was Opera and Drama , a work of central importance
in the history of this problem. His position as an aesthetician has
been badly obscured, however, by at least three factors. To begin with,
his operas do not illustrate his theory; indeed, they frequently betray
it. Wagners musical powers were late developing, but once developed
they were formidable, and completely dominated his work theory notwith¬
standing. One critic has observed that the action of Parsifal takes
place in the orchestra pit, and that what happens on the stage is
but a dim and defective visualization of it. At the time of his death,
Wagner was working on a symphony, a strange occupation for the champion
of music-drama. Secondly, Wagner 1 s theory matured along with his music,
and the later theoretical works are quite different from those of the
Tannhaeuser-Tristan period. Finally, and perhaps understandably, a
whole generation of musicians and scholars misunderstood Wagner f s
thought; to them, the gesamtkunstwerk was to be a combination of all
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- 46 -
the arts on equal terms. Today, this solution (actually, a rejection
of the problem) is almost as hard to believe as the fact that Wagner-
ites were accustomed to regard the works of the master as examples of
the theory. Contemporary accounts of Wagner's own ideal performances
at Bayreuth, such as those written by the scene-designer and aesthet-
ician Adolphe Appia, make it amply clear that this was not the case.
It was Appia, however, who first grasped almost intuitively
Wagner’s significant contribution to the theory of composite art,
and presented it in connection with his own substantial analysis
23
in his Die Musik und die Inscenierung . Wagner had given a good
deal of thoughtful attention to the works of his predecessors, par¬
ticularly Gluck. He saw that the Gluck party had been right in in¬
sisting that drama was the basis of opera, for without it opera was
little more than a concert in costume. But at the same time, the
eighteenth-century composer had been wrong in assuming that the drama
was identical with the dialog and action. Both of these, like music
and scenery and all the rest, are the media of expression of the
drama, but no one of thefrjhas primary claim to being the sole vehicle
of it. One might thus conceive of the drama as a narrative action
existing in virtual time and virtual space; any art form capable of
creating these virtual entities can therefore be a vehicle for
narrative action. This was the key to the riddle, as Wagner saw
it, and his theory at least exemplifies this principle.
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47 -
In opera, those forms capable of creating virtual time and
space are poetry, music, pantomime, and lighting. Other forms,
like scene design, costume, and make-up, normally create virtual
space but not virtual time; even the possibility of changing these
during the course of a performance does not offer enough flexibility
or subtlety to place them on the same footing as the other arts
(the possible exception to this being projected scenery if in the
future this form experiences considerable development). Painting
and sculpture, to be sure, create a phenomenon similar to virtual
time, since the eye requires time to scan the entire object, and
since artists have evolved a number of very effective devices for
controlling the speed and direction of eye motion. But this effect
is al m ost never used for narrative purposes, probably because in order
to create this effect, the structure of the painting would have to be
radically modified, thus sacrificing a number of other structural
effects more characteristic of painting, and obtainable in no other
way. This discussion throws an interesting light on the problem of
film aesthetics. Obviously, the art of film is the art of arranging
form on a plane surface, similar to painting; it has been argued, there-
2fir
fore, particularly by Amheim, that the art of film is similar to the
visual and plastic arts. But by virtue of the possibility of subtle
and flexible motion of the image, denied to painting, sculpture, and
even the most clever of conventional stage scenery, film can and
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- 48 -
decisively does create virtual time, and therefore can express
narrative action, for which purpose it is almost universally used.
Without knowing it, Appia solved the problem of film before anyone
knew there was a problem.
This effectively disposes of the non-temporal arts, but what
of those which are capable of creating virtual time? How shall these
be related? Theoretically, since all are capable of conveying the
narrative, all can be used in equal proportion; the popular theory
of gesamtkunstwerk is therefore quite functional, provided one
restricts its component parts to those art-forms which can create
virtual time. But this theory has certain practical limitations,
of which we will note two.
The first major problem with gesamtkunstwerk is finding a
qualified gesamtkunstwerker . Wagner himself demonstrated this very
effectively; in reporting on a performance of Parsifal , Appia comments
that Wagner’s music was unbelievable, and so was his scenery, Klingsor’s
magic garden bearing more than a passing resemblance to the bedroom
wallpaper in a cheap provincial French hotel.^Et is conceivable that
one might some day find an individual with complete and equal compet¬
ence in all of the requisite art forms, or one might find a number of
experts in the various forms who could work together with complete
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- 49 -
integrity and complete unity in the construction and production of
an opera. The experienced artist, however, regards this eventuality
in the same light that the experienced Christian regards the Second
Coming. We do not have Appia T s recorded views on the Eschaton, but
we know exactly how he felt about the other possibility, for he
wasted no time in enunciating the Principle of Successful Rape.
In the case of the Wagnerian music-drama, there can be no question
that the music is :the expressive :form conveying the artist’s vision;
therefore in Wagnerian music-drama, Appia proposed to subordinate
everything, including the other virtual-time arts, to the music.
The narrative action in these other forms was to be synchronized
as closely as possible to the narrative action in the music. In the
case of Wagner, who managed to work an unusual amount of conceptual
information into his music through the principle of the leit-motiv ,
this was a very satisfactory solution to the problem.
This consideration leads us to the second major problem,
closely related to the form-content issue,previously discussed.
Even the four virtual-time arts listed above are not identical in
their ability to convey narrative action. Poetry and pantomime tend
to be representational; their symbols depict objects and occurrences
of the-real world, as well as containing expressive elements. But
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- 50 -
music and stage lighting only rarely represent objects or occurrences;
their speciality is the articulation of affective experience. They con¬
vey emotion efficiently, but they are relatively free of the necessity
to be anchored to conceptual material. The early composers of opera
quickly noticed this phenomenon, and frequently made use of it by employ¬
ing two different kinds of music in their scores. The first of these,
called recitative, was a very simple melodic pattern of little musical
interest or expressiveness, and was used to convey the representational
aspects of the action (the "plot") as efficiently as possible. The other
kind, identified with the arioso or aria, was music operating at top
speed, as expressive as the composer could make it, and was used to
capture and to expand upon the emotionally significant points in the
action, sometimes to the complete destruction of the plot. When later
this second kind of music came to dominate opera completely, the char¬
acteristic resultant form was a series of highly articulated moods
bearing more similarity to a topically arranged picture gallery than to
any of the traditional narrative arts.
Despite such possible abuses, it remains possible to select from
moment to moment in a composite art form that individual art most cap¬
able of producing the desired effect. This requires an artist sensitive
to the potentials of the various media, and skilled in their practice;
because of the problems implicit in this, such forms are more likely
to be created by small groups of specialists working in some way in
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51 -
collaboration, each specialist instinctively siezing upon the moment
inr.the narrative action that he can handle best. Despite the obvious
risks of this procedure, it has one very great advantage: it guaran¬
tees the formal variety which an extended work seems to require.
This need for variety appears to rise from the fact that the form
of an expressive structure normally corresponds to the form of human
feeling itself. Our emotions do not suddenly begin at high levels,
operate continuously at them, and then suddenly cease; rather they
seem to rise and fall, to wax and wane. The contrast between recitative
and aria, less expressive and more expressive, thus is a faithful
reproduction of the nature of human feeling. Another pattern found
in art is that of tension-release; the gatekeeper scene in Macbeth ,
the Turkish march in the finale of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony
demonstrate this principle very clearly. By alternating patterns of
low and high emotional forms, of tension and release, it is possible
to achieve much more intense and vivid expression of feeling than is
otherwise possible. This is yet another important principle in the
combination of art-forms into a composite art.
Let us now attempt to apply these principles to the structuring
of liturgy. The first principle, that of complete subordination in
the manner of Langer's aphorism, seems to be completely workable with
the smaller forms. The hymn operates, for example, by submerging the
expressive qualities of the text totally in the expressive qualities
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- 52 -
of the music, for better or for worse. Only those very rare hymn
texts of unusually strong expressive content may be expected to
be exceptions to this rule, and then probably only for those in
the congregation who are sensitive to poetry. Otherwise, the text
is expected to bear both concept and feeling, while the music is
free to express feeling alone. The outcome of this competition is
predictable.
The principle may even be extended to very brief complete
liturgies; the offices have functioned quite well for a long time
by subordinating all other elements to poetry, and on the other
hand, a choral office is an equally workable approach, although
if Gregorian chant is used the dominant form will continue to be
poetry. Even pantomime will serve if the action is brief and simple
enough; baptism is a good example of this.
Vfaen, however, the liturgy comes ;to_be of any substantial
length or complexity, the need for varied modes of expression and
the need for variety make any"such simple service increasingly proble¬
matic. To be sure, the emotional level of poetry can be internally
adjusted by controlling its expressive content, or even by alternat¬
ing it with prose; the same techniques are possible in music, as
discussed above. But this adjustment can never produce the variety
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- 53 -
or range of expression that a combination of various media naturally
produces, and so the recourse to the composite form becomes the
characteristic gesture of the liturgist.
The first consideration might well be that of selecting the
medium most congenial to the performer. This selection is complicated
by the fact that the entire congregation is ultimately to be the perform¬
er, and so the form chosen must not only be a congenial one for the
liturgist but also well suited to the expressive abilities of the
community. For instance, the fragmentation of our society and the rise
of such passive forms of mass entertainment as television have virtually
destroyed the custom of community singing once so popular in our culture.
Even, therefore, if the liturgist himself is a highly trained singer,
and is given to looking back nostalgically to the days when "those
singing Methodists" was a common phrase, he may be in for an unpleasant
surprise the first time he attempts a choral evensong. The problem is
not only the natural perversity of the average pew-warmer, a phenomenon
well analyzed elsewhere; it is also that many people have never learned
to use singing, even group singing, as a means of self-expression.
These will require a good deal of patient help before they are ready
to appropriate the riches of a choral service, both at the point of
the technique of singing and of the use of vocal music for self-
expression. On the other hand, choral evensong would be an ideal
liturgical form for a music camp or fraternity; the liturgy ideally
grows out of the needs, interests, and abilities of the community.
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- 54 -
Unless, of course, the liturgist is willing to undertake
the education of his people, this principle is a counsel of
futility. Most human expressive activity beyond the level of
cursing when one has bashed one’s finger with a hammer is learned,
and the learning must take place sometime and somewhere. It is one
of the chief glories of the art of liturgy that its skills can be
learned and used by just about anyone; the principal reason our
people are poorly skilled at this point is a mixture of apathy,
ignorance, and suspicion of anything unfamiliar, A case in point
is the matter of expressive gesture; nearly everyone can kneel,
and anyone who can kneel can use kneeling as an expressive form,
with a little practice,
A further extension of this principle is that in the selection
of a medium, forms simple enough to be usable by the average person
must always be chosen. Perhaps music can illustrate this best; contrary
to popular belief, Palestrina did not write liturgically useful music,
and neither did many of the latest gospel-hymn writers, since both
parties at times make rather extravagant demands upon the technical
equipment of the singer. Plain chant and the Lutheran chorale, on the
other hand, are for the most part ideally suited for liturgical use,
a point which must strike the theologian as conclusive proof of
divine intervention in these matters. To the musicologist, the
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- 55 -
explanation is simpler, if less inspiring; chant and chorale are basic¬
ally folk music, and the folk have a fair idea of what they can sing*
It seems likely that for twentieth-century Protestantism, poetry
will be the most congenial basis for liturgy; even if the masses have
not learned to sing, at the moment they are still teaching their child¬
ren to read and write* In this situation, the problem becomes one of
integrating music and pantomime into a structure created by language,
a process illuminated by the three aesthetic principles of variety of
media, range of expressive content, and articulation of larger form.
The need for variety ought not to be regarded as a concession to
human frailty so long as -monotony is not regarded as a virtue. Neither
perception nor attention span is well served by long stretches of
identical fare, and the few who are able to concentrate on such mater¬
ial seldom enjoy doing so. From the point of view of certain Eastern
religions, this may well be a defect, but a theological system as
profoundly affirmative of this world and this life as Christianity
has been at times is probably committed to variety as an expression
of the divine will revealed in the natural order. Within such a system,
variety in worship seems a natural and desirable goal, and most of the
historic liturgies in this tradition have made ample provision for it.
Fortunately, variety is rather simple to secure; the old opera producers
were given to running a ballet troup through the proceedings every
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56 '
now and again on the general theory that this produced variety,
even if it reduced the plot to shambles. It might be added that
this general theory appears to be the major organizing principle
of a great number of free-chUrch worship services, and while it
does produce variety, its logical extension also destroys the
possibility of narrative action in liturgy, and all that remains is
the aesthetic equivalent of the picture gallery. Any reasonable
alternation of various media will produce adequate variety; we
must therefore look further if we hope to secure any other benefits
from the composite nature of worship.
The differing expressive capabilities of the various media
suggest a second principle: those aspects of the narrative action
which are of unusually rich emotional significance will find their
happiest expression in media of high affective content. For the
purpose of applying this to liturgy, we may order the liturgical
arts into the following hierarchy, based on the relative proportions
of affective and conceptual content characteristic of them: language,
pantomime, music. Language has a very wide range of expressive poten¬
tial, from scientific prose on one hand to the most ecstatic poetry
on the other. Yet because it is also the tool of so much of our
purely discursive structuring of experience, its expressive aspect
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- 57 -
is frequently ignored by our functionalist culture, with the result
that the poet is frequently forced to call attention to the fact
that he is writing poetry. This, in turn, often.'leads to a precious¬
ness which alienates the pseudo-scientific popular mind and thus
closes the very channels of communication the poet is trying to
open. The end of the matter is that in a culture where great value
is placed on the use of language as an objective, discursive tool,
poetry must operate at rather low pressure to be a popular art, or
to be useful in liturgy where it must be an acceptable form of
self-expression for the average man. Gone forever are the days
when one could write "I fall upon the thorns of life;/I bleed..."
for a popular audience, and possibly equally gone are the days
when language could be the most highly expressive medium in liturgy.
Pantomime occupies a rather happy middle ground, for while it
is representationally related to everyday life like language, it
is more normally used for non-discursive than discursive expression.
Discursive communication through gesture is hardly found apart from
the specialized form of sign language, but everyone grins and frowns,
shrugs his shoulders and uses his hands expressively. Its use in
liturgy as a natural bridge between the affective level of language
and that of music seems inevitable, except in Protestant circles
where it is deprecated as being "Roman Catholic," whatever that may
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mean after the Second Vatican Council. Its reintroduction into our
services seems a useful thing, particularly in view of its expressive
potential and its accessibility to all members of the congregation,
regardless of poetic sensitivity or musical ability, but before this
becomes possible we will have to come to the point where we judge it
by its merits, not by its friends.
Music, of course, has never served any primary function other
than the articulation of feeling since the Renaissance at least, and
even in this rationalistic age is allowed remarkable freedom to do
just that. The present tendency to regard music as the art (expressed
humorously by Schroeder in the cartoon strip "Peanuts" in his obser¬
vation that f, to sensitive persons, music is the only pure art form,”
and in some respects equally humorously by the palatial concert halls
sprouting up in American cities like mushrooms after a spring rain),
combined with the post-Kennedy tendency to regard art as a key part
of the American Way and National Destiny, provide an excellent oppor¬
tunity to encourage each member of a congregation to learn to use music
as a personally significant expressive form. Study groups, purposeful
hymn-sings, and intelligent choir programs can all help lead to this
goal, and thus prepare each individual for participation in liturgical
music. Because of its freedom to assume the forms of human feeling,
music has great expressive power, and is thus ideal for those sections
of greatest expressive significance in the liturgical action. Its
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alternation with simpler music or with poetry can also be an important
source of variety, an essential requirement if interest is to be
maintained throughout a relatively long liturgy.
The articulation of form is yet another important by-product
of the combination of simple arts into composite ones. Form is a
very important source of aesthetic interest; we find pleasure in
symmetry varied to occasionally eAibit the unexpected, for instance;
here form creates expectation, its variation tension, and the affirm¬
ation of the original pattern a sense of release. Much of the appeal
of narrative action derives frordts form, and we criticize severely
any work we find to be "formless," that is, not clearly exhibiting
an Aristotelian beginning, middle, and end. Since this structuring of
events does not appear to correspond in any necessary way to physical
reality, one might surmise that it is a product of the human drive
forn meaning and unity in experience, and that the pleasure produced
by perceived form is simply the pleasure of encountering a comprehen¬
sible structure in experience. The simpler arts constantly capitalize
on this phenomenon, but are limited to those resources for formal
articulation which they inherently possess. But the composite arts
have an important resource uniquely their own, the possibility of
changing from one medium to another at crucial points in the formal
scheme of a work; the change from recitative to aria well done in
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- 60 -
an operatic scene not only puts the enterprise into emotional high
gear, so to speak, but also sharply differentiates this section of
the form from that which went before and that which will follow.
Another example is found in the placement of psalms in the Anglican
liturgy for morning prayer; here, the psalms articulate the entire
service of the word, and bring the reading of the two lessons into
high I'elief • Still another example is to be found in the propers of
the Roman mass, which are so useful as agents of formal articulation
that they have retained their place in the liturgy even when the
actions which they were intended to accompany have been minimized or
have disappeared altogether.
These factors of variety, emotional range, and articulation of
form are only the most obvious application of Appia f s theory of music-
drama to the similar problems of liturgy, but they illustrate the
way in which purely aesthetic principles can illuminate liturgy once
the many parallels between it and the traditional arts are identified.
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61-
2« Worship as a Participatiopal Form
All art forms are participational in one sense, for someone of
necessity participated in their creation* As we have noted, however,
many forms were participational in a second sense, in that the normal
way of experiencing them was through their creation* In our time,
however, this situation has largely been reversed, and in popular
thought aesthetic experience is identified with the exploration of
a previously created and completed work; thus f, art appreciation” and
not creation is the watchword of the time. In contrast to this,
the best modern thought on liturgy continues to insist that the
authentic experience of liturgy is derived only from participation
in its creation or re-creation, and not from merely observing the
form as created by others* Because of the emphasis usually given to
this principle, it seems useful to extend our aesthetic analysis of
liturgy to include it, in the hope of clarifying yet one further
aspect of the form*
Any understanding of this issue must ultimately rest on a
previous understanding of the nature of primary creation, of re¬
creation through performance, and of the experience of perceiving
an already completed work. The relationship between the first two
categories has been sketched above; here it is necessary only to
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■ 62 -
reiterate that this distinction exists because these arts did not in
the past exist apart from their continual recreation, and because cer¬
tain of them require more than one person participating in their re¬
creation, or demand certain skills which the original creator may not
necessarily have possessed. The importance of this first reason has been
considerably diminished since the development of such means of giving
spatial form to process as the phonograph and the motion picture cam¬
era, but the second reason continues to make the distinction valid. The
clearest example of this is in the field of symphonic music, where the
composer cannot by himself perform all the parts, and need not necessar¬
ily possess the skill to perform any one of them, or even to conduct
the work; here, creation and recreation are often entirely separate,
even when the creator is available for consultation.
The role of the spectator or listener resembles that of the cre¬
ator in many ways, and yet is significantly different. The similarities
arise primarily from the fact that the creator, the expressive form,
and the spectator form a communications system; the creator codes in¬
formation into a master symbol, and the spectator perceives and decodes
that symbol. Thus both must participate in the process, and its content
depends not only on the way in which the originator structured the
perceptible form and the experience he symbolized in it, but also on
the way in which the receiver perceives the form, and assimilates its
content into his own past experience. In such a situation, the specta¬
tor does much to shape the content and character of the experience;
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- 63 -
his role is never a completely passive one.
This principle finds ample illustration in art. To begin
with, the receiver must direct his conscious attention to the per¬
ception of the form as potential aesthetic experience. One of the
distinguishing characteristics, of an art-work is that its primary
function is to be an expressive form, and not a utensil. Yet in
our grandly inattentive progress through life, we normally notice
things in a very functional way; it requires training and effort
to respond to a vase as perceptible-human-feeling rather than as
object-for-holding-flowers. This is the function of picture-frames,
pedestals, art-galleries, and similar apparatus; they invite or
insist on aesthetic consideration, rather than mere instant class¬
ification.
Secondly, most artworks have more symbolic content than can be
perceived or assimilated in any one experience of them; this is part
of the reason that really important art never grows uninteresting,
no matter how familiar it becomes. The process of experiencing a
work, therefore, involves the selection and organization of certain
aspects of it, not merely the instant assimilation of the totality,
and therefore requires the participation of the receiver on this level.
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- 64 -
In media that exist in space alone, this participation is parti¬
cularly important, for the way in which the eye travels over the
work is a significant component of the aesthetic experience* The
artist normally takes great care to guide the eye, but he cannot
control its motion completely, and thus the observer must supply
what the artist cannot. In temporal arts, the problem is related,
only here, the observer or listener must hold in mind that which
went before and compare it with later sections in order to grasp
the form and progression of the work. Woe to the student of western
symphonic music who cannot keep a theme clearly and accurately fixed
in his mind during the course of a movement!
But the most important way in which the observer participates
in the creation of expressive form is through the interpretation of
life-values it contains. Art-works not only express human feeling
through the presentation of aesthetically interesting sensuous
experience and aesthetically interesting form and combinations of
these two, but also through the symbolization and presentation of
7G>
what Hospers calls "life-values;” objects and occurrences that are
signficant to us and to our sense of being human. Thus our interest
in King Lear is not purely sensuous or formal, but also a result of
our identification with the experiences that Shakespeare’s characters
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- 65 -
undergo, and a sense that these experiences touch our existence as
well. But these values are expressed in symbols, and we read the
symbols in terms of our own past experience; Wade Ruby used to
observe that no one could really understand King Lear who was not
past forty and who did not have two ungrateful daughters f^The
remark is as true as*.it is witty, and yet those of us not thus
experienced still are moved by Lear , because we have known (and
perpetrated) ingratitude and foolish judgment and irascibility.
It is this interpretation of the artist's symbols with the material
of our own history that is our greatest contribution to the creation
of the expressive form, and we do it whether as spectators or co¬
creators •
Yet for all these similarities, there are many and great
differences between creation-performance and appreciation; the
most important of these from the standpoint of liturgy are the
questions of intensity of experience, personalization of expression,
and sense of community.
That the intensity of experience is greater for the artist
than for his spectator is easily demonstrated. The artist cannot
confine his activity to the conceptual level; he must create a
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- 66 -
perceptible entity, and to do so he must express his mental
activity through motor activity. This motor activity appears
to reinforce the conceptual grasp, in turn; this is the principle
of writing out something one wishes to remember, such as the
spelling of a word. This invasion of the consciousness at several
sensory levels is also demonstrated by more complex film techniques
such as Cinerama, or devices that reproduce vibration and odor as
well as three-dimensional motion pictures and stereophonic sound.
The result is as above a much more intense experience, and one
which impresses itself upon the memory more vividly and completely.
A second way in which the aesthetic experience is made more
intense is through the creation of this perceptible entity, the
objectification of a mental state. This principle is seen in simple
form in the practice of constructing models of proposed buildings or
even stage settings. Detailed blueprints serve the purpose of a guide
to construction better than such a model, but the model gives substance
and reality to an idea.
Finally, the act of creating or performing a work both requires
and produces a much greater familiarity with it than is likely to come
from anything else except the most substantial study of it. This is
a phenomenon to which any musician can testify; in the process of
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preparing a composition for performance, one discovers much new
aesthetic meaning which previously had escaped notice. And even
where rehearsal is at a minimum, as it is in the liturgical situation,
the repetition:of a work produces a very similar effect, which can
again be described as an intensification of the aesthetic experience.
A second advantage possessed by the performer and not by the
spectator is the opportunity of personalization of expression, of
not only allowing a work to express and clarify one's feeling, but
also allowing one f s feeling to modify the work and thus find direct
expression. The whole art of the performer is based on this one
technique of adding personal insight to a previously created work;
for those to whom the ability to make significant original symbolic
transformations is not given, this probably represents the peak of
expressive experience. The significance of this can be gauged by
the fact that even though Mr. Edison and his disciples have made
it possible for anyone to have music at the push of a button, many
persons still devote untold hours of exhausting work to learning to
play a musical instrument, surely the least efficient way to have
music now available to us. But in the performance of other people's
music, we express our own feelings peripherally, and normally we
make the expressive content of that music ours while doing so.
The significance of this to the religious enterprise need not
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be labored.
Finally, watching or listening to an art form is essentially
an individual enterprise; its performance is normally a community
one. This is not to deny the importance of audience psychology on
the perception of a performance; certainly, the sense of being part
of a group in such a situation affects both our perception of the
work and our response to it. But this process takes place almost
entirely within the mind of the spectator, and requires no stronger
sense of group identity than the vague realization that there are
other human beings present watching the same thing. Group perform-
mance of a work, however, not only involves these factors, but
demands active cooperation, and a strong sense of working together
to achieve a common goal. Moreover, this working together is for
the purpose of expressing feeling, which if the process works at
all, serves further to develop and cement the relationships estab¬
lished by the performance. After a performance, the audience goes
out,‘each one to his individual way, with hardly a thought about
the others with whom he laughed and cheered and applauded. But the
performers often continue the relationships derived from the exper¬
ience; the emotional stability of performing artists is often questioned,
but their loyalty and enduring friendships are legendary. Participation
in the group re-creation of an expressive form is an extraordinarily
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potent way of establishing and developing strong and significant rela¬
tionships within the group.
This fact is of extraordinary significance for the church, for
central to the church’s proclamation is the claim that a certain style
of human relationship called love is the basic reality of our experience.
Many art forms are capable of articulating this relationship on the
affective level, and indeed much of the most treasured art in our tradi¬
tion does just this. But because of its participational character, litur¬
gy functions beyond the capabilities of the arts in dealing with the
experience of this relationship. Not only does participation enhance
whatever aesthetic values the expressive form may possess, it also
creates and strengthens the very experience it celebrates. Thus the
purely participational aspects of worship have a unique role to play
in the life of the community, and cannot be dispensed with apart from
serious loss to it. This is why the dichotomy between worship as an
aesthetically important spectator form and an aesthetically unimportant
participational one is false and misleading; there is no implicit reason
apart from indifference or laziness why participational forms cannot
achieve aesthetic respectability if not excellence, but beyond this,
even the most sublime spectator forms cannot provide the unique and
essential values of the participational ones.
All of this is not to deny the place of the traditional arts in
the church. Many of these by virtue of their technical difficulty are
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not suitable for recreation by the congregation, and of course the non¬
performance arts cannot be used this way at all. Yet these have essential
insights to present to the community, and therefore should find a sepa¬
rate and important place in its life, where they can thrive and function
on their own terms. What they must not be allowed to do is slowly to in¬
filtrate worship until as is often the case the service is no more true
liturgy than a football game that happens to include an invocation and
the National Anthem. When this happens, as it has repeatedly in the past,
there is a tendency to rationalize the situation by regarding the leader
and choir as representatives of the congregation. This kind of represent¬
ation may be valuable in politics, but in liturgy it is impossible, for
no one can experience for another, A more accurate analysis would reveal
that the minister and choir are worshipping, and the congregation is
left to extract what it can from the activity up front; they are nothing
more than spectators, and frequently spectators at a wretched pseudo¬
opera. Faced with this sort of thing since the sixth century at least,
Roman Catholic congregations have shown much ingenuity in preserving
some semblance of congregational activity, if not participation; they
read devotional literature, say their beads, or make the Stations of the
Cross while the priest and choir are engaged in more advanced devotions.
Protestants have been either too polite or too repressed to assert their
rights in worship, however, and tend to endure it in silence, or conclude
that they might just as well stay home and watch it on television, a
perfectly sound aesthetic judgment.
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If the authentic values of liturgy are to be preserved, it is
necessary to distinguish between those art forms which are group-
centered and therefore useful in liturgy, and those which are not and
which are therefore destructive of it# In the case of hymns, unison
prayers, or unison gestures on one hand, or sermons, pastoral prayers,
or anthems on the other, the distinction is obvious. Elsewhere it may
not be so clear; the responsive reading may at first seem problematic,
but is an authentic liturgical form because it demands the participation
of the group for its completion. Public prayer is a more difficult prob¬
lem unless spoken in unison; but again, the guiding principle is formal
completeness only if the congregation participates directly. An example
of this is the traditional bidding prayer; the congregation is asked to
pray for a given subject, and then after a brief pause the leader reads
a collect summarizing the petitions of the people, to which they respond
"Amen. 11 This is clearly a liturgically useful form, especially when is
often the case, the congregation has the collect written out before
them or securely fixed in their memories so that the language of the
prayer shapes their own petitions.
In many churches, the reading of the Bible is made into a litur¬
gical form in the same way, by making it a part of the larger dialog
between leader and people. While standing for the reading of the Gos¬
pel and the responses "Glory be to thee, 0 Lord" and "Praise be to
thee, 0 Christ" may be variously viewed either as gestures of respect
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or symbols of the solemnity of the act of the public proclamation
of the Gospel, they also are significant means by which the group can
participate in the creation of this particular form. And where, of
course, the lessons are printed out in full, as they are in the
28
Episcopal Book of Common Prayer , the people have yet another
opportunity to participate. The title of the Episcopal book is no
euphemism.
The possibility of applying this process of redemption to other
traditional parts of the service is not good. The anthem is beyond
salvation; attempts to invite the congregation to join in the last
section are beset with technical difficulties, and even if manage¬
able result only in hymns four-fifths of which are sung by the
choir. The pastoral prayer is probably equally beyond the pale;
its length, usual formlessness, and. traditional individualism preclude
any significant group participation other than wondering where the
leader is going next and when if ever he will be finished. When
attempts are made to reclaim this spectator sport for worship, they
are normally addressed to formal problems: the prayer is pre-composed,
written out, given clarity of form and conciseness, and made to voice
common concerns, which is to say, is made over into an over-size
collect. This is an improvement, but an unstable one, which accounts
for the current "Back to Cranmer" movement in so much of Protestant-
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ism today. The aestheticians, of course, never deserted the Arch¬
bishop in the first place.
Tne sermon, too, does not qualify as a group-centered form.
To begin with, it is too often regarded as part of the teaching
ministry of the church, a dubious point of view for at least two
reasons. The unillustrated lecture, appealing as it does to only
one sense and inviting no further participation than mere absorption
of the material offered, is a very inefficient way of communicating
information compared with techniques in use in our schools today,
not to mention the incomparably more effective dialogic techniques
in use since at least the time of Socrates. If we are serious
about the teaching ministry, we will find more effective channels
for it than lecturing from the pulpit. Secondly, the teaching sermon
is inherently a discursive procedure; placed in the middle of a
non-discursive one like worship, its tendency is to destroy what
unity the service might possess. One solution to this problem
is to place the sermon before the service (as at Woodland Hills
Methodist Church, California) or after (as is Episcopalian custom).
Here at least the two structures do not weaken one another, and
may indeed complement each other. But a better solution is to
rethink the nature of the sermon itself.
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The key insight in this process was articulated by Ernest C.
Colwell in his observation that preaching is much closer to poetry
than to anything else; in other words, its most characteristic task
29
is the expression of human experience in non-discursive forms.
This is certainly a characteristic of past preaching which continues
to be a living force, as for example that which is recorded in the New
Testament, and even Paul often seems to place more stress on the
communication of experience at an affective level than of coherent
theological systems. Viewed from this perspective, the sermon can
easily be an art-form, and while it is not a participational form,
its underlying organizational principle is identical with that of
the rest of the service. Such a sermon could well support the larger
liturgical form, rather than interrupting it, as is otherwise usually
the case.
Once these distinctions between participational and spectator
forms are made, the next step is to structure the service in such
a way that any activity advertised as worship contains a predominance
of group-centered expressive forms. This is a simple observation to
make, but a difficult thing to put into practice, for we have here to
deal with that phenomenon which the medieval moralists classified as
Pride, and which in contemporary technical language may be described as
the overwhelming urge to create forms expressive of our individual
personalities before enraputured groups 8f our peers, or more
simply, showing off. This is a reasonably universal human trait.
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and it provides much of the dynamic of the performing arts. It
leads us to assume that a congregation would much rather hear us
pray than pray themselves, or would rather listen to the choir than
sing. Inertia being what it is in the human situation, there is a
degree of truth in this, but it ignores the fact that people would
also much rather express themselves than listen to someone else
express himself, as any conversationalist knows. And entirely
apart from the question of like and dislike, which need not necessar¬
ily be the only criterion by which to judge human activity, it
is evident from our previous analysis that direct participation
in the creation of expressive form will ultimately be more useful
to the congregation in its quest for authentic humanity than a
steady diet of our presentations, no matter how splendid. We need
then to adopt that virtue the Middle Ages called humility, in the
specific form of the affirmation that though we pray like Theresa,
preach like Chrysostom, and sing like Jenny Lind, it is more important
that our people have the opportunity of participating in the creation
of forms expressing our common religious experience.
A second major hazard is that this policy restricts the
type and number of forms which can be used in worship. The loss
of congregational singing in the medieval church was occasioned
by the introduction and acceptance of music that was too difficult
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for the average person to sing. Here again, the best solution lies in
the affirmation that most successful liturgical art has always been
simple, at least in its component parts, and that the values of group
participation are important enough to justify keeping it that way.
This does not mean the relinquishment of more complex art forms, but on
the contrary their enhancement, through relegating them to occasions
where they can most ideally be experienced: concerts, plays, poetry
readings, and so forth, all sponsored by the church as a vital part of
its common life. Both worship and the non-participational art forms
have important contributions to make to the Christian life and the
Christian community, each style in its own way, offering its own unique
values. Ideally, both should thrive in the church.
One final problem stems from the fact that group performance of
art in the context of worship only infrequently attains the technical
perfection which we have come to expect in most art forms. The average
choir can obviously sing a hymn technically better than the average
congregation, and this observation has consistently led to the replace¬
ment of congregational singing by choral music in the interest of "pro¬
ducing the best possible for the Lord." The Pelagian character of this
point of view is revealed by its tacit assumption that the Lord is
more interested in accurate intonation than in human experience, an
assumption difficult to maintain in view of the emphatic claim of
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the tradition that the Incarnation took the form of a man, not a
pitch-pipe. Actually, this dichotomy between excellence and the
values of group participation is a false one, the counsel of im¬
patience. If the congregation speaks or sings the responses badly,
the solution is to teach them to do it well, not to replace them
with a choir or to omit the responses altogether. In this way,
both group participation and the authentic human quest for excellence
can be combined into a single experience. And even if the ultimate
result still is not perfectly in tune, we may console ourselves
that liturgy is one area in which human values are more important
than technical ones, as they are in all arts.
Only a clear understanding of the participational nature of
worship and a vigorous espousal of its values can provide a safe
guide to the structuring of worship. This is amply demonstrated,
among other places, in the history of liturgical reform. Luther’s
strong instinctive grip of this principle revitalized the worship
of his country, and produced in the chorale the most significant
contribution to our storehouse of liturgical materials since the
completion of the Psalter. Trent, on the other hand, pursued reform
on the basis of a most regrettable distinction between sacred and
secular. The result was a paralysis of worship out of which the
Roman Church is only now emerging, and a stunningly complete
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cessation of the production of significant liturgical art. Now,
in a time when the Romans have rediscovered the essentially
participational nature of worship and are conducting a new
Reformation as they implement this discovery in their liturgical
life, the Protestants for the largest part are reaching new heights
of highly polished spectator forms and completing the disenfranchise¬
ment of the congregation in worship. The time is obviously ripe
for a new Counter-Reformation. Let us spell out some of its
radical demands:
Every scrap of every aspect of the service will have to be
studied to determine its relationship to the whole expressive form.
Those elements which are not congregation-centered will have to
exhibit splendid reasons why they should be permitted to remain.
The leader will have to examine his role with complete honesty
and humility, to determine to what extent he is leading the congregation
in the creation of expressive forms, and to what extent he is engaging
in private devotions publicly, or worse.
The sermon will have to be completely restructured into a form
centering about the expression of religious experience in primarily
artistic and poetic ways. The experience it expresses ought ideally
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to he selected from the religiously significant events in the daily
lives of the congregation, and then viewed from within the Christian
tradition, especially in the perspective of Biblical literature. In
this way, the sermon will assist members of the congregation in identi¬
fying the events in their own lives which have religious significance, .
in structuring these events into larger patterns of meaning, and in
viewing such patterns as the logical extension of the value-structure
of the New Testament.
The role of the choir in worship will require equally thorough
restructuring. In many cases, choral music can be dispensed with alto¬
gether to great advantage, since it has no indispensible function in
worship. In other situations, the choir may find a useful place in lead¬
ing and supporting congregational singing, or even in occasionally
presenting a short work which serves a purpose similar to that of the
sermon. By thus restricting choral music, two important ends are gained:
music in worship is returned to the congregation to which it properly
belongs, and the choir is freed to learn and perform really important
works on a regular basis outside the framework of the worship service.
Such a reform would be to the great advantage of art and worship alike.
The organist’s role in worship also requires major reformulation,
for like the choirmaster, the organist is usually the victim of a
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-80-
professional tradition which is uninformed and uninterested in theo¬
logical and liturgical matters, but devoted to the canonization of
irrelevancies and demonstrably undesirable practices. Ideally, his
primary function is to execute hymn accompaniments in such a way as
to lead the congregation in vigorous and energetic singing, thus
directly assisting each participant in the creation of an expressive
form. Beyond this, his duties include only performing accompaniments
on those hopefully infrequent occasions in worship when soloists or
choir present music, and possibly performing relevant and important
compositions while the congregation is gathering or dispersing. And
he ought to be strongly discouraged from attempts at filling up the
chinks in the liturgy with sound, or providing background music for
Sections of the service. The properly designed service has no awkward
gaps requiring repair, and background music is nothing more nor less
than the subversion of the free-floating emotional content of music
(cf. supra p. 50) to produce a state of mild euphoria, a sort of
emotional effect without cause, ready to be applied illegitimately to
whatever conceptual matter comes to hand. Such unearned feeling is the
hallmark of sentimental art, and its systematization into a way of life
in worship is a shoddy and dishonest practice. A prime example of this
is the performance of maudlin hymns and other musical refuse piano ,
sostenuto , e con molto schmalz during the distribution of the elements
in the Communion service. The significance of Communion ought to stem
directly from the act itself; if music can adequately convey this
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experience , then we can do without Communion very well simply by
playing music. ' ■ Otherwise, even the best music is going to force
one particular affective context on an experience noted for the rich¬
ness and variety of its meaning, and the best music is rarely heard
at this point, or for that matter at any point in our services# The
practice is precisely analogous to that of playing background music
in art galleries, or during Hamlet^ soliloquy at the end of act II.
It should not be mistaken for a desirable practice among civilized
peoples.
Finally, we need to ransack the history of liturgy for specific
group-centered forms that appear to have a chance to be viable today,
in order to supplement the meager alternatives we presently employ. The
loss of the Psalter, for example, has been a severe blow to Christian
worship in our time, for with it we have lost a number of forms which
were once the very backbone of certain services. Another serious loss
has been that of the expressive forms of standing and kneeling, also
important as articulators of the larger form of the service. These
will probably have to be recovered before more elaborate ritual acts
such as genuflection and the signing of the cross become acceptable
to Protestant congregations. The restoration of historical materials
will not only provide us with a richer vocabulary and more balanced
services, but will also enhance our sense of participation in a long
and important tradition.
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The possibility of finding altogether new forms is not good.
As many anthropologists have noted, art reaches a level of high
sophistication and complexity in a culture long before science
or even civilization; the creation of new forms, therefore, is a
most unusual phenomenon in historic times. The most recent examples,
such as film and stage lighting, have been connected with technological
advances which for the first time made certain of their crucial
techniques possible. Whether or not significant new forms will develop
in liturgy is impossible to say; we do know that we have not begun
to appreciate the riches left us by earlier practitioners of the
art, and that the adaptation of these to our present need will not
only provide adequately for our worship, but also give us the best
possible tools for evaluating new forms. In art, the swiftest path
forward often leads first through the past.
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SECTION THREE
THE THEORY AS A CONSTRUCTIVE PRINCIPLE IN LITURGICS
The relationship of aesthetic theory to art is not the neat,
tight logical pattern we of the twentieth century expect between our
theory and our operation, for as we have seen, theory is discursive and
art is not. Theory can prowl its periphery, catalog its most obvious
features, even schematize its larger relationships, but at the critical
moment of creation it fails, for here the issue is correspondence to
human feeling, not human analytic systems. For this reason one can make
a radio according to theoxy, and perhaps even a cake, but never a work
of art.
What, then, is the function of aesthetic theory, other than
partially satisfying our curiosity about the mechanics of art? Princi¬
pally this, that it guides us to the moment at which symbolic trans¬
formation takes place as swiftly as possible. Without some discursive,
pragmatic information about the processes of art, we are doomed to wild
experimentation until the happy accident of expressive form emerges,
much like the celebrated monkeys with their typewriters which so exer¬
cised our immediate ancestors. Moreover, discursive information is
often a useful guide to the handling of a given medium. Theory, then.
- 83 -
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84 -
in Willard F. Bellman's phrase, will not make artists of us, or even
30
better artists; it will make us far "more efficient ones, however.
This is particularly true in the group-centered arts, where
the artist's vision must find expression not in the material under
his hands, a difficult enough procedure, but rather through the
coordinated efforts of a group of people, a vastly more difficult
one. Here, discursively oriented communication is essential; the
artist must be able to explain what he wants, unless of course
he is a gesamtkunstwerker and can demonstrate his idea with per¬
fect clarity.
Finally, theory is also useful in the critical evaluation
of a work, although in a limited way. It cannot tell us whether
a work is ultimately bad or good; for it can indicate the work's
correspondence to human feeling in only the roughest way. But it
can help us to understand why a work is good or bad, and whether
or not it makes effective use of its media. This is not a great
deal, but it is all that we have. Beyond this, there is only the
sense oficoherence and insight we discussed previously, but these
do not lend themselves to systematic presentation or refutation.
To the observation that the Beethoven Sixth Symphony is a wretched
piece of work and meaningless, we can only reply and demonstrate
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85 -
that is on the contrary quite a creditable piece of work, and
has in the past been a source of meaning for many persons. But
the precise definition or even location of this meaning eludes
our analytic tools. We can only experience the work, and hope that
in time the gestalt become clear to us, and its meaning experienced.
When we turn, therefore, to the demonstration of this theory
as a guide to structuring worship, we do so with the realization
that the theory is no more than a guide, an efficient way to assem¬
ble the raw materials and to plan the larger structure of the ser¬
vice. But we know too that the critical point, that of symbolic
transformation, is not automatically attainable by the application
of this or any other theory; it is an act of the imagination. But
the theory has an important contribution to make even at this point;
it frees the imagination from any discursive restraint, and encourages
it to combine and recombine the raw symbolic material until the final
product does indeed express and illuminate human feeling. The importance
of this freedom cannot be overestimated.
Our purpose, then, in this section is to employ the theory in
a number of representative liturgies constructed for a particular
situation. Because the theory participates in this construction
rather than determining it, the survey of several liturgies rather
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•86
than the detailed analysis of a single one will set the theory forth
in much bolder relief. And the fact that all are constructed for a
single group in a single situation will permit free comparison among
them, again to the advantage of the clarity with which the theory may
be observed. Our method will be to sketch the situation, and then to
outline the principles behind the three major types of liturgies
employed. Finally, we will present sample, copies of all the liturgies
created during the school year 1965-1966, and comment briefly on
each of them.
In evaluating these, we will seek to use the principle of
correspondence presented above, first of all by comparison with
the best Protestant liturgical criticism of the recent past, in
the assumption that all liturgical theory deals with the same
experience, and differs only in the major premise upon which
the argument is based and consequently in the number of significant
aspects of liturgy which are illuminated by it. The ultimate appeal,
however, will be to those who experienced it, or more accurately,
made it a vehicle for their experience, for in the very nature of
the theory, the success of a liturgy can be measured by the degree
to which it offers the worshippers an opportunity to share in the
creation of expressive form.
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A # A s P ec ^-^ c Situation; The School of Theology Chapel
The artist*s conceptual stock-in-trade is human feeling,
and the traditional source of this material is his own humanity
and his own experience. This is ultimately true of the liturgist
as well, but with one important exception; the form he creates
must not only express his feeling, but must be usable by large
groups of others to express their feelings. This was no problem
when the liturgist was the group, or rather was a great number of
individuals in the group, each of whom emerged into the light for
one brief creative moment and then vanished back into the congrega¬
tion, The rigorous process of group acceptance and rejection saw to
it that only those insights wh’ich were universally valid and those
forms which were universally useful survived. Now, however, when
the liturgy is normally structured by an individual delegated by
the group and the processes of group evaluation are much slower and
blunted by publication or even promulgation of a given liturgy, the
liturgist must take upon himself the responsibility of being
spokesman for the group, and of providing workable forms. This
is more difficult than it may appear at first glance, for there
is not a great deal of territory between merely re-presenting
familiar and acceptable experiences, which deprives liturgy of
its potential for stimulating growth, and between employing
forms which are beyond the comprehension of the average person
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- 88 -
in the congregation. Yet it is this territory that the liturgist
must occupy, balancing forms that permit authentic expression* of
the congregation* s present experience, with forms that present new
experience in a way that the group can assimilate. The task demands
intimate familiarity with the group and its experience as a major
prerequisite.
There is, one may suppose, no good reason why this familiarity
could not be achieved by standard means of sociological research.
However, the complexity of the social situation demands an equally
complex measuring device, since we need to know not only how people
live, but what they think and feel, three areas that are intimately
bound together. In practice, then, the liturgist will use what socio¬
metric data is at hand, but will probably rely on the far cruder and
yet far more practical tools the artist has always used: sensitivity
to his surroundings on as deep a level as possible, and imagination
in the interpretation of his perception. As hazardous as this procedure
seems to the scientific mind, it does not require the translation of
perception into discursive form as a prerequisite to retranslating it
into a non-discursive form. The artist f s style of communicating begins
with his style of seeing, and the insertion of logical forms into
this flow of information is seldom advantageous.
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89 -
However, that the reader may have some idea as to the sit¬
uation for which these liturgies were structured, the following
observations are offered with the understanding that they are
attempts to verbalize the sometimes non-verbal symbols and sym¬
bol-structures that underlie the liturgies.
The worshipping community for which these liturgies were
designed is an academic one, and the factor that called it into
being is the quest for skills, information, and meaning. It might
be assumed that this particular academic community would be strongly
interested in worship, but no evidence of this exists, probably
because Protestant Christianity in our time has not made its worship
a very important expression of its concerns. It seems that most of
the community are engaged in the quest mentioned above, or that of
personal identity, and find worship decidedly peripheral to their
life here, as they do other community activities.
The community is extremely well educated compared with the
average population, a product of its being a graduate school. Due
to the stress American popular education places on facility in the
use of verbal symbolism, most of the persons here are quite adept
at this and other discursive symbolisms. On the other hand, while
the religious community is usually noted for its skill with non-
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- 90 -
discursive symbol systems, this ability is no more in evidence
here than it is in the general population* A few persons exhibit
marked skills in this area; most do not, but characteristic of
a cultural trend prominent in the "New Frontier," are interested
in art and eager to develop skills and insights relevant to it.
A small but identifiable minority seem both to be insensitive to
expressive forms, and culturally conditioned against them, not
so much by the old science which deprecated any non-discursive form
of organizing experience as by the even older Puritanism which
distrusted art on general principles. This is a perplexing con¬
figuration for a religious community, one which tends to confirm
its essentially academic character.
The religious background brought to this setting is normally
mainline American Protestantism in it3 middle-class manifestation,
heavily influenced by the old liberalism of the thirties, still a
dominant force in the churches out of which these people come.
There is a consequent serious loss of identity with pre-nineteenth
century Christian tradition and theology, and if anything a greater
loss of traditional patterns of worship. Worship to these persons
is what it was in their own churches: pulpit-centered, performance-
oriented, its forms patterned after those of the mass media, as
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slick and elaborate as local resources permit; in brief, the service
criticised at the end of the second section of this paper. A few of
these persons, however, have had some experience with more authentic
patterns of worship within the context of the churches 1 student move¬
ments, and these students form rapid and cordial coalitions with those
to whom non-discursive symbolisms are natural forms of expression.
Out of these coalitions normally develops a committee on worship, a
committee that functions relatively spontaneously and effectively,
indicating that to these students, worship is an important issue.
It has often been identified as a "High Church 11 party in the school,
no doubt because systematic interest in liturgy and skill in non-
discursive forms inevitably eventuate in highly structured and sophisti¬
cated forms of worship. And since this group alone appears to have
the interest and motivation to undertake the complex and often tedious
job of structuring services, their style of operation tends to dominate
community worship. Opposition to them has been vocal but inarticulate,
and has neither offered positive suggestions or assistance in improving
the service. Consequently, the Worship Committee has had a difficult
time taking such criticism seriously, and has instead continued to
develop services on the basis of its own internal growth in insight.
The Committee has been well supported by the School administration
and by the Student Council, and has worked diligently at the promotion
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- 92 *
of worship on campus* In terms of community response, the results
had previously been very disappointing; attendance quickly dropped
off at the beginning of the year, and usually reached.such a low by
the second semester that one by one the daily services began to be
discontinued. Three possible reasons present themselves: the commit¬
tee^ inexperience, the problems of the Chapel setting, and the
attitude of the community toward worship. In past years, the commit¬
tee had no defined liturgical tradition of its own, was aware of
the number of different denominations represented in the community
and the consequent different styles of worship, and felt that as
an academically oriented group, it was committed to experimentation
in the name of science. Unfortunately, the lack of its own tradition
deprived the committee of any basis upon which to judge its work. The
multiplicity of traditions proved to be a fallacy; the character of
the school drew students for- the most part from those mainline
denominations whose liturgical patterns were based far more upon
cultural than theological models, and were consequently very similar.
And, as was rapidly discovered, systematic experimentation on a large
scale is self-defeating in liturgy, for just as the artist must be
completely familiar with his forms, so the congregation must be
familiar with its forms; variety comes only from familiarity with
a large number of forms, a freedom which must be earned by effort
over a considerable period of time. Unfortunately, due to lack of
experience, the experimentation that was conducted was anything
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but systematic, and the results were bewildering#
The chapel setting continues to pose serious problems to - those
who worship in it. Its use for a multiplicity of other purposes has
deprived it of any quality of set-apartness, which otherwise would
function as a guide as to the way experience in it is to be understood;
the analogous aesthetic principle is that of the picture-frame or the
pedestal. Moreover, the chapel is poorly equipped, and only imperfectly
functional as a tool for creating liturgy; the platform is too small and
cramped for any sort of ritual activity much beyond clutching the lectern,
and kneeling is very awkward, even at the edge of the platform. And the
use of this area for classes immediately before and after the daily
chapel hour requires that it be completely reorganized each time it is
used: doors must be closed, chairs rearranged, hyranbooks and service
books distributed, and so on. This imposes a surprising amount of inertia
on the program, and as the year progresses volunteer effort flags and
the results become sloppy. No serious effort to ameliorate this situation
has been made, partly because of lack of resources, and partly because
the construction of a more adequate permanent chapel is contemplated for
the future. YThether or not its completion radically changes the shape
of community worship, the new chapel ought to remove a number of physical
obstacles to successful liturgy.
Finally, the attitude of the community toward worship reflects
the attitude prevalent in the churches out of which the students come.
Their expectation is that of being spectators at a really stunning
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performance , one that siezes them by the scruff of the neck and
lifts them to the very throne of God, all without effort on their
part. It is conceivable that this pattern functions in a few of our
larger churches, equipped with very gifted preachers who have a great
deal of time to spend planning the performance* But on a daily basis
in a community devoted to serious academic pursuits, this sort of
thing is out of the question. There is neither time nor personnel
available for it, and the result of trying to have it anyway is a
dreary travesty. On the other hand, the many in the community seem
committed to their passive role in worship, and resist the suggestion
that regardless of the merits of group-versus leader-centered forms,
the circumstances in which we find ourselves force the first upon us.
Widespread education seems needed at this point, not only to underscore
the realities of our situation, but to point up the considerable merits
of group-centered forms, and to develop skills in using them.
These, then, are some of the more readily verbalized consider¬
ations that lie behind the services presented in the next section.
They were not introduced and employed at specific points in the
creation of these materials, but rather served as a background to
the process, and entered into it in a manner perhaps best compared
to free association in psychology. The adequacy with which this
free combination took place is in some degree an indication of the
adequacy of the liturgist.
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B. General Principles Derived from the Theory
What follows is not an account of the actual process of creation
of the various liturgies f but rather an attempt to articulate the con¬
ceptual materials which lay behind that process; in other words, this
section is a discursive rendering of some of the experience which was
incorporated into the services in non-discursive form*
The first major problem which any would-be liturgist faces is the
selection of a narrative action to serve as the framework of the fin¬
ished service* If a liturgy has a weak or unclear action, it will seem
diffuse and disconnected, lacking in a sense of attainment, and diffi¬
cult for a group to use in the creation of expressive form. On the other
hand, however, virtually any strong and clear action will serve this
purpose, as the various liturgies of antiquity illustrate. The choice
is simplified by the need to relate the liturgical action to the cultur¬
al value structure, on which it relies for much of the life-value it
symbolizes, and which in turn it helps to shape and communicate. This
process is analogous to that of the traditional art forms, ifhich not
only express experience, but also help to create the perceptual screen
which in turn controls our perception of experience. In view of this
mutually formative process existing between liturgical action and value
structure, it seems very useful to preserve in any given situation the
liturgical action which helped to shape the religious experience it
seeks to express*
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• 96 -
In Christian tradition, the basic liturgical action has usually
been a formal encounter with the God of the Bible, variously conducted
and elaborated, but at the center quite unified* One classical pattern
for this encounter has been the sixth chapter of the book of Isaiah.
Here the prophet describes a progression of feeling from the awareness
of God f s presence and holiness to his own sense of inadequacy and guilt,
to pardon, to communication, to dedication, and finally to action. It
is an account of exalted religious experience given in non-discursive,
poetic form, and its faithfulness to the forms of human feeling have
made it of supreme usefulness in the worship both of Jewish and Christ¬
ian communities. It constitutes an interesting example of interaction
between art forms and experience; created and preserved because of its
faithfulness to the worship experience, it has in turn shaped that ex¬
perience for millions of persons through its embodiment in Eucharist,
office, and countless Protestant variations of both.
A second narrative action, closely related to the first and yet
developed by Christianity into a major competitor, is the symbolic meal.
The history of this form is too complex to trace here, other than to
note that it had its origins in the religiously significant meals of
Jewish antiquity, was according to the Hew Testament reinterpreted by
Jesus of Nazareth, and since that time has been subject to elaborations
of the most amazing variety. Some idea of the extent of this elaboration
may be gained from its most prominent example, the medieval Roman
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mass; here, so far as the average worshipper was concerned, the
original narrative action had been so far extended that it was no
longer a meal at all, but a service based on the first pattern with
the added attraction of worshipping a physically present God. Out¬
side of Protestantism, this meal-action has been for many years the
normative service pattern.
Within Protestantism, however, the Lord's Supper has become
an occasional service, often associated with important events in
the church calendar. In its place, the Isaiah-based service, often
in forms highly influenced by medieval offices and by popular oratory,
has become dominant. In view of this, the assumption in our community
has been that the daily service would be an office of one sort or
another, and that the Lord's Supper would be observed only infrequently,
if at all.
With the narrative action selected, the next problem is that
of choosing the various media in which to express it. In an academic
community, and particularly in a Protestant one, the dominance of
language forms insures that poetry will play a very large part in
worship. Although musical skills are not more prevalent here than
in the average population, interest and motivation are high, and
under proper circumstances music can probably be used very freely
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- 98 -
in a service. On the other hand, there continues to be expressed
a considerable suspicion of all non-aural expressive forms, includ¬
ing such essentially non-liturgical items as vestments and altar
crosses, stemming more from unfamiliarity than from any consistently
defensible theological or aesthetic position. This means that these
forms must be used with great care and with much explanation, since
no form which in and of itself regardless of expressive content
produces a negative response is of much use in worship. On the
other hand, these forms will often be accepted when they are under¬
stood as something more than affectation. One of the best leaders
last year was given to kneeling before the altar during the prayer
of confession, a procedure which would severely have traumatized
community opinion had anyone else tried it. But in this case, the act
was so clearly an authentic expression of this man’s personal conviction
that it was accepted virtually without comment.
The creation of new materials within these media is very
desirable. Art created originally within this community will have
a relevance and consequent power that the most carefully selected
older materials do not. At the same time, it must be conceded that
Archbishop Cranmer and Cantor Bach were better at collects and chorales
respectively than we are likely to be, and that old art comes to us
pre-tested, a substantial advantage in liturgy where the amount of
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99 -
acceptable experimentation is not fundamentally great. The most success¬
ful liturgies appear to hold new and old materials in delicate balance,
but this is obviously more of a problem in a culture whose watchword is
novelty, but which is discovering wholesale the art treasures of the
past.
1. The Office Services
For reasons noted above, these services follow the encounter
pattern of the sixth chapter of Isaiah. They are outwardly structured
in the form of John Wes ley ’s order of worship for morning prayer, some¬
thing of a Trojan horse maneuver; the assumption was that an otherwise
unfamiliar service would be more acceptable to a predominantly Methodist
community if the sense of historical appreciation could be coupled to
that of liturgical awareness. Actually, so many of the details have
been changed that the service is quite different from Wesley f s; the
apologia at its conclusion rather coyly states that the service has
been "taken from” Wesley without specifying the great amount of material
left behind.
The deception is not a fundamental one, however, for Wesley’s
service is very soundly based on the pattern in Isaiah, as are the
Roman and Anglican offices which are its immediate ancestry. The adap¬
tation consisted of condensing the awareness and confession into one
section, the communication from God to man into a second, and man’s
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- 100 -
response into a third. This gives a highly symmetrical form to
the service, and permits a great deal of assymetry within each
section by way of counterpoint.
The form of the first section followed the narrative
action as economically as possible, out of consideration of the
twenty-odd minutes available for the entire service. The prelude
serves as preparation for worship; essentially non-liturgical, it
functions much like the architectural features in providing a
context for liturgy. The call to worship is a poetic statement
expressing the sense of God f s presence and holiness. The confession
is prefaced by a call to confession, partly because the pattern of
call-confession-pardon has formal and dialogic interest, partly
because in contemporary liberal Protestantism a confession is
sufficiently unfamiliar to demand some kind of explanation. The
confession is a unison prayer designed more to express the sense
of alienation and incompleteness than to provide a complete catalog
of depravities. The absolution completes this part of the action,
and yet it really does not; it is the high point of this section,
and yet it is not a satisfactory conclusion. The old liturgies
solve this problem brilliantly by having all present say the Lord f s
Prayer, which permits the entire group to conclude the section, and
yet sustains the level of feeling established earlier, and if anything.
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- 101 -
enhances it. Although there is no real theological reason for its
position, it is aesthetically very useful, for'it forms a very
emphatic and satisfactory conclusion to the first section.
One could proceed directly to the reading of Scripture, which
is the normal way in which the word of God is spoken to the congre¬
gation, but the effect is abrupt in the extreme. The sense of
emotional tension has reached a peak in the Lord's Prayer, and
finds ahnost complete relaxation as the section ends, one of the
major contributions of the simple three-part form. But this increasing
tension and relaxation have provided an ideal preparation, indeed
the only possible preparation, for reaching even greater heights
in the next section. We must build back slowly, however, and here
again the tradition has demonstrated its instinct for these matters
by providing a brief dialog and a psalm as the opening of the second
section. These lead very naturally to the reading from the Bible,
which is to be the central act of the entire narrative. It would
seem that one lesson at this point, set in solitary splendor, would
be very impressive, and so it would. But a further climax is possible,
by having two lessons in increasing importance: a lesson from the
Old Testament or Epistles, followed by a lesson from the Gospels,
A hymn between the two not only increases congregational participation
in this section, but also sets off the second readi n g even more than
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- 102 -
otherwise possible by providing a very slight relaxation of tension
just before the final movement to the climax* The climax is very
definitely reached as the congregation rises to hear the Gospel ,
and stands facing the leader during its reading* Some form of
congregational response to this is necessary, and the traditional
creeds, condensed versions of the Gospel,.are ideal. The witness
to the Word, if conceived as outlined above, provides a very
fitting close to the section, carrying to the end the theme of
the high point, and yet allowing some relaxation of the emotional
level*
Again, the tradition has provided us with a low-gear beginning
for the third section in the form of a dialog between leader and
congregation* The collects that follow ought preferably to be cast
in the form of bidding prayers, and arranged both topically and
emotionally to produce a climax* The placement of the Doxology
in the service reflects an early stage of planning when it was
thought useful to symbolize the narrative action of this section
by an actual offering of money. After this practice was dropped, the
hymn remained as eloquent testimony to the power of the printed page
to fix matters both good and bad in liturgy. As it stands, the
Doxology is inevitably the high point of this section.and the prayer
of general thanksgiving part of the gentle downward slope to the
end, although it would probably be better to omit the Doxology and
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-103-
all ow the prayer of thanksgiving to serve as climax > an adjustment
31
which might well be made in a further revision. Finally, the hymn
and benediction conclude the narrative action and bring the larger
form of the service to a natural close.
The similarity between this service and the Prayer Book offices
is a striking illustration of the ability of tradition to select and
preserve expressively useful forms; that which is useful is repeated,
that which is not, abandoned. The differences, on the other hand,
demonstrate that in the past liturgy has been expected to serve other
than expressive purposes, and that taste in the embellishment of art
changes somewhat more rapidly than do prescribed liturgies. These
changes appear to have given a traditional form renewed vitality in
our community, however, and have the added virtue of being securely
founded on comprehensible artistic and theological principles, which
regrettably is something of a rarity;-in the area of liturgical reform.
2. Communion Services
As noted above, the Communion service is more a special event
than a regular occurrence in most Protestant circles, and therefore
seems to require a more elaborate format. We chose the Episcopal
order for Holy Communion, which possessed the dual virtues of a
great deal of language very familiar to Methodists, an advantage
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-104-
where there would not be enough repetition to permit the community
to become familiar with new material, and yet where on the other hand
unfamiliar forms would be worse than useless, and yet had an aes¬
thetically workable structure. The two-part structure of the entire
service is very useful in sustaining the flow of emotion in so very
long and complex a service, and yet because both sections contribute
progressively to a single narrative action, the totality is experienced
as a whole and not as two separate services. It will be noted that the
first half of the service is nothing but a condensation of the first
two sections of morning prayer, with the subsitution of a collect for
the Lord f s Prayer, dialog, and psalm. This shortens the section consider¬
ably, with only a moderate loss of smoothness at the join. The second
section starts nearly at ground level all over again, builds through
a series of collects and hymns to the climax of the entire service in
the reception of the elements, and moves slowly back down through a
hymn and unison prayer to the conclusion at the benediction. Here the
descent is much slower and more carefully arranged than in the office,
which is appropriate in view of the nature of the high point. Again,
the service is very similar to those of the tradition, but the materials
are selected with the intention of producing a more efficient expressive
form.
Much later in the school year, the success of the offices
encouraged the attempt to construct and observe a weekly communion
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-105
service based on the same principles as the office* Because this
was not a festival service, and because it was to last twenty
minutes, the bifurcated arrangement of the other service was not
useful and an entirely new service was constructed by Wayne Dalton
and the writer. This, too, began with the elements of morning prayer,
but no transition was provided between the Lord’s Prayer and the
single lesson, producing an abruptness of motion which we nay try
to remedy in a further revision. For the same reason, the extreme
limitation of time, the creed was omitted as well. These omissions
may be regretted for many reasons, but they served to subordinate
the service of the word to the Supper proper, and made the transition
between the two very smooth in consequence. The section beginning with
the prayer of intercession follows reasonably accurately the narrative
action of the longer service, but only essential details remain, and
these are compressed about as far as they can be. Much of poetic value
is lost in this process, but on the other hand, much is gained by the
swiftness, clarity, and economy with which the narrative is articulated.
The conclusion is quite rapidly achieved, perhaps too much so, but
the service is aesthetically very functional, and does indeed last
only twenty minutes, even with a substantial witness to the Word and
the serving of a reasonable number of communicants.
3. Other Services
The only other major service of interest to us here is the
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Festival of Lessons and Carols, an inherited Christmas tradition
at the School of Theology. Its narrative action is quite different
from the other services we have considered, being very self-conscious¬
ly the recitation of sections of the Bible dealing in order with the
Incarnation, with spaces provided between each reading for an anthem
or a carol suitable to each lesson. This, of course, is the form
Bach perfected in the Christmas Oratorio and in the Passion , and
is quite effective from an aesthetic point of view. Its symmetry
is moderately appalling, but it can be varied by switching about
anthems and carols after each lesson, and at least it does move
inevitably to a climax* Its most serious weakness is its arty
narrative action; where other structures promise encounter with
God, this one proposes little more than to read the Bible and
sing some hymns. In an attempt to spice it up a bit, the natural
tendency is to add more elaborate carols. As soon as these become
too difficult for the congregation, a process which does not take
at all long, a service which was dangerously leader-centered in the
first place becomes dominantly so, and the result is more honestly
described as a concert with prayers at each end. This is the road
we have taken; since the Bach Oratorio has precisely the same formal
structure as the Festival, it provides the most splendid possible
anthems to place between the lessons; at the same time, a service
with this much non-congregational music would have to be seven or
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-107-
eight hours long to maintain any kind of proportion between congre¬
gational participation and performance elements. It is, however, an
excellent example of the kind of special choral programs suggested
above; a disaster if offered as regular Sunday morning worship, it
is a fine experience as an occasional supplement to a regular diet
of worship.
C. Commentary on Specific Services
We have dealt above with the larger formal aspects of liturgy
understood as a group-centered expressive form; now we turn to the
consideration of thirteen individual liturgies composed during the
school year 1965-1966 for use by the community. In the case of each
basic type, the.same structure was retained throughout the year
to assist the group in becoming familiar with its pattern, so that
the commentary following each liturgy will concern itself with the
component parts forming each structure, rather than the structure
itself. The services considered will include six offices of morning
prayer, two of evening prayer, and four communion services. The
bulletin of the Sixth Annual Festival of Lessons and Carols is
included at the end, the black sheep of this liturgical family.
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• 108 '
la. Ferial
Horning Prayer
i
j
The Order of Morning Worship
I. The Service of Confession
Prelude
Introit
The Invitation to Confession
The Prayer of General Confession :
ALMIGHTY GOD OUR FATHER, WHO BY THY LOVE HAST
MADE US, AND THROUGH’ THY LOVE HAST KEPT US,
AND IN THY LOVE WOUEDST MAKE US PERFECT; WE
HUMBLY CONFESS THAT’ WE HAVE NOT LOVED THEE
WITH ALL OUR HEART AND SOUL AND MIND AND
STRENGTH, AND THAT WE HAVE NOT LOVED ONE
ANOTHER AS CHRIST HATH LOVED US. THY LIFE
IS WITHIN OUR SOULS, BUT OUR SELFISHNESS
HATH HINDERED THEE.- WE HAVE NOT LIVED BY
FAITH. WE HAVE RESISTED THY SPIRIT. WE
HAVE NEGLECTED THINE INSPIRATIONS. FORGIVE
WHAT WE HAVE BEEN; HELP US TO AMEND WHAT WE
ARE; AND IN THY SPIRIT DIRECT WHAT WE SHALL
BECOME, THAT THOU MAYEST COME INTO THE FULL
GLORY OF THY CREATION, IN US AND IN ALL MEN;
THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD. AMEN.
The Prayer of Absolution :
Almighty God our heavenly Father, who of thy
great mercy hath promised forgiveness of sins
to all those who with hearty repentance and
true faith turn unto him, have mercy upon us;
pardon and deliver us from all our sins; con¬
firm and strengthen us in all goodness; and
bring us to everlasting life; through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.
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109'
OUR FATHER, WHO ART IN HEAVEN, HALLOWED BE
THY NAME. THY KINGDOM COME. THY WILL BE
DONE, ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN. GIVE US
THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD. AND FORGIVE US OUR
TRESPASSES, AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS
AGAINST US. AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION,
BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL. FOR THINE IS THE
KINGDOM, AND THE POWER, AND THE GLORY, FOR
EVER AND EVER. AMEN.
II. The Service of the Word
The people standing
0 Lord, open thou our lips.
AND OUR MOUTH SHALL SHOW FORTH THY PRAISE.
Glory he to the Father, and to the Son, and
to the Holy Ghost;
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING, IS NOW, AND EVER
SHALL BE, WORLD WITHOUT END. AMEN.
Praise ye the Lord.
THE LORD’S NAME BE PRAISED.
The First Hymn
The First Lesson The people seated
The Jubilate Deo ; The people standing
0 he joyful in the Lord, all ye lands;
SERVE THE LORD WITH GLADNESS, AND COME INTO
HIS PRESENCE WITH A SONG.
Be ye sure that the Lord he is God; it is he
that hath made us, and not we ourselves;
WE ARE HIS PEOPLE, AND THE SHEEP OF HIS
PASTURE.
0 go your way into his gates with thanks¬
giving, and into his courts with praise;
BE THANKFUL UNTO HIM, AND SPEAK GOOD OF HIS
NAME.
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- 110 -
For the Lord is gracious; his mercy is
everlasting;
AND HIS TRUTH ENDURETH FROM GENERATION TO
GENERATION.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Ghost;
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING, IS NOW, AND
EVER SHALL BE, WORLD WITHOUT END. AMEN.
The Second Lesson The people seated
The Second Hymn The people standing
The Apostle*s Creed :
I BELIEVE IN GOD THE FATHER AIMIGHTY,
MAKER OF HEAVEN AND EARTH: AND IN JESUS
CHRIST HIS ONLY SON OUR LORD: WHO WAS
CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY GHOST, BORN OF THE
VIRGIN MARY: SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS
PILATE, WAS CRUCIFIED, DEAD, AND BURIED:
HE DESCENDED INTO HELL; THE THIRD DAY HE
ROSE AGAIN FROM THE DEAD : HE ASCENDED
INTO HEAVEN, AND SITTETH ON THE RIGHT
HAND OF GOD THE FATHER AIMIGHTY: FROM
THENCE HE SHALL COME TO JUDGE THE' QUICK
AND THE DEAD. I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY
GHOST: THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH; THE
COMMUNION OF SAINTS: THE FORGIVENESS OF
SINS; THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY: AND
THE LIFE EVERIASTING. AMEN.
The people may be seated.
Here may be given a witness to the Word,
should the Minister so desire.
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•Ill-
Ill. The Service of Offering
The Lord he with you.
AMD WITH THY SPIRIT.
Let us pray. 0 Lord, show thy mercy upon us,
AMD GRANT US THY SALVATION.
0 God, make clean our hearts within us,
AMD TAKE NOT THY HOLT SPIRIT PROM US.
The Collects for the Day
The Offertory and Doxology :
PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSINGS PLOW;
PRAISE HIM, ALL CREATURES HERE BELOW;
PRAISE HIM ABOVE, IE HEAVENLY HOST;
PRAISE FATHER, SON, AND HOLY GHOST.
AMEN.
The General Thanksgiving :
AIMIGHTY GOD, FATHER OF ALL MERCIES, WE,
THINE UNWORTHY SERVANTS, DO GIVE THEE MOST
HUMBLE AMD HEARTY THANKS FOR ALL THY GOODNESS
AMD LOVINGKINDNESS TO US, AND TO ALL MEN. WE
BLESS THEE FOR OUR CREATION, PRESERVATION,
AND ALL THE BLESSINGS OF THIS LIFE; BUT ABOVE
ALL, FOR THINE INESTIMABLE LOVE IN THE REDEMP¬
TION OF THE WORLD BY OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST;
FOR THE MEANS OF GRACE, AND FOR THE HOPE OF
GLORY. AMD, WE BESEECH THEE, GIVE US THAT
DUE SENSE OF ALL THY MERCIES, THAT OUR HEARTS
MAY BE UNFEIGNEDLY THANKFUL; AND THAT WE SHOW
FORTH THY PRAISE, NOT ONLY WITH OUR LIPS, BUT
IN OUR LIVES, BY GIVING UP OUR SELVES TO THY
SERVICE, AND BY WALKING BEFORE THEE IN HOLI¬
NESS AMD RIGHTEOUSNESS ALL OUR DAYS; THROUGH
JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD, TO WHOM, WITH THEE AND
THE HOLY GHOST, BE ALL HONOR AND GLORY, WORLD
WITHOUT END. AMEN.
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- 112 -
The peace of God which passeth all understand¬
ing, keep your hearts and minds in the know¬
ledge and love of God and of his Son Jesus
Christ our Lord: And the blessing of God
Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost, be amongst you, and remain with you
always. AMEN.
Postlude
The Order of Morning Worship is taken from
John Wesley’s The Sunday Service of the
Methodists in North America, which in turn
is the Order of Morning Prayer of the Church
of England. • This, in turn, is based on
Archbishop Cranmer's conflation of the Roman
offices of Lauds and Matins, and thus repre¬
sents the tradition of the oldest Western
liturgies.
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113-
la* Ferial Morning Prayer
This service was written with the Worship Committee in July
and August of 1965, and used in the School of Theology Chapel from
September 24, 1965 through November 26, 1965. Although other services
after this pattern had been used from time to time previously, its
introduction marked a turning point in School worship, for now for
the first time, a fixed pattern of worship was established for the
entire school year*
The prelude was selected by the pianist and the introit by
the leader, both on the basis of the season of the church year
then being observed* The introit was at first simply a selection
of Biblical material which underlined the sense of the presence of
God, but it was found that this was not completely satisfactory.
A rather vigorous hymn of praise was added after the introit and
before the call to confession during the use of this liturgy, and
this was found to be a better beginning for the service*
The calls to confession originally suggested were the two
variants offered by the 1928 Book of Common Prayer * Neither of these
were completely satisfactory, one being too long and hopelessly prosaic,
although it did contain an excellent summary statement of the narrative
action of the service, and the other too short and equally prosaic.
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-114-
A workable solution was created by adapting the Anglican practice of
reading St# Matthew 22:37-40 as a call to contrition at the very out¬
set of the Eucharist, The prayer of confession was a serious problem *
for it was to be useful to a community which did not find prayers of
confession particularly congenial# The prayer which was finally selected
was the most highly formal of the genre, one whose - " broad and gen¬
eral understanding of sin, very pronounced symmetry, and pleasing echo
of the call to confession made it an aesthetically^ attractive form. It
might be observed that if the narrative action is to function as effect¬
ively as possible at this point, a considerably less jolly piece of work
is required, but this prayer was accepted and used without question.
Later revisions of this service used considerably more darkly expressive
prayers of confession, and were received without comment, evidence that
the first version had served its purpose. The ensuing statement of ab¬
solution is another traditional form, but here twisted around to be a
petition for absolution including the leader, rather than the more fam¬
iliar declaration. This also weakens the narrative action at this point,
but was thought to be an important concession to those who would regard
a declaration of forgiveness the next thing to popery, the clear witness
of the Hew Testament and Martin Luther on this point notwithstanding.
The ideal conclusion to this first section is the Lord f s Prayer,
a completely group-centered form which in this context subtly suggests
that having heard the words of forgiveness and acceptance, we can pray
"Our Father.It was sung as often as possible, in a setting which was
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-115-
derived from a very ancient plainchant. Plainchant as such still
3 Z
has what Routley describes as strong "political connotations,” but
it is also for many reasons the ideal musical style for congrega¬
tional singing of non-metrical texts, and we counted on the com¬
munity^ strong interest in all things musical to carry the issue.
And it did; a large percentage of the music used in all the services
is plainchant, and once the period of initial unfamiliarity was
past, nothing but positive comments were heard about it. Plainchant
holds the group together in its unison prose, and yet unlike virtu¬
ally all other styles of music, does not submerge the text, a com¬
bination ideal for many parts of the liturgy.
The dialog which opens the second section also was sung, where
other sections of the service also were sung. But nothing reveals the
transitional character of this dialog more clearly than singing it
in an otherwise spoken service. It is neither long enough nor sub¬
stantial enough to pass for a hymn, and yet singing it by itself
places it in a formal context where it must function as such. We
quickly discovered that it was far better spoken, save in choral
services. The first hymn was conceived of as an act of praise,
subordinate to and leading up to the first lesson. Many of the
older liturgies, including the nominal ancestor of this one, place
a psalm here. This was well and good when the Psalter was indeed the
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-116-
hymnbook of the Christian church, but since the sixteenth century
a new hymnody has been created which more than rivals the Psalter
in splendor, and we consequently used psalms and hymns interchangeab¬
ly in all the services. The lessons were chosen from several lection-
aries, but the Tuesday services always used the epistle, gospel, and
collect from the preceding Sunday, which effectively related the
daily narrative action to the larger dramatic pattern of the church
year. The ”Jubilate Deo 11 was sung to a psalm tone; here, following
the tradition proved a distinct hazard, for in this particular location,
the flow of the service requires the hymn to be more related to one or
both of the lessons than a fixed psalm could be. Actually, it is a
very rare psalm or hymn which holds up well under very frequent
repetition, at least in contemporary America; eventually, the fixed
psalm was abandoned altogether in these services without any sense
of loss. Its greatest usefulness may have been in a time when musical
literacy was far less widespread, and the possibility of using a
wide variety of hymns simply non-existent. But in as musically aware
a community as the School, the regular appearance of new hymns does
not constitute a hazard to worship, and does add considerable richness
to the experience. However, the demand for three or four hymns four
days a week brought into high relief the many inadequacies of the
33
old Methodist Hymnal , and it was necessary to substitute for it the
Episcopal Hymnal 194of ^his, although by far the best of the denomin-
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-117*
ational hymnbooks in terms of the range and quality of its materials ,
is not really adequate for our purpose either; a reasonable estimate
would be that nearly half of its contents are not worth the time
needed to sing them for a community of any aesthetic or theological
sensitivity* 3ut at the moment, nothing better is available except
the school hymnals, all of which have been edited so far from the
mainstream of the church’s life as to be precious and of little use
in worship*
The community’s response to the reading of the gospel in the
narrative action has traditionally been the public confession of the
faith in the form of one of the historic creeds. Our inclusion of the
Apostles’ Creed at this point, however, caused more controversy than
any other aspect of the service. This resulted from some reading the
Creed as a literal, discursive statement, which it must be admitted
is very easy to do. Obviously, no literal statement could be composed
that would satisfy all members of the community, nor would such a state¬
ment be appropriate as part of an expressive form; it therefore seemed
necessary either to replace the creed with some other group expressive
form, such as a hymn or thanksgiving, or to educate the community to
look upon the creed as a symbol expressive of traditional Christian
experience rather than a blueprint of ultimate reality. We chose the
latter course, but were not notably successful at it, particularly
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- 118 -
with those members of the community whose success at fitting their
experience into a given system makes it very difficult for them to
interpret present experience according to any other pattern, a fine
example of the curse of the perceptual screen.
The witness to the Word was to be a very brief, personal state¬
ment at to the significance of the Gospel lesson, as noted above. It is
an interesting commentary on the state of preaching today in Protestant
circles, however, that no one attempted this; those whose sense of form
demanded something at this point contented themselves with reading brief
passages ^rom books pertinent to the lesson; everyone else omitted the
witness altogether. This suggests that to a generation inclined to look
upon the sermon as a baptized Ciceronean oration, brief forms are threat¬
ening, and personal statements even more so.
The dialog opening the third section was sung if the analogous one
which opens the second section had also been sung. This turned out to be
a misplaced piece of symmetry; the transition from sung dialog to sung
Psalm was very workable, but that from sung dialog to spoken collect was
not, since the effect of moving from music to poetry is too often anti-
climactic, and no one was ready to sing the collects. The selection of
these and the use of the Doxology have been treated above; it remains
only to note that the prayer of general thanksgiving, while more than
a trifle baroque, manages to provide an impressive and authentic climax
to this section; later attempts to replace it with something a little less
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-119-
grand lose never succeeded in finding anything of sufficient emotional
weight for this position. The blessing, that of the Episcopal commun¬
ion service, extends the mood and style of the thanksgiving, and a
hymn was normally interpolated immediately after it, thus concluding
the service as it had begun.
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120 -
lb. Advent Morning Prayer
®L3 ORDER OF MORNING WORSHIP
ADVENT 1965
Introit: The Advent Antiphons
(Nov. 30) 0 come, 0 come Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here.
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, 0 Israel!
(Dec. 3) 0 come, thou Wisdom from on high.
Who ord'rest all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
And teach us in her ways to go. (Refrain)
(Dec. 7) Come, 0 come, thou Lord of might.
Who to thy tribes on Sinai's height
In ancient times did give the law,
In cloud and majesty and awe. (Refrain)
(Dec. 10) 0 come, thou Rod of Jesse's stem,
Prom every foe deliver them
That trust thy mighty power to save.
And give them vie'try o'er the grave. (Refrain)
(Dec. H) 0 come, thou Dayspring from on high,
And cheer us by thy drawing nigh;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death's dark shadow put to flight. (Refrain)
(Dec. 17) 0 come. Desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind;
Bid thou our sad divisions cease.
And be thyself our King of Peace. (Refrain)
The Invitation to Confession
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The Prayer of General Confession : ALMIGHTY GOD, FATHER
OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, MAZER OF ALL THINGS, JUDGE OF
ALL MEN; WE ACKNOWLEDGE AND BEWAIL OUR MANIFOLD SINS AND
WICKEDNESS, WHICH WE FROM TIME TO TIME MOST GRIEVOUSLY
HAVE COMMITTED, BY THOUGHT, WORD, AND DEED, AGAINST THY
DIVINE MAJESTY, PROVOKING MOST JUSTLY THY WRATH AND IN¬
DIGNATION AGAINST US. WE DO EARNESTLY REPENT, AND ARE
HEARTILY SORRY FOR THESE OUR MISDOINGS; THE REMEMBRANCE
OF THEM IS GRIEVOUS UNTO US; THE BURDEN OF THEM IS IN¬
TOLERABLE. HAVE MERCY UPON US, HAVE MERCY UPON US, MOST
MERCIFUL FATHER; FOR THY SON OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST'S
SAKE, FORGIVE US ALL THAT IS PAST; AND GRANT THAT WE
MAY EVER HEREAFTER SERVE AND PLEASE THTTO IN NEWNESS OF
LIFE, TO THE HONOR AND GLORY OF THY NAME; THROUGH
JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD. AMEN.
The Kyrie Eleison
The Prayer of Absolution (The people may respond, AMEN.)
The Lord's Prayer
THE SERVICE OF THE WORD
(The people standing)
0 Lord, open thou our lips.
AND OUR MOUTH SHALL SHOW FORTH THY PRAISE.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Ghost;
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING, IS NOW, AND EVER SHALL BE,
WORLD WITHOUT END. AMEN.
Praise ye the Lord.
THE LORD’S NAME BE PRAISED.
The Venite
0 come, let us sing u^to me / Lord;
Let us heartily rejoice in the strength of / our salvation.
Let us come before his presence with thanks/giving;
And show ours elve s /glad in him with psalms.
For the Lord is a great / God;
And a great King / above all gods.
In his hand are all the corners of the / earth;
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- 122 -
And the strength of the hills / is his also.
The sea is his for he / made it;
And his hands pre/pared the dry land.
0 worship the Lord in the "beauty of / holiness;
Let the whole earth / stand in awe of him.
For he cometh, for he cometh to judge the / earth;
And with righteousness to judge the world, and the
/peoples with his truth.
Glory be to the Father and to the / Son,
And/to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever /shall be,
World / without end. Amen.
The First Lesson (The people seated)
The First Hymn (The people standing)
The Second Lesson (The people standing)
The Historic Symbol of our Faith : I believe in one God
THE FATHER ALMIGHTY, MAKER OF HEAVEN AND EARTH, AND OF
ALL THINGS VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE: AND IN ONE LORD JESUS
CHRIST, THE ONLY-BEGOTTEN SON OF GOD; BEGOTTEN OF HIS
FATHER BEFORE ALL WORLDS, GOD OF GOD, LIGHT OF LIGHT,
VERY GOD OF VERY GOD; BEGOTTEN, NOT MADE, BEING OF ONE
SUBSTANCE WITH THE FATHER; BY WHOM ALL THINGS WERE MADE:
WHO FOR US MEN AND FOR OUR SALVATION CAME DOWN FROM HEA¬
VEN, AND WAS INCARNATE BY THE HOLY GHOST OF THE VIRGIN
MARY, AND WAS MADE MAN; AND WAS CRUCIFIED ALSO FOR US
UNDER PONTIUS PILATE; HE SUFFERED AND WAS BURIED; AND
THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURES:
AND ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN, AND SITTETH ON THE RIGHT EuliD
OF THE FATHER: AND HE SHALL COME AGAIN WITH GLCRY TO
JUDGE BOTH THE QUICK AND THE DEAD; WHOSE KINGDOM SHALL
HAVE NO END. AND I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY GHOST, THE LORD,
AND GIVER OF LIFE, WHO FROCBEDETH FROM THE FATHER AND
• THE SON; WHO WITH THE FATHER AND SON TOGETHER IS WOR¬
SHIPPED AND GLORIFIED; WHO SPAKE BY THE PROPHETS: AND
I BELIEVE ONE CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH: I ACKNOW¬
LEDGE ONE BAPTISM FOR.THE REMISSION OF SINS: AND I LOOK
FOR THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD, AND THE LIFE OF THE
WORLD TO COME. AMEN.(Here may the people be seated)
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!
r
i
Here may be given a witness to the Word.
THE SERVICE OF OFFERING
The lord be with you. AND WITH THY SPIRIT. Let us pray:
0 Lord, show thy mercy upon us. AND GRANT US THY SALVATION
0 God, make clean our hearts within us,
AND HAKE NOT THY HOLY SPIRIT FROM US.
The Collects for the Day (To which the people may respond.
The Offertory Collect AMEN.)
The Doxology (The people standing)
The Prayer of General Tha nksgiving : ALMIGHTY GOD, FATHER
OF ALL MERCIES, WE, THINE UNWORTHY SERVANTS, DO GIVE THEE
MOST HUMBLE AND HEARTY THANES FOR ALL THY GOODNESS AND
LOVING-KINDNESS TO US AND TO ALL MEN. WE BLESS THEE FOR
OUR CREATION, PRESERVATION, AND ALL THE BLESSINGS OF THIS
LIFE; BUT ABOVE AIL, FOR THINE INESTIMABLE LOVE IN THE
REDEMPTION OF THE WORLD BT OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST; FOR THE
MEANS OF GRACE, AND FOR THE HOPE OF GLORY. AND WE BESEECH
THEE, GIVE US THAT DUE SENSE OF ALL THY MERCIES, THAT OUR
HEARTS MAY BE UNFEIGNEDLY THANKFUL; AND THAT WE MAY SHOW
FORTH THY PRAISE, NOT ONLY WITH OUR LIPS, BUT IN OUR LIVES
BY GIVING UP' OUR SELVES TO THY SERVICE, aND BY WALKING
BEFORE THEE IN HOLINESS AND RIGHTEOUSNESS ALL OUR DAYS;
THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD, TO WHOM, WITH THEE AND
THE HOLY SPIRIT, BE ALL HONOR AND GLORY, WORLD WITHOUT
END. AMEN.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us a31
evermore. AMEN.
The Second Hymn
The Order of Morning Worship is taken from John Wesley's
The Sunday Service of the Methodists in North America,
which is essentially the Order of Morning Prayer of the
Church of England. This, in turn, is based on Archbishop
Cranmer's conflation of the Roman offices of Lauds and
Matins, and thus represents the tradition of the oldest
Western liturgies. Its music is an'cient plainchant.
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- 124 -
lb. Advent Morning Prayer
As the year progressed, alterations were made in the morning
service, partly to secure the advantages of moderate variety, mostly
to relate the action to the larger patterns of the church year and its
celebration of the Christian pattern of human redemption. As introit
during the Advent season, for instance, the John Mason Neale trans¬
lation of a medieval office hymn was used, one verse per service as
was the medieval pattern. The prayer of general confession was changed
to that of the Episcopal communion service, which while retaining much
of the formal beauty of its predecessor, conveys a much more serious
and penitential mood, appropriate both to the season of Advent and to
the community's growing appreciation of confession as part of worship.
Immediately after the confession was interpolated the nine-fold Kyrie
eleison in a plainchant setting, primarily to expand and strengthen
the mood of the confession and its relative weight in the service
during Advent. It also served the pragmatic function of enlarging the
group's repertory of plainsong, adding not only an unusually beautiful
chant, but one which is part of the setting of the festival communion
service.
In order to permit the first hymn to serve as bridge between
the lessons, its location was reversed with that of the psalm. The
psalm chosen, and still fixed, was the "Vehite," which with its
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- 125 -
impressive reference to the coming of God to judge the earth,
strongly reinforces the double theme of Advent, The Apostle f s
Creed was replaced by the Nicene, in the hope that the latter’s
more poetic language would assist the community in reading it
symbolically. To our dismay, we also discovered that it contains
a great deal more discursively debatable material, which eventually
forced a retreat to the Apostle’s Creed. However, the brevity of
the latter does seem more appropriate to the shape and length of the
office, just as the Nicene is to the much larger structure of the
festival communion service. This illustrates the futility of twiddling
with aesthetic judgments the tradition has already passed.
In the third section, the invariable first collect throughout
the season was the great collect for the first Sunday in Advent. Its
presence offered some difficulties in maintaining a sense of climax
(it is, as collects go, a hard act to follow), but it also strengthened
the relationship of this third section to the seasonal theme, and
discouraged the use of lame or unimaginative collects simply by its
unavoidable presence at the head of the group. The blessing was
replaced by a more subdued cousin, again in keeping with the season,
and the last hymn found its way into the rubrics, after the bene¬
diction, where it does not interrupt the flow between thanksgiving
and blessing, and forms a strong conclusion to the service.
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lc. Epiphany Morning Prayer
THE ORDER OF MORNING WORSHIP
EPIPHANY . 1966
Prelude
The First Hymn (The people standing)
The Invitation to Confession (The people seated)
The Prayer of General Confession :
ALMIGHTY AND MOST MERCIFUL FATHER: WE HAVE ERRED AND
STRAYED FROM THY WAYS T.TTCB LOST SHEEP. WE HAVE FOLLOWED
TOO MUCH THE DEVICES AND DESIRES OF OUR OWN HEARTS. WE
HAVE OFF ENDED AGAINST! THY HOLY LAWS. WE HAVE LEFT UNDONE
THOSE THINGS WHICH WE OUGHT TO HAVE DONE: AND WE HAVE
DONE THOSE THINGS WHICH WE OUGHT NOT TO HAVE DONE: AND
THERE IS NO WHOLENESS IN US. BUT THOU, 0 LORD, HAVE
MERCY UPON US, MISERABLE OFFENDERS. SPARE THOU THOSE,
0 GOD, WHO CONFESS THEIR FAULTS. RESTORE THOU THOSE
WHO ARE PENITENT, ACCORDING TO THY PROMISES DECLARED
UNTO MANKIND IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD. AND GRANT, 0
MOST MERCIFUL FATHER, FOR HIS SAKE, THAT WE MAY HERE¬
AFTER LIVE A GODLY, RIGHTEOUS, AND SOBER LIFE, TO THE
GLORY OF THY HOLY NAME. AMEN.
Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
desirest not the death of a sinner, but rather that he
may turn from his wickedness and live, doth pardon and
absolve all those who truly repent, and unfeigaedly
believe his holy Gospel. Wherefore let us beseech him
to grant us true repentance, and his Holy Spirit, that
those things may please him which we do at this present;
and that the rest of our life hereafter may be pure and
holy; so that at the last we may come to his eternal joy;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.
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Let us-pray.' And 'nroyateoarSaviogr Ofet tefetanght ns..we are bold to say,
thy_Name. Thy king--dom come- Thy will be done,—
On earth as it_‘ Is~ 1rr~hea=Yenr Give - -as" -this day-war
: dai-ly bread. Andrfor-ghre ns oar tres-pass-es^ - As
jl'"'f*; 'we^. toX-g$re those who “tres-pass^ a-galnst - us. lAnd lead
1 ~.'a r lislp.r.is- _ t - -■>'
.-.as not in - to temp-ta^-tion, But de-llv'-er as' from
c - vil. For thine isthe Jdng-doin,^ And the power; and
t A *'*. . .■■ 4 »*• *_
the grlo - ry, for ev - er and. ev - er. A - men™
• . ° . r . 7 * ; • -.bpr.*' / ^• * ; • * T
; THE SERVICE OP THE - WORD J : *
(The peopled standing^Oi''
lift up your hearts. WE LIFT.THEM UP UNTjCL THE LOED. let. us
give.thanks unto our Lpzxl God. IT. IS MEETEIGHT SO- TO DO.
If is very meet, right, .and' our pbxandeh"duty that we should
at all times'and in. all "places give thanks unto Thee, 0 Lord,
Holy Father, Almighty, Everlasting God. Therefore,- with
Angels and Archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we
laud and magnify thy glorious name, evermore praising thee,
and saying.
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-128-
Bless - ed is— he that ^com - eth in the Name
The Second Hymn (The people standing);"
The Second Lesson (The/ people;.remain standing)
The Historic Symbol of our Faith ;
I BELIEVE IN GOD-THE FATHER: ALMIGHTY, MASER OP HEAVEN AND
EARTH: AND IN JESUS CHRIST HIS ONLY SON OUR LORD: 7/HO NAS
CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY GHOST, BORN OF THE VIRGIN ‘MARY:
SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS PILATE, ¥AS CRUCIFIED, DEAD, AND
BURIED.:. HE DESCENDED INTO HELL; THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE
AGAIN FROM THE DEAD: HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN, AND SITTETH
• ON- THE RIGHT HAND'.OF GOD. TIE.. FATHER AIMIGHIY: FROM THENCE
SHALL HE" COME TO JUDGE ..THE QUICK AND THE' DEAD'." I' BELIEVE'
IN THE HOLY GHOST: THE HOLY CATHOLIC' CHURCH: THE COMMUNION
OF SAINTS: THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS: THE RESURRECTION OF-THE
BODY: AND THE LIFE EVERLASTING. AMEN.
Here may be given a witness to the V/ord.
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-129-
1HB SERVICE OT OFFERING
The lord be with you. AND WITH THY SPIRIT, let vis pray:
0 Lord, show thy mercy upon us. AND GRANT US THY SALVA¬
TION. 0 God, make clean our hearts within us, AND TAKE
NOT THY HOLY SPIRIT FROM US.
The Collects for the Daw
The Offertory Collect
The Doxology (The people standing)
The Prayer of General Thanksgiving ;
ALMIGHTY GOD, FATHER OF ALL MEtCIES, WE, THINE UNWORTHY
SERVANTS, DO GIVE THEE MOST HUMBLE AND HEARTY THANKS FOR
ALL THY GOODNESS AND LOVING-KINDNESS TO US AND TO ALL
MEN. WE BLESS THEE FOR OUR CREATION, PRESERVATION, AND
ALL THE BLESSINGS OF THIS LIFE; BUT ABOVE ALL, FOR THINE
INESTIMABLE LOVE IN THE REDEMPTION OF THE WORLD BY OUR
LORD JESUS CHRIST; FOR THE MEANS OF GRACE, AND FOR THE
HOPE OF GLORY. AND, WE BESEECH THEE, GIVE US THAT DUE
SENSE OF ALL THY MERCIES, THAT OUR HEARTS MAY BE UNFEIGN-
EDLY THANKFUL, AND THAI*WE MAX SHOW FORTH THY PRAISE,
NOT ONLY WITH OUR LIPS, BUT IN OUR LIVES, BY GIVING UP
OUR SELVES TO THY SERVICE, AND BY WALKING BEFORE THEE
IN HOLINESS AND RIGHTEOUSNESS ALL OUR DAIS; THROUGH
JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD, TO WHOM WITH THEE AND THE- HOLY •
SPIRIT BE ALL HONOR AND GLORY, WORLD WITHOUT END. AMEN.
The Peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep
your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God,
and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord: and the blessing
of God Almigh ty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy-
Spirit, be amongst you; and remain with you always. AMEN.
The Third Hymn
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1c. Epiphany Morning Prayer
This service, put together during December, 1965, and used
from January 4, 1966, through February 22, 1966. The apparently
inevitable first hymn has found its way into the rubrics, evidence
that a community-centered form most appropriately begins as well as
ends worship. The prayer of confession is by far the most serious
yet in feeling, and relatively unrelieved by formal symmetry. The
absolution is correspondingly more serious, the absolution from the
Episcopal offices, although again turned into a plea rather than a
declaration.
The psalm is here replaced with a magnificent thirteenth century
setting of the Sanctus-Benedictus, very suitable as an act of praise,
but far too impressive for this position; as it turned out, the Sanctus
overshadowed the rest of this section completely and placed the climax
of the entire service much earlier than it would otherwise have come.
As something of a consolation prize, the group did learn another chant,
and one useful in the communion service, but only at the price of raising
the dickens with the structure and flow of the service. Didactic elements
have a necessary place in developing skills in art and liturgy, but they
must be far more carefully introduced into the service than we did, if
at all. Following experimentation in the Advent service, we established
a satisfactory pattern of standing and sitting for this section, one
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131-
that both flowed naturally and had considerable expressive signi¬
ficance* We have not been able to do so for the other two sections,
and probably will not until some provision is made for kneeling in
the Chapel.
The third section returned to its original form, the more
elaborate blessing being restored in this non-penitential season.
It will be noticed that this service makes use of a very signif¬
icant technological advance in using the Xerox process to reproduce
the worship bulletin rather than mimeograph or printing processes
used previously. This permits the reproduction of the service music
in the worship bulletin itself at very moderate cost, even where only
a small number of bulletins are needed. This, in turn, permits far
easier and better participation by the congregation in the singing
of this music than would be the case where a separate sheet or the
hymnbook had to be consulted, and makes the introduction of new mater¬
ial a much simpler problem than otherwise it would be the case. And
where only small numbers of bulletins are prepared, the prospect of
replacing them with revised materials does not seem nearly so apocalyp¬
tic. The number of services and revisions in this series would have
been far smaller had it not been for this process.
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-132-
THB ORDER OF MORNING WORSHIP
LENT . 1966
Prelude
The First Hymn (The people standing)
The Invitation to Confession (The people seated)
The Prayer of General Confession : 0 Lord, Holy and Right¬
eous God, we confess to one another and acknowledge be¬
fore thee, : that we do not fear thee, and that we do not
love thee above all things. We do not delight in prayer,
nor take pleasure in thy Word; we do not really love our
neighbor; we lack the conscience that should accompany
our Christian profession. Our hearts are divided, crossed
by doubts and guilty desires. We accuse ourselves before
thee, 0 God, and we implore thee, whose nature and whose
name is love, to forgive us, and in forgiving, to heal
us, so that in our lives something finally will be
changed. Amen.
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thy_ Name. Thy kingdom come_ Thy will le done,-
dal-iy bread. And for-givc us our tres-pass-es, As
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-134-
we for-g-ive those 'who tres-pass a-gainst os. And lead
os notin-totemp-ta - tlon, Bnt de-liv-er ns from
e - Til. For thine is the king-dom, and the power, and
/ THB SERVICE OF THE WORD
0 lord, open thod.”ourllps^ AJS3J" OUR MOUTH SHALL SHOW FORTH
THY FRAISB. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to
the Holy Ghost, AS IT WAS Iff Tp BEGINNING, IS NOW, AND
EVER SHALL HE, WORLD WITHOUT. END, AMEN. Praise ye the Lord.
THE LORD'S NAME BE PRAISED.
The First Lesson . Hr > .
The Second Hymn {The people standing)'
The Second Lesson (The people, standing)
The Historic Symbol of our Faith s-1 believe in God
THE FATHER ALMIGHTY, MAKER OF HEAVEN AND EARTH: AND IN
JESUS CHRIST HIS-ONLY SON OUR LORD: WHO WAS CONCEIVED BY
THB HOLY GHOST, BORN OF THE VIRGIN MARY: SUFFE R ED UNDER
PONTIUS PILATE., WAS CRUCIFIED, DEAD, AND BURIED: HE DESCEND¬
ED INTO HELL: THE. THIRD DAT HE ROSE AGAIN FROM THE DEAD: HE
ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN, AND SITTETH ON THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD
THE FATHER ALMIGHTY: FROM THENCE HE SHALL COMB TO JUDGE THE
QUICK AND THE DEAD. I BELIEVE IN THB HOLY GHOST: THE HOLY
CATHOLIC CHURCH: THB COMMUNION OF SAINTS: THE FORGIVENESS
' OF SINS: THE RESURRECTION OF THB BODY: AND THE LIFE EVER¬
LASTING. AMEN. (The people may be seated)
Here may be given a witness to the Word.
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. THE SERVICE OF OFFERING
The Lord he with you. AND WITH THY SPIRIT. Let us pray:
0 Lord, show thy mercy upon us. AND GRANT US THY SALVA¬
TION. 0 God, make clean our hearts within us, AND TAKE
NOT THY HOLY SPIRIT FROM US.
The Collects for the Day :
The Agnus Dei :
0_ Lamb— of God,— that_ to • kest a-way the
The Prayer of General Thanksgiving : 0 God, who hast so
greatly loved us, long sought us, and mercif ull y redeemed
us, give us grace that in everything we may yield ourselves,
our wills and our works, a continual thank-offering unto
thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Benediction
The Third Hymn (The people standing)
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-136-
Id. Morning Prayer
This service was assembled during Febru ary, 1966, and used from
February 25, 1966, through April 1, 1966. The prayer of confession used
here was by far the least poetic and most pointed yet. As might have been
expected, it did not stand up at all well under repeated use, even in
Lent, probably because the qualities that are so striking on first
reading prove to be superficial, and the more significant levels of
feeling are barely touched; the prayer talks about guilt, but really
does not express it on a non-discursive level. The Kyrie is back again,
a successful revival from Advent, more successful this time because the
music is printed in the service booklet.
The act of praise normally just before the first lesson has been
omitted, leaving a gap made all the more noticeable by the fact that
the Sanctus-Benedictus had just previously occupied this spot. But in
the very subdued tone of this service, the gap worked aesthetically,
much more than the Sanctus did. The effect is very much like that
obtained by omitting the Gloria in the mass during penitential seasons,
another good example of the aesthetic insight displayed by the tradition.
In place of the Doxology, yet another chant was inserted, and
formed quite naturally an appropriately subdued climax to the section.
With this climax, a far more sober general thanksgiving was possible.
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-137-
one that would probably not work at all well in a less sober and
restrained service. It was created for the new Presbyterian liturgy,
where all of the traditional longer prayers have been broken up into
collects of this approximate length, and where therefore, it would
fit much more naturally. Even so, one may wonder if it can bear the
weight of location to which it is there assigned.
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-138-
le. Eastertide Morning Prayer
THE ORDER OF MORNING WORSHIP
The Prelude
The First Hymn (The people standing)
The Invitatory Antiphon
The CaH to Confession
The Prayer of General Confession (The people seated)
AIMIGHTY GOD OUR FATHER, WHO BT THI LOVE HAST MADE US,
AND THROUGH THI LOVE HAST KEPT US, AND IN THI LOVE
WOULDST MAKE US PERFECT: WE HUMBLY CONFESS THAT WE HAVE
NOT LOVED THEE WITH ALL OUR HEART AND SOUL AND MIND AND
STRENGTH, AND THAT WE HAVE NOT LOVED ONE ANOTHER AS CHRIST
HATH LOVED US. THI LIFE IS IN OUR SOULS, BUT OUR SELFISH¬
NESS EATS WTunuRgn THEE. WE HAVE NOT LIVED BY FAITH. WE
HAVE RESISTED THI SPIRIT. WE HAVE NEGLECTED THINE INSPIR¬
ATIONS. FORGIVE WHAT WE HAVE BEEN; HELP US TO AMEND WHAT
WE ARE; AND IN THI SPIRIT DIRECT WHAT WE SHALL BECOME,
THAT THOU MAIEST COME INTO THE FULL GLORY OF THI CREATION,
IN US AND IN ALL MEN; THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD. AMEN. -
The Prayer for Absolution
The Lord*s Prayer
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-~v and the gk> -ry, for ev-erand ev - er. A-men.
- .At .io-coa ~vn -
THE ggRVTfTB OF CEB ¥QRD
(The people standing)
0 lord, open thou our. lips. AHD
SHOW
ye the Lord. THE LORD'S HAKE BE BRAISED.
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- 140 -
The Psalm
The First Lesson (The people seated) ^
The Third Hvmn (The people standing)
-Sjb
The Second lesson 4-
An H-tatn-r-le Symbol of oar Faith ~
I BELIEVE IS GOD THE FATHER AIMIGHTY, MAZER OF HEAVES
AND EARTH: AND IS JESUS CHRIST HIS ONLY SOS OUR LORD:
WHO WAS CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY GHOST, BORN OF THE VIRGIN
MARY: SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS PILATE, WAS CRUCIFIED, DEAD,
AND BURIED: HE DESCENDED INTO HELL; THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE
AGAIN FROM THE DEAD: HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN, AND SITTETH
OS THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY: FROM THENCE
HE SHALL COME TO JUDGE THE QUICK AND THE DEAD. I BELIEVE
IN THE HOLY GHOST: THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH; THE COMMUN¬
ION OF SAINTS: THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS: THE RESURRECTION
OF THE BODY: AND THE LIFE EVERLASTING. AMEN.
(Here may the people be seated.).'
Here may be given a witness to the Word.
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- 141 -
The Collects for the Day
The Offertory Collect
The Doxology (The people standing)
The Prayer of General Thantesgjying
ALMIGHTY GOD, FATHER OF ALL MERCIES, WE THINE UNWORTHY
SERVANTS DO GIVE THEE MOST HUMBLE AND HEARTY THANES, FOR
ALL THY GOODNESS AND LOVING-KINDNESS TO US AND TO ALL MEN.
WE. BLESS THEE FOR OUR CREATION, PRESERVATION, AND ALL THE
BLESSINGS OF THIS LIFE; BUT ABOVE ALL, FOR THINE INESTIM¬
ABLE LOVE IN THE REDEMPTION OF THE WORLD BY OUR LORD JESUS
CHRIST; FOR THE MEANS OF GRACE, AND FOR THE HOPE OF GLORY.
AND, WE BESEECH THEE, GIVE US THAT DUE SENSE OF ALL THY
MERCIES, THAT OUR HEARTS MAY BE UNFBIGNEDLY THANKFUL; AND
THAT WE SHOW FORTH THY PRAISE NOT ONLY WITH OUR LLPS BUT
IN OUR LIVES, BY GIVING UP OURSELVES TO THY SERVICE, AND
BY WALKING BEFORE THEE IN HOLINESS . AND RIGHTEOUSNESS ALL
OUR DAYS; THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD, TO WHOM, WITH
THEE AND THE HOLY GHOST, BE ALL HONOR AND GLORY, WORLD
WITHOUT END. AMEN.
The Benediction
The Fourth Hymn
The Postlude
This service is the Order for Morning Prayer: prepared By
John Wesley for the Methodist societies in the New World,
and published by him in 1784 under the title, The Sunday
Services of the Methodists in North America . The following
* emendations have been made: The confession has been replaced;
two lines are omitted from the versicles, following the
American BCP; the Te Deum is replaced by a hymn, and the
Benedictus is omitted. Provision for a witness to the Word
is made at the appropriate place. The suffrages have been
made to correspond to the BCP; the Doxology is added to
the Service of Dedication.
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-142-
le. Eastertide Morning Prayer
This service was prepared during the first week of April,
1966, and was in use from April 12, 1966 through April 29, 1966.
It is nothing more than the original Ferial Morning Prayer (dis¬
cussed under la above) retyped to take advantage of the Xerox
process, with the hymns and psalm relocated as .experience had
indicated.
This version of the earlier service proved much more satis¬
factory, partly because its placement of hymns had proved to be the
most workable, and partly because the presence of the service music
in the bulletin itself was of great assistance to the group in using
it. However, it was produced in great haste during Holy Week when it
was realized that the original ferial service, which had not been used
since November of the preceding year, was quite different from the
service that had evolved through its various versions in Advent,
Epiphany, and Lent. The present service, then, was a stopgap measure,
intended to hold matters at the present stage of development while a
more thorough revision could be made. It is perhaps most notable for
its complete statement of derivation at the end, which indicates clearly
just how far from the Wesley pattern it had come to be.
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-143-
If. Revised Ferial Morning Prayer
SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY AT CLAREMONT
THE ORDER FOR MORNING WORSHIP
THE PREPARATION FOR WORSHIP
Prelude
First Hymn. (The people standing)
Opening Sentences and Call to Confession
Silent Meditation (The people seated)
The Prayer of General Confession
AIMIGHTY GOD OUR FATHER, WHO BY THY LOVE HAST MADE US,
AND THROUGH THY LOVE HAST KEPT US, AND IN THY LOVE
WOULDST MAKE US PERFECT: WE HUMBLY CONFESS THAT WE HAVE
NOT LOVED THEE WITH ALL OUR HEART AND SOUL AND MIND AND
STRENGTH, AND THAT WE HAVE NOT LOVED ONE ANOTHER AS CHRIST
HATH LOVED US. THY LIFE IS IN OUR SOUI S-, B UT OUR SELFISH¬
NESS HATS HINDERED THEE. WE HAVE NOT LIVED BY FAITH. WE
HAVE RESISTED THY SPIRIT. WE HAVE NEGLECTED THINE INSPIR¬
ATIONS. FORGIVE WHAT WE HAVE BEEN; HELP US TO AMEND WHAT
WE ARE; AND IN THY SPIRIT DIRECT WHAT WE SHALL BECOME,
THAT THOU MAYEST COME INTO THE FULL GLORY OF THY CREATION,
IN US AND IN ALL MEN; THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD. AMEN.
The Declaration of Forgiveness
The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting.
I declare unto you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ
that we are forgiven.
And now as our Savior Christ hath taught us, we are
hold to say:
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dai-ly bread. And for-give ns our tres-pass-es, As
we for-gire those who trespass, a.-guinst _«s. r -/ And lead
os not in - to' temp - ia - Haiti But . de-lir-er. us from
v:.:i t ./*w. v.vp
e - tB. For thine Is the kinp-donj^ i sxid the powav and
.the glo - nr,; for er - cr end er- tt &jQ j A>men._
THE PROCLAMATION OF- THE WORD -
llhe people standing). • -
0 lord, open thou otirlips. .. . rjj
AND OUR MOUTH SHALL SHOW FORTH THT. PRAISE. ^
Glory be to the Father, and to .the Son, and to the
Holy Ghost, to- aw
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING, IS NOW, AND EVER SHALL HE,
WORLD WITHOUT END. AMEN.
Praise ye the Lord.
THE LORD’S NAME HE PRAISED.
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- 145 -
The Psaim .
The First Lesson. (The people seated) 1
The Third Evan (The people standing)
The Second Lesson
An Historic Symbol of our Faith
I BELIEVE Iff GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY, MAKER OF HEAVEN
AND EARTH: AND IN JESUS CHRIST HIS ONLY SON OUR LORD:
WHO VAS CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY GHOST, BORN OF THE VIRGIN
MARY: SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS PILATE,-.iiaS ,tCRU CIFIED, DEAD,
•AND BURIED: HE DESCENDED TNTO HELL.THE 1 THIRD DAY HE ROSE
; AGAIN FROM THE DBADt^HE 'ASCBHDE D-lN Tb~HSAVEN,' AND SITTETH
TON THE RIGHT HAND "OFfGdDASBE FATHER ALMIGHTY: FROM THENCE
HE SHALL COME TO JUD^THRvQUICK AND- JEHE^DEAD. T; I BELIEVE
IN THE HOLY GHOST*:- THE HCflir CATHOLKT GHtfecH;- 1 , THE COMMUN¬
ION OF SAINTS; THE FOE^VEN^^ OF SINS: THE,RESURRECTION
• OF. THE BODY; AND THB a -LIF& EVERLASTING. AMEN*
Here may the people~he?&eaiife®.T
L -v <•-'
Here nay he given a witness, ? to' the Word.
: THB DEDICATION OF SELF
The Lord he with you.
AND WITH THY SPIRIT.
Let us pray. 0 Lord,, show thy mercy upon us.
^ AND (HUNT US THY SALVATION.
0 God, make dean our hearts within us.
AND TAKE NOT* THI HOLY SPIRIT FROM US.
. ■ - .V
The Collects for the Day
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146 -
The Offertory Collect
And since it is of thy mercy, 0 gracious Father, that
another day is added to our lives, we here dedicate
our souls bodies to thee and thy service, in a
life useful unto thee; in which, resolution do thou,
0 merciful God, confirm and strengthen us, that as
we grow in age, we may grow in grace, and in the
knowledge and love of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. Amen.
The Doxology (The people standing)
The Prayer of General Tha.nirggiTri.ng
ALMIGHTY GOB, FATHER OF ALL'MERCIES, VIE, THINE UNWORTHY
SERVANTS DO GIVE THTTR MOST. HUMBLE AND HEARTY THANKS, FOR
ALL THY GOODNESS AND LOVING^KINDNESS TO TJS AND TO ALL MEN.
WE BLESS TSEE FOR 00R CREAT ION, PRESERVATION, AND ALL THE
BLESSINGS OF THIS LIFE; BUT ABOVE ALL, FOR THINE INESTIM¬
ABLE LOVE IN THE REDEMPTION OF THE WORLD BY OUR LORD JESUS
CHRIST; FOR THE MEANS OF GRACE, AND FOR THE HOPE OF GLORY.
AND, WE BESEECH THEE, GIVE US THAT DUB SENSE OF ALL THY
MERCIES, THAT OUR HEARTS MAY BE UNFEIGNEDLY THANKFUL; AND
THAT WE SHOW FORTH THY PRAISE NOT ONLY WITH OUR LLPS, BUT
IN OUR LIVES, BY GIVING UP OUR SELVES TO THY SERVICE, AND
BY WALKING BEFORE THEE IN HOLINESS AND RIGHTEOUSNESS ALL
OUR DAYS; THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD, TO WHOM WITH THEE
AND THE HOLY GHOST, BE ALL HONOR AND GLORY, WORLD WITHOUT
END. AMEN.
The Benediction
And now may the blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, be among you and abide with you evermore. AMEN.
The Fourth Hymn
The Postlude
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-147-
lf • ^ ev ^ se( ^ Ferial Homing Prayer
This service was in a sense prepared throughout the entire
school year, since it is the result of experimentation with mater¬
ials in the other services. It was written in April of 1966, however,
and has been in use since May 3, 1966. The first major improvement
is in the sequence of the first section., A hymn has found a permanent
place here, as well as opening sentences and a call to confession. A
time for silent meditation was added before the confession, a practice
which some leaders had tried in the other services successfully. Of
great interest is the change in the absolution. Previous versions
had actually been prayers for forgiveness, and while these were a
source of some reassurance to the local pietist element, they also
blunted the shape of the action at this critical point. During the
year, however, two factors came to bear on this issue, however;
Professor Jane D. Douglass in her course on Liturgy and Ecclesiology
gave a forceful presentation of Martin Luther’s view of the importance
of confession ^cind Steven G. Smith, a member of the Worship Committee,
reported on its significance in his work at the Wesley Foundation at
Ohio State University. In direct consequence, the pietists lost another
round, and in place of the previous prayers, the revised liturgy has
the very simple and impressive statement, T, I declare unto you in the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ that we are forgiven.” This represents
a very great improvement in the shape of the narrative action, actually
from the theological as well as the aesthetic point of view.
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-148-
To assist in the transition between declaration of forgiveness and
the Lord f s Prayer, the phrase "And now as our Savior Christ hath
taught us, we are bold to say," in a chant setting closely resem¬
bling that of the Prayer was used, as it had been in the Epiphany
service. The total result was a much more significant and impressive
first section than we had heretofore attained.
The chant setting for the dialog that opens both the second
and third sections was here suppressed, probably permanently. Unless
the psalm is sung, as noted above, it is very obtrusive, and the var¬
iety of treatment the psalm received would have created intolerable
confusion in the minds of the congregation as to whether the dialog
was or was not to be sung on a given day. And the other dialog was
sung only because the first was; it tended to be obtrusive on all
occasions. This is a good example of the frequent need to lower the
expressive temperature of sections of a larger work when doing so will
preserve the more important configuration of the whole.
Of the various approaches to the psalm, that which worked most
successfully for us was the metrical psalm paraphrase in a setting
from the Reformed tradition. The psalm tones are too unfamiliar to
permit any real variety in the use of psalms, and responsive reading
requires almost as much practice to sound really well. Many of the
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-149-
metrical paraphrases are poetic atrocities, but others, particularly
the freest ones, are among the greatest hymns. Their presence is ideal
at this particular part of the narrative.
The only other major alteration made was in printing out the
text of the last collect before the Doxology. Not only does this
give the group an opportunity for fuller participation in this critical
moment, but helps them to keep their place in the progress of this
section; the Doxology is no longer in any sense an interruption of
prayer, but rather its logical climax. Like all devices to assist
the group in creating expressive form, it is effective far beyond
what one might suppose.
If the selection of narrative action and basic form constitute
one stage in the creation of liturgy, and the composition or selection
of fixed materials a second, then obviously there is a third stage,
the selection of variable materials on a service by service basis.
Obviously, this process has a great bearing on the finished form;
to give sane idea of this, there is included below the complete
text of morning prayer as said on May 24, 1966, based on the revised
ferial liturgy and including all of the variable elements proper to
that day. These latter will then be the subject of a brief commentary.
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-150-
THB ORDER OP MORNING WORSHIP
The Prelude
The First Hymn (The people standing)
130
Mntf Baps anb JOolp Sait
jjtn feffiirtt
87.87.77
ALL saints
JVM dignify
Darmstadt G^aangbuoh, 1698
r r, ,
1 Who are these like stars ap - pear - ing, These, be - fore God’s throne who stand ?
2 Who are these of dazzling bright-new. These in God’s own truth ar - rayed,
3 These are they who have con-tend - ed For their Sa-vxour’s hon - or long,
J J -J- j J J -d- - J- J- J-
V, J J \ \ O " L& .—& v .
try r t r t r r r»
Each a gold-en crown is wear-ing; Who are all this glo - riotts band ?
Clad in robes of pur - est white-ness. Robes whose Ins -ter ne’er shall fade,
Wrestling on tOl life was end - ed. Fed - lqwing not the sin - ful throng:
J J '
r=f f=r = y r=*=? f = f=r=r=Fi
A1 - le - hi - ia! baric, they sing, Praia-ing loud their heav*n-ly Eng.
Ne’er be touched by time’s rude hand ? Whence comes all this glo - rious band ?
These, who well the fight sua-tamed, Tri - umph by the Lamb have gained.
_J_ J -«CJ Jl <L- -A — I—A — gL - gl
4 These are they whose hearts were riven,
Sore with woe and anguish tried.
Who in prayer full oft have striven
With the God they glorified:
Now, their painful conflict o'er,
God has bid them weep no more.
5 These, like priests, have watched and waited,
OfFring up to Christ their will,
. Soul and body consecrated.
Day and night they serve him still.
Now in God’s most holy place,
Bkst they stand before his face.
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-151-
[Leader:] Let us attend to the reading of the word of God as found
in the first chapter of the first letter of John:
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to
you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.
If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in dark¬
ness, we lie and do not live according to the turth; but if
we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellow¬
ship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses
us from all sin. If we say we have not sin, we deceive ourselves,
and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faith¬
ful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all
unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a
liar, and his word is not in us.
Let us confess our sin to Almighty God.
The Prayer of General Confession (The people seated)
AUUGHIY GOP OUR FATHER, WHO BY THY LOVE HAST MAPS US,
ABB THROUGH THY LOVE HAST KEPT US, AND Iff THY LOVE
WOULDST MAKE US PERFECT: WE HUMBLY CONFESS THAT WE HAVE
HOT LOVED THEE WITH ALL OUR HEART AND SOUL AND MIND AND
STRENGTH, AND THAT WE HAVE NOT LOVED ONE ANOTHER AS CHRIST
HATH LOVED US. THY LIFE IS Iff OUR SOUIS, BUT OUR SELFISH¬
NESS HATH HINDERED THEE. WE HAVE HOT LIVED BY FAITH. WE
HAVE RESISTED THY SPIRIT. WE HAVE NEGLECTED THINE INSPIR¬
ATIONS. FORGIVE WHAT WE HAVE BEEN; HELP US TO AMEND WHAT
WE ARE; AND Iff THY SPIRIT DIRECT WHAT WE SHALL BECOME,
THAT THOU MAYEST COME INTO THE FULL GLORY OF THY CREATION,
Iff US AND IN ALL MEN; THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD. AMEN.
The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting,
unto you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that we are
And now as he taught us, we are bold to say:
I declare
forgiven.
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-152-
thoae who tresspass a-gainst ns. And lead us not in -to
temp-ta - tion, But de-Ev-er us from e - viL
—- For thine is the long - dom, and the power*
and the gk> - ry, for ev-er and ev - er. A-men*
THE SERVICE OF THE VQRD
(The people standing)
I J ££ 1>-J S J _js J> J> J>
0 Lord, open thou our lips. AND OUR MOUTH SHALL SHOW
FORTH THI PRAISE. Glory he to the Father, and to the Son,
a-nfl to the Holy Ghost: AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING, IS
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ye the lord. THE LORD'S BANE EE PRAISED.
iOn Out of the depths l ay to thee,
lOU OLord!
* Lord, hear my voice!' /,
. Let thy ears be attentive
to the voice of my supplications! 5
ji
. * If thou*0 Lord, sbouldst mark
' iniquities,." , . .. . . ..
•>, Lord,.who could stand?..
4 But there is forgiveness with thee,
that thou mayest be feared; .
* -t ..
* I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
i and in bis word I hope; ' 7 .. ' x
{-•my soul waits for the Lord ,
I v .more than watchmen for the, u
morning, ": ,
more than watchmen for the
% morning., •. , : • -, , t
t O Israel, hope in the Lord! ‘ 3,7 ;,
t . For with the Lord, there is' ,3J
-steadfastlove, ' :i; ' 3[ . .
. and with himis plenteous
3 nwv: redemption. • /- ?rt
8 And he will redeem Israel V
from all his iniquities. ' ’
Therefore, since we are justified by
faith, we* have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ
2 Through him we have obtained ac¬
cess* to this grace in winch we stand,
and we 8 rejoice in our hope of shar¬
ing the glory of God . 8 More than that,
we* rejoice in our sufferings, knowing
that suffering produces endurance,
4 and endurance produces character,
and character produces hope, 5 and
hope does not disappoint us, because
God’s love has been poured into our
hearts through the Holy Spirit which
has been given to us.
1 6 While we were yet helpless, at
| the right time Christ died for the un-
I godly. 7 Why, one will hardly die for
a righteous man-though perhaps for
a good man one will dare even to die.
8 But God shows his love for us in that
while we were yet sinners Christ
died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we are
now justified by his blood, much more
shall we be saved by him from the
wrath of God . 10 For it while we were “
enemies we were rec o n c il e d to God
by the death of his Son, much more,
now that we are reconciled, shall we be
saved by his life. 11 Not only so, but
we also rejoice in God through our
|Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we I
have now received our recon cilia tion,
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r.28 Arid bne'bf the'scribes came up
■ and heard theih disputing with one an¬
other,' and seeing that he answered
thenl well, asked him; -* 5 Which com*-
mandment is the’ first of an?*? 39 Jesus
answered,‘The first'is; ‘Hear, O Israel:
The Lord bur^God, theTord is one;
*° irid you"shall .love die Lord your
God withail'your heart, and'with all
your soul, and with all your mind, and
with all your-strength.’- 81 The second
•is this, fYou shall love your neighbor
as yourself.*; There is no other
commandment' greater ' than ~ these.”
And ‘the scrffiie said to* him,'"You
are right! Tcaichefc you have truly said
I that he isone,andtherp;is,no other
buthe;* s an(Uoloyeliin) ; .withallthe
' heart, and witlhaB the understanding,
and with a all the. strength, and. to love
one’s neighbor, as oiusseif, .is modi
more than aU : whole burnt offerings
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-155-
and sacrifices,” M And when Jesus i
saw. that he answered wisely, he said
. to him, “You are not far from the king- |
dom of Godj And after that no one
dared to ask him any question.
/An Hiato-pie Symbol of ottr Faith _
I BELIEVE IN GOD THE FATHER AUGGHTY, MAKER OF HEAVEN
j AHD EARTH: ADD IN JESUS CHRIST SEES ONLY SON OUR LORD:
VHO WAS CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY GHOST, BORN OF THE VIRGIN
MARY: SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS PILATE, WAS CRU CIFIED, DEAD,
! AND BURIED: HE DESCENDED INTO HELL; THE THIRD DAY HB ROSE
ASAJS PROM THE DEAD: HB ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN, AND SITTBTH
j ON THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD THE FATHER AUGGHTY: FROM THENCE
HE SHALL COMB TO JUDGE THE QUICK AND THB DEAD. I BELIEVE
i IN THE HOLY GHOST: THB HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH; THB COMMUN¬
ION OF SAINTS: THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS: THB RESURRECTION
OF THE BODY: AND THB LIFE EVERLASTING. AMEN.
(Here may the people be seated.)
On this anniversary of Aldersgate Day, our witness to the Word comes
from John Wesley and from Martin Luther. In his journal for May of
1738, Mr. Wesley wrote:
J “I continued thus to seek it (though with strange indifference, dull¬
ness, and coldness, and unusually frequent relapses into sin) till Wednes¬
day, May 24. I think it was about five this morning, that I opened my
Testament on those words, ‘There are given unto us exceeding great
and precious promises, even that ye should be partakers of the divine
nature* (2 Pet. i. 4). Just as I went out, I opened it again on those words,
‘Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.* In the afternoon I was
asked to go to St Paul’s. The anthem was, ‘Out of the deep have I called
unto Thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice._O Israel, trust in the Lord:
for with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption.*
“In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate
Street where one was reading Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to the Ro-'
mans . About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change
which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart
strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation;
and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even
-mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. ^
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-156
From Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans \
To fulfill the law is to do with willingness and love the works which die ]
law requires. V : •' n*: .=. I
Such willingness is bestowed upon ns by the Holy Spirit throng '
faith in Jesus Christ. . / ‘ ; ’•
But the Spirit is not given except through the word of God which
preaches. Christ.> An-: \ ,:: V ■
As Paul said: “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesm;
and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the
dead, thou shalt be'saved.”
So frith makes righteous for it brings the Spirit through the merits of
Christ.
And the Spirit makes the heart free and willing as the law requires;
and then good works proceed of themselves from faith.
Now sin is not only outward bodily action but inner impulse as well.
No outward deed can be committed unless the whole man exerts
himself in the doing of it.
Unbelief arouses sin and the inclination to do evil. -
Faith brings the Spirit with its inclination to do good works.
Grace is the good will or favor of God toward us which moved him to
share Christ and the Holy Spirit with us. - •
Therefore, when we believe in Christ, we have the beginning of the
Spirit in us. -
Faith is a divine work in us, which transforms us, begets us anew from
God, bringing with it the Holy Spirit.
O this faith is a living, busy, active, powerful thing!
Such confidence and personal knowledge of divine grace makes its pos¬
sessor joyful, bold, and full of warm affection toward God and all created
things—
AH of which the Holy Spirit works in us through faith. Pray God
that he may work this faith in you.
[Leader:] The Lord be with you. [People:] And with thy spirit.
[Leader:] Let us pray:
0 God of peace, who hast taught us that in returning and rest
we shall be saved, in quietness and confidence shall be our
strength; by the might and power of thy Spirit lift us, we
beseech thee, to thy presence, where we may be still and know
that thou art God; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
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-157-
(Response:) Amen.
Let us pray for the world.
(Time of silence)
Almighty God, our heaven Father, guide, we beseech thee,
the nations of the world into the way of justice and truth,
and establish among them that peace which is the fruit of
righteousness, that they may become the Kingdom of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ; in his name we pray.
(Response:) Amen.
Let us pray for the church and its mission.
(Time of silence)
Almighty God, who in a time of great need didst raise up
thy servants John and Charles Wesley, and by thy Spirit
didst inspire them to kindle a flame .of sacred love which
leaped and ran, an inextinguishable blaze: Grant, we beseech
thee, that all those whose hearts have been wanned at these
altar fires, being continually refreshed by thy grace, may
be so devoted to the increase of Scriptural holiness through¬
out the land,, that in this our time of great need, thy will
may fully and effectively be done on earth as it is in heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
(Response:) Amen.
Since it is of thy mercy, 0 Gracious Father, that another
day is added to our lives, we here dedicate both our souls
and our bodies to thee and thy service, in a life useful.and
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pleasing unto thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
(Response:) Amen.
The Doxology
The Prayer of General Thanksgiving
AIMIGHTT GOD, FATHER OF ALL MERCIES, WE THINE UNWORTHY
SERVANTS DO GIVE THEE MOST HUMBLE AND HEARTY THANES, FOR
ALL THY GOODNESS AND LOVING-KINDNESS TO US AND TO ALL MEN.
WE. BLESS THBB FOR OUR CREATION, PRESERVATION, AND ALL THE
BLESSINGS OF THIS LIFE; BUT ABOVE ALL, FOR THINE INESTIM¬
ABLE LOVE IN' THE REDEMPTION OF THE WORLD BY OUR LORD JESUS
CHRIST; FOR THE MEANS OF GRACE, AND FOR THE HOPE OF GLORY.
AND, WE BESEECH THEE, GIVE US THAT DUE SENSE OF ALL THY
MERCIES, THAT OUR HEARTS MAY BE UNFBIGNEDLY THANKFUL; AND
THAT WE SHOW FORTH THY PRAISE NOT ONLY WITH OUR LIPS BUT
HT OUR LIVES, BY GIVING UP OURSELVES TO THY SERVICE, AND
BY WALKING BEFORE THEE IN HOLINESS .AND RIGHTEOUSNESS ALL
OUR DAYS; THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD, TO WHOM, WITH
■PURE AND THE HOLY GHOST, BE ALL HONOR AND GLORY, WORLD
WITHOUT END. AMEN.
The Benediction
The grace, of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and
the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all evermore.
m
(Resp onse:) Amen.
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j -j i . jzr i i i r
! 4 Sear ye deaf; his praise, ye 5 My gracious Master and my God,
dumb. Assist me to proclaim
Your loosened tongues employ; And spread through all the earth
Ye blind, behold your Saviour come; abroad
And leap, ye lame, for joy! The honors of thy Name. Amen.
CHARLES WESLEY, 1740
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-160-
May twenty-fourth, ;of course, is Aldersgate Day, the anniver¬
sary of John Wesley f s conversion, and an appropriate occasion to
3C
commemorate in morning prayer. The first*hymn begins the process;
it is the most splendid of the hymns dealing with the Communion of
Saints, and what it lacks in poetic technique it more than makes up
for with a vigorous and appropriate tune and a very strong narrative
action. It begins by suggesting the vision of the blessed in the
book of Revelation, and asking who they are. The answer Is both
unexpected and impressive: these are the Christians in all ages,
who despite suffering, tribulation, doubt, and even strife with
God, have persevered and kept the, faith. The particular contribution
of this hymn to this service comes not only from the suggestion that
Wesley is indeed one of this company, but also from the surprising
parallels between the last three stanzas and Wesley 1 s own experience,
the basis of a very interesting piece of symbolic transformation occuring
in the mind of the person singing the hymn.
The opening sentences from I John call strongly to mind
Wesley 1 s societies; the psalm is Psalm 130, which Wesley heard
sung at St. Paul's on the morning of May 24, 1738, a point which
will be made during the witness to the Word. The first lesson is
a passage from Romans which was central in the thought of Martin
37
Luther, the relationship of which to Wesley f s conversion will be
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-161-
also indicated in the witness. The second hymn is Charles Wesley 1 s
greatest statement on one of John’s most characteristic positions,
58
the two-fold process of conversion, and sanctification. The editors
of the 1935 Methodist Hymnal cavalierly betrayed their guiding
spirit by omitting the critical phrase "that second rest" (!)
in their version of the hymnf*the Episcopal editors dealt with the
matter even more drastically by omitting the entire stanza in question.
The result is a hymn that can easily be understood as a coment on
Aldersgate, and as such, we use it here. The second lesson is from
Mark, Jesus’ teaching about the great commandment, the passage to
which Wesley turned just before he set forth on that fateful day.
The witness to the Word is the excerpt from Wesley’s Journal
40
describing the Aldersgate experience, along with a selection of
materials from Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans , which
draw together all the previous variable materials in a way that
virtually forces some degree of symbolic transformation in all present,
not only those who know the Wesley lore. The first collect is a
42
traditional one from the Book of Common Prayer ; its plea for peace as
the fruit of righteousness would have been very congenial to Wesley.
The second collect is a prayer for Aldersgate Day, apparently written
43
by the editors of the latest Methodist Book of Worship ; a trifle florid,
it nonetheless dramatically epitomizes the post-Alders gate history of
Methodism, and directly relates this to the theme of dedication which
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- 162 -
is so basic to the narrative action of the third section. It there¬
fore creates a transition between this collect and the offertory
collect smoother and more compelling than any other we have’ exper¬
ienced.
The last hymn is another of Charles Wesley 1 s greatest achieve¬
ments , here sabotaged by the helpful editors of the Hymnal 1940. ^^*
Wesley customarily wrote a much larger number of stanzas per lyric
than modem congregations care to sing, and so the editor’s task
is selecting a manageable number and arranging them to make as much
sense as possible. This the present editors faithfully did, but
overlooked the fact that what they print as stanza four is one of
those few moments in all hymnody where the material rises to authen¬
tic poetry. In as small a form as a hymn, the best place for the climax,
a location the editors miss by one whole anticlimatic stanza, is the
end. Even thus crippled, however, the hymn works as a conclusion to
the service.
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- 163 '
2a. Ferial Evening Prayer
ORDER OF WORSHIP FOR EVENING PRAYER
PRELUDE
HYMN (All standing)
CALL TO WORSHIP (Seated)
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
ETERNAL GOD, OUR JUDGE AND REDEEMER, IN THE PRESENCE OF
THY LOVE AND OUR NEIGHBOR’S NEED, WE ACKNOWLEDGE OUR
DISOBEDIENCE AND INGRATITUDE, OUR PRIDE AND WILLFULNESS,
OUR HEEDLESSNESS AND INDIFFERENCE. WE HAVE LIVED FOR
OURSELVES. WE HAVE REFUSED TO SHOULDER THE BURDENS OF
OTHERS, AND TURNED FROM OUR BROTHERS. WE HAVE IGNORED
THE PAIN OF THE WORLD, AND PASSED BY THE HUNGRY, THE
POOR, THE OPPRESSED. 0 GOD, IN THY GREAT MERCY, FOR¬
GIVE OUR SIN AND FREE US FROM OUR SELFISHNESS, THAT WE
MAY CHOOSE THY WILL, AND WALK IN THY WAY, AND SHOW FORTH
THY LOVE; THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD. AMEN.
DECLARATION OF FORGIVENESS
The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting.
I declare unto you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ
that we are forgiven. And now as he taught us, we are
bold to say,
OUR FATHER, WHO ART IN HEAVEN, HALLOWED BE THY NAME.
THY KINGDOM COME. THY WILL BE DONE, ON EARTH AS IT IS
IN HEAVEN. GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD. AND
FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES, AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO
TRESPASS AGAINST US. AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION,
BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL. FOR THINE IS THE KINGDOM,
AND THE POWER, AND THE GLORY FOR EVER AND EVER. AMEN.
LESSON FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT
HYMN (All standing)
LESSON FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT (Seated)
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164-
WITHESS TO THE WORD
PRAYER
Leadert The Lord be with you.
People: AND WITH THY SPIRIT*
Leader: Let os pray. 0 God of peace, who hast
taught us that in returning and rest we shall
be saved, in quietness and confidence shall
be our strength; by the might of thy Spirit
lift us, we pray thee, to thy presence,
where we may be still and know that thou
art God; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
(Here, and at the end of each prayer, the
people may reply, AMEN.)
LAST PRAYER (Said by all)
OGOD, WHO HAST SO GREATLY LOVED US, LONG
SOUGHT US, AND MERCIFULLY REDEEMED US:
GIVE US GRACE THAT IN ALL THINGS WE MAY
YIELD OURSELVES, OUR WILLS AND OUR WORKS,
A CONTINUAL THANK OFFERING UNTO THEE;
THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD. AMEN.
BENEDICTION
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
love of God, and the fellowship of the
Holy Spirit be with you all. AMEN.
HYMN
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-165- .
2a. Evening Prayer
The service was compiled in June, 1966, and has been in use
since. It represents an attempt to condense and lighten the morning
service to make it appropriate to begin a program on a summer evening,
rather than creating something completely new, for this purpose. This
was achieved simply by omitting all but the essential parts, and rely¬
ing on the informality of the occasion to provide the transitions
which in a more formal situation would more efficiently be built in.
Two. points of interest remain to be noted in the third section;
the first collect is printed out in the bulletin, an aid to group
participation which might well be imitated in the morning service at
such a time when space in the bulletin permits this, and the very brief
prayer of general thanksgiving, here identified as the "last prayer,"
which works very nicely in a service of this weight.
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- 166 -
2b. Lenten Evening Prayer
SCHOOL OP THEOLOGY AT CLAREMONT
SIXTH ANNUAL LENTEN WORSHIP SERVICE
CLAREMONT METHODIST CHURCH
MONDAY, MARCH 28, 1966
8:00 P. M.
Prelude : 0 Man, Bewail Thy Grievous Sin J. S. Bach
Choral Procession (The congregation standing)
Hymn No . 156 : "Behold the Savior of Mankind"
THE SERVICE OF CONFESSION
The Invitation to Confession (The congregation seated)
The General Confession : AUUGHTY AND MOST MERCIFUL
FATHER: WE HAVE ERRED AND STRAYED FROM THY WAYS LIKE
LOST SHEEP. WE HAVE FOLLOWED TOO MUCH THE DEVICES AND
DESIRES OF OUR OWN HEARTS. WE HAVE OFFENDED AGAINST THY
HOLY LAWS. WE HAVE LEFT UNDONE THOSE THINGS WHICH WE
OUGHT TO HAVE DONE; AND WE HAVE DONE THOSE THINGS WHICH
WE OUGHT NOT TO HAVE DONE; AND THERE IS NO WHOLENESS IN
US. BUT THOU, 0 LORD, HAVE MERCY UPON US, MISERABLE
OFFENDERS. SPARE THOU THOSE, 0 GOD, WHO CONFESS THEIR
FAULTS. RESTORE THOU THOSE WHO ARE PENITENT, ACCORDING
TO THY PROMISES DECLARED UNTO MANKIND 'IN CHRIST JESUS
OUR LOAD. AND GRANT, 0 MOST MERCIFUL FATHER, FOR HIS
Sake, THAT WE MAY HEREAFTER LIVE A GODLY, RIGHTEOUS,
AND SOBER LIFE, TO THE GLORY OF THY HOLY NAME. AMEN.
The Prayer for Absolution
The Lord’s Prayer
THE SERVICE OF THE WORD
Minister : 0 Lord, open thou our lips.
Response : AND OUR MOUTH SHALL SHOW FORTH THY PRAISE.
(Here shall the congregation rise.)
f
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■ 167 '
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the
Holy Ghost;
AS IX WAS IN THE BEGINNING, IS NOW, AND EVER SHAH*
BE, WORLD WITHOUT END. AMEN. *
Praise ye the lord.
THE LORD'S NAME BE PRAISED.
Responsive Reading : Psalm 130
Out of the deep have I called unto thee, 0 lord;
Lord, hear my voice. .
0 LET THINE EARS CONSIDER WELL THE VOICE OF MY COMPLAINT.
If thou; Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done
amiss, 0 Lord, who may abide it?
FOR THERE IS MERCY WITH THEE; THEREFORE SHALT THOU
BE FEARED.
I look for the Lord; my soul doth wait for him;
in his word is my trust.
MY SOUL FLEETH UNTO THE LORD BEFORE THE MORNING
WATCH; I SAY, BEFORE THE MORNING WATCH.
0 Israel, trust in the Lord; for with the lord there
is mercy, and-with him is plenteous redemption.
AND HE SHALL REDEEM ISRAEL FROM ALL HIS SINS.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and te the
Holy Ghost; • _
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING, IS NOW, AND EVER SHALL
BE, WORLD WITHOUT END. AMEN.
First Lesson : Phil. 2:5-11 (The congregation seated)
Magnificat (setting by Martin Shaw)
Second Lesson : Mark 15 (The congregation standing)
An Hietoric Symbol of Oar Faith : The Apostle's Creed
I BELIEVE IN GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY, MAKER OF HEAVEN
AND EARTH: AND IN JESUS CHRIST HIS ONLY SON OUR LORD:
WHO WAS CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY GHOST, BORN OF THE
VIRGIN MARY: SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS PILATE, WAS CRUCIFIED,
DEAD, AND BURIED, HE DESCENDED INTO HELL; TEE THIRD
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- 168 -
DAY HE ROSE AGAIN FROM THE DEAD: HE ASCENDED INTO
HEAVEN, AND SITTBTH ON THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD THE
FATHER ALMIGHTY: FROM THENCE SHALL HE COME TO JUDGE
THE QUICK AND THE DEAD. I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY GHOST:
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH: THE COMMUNION QF SAINTS:
THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS: THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY:
AND THE. LIFE EVERLASTING. 'AMEN.
Hymn No . 141 : "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded"
Witness to the Word Dean F. Thomas Trotter
Anthem : Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring J. S. Bach
THE SERVICE OF DEDICATION
Minister : The Lord "be with you.
Response : AND WITH THY SPIRIT.
Let us pray. 0 Lord, show thy mercy upon us.
AND GRANT US THY SALVATION
0 Lord, save the State.
AND MERCIFULLY HEAR US WHEN WE CALL UPON THEE,
Endue thy Ministers with righteousness.
AND MAKE THY CHOSEN PEOPLE JOYFUL.
0 Lord, save thy people.
AND BLESS THINE INHERITANCE.
Give peace in our time, 0 lord.
FOR IT IS THOU, LORD, ONLY, THAT MAKEST US DWELL IN
SAFETY.
0 God, make clean our hearts within us.
AND TAKE NOT THY HOLY SPIRIT EROM US.
The Collects for the Day (to each of which may the
congregation respond, AMEN.)
The Seven Words of Christ on the Cross Heinrich Schutz
'Introit: Since Jesus on the cross was hung.
By anguish sore his body wrung.
In pain and bitter torment,
Then ponder well within thy heart
His seven blessed sayings.
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- 169 -
Symphony
The Seven Words
Symphony-
Conclusion; He who holds the Savior's atonement dear,
And oft recalls the Seven Words,
He will receive God's own blessing,
Both here on earth by God's good grace,
And there in the life everlasting.
Benediction (The congregation standing)
Choral Recession
Postlude ; Every Mortal Soon Must Perish J. S. Bach
PARTICIPANTS IN THIS SERVICE
Dean P. Thomas Trotter, presiding
Wayne Dalton and David Sharrard, conducting
The School of Theology Chorale, Wayne Dalton, Director;
Marilyn Anderson, Joan Berry, Jean Culbertson, Louise
Dalton, Lou Ernst, Beth Goodell, Betty Hagelbarger,
Linda Hook, Geri Maddux, Doris McElroy, Misty Rothhaar,
Carol Schowalter, Ruth Sharrard, Kathy Stefan, Virginia
Timmerman, Jack Coogan, Dick Craft, Wayne Dalton, Dave
Ernst, Laron Hall, Vernon Hill, Jim Hulett, Gary Jennings,
Marv Maddux, Ray McElroy, Jim Osborn, John Parks, Roy
Roberts, Tom Rothhaar, Dave Sharrard, Steve Smith, Paul
Sweet, Hank Tompkins, Glen Warner, Jim Weinheimer. David
Sharrard and Vernon Hill, accompanists.
Soloists; Louise Dalton, Jean Culbertson, Jim Weinheimer,
Steve Smith, Wayne Dalton
Instrumentalists; S. Spano, Jack Coogan, oboe and oboe
d’amore; John Phillips, English horn; Jim Stewart, Terry
Kent, bassoon; Richard Rehwald, string bass; Vernon Hill,
organ.
We thank Claremont Methodist Church for its hospitality.
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-170-
2b. Lenten Evening Prayer
This service, compiled in March of 1966 and used only once,
on March twenty-eighth, was designed to be the spring equivalent
of the community's Advent Festival of Lessons and Carols* It follovrs
the same pattern as the morning services very closely; the few
alterations were made in the interest of expanding the service
to festival proportion*
The first of these was the insertion of an anthem between the
two lessons, and the repositioning of the hymn immediately after the
creed. A second anthem was added after the sermon, and the dialog
which begins the third section was altered to that of Episcopal
evening prayer, principally because its more solemn tone was appro¬
priate to this most solemn of services. Finally, a major cantata
was sung just before the benediction, which gave yet another inter¬
pretation to the lesson already proclaimed in the reading and the
witness.
While this combination made a very effective statement about
lent and about the passion in particular, it obviously teetered on
the borderline between worship and performance, being about fifty
per cent group centered* In its defense, it may be observed that
whatever more than a worship service it may have been, it was not
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-171-
less than one, since all of the component parts of the entirely
group-centered morning prayer were very much in evidence. On the
other hand, art-works have a decided tendency to be something other
than the sum of their parts, and in this case, the aesthetically
impressive forms were, naturally enough, the far more complex and
sophisticated ones of sermon, anthem, and cantata. It is probably
fair to assume that the impression left in the minds of the congre¬
gation was not the group activities, which in any case were too
unfamiliar to most of those present to be of much significance, but
the performance ones. The final defense, therefore, must be the fact
that of the approximately seventy worship services supervised by
the Committee this school year, two—this one and the Festival—
were not group centered.
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-172-
3a. All Saints Communion Service
SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY AT CLAREMONT
MEMORIAL COMMUNION SERVICE
NOVEMBER 3, 1965
PRELUDE: Sarabande in B-flat major G. F. Handel
INTROIT HYMN: No. 527 "For all the saints..."
The Lord be with you. AND WITH THY SPIRIT. Let us pray:
ALMIGHTY GOD, UNTO WHOM ALL HEARTS ARE OPEN, ALL DESIRES
KNOWN, AND FROM WHOM NO SECRETS ARE HID: CLEANSE THE
THOUGHTS OF OUR HEARTS BY THE INSPIRATION OF THY HOLY
SPIRIT, THAT WE MAY PERFECTLY LOVE THEE, AND WORTHILY
MAGNIFY THY HOLY NAME; THROUGH CHRIST OUR LORD. AMEN.
THE SUMMARY OF THE LAW AND THE HYRIE (The text and music
of the Kyrie and of all other choral responses is found
in the service music booklet. The congregation is invit¬
ed to sing these responses with the Chorale.)
The Lord be with you. AND WITH THY SPIRIT. Let us pray:
THE COLLECT FOR ALL SAINTS' DAY
THE EPISTLE FOR THE DAY: Revelation 7: 9-17
GRADUAL HYMN No. 128"All Glory, Laud, and Honor"
THE GOSPEL FOR THE DAY: St. Matthew 5: 1-12
THE AFFIRMATION OF FAITH: I believe in God the Father
Almighty, MAKER OF HEAVEN AND EARTH: AND IN JESUS CHRIST
HIS ONLY SON OUR LORD: WHO WAS CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY
GHOST, BORN OF THE VIRGIN MARY: SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS
PILATE, WAS CRUCIFIED, DEAD, AND BURIED: HE DESCENDED
INTO HELL; THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN FROM THE DEAD:
HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN, AND SITTETH ON THE RIGHT HAND
OF GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY: FROM THENCE HE SHALL COME
AGAIN TO JUDGE THE QUICK AND THE DEAD. I BELIEVE IN
THE HOLY GHOST: THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH: THE COMMUN¬
ION OF SAINTS: THE,FORGIVENESS OF SINS: THE RESURRECTION
OF THE BODY: AND THE LIFE EVERLASTING. AMEN.
SERMON HYMN No. 171 "Rejoice, the Lord is King!"
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THE WITNESS TO THE WORD
THE OFFERTORY AND THE DOXOLOGY
THE PRAYER FOR THE WHOLE STATE OF CHRIST’S CHURCH
THE INVITATION TO CONFESSION
THE PRAYER OF GENERAL CONFESSION: ALMIGHTY GOD, FATHER
OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, MAKER OF ALL THINGS, JUDGE OF
ALL MEN: WE ACKNOWLEGE AND BEWAIL OUR MANIFOLD SINS AND
WICKEDNESS, WHICH WE FROM TIME TO TIME MOST GRIEVOUSLY
HAVE COMMITTED, BY THOUGHT, WORD, AND DEED, AGAINST THY
DIVINE MAJESTY, PROVOKING MOST JUSTLY THY WRATH AND
INDIGNATION AGAINST US. WE DO EARNESTLY REPENT, AND ARE
HEARTILY SORRY FOR THESE OUR MISDOINGS; THE REMEERANCE
OF THEM IS GRIEVOUS UNTO US; THE BURDEN OF THEM IS IN¬
TOLERABLE. HAVE MERCY UPON US, HAVE MERCY UPON US, MOST
MERCIFUL FATHER; FOR THY SON OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST’S
SAKE, FORGIVE US ALL THAT IS PAST; AND GRANT THAT WE
MAY EVER HEREAFTER SERVE AND PLEASE THEE IN NEWNESS OF
LIFE, TO THE HONOR AND GLORY OF THY NAME; THROUGH JESUS
CHRIST OUR LORD. AMEN.
THE PRAYER OF ABSOLUTION AND THE COMFORTABLE WORDS
THE SANCTUS (The text and music are in the service hook.
THE PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
THE IORD'S PRAYER (Text and music in the service hook.)
THE PRAYER OF HUMBLE ACCESS: WE DO NOT PRES UME TO COME
TO THIS THY TABLE, 0 MERCIFUL LORD, TRUSTING IN OUR OWN
RIGHTEOUSNESS, BUT IN THY MANIFOLD AND GREAT MERCIES. WE
ARE NOT WORTHY SO MUCH AS TO GATHER UP THE CRUMBS UNDER
THY TABLE. BUT THOU ART THE SAME LORD, WHOSE PROPERTY
IS ALWAYS TO HAVE MERCY: GRANT US THEREFORE, GRAC IOUS
LORD, SO TO EAT THE FLESH OF THY DEAR SON JESUS CHRIST,
AND TO DRINK HIS BLOOD, THAT OUR SINFun BODIES MAY BE
MADE CLEAN BY HIS BODY, AND OUR SOULS WASHED THROUGH
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-174-
! -3-
{
i
! HIS MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD, AND THAT WE MAT EVERMORE DWELL
Ilf HIM, AND HE IN US. AMEN.
THE AGNUS DEI (Text and music in the service hook.)
THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE ELEMENTS
i COMMUNION HYMN No. 345 "Jesus, thou joy of loving hearts."
THE PRATER OF THANESGIVING: ALMIGHTY AND EVERLIVING GOD,
i WE MOST HEARTILY THANK THEE, FOR THAT THOU DOST VOUCHSAFE
{ TO FEED US WHO HAVE DULY RECEIVED THESE HOLT MYSTERIES,
i WITH THE SPIRITUAL FOOD OF THE MOST PRECIOUS BODY AND
i BLOOD OF THY SON OUR SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST; AND DOST ASSURE
j US THEREBY OF THY FAVOR AND GOODNESS TOWARD US; AND THAT
i WE ARE VERT MEMBERS INCORPORATE IN THE MISTICAL BODY OF
THY SON, WHICH IS THE BLESSED COMPANY OF ALL FAITHFUL .
PEOPLE; AND ARE ALSO HEIRS THROUGH HOPE OF THY EVERLASTING
KINGDOM, BY THE MERITS OF HIS MOST PRECIOUS DEATH AND
PASSION. AND WE HUMBLY BESEECH THEE, 0 HEAVENLY FATHER,
| SO TO ASSIST US WITH THY GRACE, THAT WE MAY CONTINUE
IN THAT HOLY FELLOWSHIP, AND DO ALL SUCH GOOD WORKS AS
! THOU HAST PREPARED FOR US TO WALK IN; THROUGH JESUS
CHRIST OUR LORD, TO WHOM, WITH THEE AND THE HOLY GHOST,
BE ALL HONOR AND GLORY, WORLD WITHOUT END. AMEN.
HYMN No.513 "I'll praise iny Maker while I've breath..."
i The Lord be with you. AND WITH THY SPIRIT. Depart in
peace. THANKS BE TO GOD!
THE BENEDICTION AND POSTLUDE
(All are invited to come forward and to kneel in prayer
during the distribution of the elements. Those wishing to
receive communion may hold their hands in such a way as to
receive the bread, and then dip the bread in the cup as it
is passed to them. This manner of observing the Lord's Supper,
known as intinction, is a tradition of long standing, both
in the Christian Church and in the School of Theology.
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■175-
3a. All Saints Communion Service
This service was intended to provide a memorial occasion for
the community, but one quite different in thrust from the maudlin
occasions which are associated with this sort of thing in our
culture. We therefore chose the festival of All Saints as a far
more Christian treatment of the theme, and prepared a festival
communion service for the observation. The service was edited
during October of 1965, and used once, on November third.
Because this service was to be used only once, and therefore
would not have an opportunity to become familiar to the community,
it was imperative to use materials that were already familiar.
For this community, that meant the service printed in the Methodist
45 "
Hymnal , which had two advantages: it is based on the greatest of
English communion liturgies, and in present Methodist usage, it has
no fixed form, but is freely adapted to the needs, interests, or whims
of the local congregation. The structure that we chose has been dis¬
cussed above, and the reasons for maintaining the bifurcation; here
it only remains to note sane of the more significant materials em¬
ployed.
The opening collect, properly part of the priest 1 s preparation
in the Sarum rite, is an ideal call to worship. In the interest of
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- 176 ’
form, the confession and absolution are postponed until the beginning
of the second section; their function is well served by the summary of
the law and the Kyrie. The collect would have worked better if it had
been accompanied by one or two more; as things stand, the single collect
cannot be subordinated to its neighbor on either side, and yet is not
substantial enough to hold its own as a separate unit, A similar prob¬
lem was encountered in the use of the Apostle T s Creed; the Nicene would
have been more satisfactory, simply because of the proportions of the
service.
There has been much criticism of the placement of the prayer
for the world in the prototypes of this service, the assumption
being that Cranmer placed it here to avoid its association with
the idea of pleading Christ*s sacrifice in the mass on behalf of
its petitions. It also belongs here by virtue of the progression
of thought of the service, however, and most importantly, so that
it does not obstruct the smooth motion of the service to its climax.
Each of the following elements has been placed to create this motion:
the invitation to confession, the confession, the absolution, the
prayer of consecration, the prayer of humble access, the distribu¬
tion. x\fter the absolution, consecration, and prayer of humble access
have been placed brief congregational responses, all plainchant. These
provide resting-places, as it were, in the ascent in this part of
the service, but they do not relax the emotional level; they extend
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-177-
and expand it, precisely the way that an aria in an opera or passion
seizes upon a significant moment and crystallizes its emotional content.
This sequence offered two problems: an overweight prayer of
consecration, and an underweight prayer of humble access. The first,
while in many respects a splendid piece of writing, is a victim both
of Cranmer f s sometimes over-ripe prose and of his desire to make a
complete if not completely devastating statement about the theological
meaning of the sacrament. But for many, these are words hallowed by
long usage, and tampering with them borders on sacrilege. This first
time around, therefore, we were content simply to trim the obvious 13 /
redundant phrases out of the service, in such a way that no one even
noticed that the prayer had been shortened about twenty per cent. The
prayer of humble access was not so easily dealt with. It is, to be sure,
a very nice collect, but at this point in the emotional progression,
something heroic is needed, and it simply does not rise to the occasion,
On the other hand, its complete omission would damage the larger form
more than its slightly anticlimatic flavor does now, and it was there¬
fore begrudgingly left in. It remains an unsolved problem.
The progression from the distribution to the end is very smooth
and satisfactory, with the exception of the benediction, which somehow
found itself on the wrong side of the last hymn. This was a typograph-
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-178-
ical error, yet another hazard the technology of print brings to the
art of liturgy.
The service finally emerged a completely workable compromise
between the need for familiar material and the need for expressive
form, but still a compromise, When next the opportunity to rework
this material presented itself, we were both free to go further in
our revision, and guided by the experience of trying this service
at least once. No matter how far some of the later services appear
to be from this one, it is still the model on which they are con¬
structed; its narrative action, in particular, is the underpinning
of all of our communion liturgies, as it is of the Roman mass, the
Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist communion services, and
those of several other groups as well.
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-179-
3b. Festival Communion Service
ORDER OF WORSHIP FOR THE LORD’S SUPPER
The Prelade
Prneaaat final Hymn (The people standing)
The Collect for Purity
ALMIGHTY GOD, UNTO WHOM ALL HEARTS ARE OPEN, ALL DESIRES
KNOWN, AND FROM WHOM NO SECRETS ARE HID; CLEANSE THE
THOUGHTS OF OUR HEARTS BY THE INSPIRATION OF THY HOLY
SPIRIT, THAT WE MAY PERFECTLY LOVE THEE, AND WORTHILY
MAGNIFY THY HOLY NAME; THROUGH CHRIST OUR LORD. AMEN.
The Intro it
The Summary of the Law
The Eyrie Bleison : (The people seated) _
Lord,_ have mer - ey — up - on- us-
Christ, have- mer - ey up - on- us.
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- 180 -
[
I Jill I MlTlilil j
Lord*
rii. motto
rit.poco _ _
havener -cy up- on— as—
The Collect for the Day
The Epistle .... ..
The gradual (The people standing)
The Sequence Hymn
The Gospfel
An th atn-rie Symbol of our Faith ; _
I BELIEVE IN 0KB GOD THB FATHER ALMIGHTY, MAZER OF HEAVEN
AND EARTH, AND OF ALL THINGS VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE: AND IN
ONE LORD JESUS CHRIST, THE ONLY-BEGOTTEN SON OF GOD: BEGOT¬
TEN OF HIS FATHER BEFORE ALL WORLDS, GOD OF GOD; LIGHT OF
LIGHT, VERY GOD OF VERY GOD, BEGOTTEN, NOT MADE; BEING OF
ONE SUBSTANCE WITH THB FATHER; BY WHOM ALL THINGS WERE MADS:
WHO FOR US MEN AND FOR OUR SALVATION, CAME DOWN FROM HEAVEN,
AND WAS INCARNATE BY THE HOLY GHOST OF THB VIRGIN MARY, AND
WAS MADS MAN: AND WAS CRUCIFIED ALSO FOR US UNDER PONTIUS
PILATE; HE SUFFERED AND WAS BURIED: THB THIRD DAY HE ROSE
AGAIN, ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURES: AND ASCENDED INTO HEA¬
VEN, AND SITTETH ON THB RIGHT HAND OF THE FATHER: AND HE
SHALL COMB AGAIN, WITH GLORY, TO JUDGE BOTH THE QUICK AND
THE DEAD; WHOSE KINGDOM SHALL HAVE NO END. AND I BELIEVE
IN THE HOLY GHOST, THE LORD, AND GIVER OF LIFE, WHO FRO-
CEEDETH FROM THE FATHER AND THE SON; WHO WITH THE FATHER
AND THB SON TOGETHER IS WORSHIPP ED AN D GLORIFIED; WHO
SPAKE B Y TH B PROPHETS: AND I BELIEVE ONE CATHOLIC AND APO¬
STOLIC CHURCH: I ACKNOWLEDGE ONE BAPTISM FOR THE REMISSION
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- 181 -
QF SUSS: AND I LOOK FOE THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD:
ADD THE LIFE OF THE WORLD TO COMB. AMRN.
The Evan for the Gospel
The Witness to the Word (The people seated)
The Offertory
The Great Intercession
. The Invitation to Confession
The Prayer of General Confession
AUHQHTY GOD, FATHER OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, MAZER OF
ALL THINGS, JUDGE OF ALL MEN; WE ACKNOWLEDGE AND BEWAIL
OUR MANIFOLD SINS AND WICKEDNESS, WHICH WE FROM TIME TO
TTMB MOST GRIEVOUSLY HAVE COMMITTED, BY THOUGHT, WORD,
AND DEED AGAINST THY DIVINE MAJESTY, PROVOKING MOST JUST¬
LY THT WRATH AND INDIGNATION AGAINST US. WE DO EARNESTLY
REPENT, AND ARE HEARTILY SORRY FOR THESE OUR MISDOINGS;
THE REMEMBRANCE OF THEM IS GRIEVOUS UNTO US; THE BURDEN
OF THEM IS INTOLERABLE. HAVB MERCY UPON US, HAVE MERCY
UPON US, MOST MERCIFUL FATHER; FOR THY SON OUR LORD JESUS
CHRIST'S SAKE, FORGIVE US ALL THAT IS PAST; AND GRANT
THAT WE MAY EVER HHRHAPTHR SERVE AND PLEASE THEE IN NEW¬
NESS OF LIFE, TO THE HONOR AND GLORY OF THY HOLY NAME;
THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD. AMEN.
The Prayer of Absolution and Comfortable Words
The Sirrmim Corda and Sanctus
Leader:
People:
Lift- up. your hearts.
We lift_them op nn-to-the Lord.
Leader:
Let ns give_ thanks on - to— our Lord God.
People:
It is meet_ and right so_ to do-
(Here is sung the Preface proper to the season.)
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W BISSS3SSI8
. 83 -
For thine
the king - dom, and the p ower .
and the glo - xy, for ev-er and ev - er. A-men.^
raver at Humble Access _
NOT PRESUME TO COME TO THIS THY TABLE, 0 MERCIFUL
TRUSTING IN OUR OWN RIGHTEOUSNESS, BUT IN THY MANI-
&ND GREAT MERCIES. WE ARE NOT WORTH! SO MUCH AS TO
R UP THE CRUMBS UNDER THY TABLE. BUT THOU ART THE
LORD WHOSE PROPERTY IT IS ALWAYS TO HAVE MERCY. (SANT
EREFQRE, GRACIOUS LORD, SO TO PARTAKE OF THIS SACRA-
OF THY SON JESUS CHRIST THAT WE MAY GROW INTO HIS
ESS, AND MAY EVERMORE DWELL IN HIM, AND HE IN US. AMEN.
gnus Del
Lamb- of God,—
ta - best a-wajr the.
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184 -
The D istribut Ion of the Elements
The Post-Coin nniw ± on Hymn
The Prayer of General Thanksgiving
AUQGHTY AND EVERLIVTNG GOD, VB HEARTILY THANK THEE THAT
THOU HAST FED US WHO HAVE RECEIVED THESE HOLY MYSTERIES,
WITH THE SPIRITUAL FOOD OF THE BODY AND BLOOD OF THY SON
OUR SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST, AND DOST ASSURE US THEREBY OF
THY GOODNESS TOWARD US, AND THAT WE ARE MEMBERS INCORPOR¬
ATE IN THE MYSTICAL BODY OF THY SON, WHICH IS THE BLESSED
COMPANY OF ALL FAITHFUL PEOPLE; AND ARE AISO HEIRS THROUGH
- HOPS OF THY EVERLASTING KINGDOM. AND WE BESEECH THEE, 0
HEAVENLY FATHER, SO TO ASSIST US WITH THY GRACE, THAT WE
MAY CONTINUE IN THAT HOLY FELLOWSHIP, AND DO ALL SUCH GOOD
WORKS SS. THOU HAST PREPARED FOR US TO WALK IN; THROUGH
JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD, TO WHOM WITH THEE AND THE HOLY
(HOST, BE ALL HONOR AND GLORY, WORLD WITHOUT END. AMEN.
The Lord be with you.
AND WITH THY SPIRIT.
Depart in peace.
THANKS BE TO GOD.
The Benediction
The Hymn '
The Poatlude
This service is based on Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal
liturgies, which in turn are in the tradition of the most
ancient patterns of Christian worship. The service music is
plainsong dating from the■ sixth through thirteenth centuries,
here given in a form widely used by Lutheran and Episcopal
churches.
rr="
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■185-
3b. Festival Comaunion Service
On the basis of the experience with the All Saints service,
we decided to attempt a communion liturgy which could be used on
all the festival occasions in the school f s life. The service was
edited, then, between November 3, 1965, and April 11, 1966, and
first used on April thirteenth. Its first section is that of the
earlier service, with two changes. It was felt that a service of
this proportion could easily accomodate a few additional performance
elements, particularly if these added to the festival quality of the
service. On this basis, we decided to add the propers to this
section, these being the oldest Christian liturgical music extant.
Because they change from service to service, and because the style
of their music is unfamiliar, they inevitably become the property
of the choir. The other change is the substitution of the Nicene
Creed for the Apostles’, for reasons described above. They Xyrie,
while not new to the service, is printed out in full in the worship
bulletin, which resulted in a great improvement.
In the second section, the component parts of the prayer of
consecration are listed, in an attempt to make it easier for the
congregation to follow. The text of the prayer itself was radically
primed this time, to the point where nothing was said more than once.
This time the editorial work was noted, but commented upon favorably.
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- 186 -
The problem which the editor faces here is an age-old one in art, that
of decoration which simultaneously enriches the emotional content of a
section of the work while at the same time serving to obscure its basic
structure. Wayne Dalton, who co-edited this service, suggested the best
solution in the context of this particular, liturgy, which was to retain
as far as possible the language of the original so that no stylistic
problem would be created. At the same time, everything not absolutely
essential to the development of the narrative action was omitted entire¬
ly, the excisions being made in such a way as not to interfere with the
flow of the thought. The result may have lost something in poetry, but
it gained a great deal in clarity and impressiveness, and more impor¬
tantly, was unmistakably subordinate to the distribution of the elements.
Oddly enough, Cranmer overlooked this essential matter in his revision
of the mass; the high point of the old service was the consecration and
elevation of the elements, which fact the structure of the service made
amply clear. Cranmer, in his eagerness to say all that could be said
about the meaning of the Eucharist, created a service which placed its
emphasis similarly. The present version of this tradition, by virtue of
its considerable compresssion at this critical point, moves directly to
the climax at the distribution of the elements; the resultant increase
of virtual motion, rather similar to the effect of stretto in contra¬
puntal music, creates an analogous sense of increasing tension leading
to a climax. The prayer of humble access was similarly dealt with, on
the general principle that if it cannot be eliminated, it might
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-187-
just as well be gotten out of the way as much as possible; again,
what is lost in poetry is gained in dramatic impact. There is
simply no comparison between the virtual motion in this redaction
and the original; where in the Episcopal service the priest retreats
to the altar and the congregation to its private devotions during
the stretch between the general confession and the prayer of humble
access, here leader and congregation alike are engrossed in the
swift and vivid narrative action of the rite.
The only significant change in the third section is the
addition of a bit of dialog between the prayer of general thanks¬
giving and the benediction. Actually, the dialog is stylistically
very much a part of the benediction, as will be noted:
The Lord be with you.
Bf. And with thy spirit.
Depart in peace.
BA Thanks be to God.
The peace of God which passes all understanding
keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and
love of God, and of his son Jesus Christ our Lord:
And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost, be amongst you, and remain with
you always.
Amen.
The concluding editorial footnote is phrased in the best Trojan horse
manner; it should read, "This service is based on the most ancient
patterns of Christian worship, as are Methodist, etc. liturgies..."
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SCHOOL OP THEOLOGY AT CLAREMONT
ORDER OP WORSHIP FOR THE LORD'S SUPPER
Prelude
Plrst Evmn (The people standing)
Call to Confession
Silent Meditation (The people seated)
The Prayer of General Confession ? 'ALMIGHTY AND MOST MERCI¬
FUL FATHER, WB HAVE ERRED AMU.STRAYED FROM THY WAYS.LIKE
LOST SHEEP. WE HATE FOLLOWED TOO MUCH THE DEVICES AMD DE¬
SIRES OF OUR OWN HEARTS; WE HATE OFFENDED AGAINST THY HOLY
LAWS. WE HATE LEFT UNDONE THOSE THINGS WHICH WE OUGHT TO
HATE DONE, AND WE HATE DONE THOSE THINGS WHICH WE OUGHT NOT
TO HATE DONE; AND THERE IS NO WHOLENESS^INUS.-BUT THOU, 0
LORD, HATE MERCY UPON US, MISERABLE OFFENDERS; SPARS THOU
THOSE, 0 GOD, WHO CQNFBSS THEIR FAULTS. RBSTGRETTHGU THOSE
WHO ARE PENITENT; ACCORDING 0 ®) THY PROMISES^DECLARED UNTO
MANKIND IN CHRIST- JESUSl OURHLOSDiJ AND GRANT, r,O t MQST MERCI¬
FUL FATHER, FGR-HIS SAKS, THAT WE MAY HEREAFTER LITE A
L3FR>BEBASING AND USEFUL UNTO THEE, TO THE GLORY OF THY
HOLT'SlMB;o.YHROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LQRDfe AMBN. ,
The~ Peel ftTftti of> of Forgiveness: There la n<nr no condemna¬
tion for, those vho are in Christ Jesus. I declare unto you
in fcis nisne that ; we are forgiven. And'nov as he taught us,
ve are bold to say* ^
Oar Fa-ther, who art iir be*.-Ten, Hal-low - ed_ be
thy_ Name. Thy kinff-dom c ome— - Thy will be done,—
On earth as It— is- to hea-Ten. Give us this day our
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we for-give those who tres-pass a-gainst us.
And lead
os not in - to temp-ta - tion, But de-liv-er us from
t-fcr-1
r—k-H
H - 1—r - i
III
tp.
Ii
jii
1
|*r
e - Til. For thine is the king-dom, and the powei^ and
rtf. p
c .*4
Scripture Lesson t v :;
Witness to the Tord r •
Second Hymn (The peopled standing)
.... ‘ i. b
->r?iyr
Prayer of Intercession " (The people seated)
Lift up your hearts. WB HPT THEM UP UNTO THE 10RD. .
Let us give thanksunto our Lord God. IT IS MEET AND
RIGHT SO TO DO. It is very meet, right, and our~hounden
duty that we should at all times and in all. places* give
thanks unto thee, 0 Lord, Holy Father, Almighty, Everlast¬
ing God. Therefore with angels-: and archangels, and with
all the company of heaVen, we . laud and magnify thy glorious
name, evermore praising thee and saying:
Lord
God
of—hosts, Hea - yen-and
/
of thy "glo - ry: Glo-ry_ be to- thee,
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The Words of Institution : All glory be to thee, 0 God our
Father, for thy mighty act in Jesus Christ, his life and
death, his passion and resurrection; who, on the night in
which he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given
thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is.my body which is
broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same
way also the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the
new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink
it, in remembrance of me."
Wherefore, most gracious Father, we bring before thee
these, thy gifts of bread and wine, making here before
thee the memorial which .thy Son commanded us to make,
and proclaiming his death until he comes again.
And we ask that thy Holy Spirit might come among us; that
the bread we break and the cup we share may be for us a
means of grace; and that receiving them in faith, we may
be' made one with Christ and he .with us, and remain faith¬
ful members of his body until we feast with him anew in
his Kingdom. _ __
0 GOD, WHO HAST SO GREATLY LOVED US, LONG SOUGHT US, AND
MERCIFULLY REDEEMED US, WE YIELD OURSELVES, OUR WILLS AND
OUR WORKS, A CONTINUAL THANK-OFFERING UNTO THEE; THROUGH
JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD. . AMEN.
The Distribution of the Elements
(All are invited to come forward and kneel in prayer at
this time. Those wishing to receive the elements may
so indicate by holding their hands in such a manner as
to receive the bread. The wine may be received in the
traditional manner, or by intinction.)
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The lord he with. you. AND WITH THI SPIRIT. Let us pray
0 GOD, WHO HAST CALLED US PROM DEATH TO LIFE, WE OFFER
OURSELVES TO THEE; AHD WITH THY CHURCH THROUGH ALL
AGES, WE THANK- AHD PRAISE THEE FOR THY REDEEMING
LOVE IE CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD. AMEN.
The Benediction : The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
he with you all. AMBH.
Third Hymn (The people standing)
Pogtlude •
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-192-
3c # Weekly Lord f s Supper Liturgy
This service was compiled by Wayne Dalton and the writer
during the week of April 25, 1966, and was first used May sixth.
The primary consideration behind this service was the twenty-minute
time limit, so that not only the form but also the materials were
chosen with an eye to compactness. The minimal requirements for
such a service appear to be included in the very famous passage
in I Corinthians 11, and we decided to use this as the basis
about which the service should be built, and as far as possible,
use Pauline materials to construct it. This resulted in a service
which was free-church and group-centered in style, and emphasized
communion as supper rather than sacrament.
The prayer of confession was chosen because of its echoes of
Romans 7, particularly the nineteenth verse. By this time, the
pietists were not only in rout but decidedly not in evidence,
and so we used the declarative form of absolution, virtually a
stylistic necessity in as tight a service as this. The second
hymn was used as a transition device between the service of the
word and the supper; actually, with such brief forms the problem
joining them together is very simple. The Sanctus was added to
balance the sections alloted group and leader; if not Pauline, it
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-193-
represents a very old liturgical tradition.
The words of institution are given in as compact a form as
possible. They are here in the form of a prayer, in keeping with
the solemnity of this part of the service, and they are introduced
with words that echo the last phrase of the Sanctus, "Heaven and
earth are full of thy glory;/Glory be to thee, 0 Lord most high, 11
There follows a brief statement of intent, and then an invocation
of the Spirit, not upon the elements, but upon the congregation,
an Eastern borrowing by way of 3ucer. Finally, a unison prayer
involves the entire group just before the distribution of the ele¬
ments; the Lord's Prayer would be ideal for this purpose, not because
of its theological content so much as its affective connotations,
but it also functions very well in its present location. We there¬
fore inserted a not-very-satisfactory substitute for it; meanwhile,
the search goes on.
The conclusion of the service is very brief, probably far too
much so; however, a carefully selected third hymn will help to shape
a more satisfactory conclusion. The blessing is from II Corinthians
13, another use of Pauline material, and one which balances the prayer
of thanksgiving and the absolution at the beginning of the service.
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-194-
3d. Revised Weekly I>opd , s Supper Liturgy
SCHOOL OP THEOLOGY IT CLABEMOHT
CfiDER OF WORSHIP FOR THE LORD'S S P PPE R
Prelude .-
First Hymn. (The people., standing)
Call to Confession.
Silent Meditation (The people seated)
The Prayer of General Confession : AIMIGHTY AND MOST MERCI¬
FUL FATHER, WE HAVE ERRED AHD STRAYED FROM THY WAYS LIKE
LOST SHEEP. WE HAVE FOLLOWED TOO MUCK -T HE DEVICES AHD DE¬
SIRES OF OUR OWH HEARTS: WE HAVE OFFENDED AGAINST THY HOLY
LAVS. WE HAVE LEFT nwnnwg THOSE THINGS WHICH WE OUGHT TO
HAVE DONE, AHD WE HAVE DONE THOSE THINGS WHICH WE OUGHT HOT
TO HAVE DONE; AHD THERE IS HO WHOLEN ESS IN US. BUT THOU, 0
LORD, HAVE MERCY UPON US, MISERABLE OFFENDERS. SPARE THOU
THOSE, 0 GOD, WHO CONFESS THEIR FAULTS. RESTORE THOU THOSE
WHO ARE PENITENT, ACCORDING TO THY EROMISES DECLARED UNTO
MAEimro IE CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD. AHD GRANT, 0 MOST MERCI¬
FUL FATHER, FOR HIS SAKE, THAT WB MAY HEREAFTER LIVE A
LIFE PLEASING AND USEFUL UNTO THEE, TO THE GLORY OF THY
HOLY NAME; THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD. AMEN.
The Declaration of Forgiveness : There .is now no condemna¬
tion for those who are in Christ Jesus. I declare unto you
in his name that ire are forgiven. And now as he taught us,
ve are bold to say:
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m
m g as
«e for-give those -who tres-pas**-f*lnst na- And lead
as not in-to temp-is - tion. But de-liv-er ns from
e - Til. For thine Is the kbif-iian, and the pawe* and
the *lo - rjr, for er-er sni er - et
Scripture Lesson -'.V-- *;•
Vitnesa to the Word
Second Hymn (The people standing)
Praver of Intercession (The people seated) * The lord he
with you. AND WITH THY SPIRIT. Let us pray for the needs
of the whole vorld; for peace on earth, and good trill
among all people; for unity and brotherhood vithin the
church, and especially vithin this our;community.
let us remember before God the poor, the hungry, the
oppressed; the sick, and them that mourn; the lonely
and the unloved; the aged and the children; and all
those mho do not know the lord Jesus Christ, or who do
not love him, or who by sin have turned from him.
lastly, let us remember all those who rejoice with us,
but upon another shore, and in a greater light, that
multitude which no man can number, whose hope was in
the Word, made flesh, and with whom in the lord Jesus
we are one forever more.
AIKEGHTY GOD OUR FATHER, WHO : HAST PROMISED TO HEAR THE
PETITIONS OF THOSE WHO ASK IN THT SON'S NAME: GRANT, WE
BESEECH THEE, THOSE THINGS WHICH WE HAVE FAITHFULLY ASKED
ACCORDING TO THT Will, FOR OUR GOOD AND FOR THT GLORY;
THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD. AMEN.
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- oa In the_ high
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The Institution : All glory be to thee, 0 Sod oar Father,
for thy nighty act in Jesus Christ, his life and passion,
his death bd & resurrection; who, on the night in which he
was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he
broke it, and said, "This is my body which is broken for
you. ho this in remembrance of me." In the same way also
the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is Idle new cove¬
nant in my blood, ho this, as often as you drink it, in
remembrance of me.”
therefore, most gracious Father, ve bless and thank thee
for these, thy gifts of bread and wine, with which we make
here before thee the memorial thy Son commanded us to make,
proclaiming his death until he comes again.
And we ask that thy Holy Spirit might come among us; that
the bread we break and the cup we share may be for us a
means of grace; and that receiving them in faith, we may
be made one with Christ and he with us, and remain faith¬
ful members of his body until we feast with him anew in
his Kingdom; through Jesus Christ our lord. AMEN.
The Distribution of the Elements (All are invited to come
forward and kneel in prayer at this time. Those wishing to
receive the elements may do so in the traditional manner,
or by intlnction, the dipping of the wafer into the cup.)
The Thanksgjpi ng ♦ The Lord be with you. AND WITH THY
SPIRIT; Let us pray: 0 GOD, WHO HAST SO GREATLY LOVED
03, LONG SOUGHT US, AND MERCIFULLY REDEEMED US, VE
YIELD OURSELVES, OUR VILIS AND OUR WORKS, A CONTINUAL
THANK OFFERING UNTO THEE; AND WITH THY CHURCH THROUGH
ALL AGES, VE BLESS AND PRAISE THEE FOR THY REDEEMING
LOVE IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD . AMEN.
>
The Benediction : The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,
be with us all. AMEN.
The Third Hymn (The people standing)
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3d. Revised Weekly Lcrd f s Supper Liturgy
The revision of this service began with its first use* and
will no-doubt continue for some time to come. This first printed
revision was the result of discussion with Steven G. Smith on
June 14-15* 1966* and has,not yet been used.
The first revision is the inclusion of a printed prayer of
intercession. In the first service, this prayer was left to the
discretion of the leader, partly in an attempt to appropriate some
of the values of the free service. The leaders, however, failed to
take advantage of this opportunity, and generally contented them¬
selves with reading prayers excerpted from other liturgies, or with
omitting the prayer altogether. We decided* therefore* that the value
of having the prayer in the hands of the congregation outweighed the
value of having a different prayer each week* and supplied an adaptation
of the bidding prayer from the Kings College, Cambridge, Festival of
Lessons and Carols. It consists of a prayer for the world, for those
in need* and for the communion of saints, arranged in climactic order,
with an adaptation of a collect from the Book of Common Prayer as
conclusion. It will be interesting to see if it functions usefully
in the service.
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199
The next revision was in the prayer of consecration; it was
noticed that the narrative action of this prayer did not correspond
to the action outlined in the words of institution from I Corinthians
11. The passage suggests what Dix calls ”the four-fold shape of the
47
liturgy," while the prayer itself, obviously influenced by the
"seven-fold shape" of our festival services and the Anglican-Methodist
liturgies which lie behind them, does not include any prayer of thanks¬
giving for the elements themselves. This was rectified by altering the
first line of the second paragraph to read, "Wherefore, most gracious
Father, we bless and thank thee for these, thy gifts of bread and
wine..."
A second alteration was the excision of the offering of self
at the conclusion of this prayer, another inheritance from Archbishop
Cranner, who obviously felt that after nearly fifteen hundred years of
the mass as offering, something ought to be offered in the mass, and
hit upon praise, thanksgiving, and our selves. However; the narrative-'
action does not appear to require any offering at this point, and
since we do not have any pro-Roman bishops to placate in our community,
we made bold to remove this offering of self to the end of the service,
where it stands in the office. At the same time, we eliminated a group
activity immediately before the distribution of the elements, hoping
that the distribution would become that formally necessary group
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- 200 -
activity, and thus be more than ever the climax of the service.
But we will not be certain until the service has been in use some
time; the ghost of the Archbishop is exceedingly difficult to exor¬
cise , and we may yet find that we cannot do without him.
The prayer thus removed from the prayer of consecration is
conflated with the prayer of thanksgiving, where it fits nicely and
gives that prayer more weight and substance. This in turn makes the
conclusion of the service less abrupt and improves its proportion to
the rest of the service, still a problem in this new liturgy.
As was the case with the offices, the worship bulletin repro¬
duced here is not the complete service, but only its outline and
fixed materials. We therefore include below a typical set of var¬
iable materials for a given service; because these constitute so
small a proportion of the service, we will not reproduce again‘the
fixed text.
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201 -
PUER NOBIS
, Moderately fast
Adapted by MICHAEL PRAETORIUS, 1609
i U—J-U
+■ -r- f r
rr r
f r r r
1 6 Splen - dor of God’s gjo - ry bright, O thou that
2 O thou true Sun, on us thy glance Let fall in
3 The Fa - ther, too, our prayers im - plore. Fa - ther of
i
m
«j
J - J-r-4-
r I 1 r
i
i
I— 1 "t
f = c r = f
bring - est light from light, O Light of Light, light’s liv - mg
toy - al ra - di - ance. The Spi - rit’s sane - ti - fy - ing
glo - ry ev - er - more. The Fa - ther of all grace and
m
i
J rJii 1 £ 1 JTU j
&
S All laud to God the Father be;
All praise, eternal Son, to thee;
All glory, as is ever meet.
To God the holy Paraclete. Amen,
ST. AMBROSE, 340-397; Tr. ROBERT BRIDGES, 1399
By pexmssxiociof The Clar en do n Preu, Oxford
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Call to Confession: Grace be unto you and peace, from God our Father.
Hear now these words of the Lord Jesus Christ: "Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all
thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is
like unto it; thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two
commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." Let us confess our
sin to Almighty God.
The Lesson: Our lesson is from the Gospel of John, the third chapter,
beginning with the sixteenth verse:
For God loved the world so much that he gave his
only Son, so that no one who believes in him should
be lost, but that they should all have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to pass
judgment upon the world, but that the world through
him might be saved. No one who believes in him has
to come up for judgment. Anyone who does not believe
stands condemned already, for not believing in God's
only Son. And the basis of the judgment is this, that
the light has come into the world, and yet, because
their actions were wicked, men have loved the dark¬
ness more than the light. For everyone who does
wrong hates the light, and will not come to it, for
fear his actions will be exposed. But everyone who
is living the truth will come to the light, to show
that his actions have been performed in dependence
upon God.
Witness to the Word: As I thought about this very familiar passage of
Scripture, it seemed to me that my understanding of it had been blunted
by our favorite cultural pastime, that of neatly categorizing all
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-203-
manner of human experience into preconceived pigeon-holes. For
it is very easy to see in it the proclamation of what we call
grace, so much so that when one of our less inhibited brethren
decides to deface the landscape with a billboard proclaiming the
virtues of the Christian style, and then discovers that sign-
painters are accustomed to being paid by the word or by the hour,
he normally chooses the first verse of this passage as a shorthand
version of the Gospel: "For God so loved the world..."
On the other hand, while it seems to require more effort to
do so, it is possible to see in this passage what we like to call
judgment. Because of our custom of reading the Bible from the view¬
point of the elect, we tend to dismiss the threats of judgment as
being directed to the heathen, that is, those who are conspicuously
absent from the exercises of organized Christianity. Bulr Martin Luther
read his New Testament a trifle more closely than most of us, and he
was therefore ready to speak of the Bible as an expression of the
wrath of God, as well as his love, for in it we are confronted with
God r s standards, and we cannot meet them.
Being an amateur theologian, I naturally tried to think of this
passage as a statement about grace and wrath, or, on occasion for
variety, wrath and grace. But in doing so, I missed completely one
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of the most significant aspects of this passage, its insistence
that grace and wrath are not two separate entities, but only
aspects of a single experience; the very act of grace, the invasion
of history, inevitably judges, but he who is the judgment dies in
agony on the cross in an ultimate act of identification with us
and with our condition. How often this is repeated on a smaller
scale in our own experience; those whom we love most **
by virtue of that relationship stand in the most devastating judgment
on us and what we are, and yet they love. Is not that the ultimate
meaning of grace, to be known completely, and yet to be loved? This
has been my experience, and I think probably yours as well, for this
is the way the light comes into our lives, and the judgment known,
and the grace made real for each of us.
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-2
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The first hymn is not only a good rousing way to begin a
morning service, but is full of imagery about light, and uses light
as a metaphor for the Christ, much as the lesson and witness will
shortly do.^^
The call to confession, of course, is the great conmandment, as
found in the offices and in the festival communion services. Here it
has an additional function, that of illustrating the fusion of grace
and judgment characteristic of Jesus' teaching, which is later to be
the subject of the witness to the word.
The lesson was chosen at random from those appointed for the
Trinity season, but with the intention of selecting one which posed
unusual problems for the leader; in this case, the problem is the
over-familiarity of the passage. The witness is a sample treatment
of the theme; it would be extemporaneously spoken, of course, and
the present version makes some concessions to written English.
The second hymn is often regarded as one of the greatest state-
49
ments of the Incarnation in Christian hymnody; it is yet another wit¬
ness to the Word, one which the congregation can create. The last hymn
si
is a paraphrase of a Eucharistic prayer from the Didache; it too al¬
ludes to the theme of the service, and broadens its scope consider¬
ably.
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THE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY AT CLAREMONT
SIXTH ANNUAL FESTIVAL OF LESSONS AND CAROLS
BASED ON THE CHRISTMAS ORATORIO OF J. S. BACH
PARTICIPATING IN THE SERVICE
MEMBERS OF THE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY COMMUNITY
THE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY CHORALE
THE CAL STATE LOS ANGELES CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
GAYLORD H. BROWNE, CONDUCTING
THE CLAREMONT PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
DECEMBER 13, 1965 AT 8:00 P.ii.
THE PRELUDE TO THE FESTIVAL
INVOCATION: Dr. K. Morgan Edwards
INTROIT
PROCESSIONAL HYMN NO. 170 (The Congregation standing)
ThE BIDDING PRAYER AND THE LORD'S PRAYER
Christians, be joyful, and praise your salvation!
Sing, for today your redeemer is born.
Cease to be fearful, forget lamentation.
Haste with thanksgiving to greet this glad morn.
Come, let us worship and fall down before him.
Let us with voices united adore himl
THE FIRST LESSON
Isaiah 9t2-7, read by Mr. Donald Reisinger
How s h al l I fitly meet thee, and give thee welcome due?
The nations long to greet thee, and I would greet thee too.
0 Fount of Light, shine brightly upon my darkened heart.
That I ftay serve thee rightly, and know thee as thou art.
THE SECOND LESSON
St. Luke 1:26-35, read by Dr. Joseph Hough
For us to earth he cometh poor, our redemption to securej
And rich in heaven to make us stand, all numbered with his angel band.
Wayne Dalton, baritone
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■210
THE THIRD LESSON
St. Luke 2:l-7 } read by Dr. Jane Dempsey Douglass
Ah, dearest Jesus, holy child, make thee a bed, soft, undefiled.
Within my heart, and there recline and keep that chamber ever thine.
THE PASTORAL SYMPHONY
HYMN (The Congregation is invited to rise and sing with the Chorale)
Break forth, 0 beauteous, heavenly light, and usher in the morning;
Ye shepherds, shrink not with affright, but hear the Angel’s warning:
This child now weak in infancy our confidence and joy shall be.
The power of Satan breaking, our peace eternal making.
THE FOURTH LESSON
St. Luke 2:8-lU, read by Dr. Loren Fisher
With all thy hosts, 0 Lord, we sing, and thanks and praise to thee
we bring
For thou, 0 long expected guest, hast come at last to make us blessed.
THE FIFTH LESSON
St. Luke 2:15-20, read by Mr. Buford Dickinson
Hear, King of Angels, though falter our voices,
0, when thy Zion before thee rejoices.
Let her endeavor be pleasing to thee i
Hear us, 0 Lord, when we offer our praises.
Hear when thy Zion glad thanksgiving raises.
Joying thy mighty salvation to see.
THE SIXTH LESSON
St. Matthew 2:1-12, read by Dr. Lei and Carlson
Come and thank him, come and praise him, fall before God’s throne of
grace; God's own son of his mercy is our Savior and Redeemer;
God’s own son all the foes of man subdueth.
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I
THE SEVENTH LESSON
St. John 1:1-5, Hi, read by Dr. Hans Dieter Betz
Now vengeance hatb been taken on all the foes of man.
And Christ doth end in triumph the conflict he began.
Sin, Death, and Hell and Satan their mighty victor own.
And man doth stand forgiven before his Father's throne.
Robert K. Chaney, trumpet
BENEDICTION: Dean Allen J. Moore
RECESSIONAL HIMN NO. 151 (The Congregation standing)
POSTLUDE: Toccata in C major by J. S. Bach Vernon Hill, organist
THE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY CHORALE, Wayne Dalton, director:
Linda Akin, Marilyn Anderson, Joan Berry, Jean Culbertson, Louise Dalton,
Lou Ernst, Beth Ann Goodell, Betty Hagelbarger, Marilyn Johnston, Doris
McElroy, Geri Maddux, Misty Rothaar, Ruth Sharrard, Kathy Stefan,
Virginia Timmerman, Jack Coogan, Dick Craft, Wayne Dalton, Dave Ernst,
Laron Hall, Gary Hargroves, Vernon Hill, Jim Hulett, Gary Jennings, Dale
Johnston, Ray McElroy, Marvin Maddux, Jim Osborn, John Parks, Roy
Roberts, Dave Sharrard, Paul Sweet, Hank Tompkins, Glen Warner, Jim
Weinheimer. Dave Sharrard and Vernon Hill, accompanists.
THE CAL STATE L. A. CHAMBER ORCHESTRA , Gaylord H. Browne, conductor:
Monti Grutzmacker, Bob Randles, flute; Salvatore P. Spano, John Phillips,
Jack Coogan, Ray McElroy, oboe, oboe d'amore, and oboe da caccia; Jim
Stewart, bassoon; Merrill Blau, Nancy wuistdorf, horn; Robert K. Chaney,
Anthony Feliz, Harvey Ken?), trumpet; Charles Grossman, timpani; Margaret
Bachman, Pat Chaney, Clarice Haney, Dave Nelson, Carol Shumway, Anne
Williams, Lanette Williams, Laurel Sercombe, violin; Frank Dick, Linda
Seeman, Chris Toppen, viola; Katie-Joy Blevans, Loretta Schall, cello;
Richard Rehwald, bass; Charles Lutz, harpischord; Vernon Hill, organ.
The School of Theology is deeply grateful to Professor G. K. Browne, and
to the members of the Chamber Orchestra for their gift of time and talent
to this festival; to the Claremont Presbyterian Church and its pastor.
The Reverend Kenneth McCandless, for their very gracious hospitality; to
First Methodist Church, Riverside, Christ Church, Ontario, Holy Trinity
Parish, Alhambra; and to Hiss Jean Culbertson for the creation of posters
and programs.
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D. Response to these Services and Evaluation
In an important sense, the ultimate test of an art-work is the
individual's response to it. If the function of an art-form is to be
faithful to the form of human feeling, it must be evaluated by that
standard; pending the development of more adequate analytic tools with
which to deal with feeling and forms which propose to express it, one
must rely on the traditional methods. Among these, the most important
one has been the intuitive sense of congruence between the form and
one's own experience, and based upon this, an attempt to estimate the
degree to which the form expresses and illuminates the nature of human
feeling.
To this writer, the most impressive validation of a theory of
worship as expressive form used as a constructive principle in liturgy
is his own response and that expressed by the community to the resultant
services. Stated as concisely as possible, the response was this: for
most of the community, the office services were too far removed from
familiar experience, and in particular too demanding of thought and
discipline, to be immediately attractive; this group drifted in to see
what was happening, and drifted out again before they ever found out*
Moreover, this experience appeared to constitute a threat for many
students, for their expressed response was often negative and even
hostile, and tended to block further exploration of the services, or
reflection upon them. In the case of the eucharist, the festival ones
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-213-
were close enough to those in the local church to be successful for
the larger camnunity; the weekly services were conducted for too
brief a time to make any generalizations about their appeal, but
they seemed to be growing in popularity slowly at the time they
were discontinued at the end of the semester.
On the other hand, a small group found the services either
attractive because of previous experience or aesthetic interest,
or at least a challenge to their present understanding of worship,
and stayed with them: long-enough to learn to use them. With these
the response was uniformly very positive; they attended very regular¬
ly, and often spoke of the significance the services had come to have
for them. They felt that this response would be far more widespread
if the larger community" could be brought to see the value of the services,
and motivated to make the effort to become familiar with them. As
noted above, this kind of education is one of the major task next
51
year's Worship Committee has set itself, and properly so; an academic
community ought not only to be creating art-forms, but also making
what contribution it can to their understanding and appreciation.
On the basis of these responses, it may be assumed that the
principle of expressive form produces workable worship; at the same
time, so do more traditional approaches. Since the result in both
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-214-
cases is comparable, so ought to be the approaches. And they are,
in many ways. One may take, for instance, three of the best
practically-oriented texts on worship of our time, and compare
their prescriptions with the present services. Among the books
that might be nominated are C. H. Heimsath’s The Genius of Public
Worship , a very ecumenically-minded work out of the free tradition,
George Hedley f s Christian Worship ,Certainly the most lucid guide
currently available to the liturgist f s task, or Massey Shepherd’s
*4-
The Worship of the Church , a very useful commentary on the liturgy
of the Protestant Episcopal Church. These three books are remarkably
alike in outlook, and advocate liturgies that are equally remarkably
similar. In comparing this ideal liturgy with those discussed above,
we discover no major points of discrepancy, either in terms of form
or component material. What then is the difference between them?
Simply this; that the three works noted above almost invariably
invoke tradition of one sort or another as the basis for any
liturgical practice, whereas the material in the present liturgies
is there for aesthetic reasons which can be articulated with at
least a reasonable degree of accuracy. To be sure, the limitations
of this approach are precisely the limitations of aesthetic theory
itself, a discursive form called upon to explain one that is not.
But compared with the vagaries of tradition, the suggestions of
aesthetics are clarity itself.
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- 215 -
Examples of this could be multiplied indefinitely. Recently,
?. R. Clifford has written a splendid pair of articles on Baptist
worship,-making a number of the same points we have dealt with above
But again, the appeal is to tradition, "A service of worship is meant
to be something done for God.” The argument here is based squarely
on an unusually loose piece of etymology; can it be defended on any
other basis, even theological? "Worship is essentially a corporate
and universal activity." The argument here is from"its very nature,"
the witness of the Gospel, and the fact that only together can we make
"a Christian offering to God." "A service of worship should have a ~
structure which can give expression to a liturgical purpose and which
may serve as a vehicle for a corporate and universal act of devotion."
The argument is that this alone insures "a disciplined offering,"
ease of congregational participation, uniformity with worship elsewhere,
and a complete service. These are positions with which we are ready
to agree, but they are not really supported by the arguments advanced.
They ensue in a service outline which is virtually identical with our
ferial morning prayer, but again without systematic explanation. And
Clifford’s work is not offered as a horrible example; on the contrary,
it might well be the envy of many liturgists who have thought these
things, but not articulated them with: half the vigor and clarity.
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■ 216 -
Langer’s theory, on the contrary, gives us a tool for
understanding the whole panorama of human worship, and at the
other extreme for supporting the liturgical reforms we instinctively
want to make with defensible arguments. And while she might not
want to assume responsibility for the idea that worship is an
offering to God—Calvin and Luther might not either—she can
certainly speak to the other of Mr. Clifford 1 s points. Worship
as community activity? Certainly, because this is the only way that
each person present can really participate in the creation of express
sive.form, at the same time using this experience as part of the
building-material of community. A structure which gives expression
to a liturgical purpose? Of course; until the theater of the absurd,
no language-art ever attained even moderately large proportion without
some manner of narrative action to hold it together, and it is not at
all certain that the theater of the absurd is succeeding in its formal
experiments. And so on through the ranks; arguments that Hedley or
Shepherd advance with a plea to what they regard as acceptable trad¬
ition, or worse yet in .a manner which the prophets used to preface
with a*; f, Thus says the Lord!" can be given far surer foundations. If
as generally is -assumed', the value..of a theory is directly proportional
to the amount of experience it organizes, then worship as expressive
form is as safe on these grounds as it is in its ability to guide
in the creation of workable and meaningful liturgies.
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SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
This study began in the interaction between two of the writer* s
personal convictions, that the theoretical framework presented in the
major works of Suzanne K. hanger can illuminate the entire range of
human expressive activity, and that no expressive activity in our time
and tradition is more seriously in need of a secure theoretical found¬
ation than worship. This interaction took the form of study, reflective
thought, and liturgical experimentation, and its results, both theoret¬
ical and practical, are presented above. Now it seems useful to summa¬
rize this material, and to attempt to view it from the perspective of
the entire study.
The first section attempted a brief critique of major ideas of
previous liturgical theory. Among the ideas presented were those of
worship as originated and structured by God either through tradition
or through the specialized form of tradition in the canonical Bible,
and worship structured by man as a pre-scientific way of dealing with
his environment and experience. The critique did not attempt to discred¬
it these ideas, but merely to show their inadequacy as comprehensive
theories. This being the case, it will be helpful to relate the valid
insights possessed by these ideas to the theory of worship as expressive
form.
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-218
The first idea discussed, that of worship as structured by God
through tradition, is not basically incompatible with worship as ex¬
pressive form. Massey Shepherd articulated the relationship between
these concepts, perhaps without fully realizing the implications of
his remark, when he wrote, "God uses man f s capacity to symbolize as a
S6
means of revealing himself#" "The God who acts in history can also act
in the process of forming and transforming symbols; many of the acts
of God recorded in the familiar passages of the Bible can be understood
as human acts of symbolic transformation, consisting of fresh percep¬
tions and new structurings of experience, but human acts initiated or
motivated by God. If this is a valid point of view, then the tradition¬
al claims that worship mediates certain religious benefits are not
entirely without theoretical support; one might assume that the symbol¬
ic structures in which God revealed himself continue to make him known
when they are appropriated in the recreation of those structures#
The related problem of tradition is resolved when tradition is
understood not as discursive information cast over the parapets of
Heaven, but rather as a collection of forms which have proved to be
usefully expressive to many people over long periods of time; religious
tradition consists largely of those forms which once expressed for many
something of what they identified as the experience of God# This view
of tradition permits a simple approach to its evaluation, one that
may be expressed in a pair of questions: Does this form continue to
express what its creator put into it? and if so. Is this experience
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congruent with our own experience of God? If these can be answered in
the affirmative, then the tradition is of value today; if either answer
is no, then the tradition is not useful, even if created by the Apostles,
ratified at Nicea, and attested to by seven angels with golden trumpets.
In the case of the psychological and anthropological concepts, the
theory of expressive form can be seen simply as an extension and refine¬
ment of previous work. Its decisive advance over such work is Its will¬
ingness to regard imaginative symbolization not as an abberation of the
rational processes, but rather as a normal and desirable part of man f s
dealing with his experience. This assumption, clarified by Langer's
extension of symbolic logic into the imaginative realm, has provided
significant new insights into such varied phenomena as the arts, worship,
the creative process, and cultural anthropology, and has at the same
time demonstrated the degree of their unity and their relationship to
all human intellectual activity, both discursive and non-discursive.
Its ability to incorporate these earlier insights into its struc¬
ture is yet another evidence of the usefulness of the theory of worship
as expressive form. Succinctly stated, this theory understands worship
as an expressive form, following Langer f s exposition of that category.
Because its basic dynamic, the creation of a perceptible form express¬
ing internalized experience, is identical with that of art, and because
its fabric is composed of a mixture of art forms, it can to a large
degree be studied using the tools of aesthetic analysis, and its
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- 220 -
practice can be facilitated and certain of its problems resolved by the
application of insights derivative from that study. At the same time,
liturgy is decisively distinct from traditional art forms because it
exploits the unique values of community participation in the creation
of its expressive form: enhancement of the intensity of the aesthetic
experience, increased familiarity with the content of the art work, the
experience of creativity itself, and most significantly, the creation
and continuing enhancement of human relationships through the sharing
of the creative process with other individuals. These values exist apart
from the aesthetic value of the form itself, although they increase in
value as it .does; one cannot therefore replace liturgy with an art form,
no matter how superior aesthetically it may be, but one can increase the
aesthetic importance of the liturgical form almost indefinitely. And
these values make liturgy a uniquely important form for any group which
seeks to develop relationships within itself through the celebration of
its common experience, a reasonable description of the church. This is
why despite strong internal pressures that push liturgy toward spectator
forms, its participational nature has been continually reaffirmed by
reformers concerned for the welfare of the church.
As an example of the application of aesthetic principles to the
solution of liturgical problems, the relationship of the component arts
of worship was articulated according to insights derivative of a relat¬
ed art form, opera. The distinction between art forms capable of con¬
veying narrative action and those which are not was shown to be the
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- 221 -
basis on which an art form is admitted to the liturgy, and on this
basis the arts of poetry, music, and pantomime and their simple com¬
pounds were shown to be the materials of liturgy. Their interrelation¬
ships are governed by the need for one of them to be dominant and the
others subordinate, this decision being made from point to point accord¬
ing to the demands of variety and expressive weight.
The values and techniques of participational forms were then dis¬
cussed in more detail, and various practices in contemporary worship
evaluated from the point of view of their usefulness as group-centered
forms. 3y this criterion, many of the most prominent aspects of con¬
temporary Protestant worship were shown to be defective, neither per¬
mitting the values of authentic liturgy to be realized, nor being of
sufficient artistic merit to be very useful in their own right. Various
suggestions for the amelioration of this situation were offered, the
principal one of which was that non-participational forms be identi¬
fied and held to an absolute minimum in any activity designed to be
liturgical and so designated.
The last section presented a specific community and a series of
thirteen liturgies designed for it over the period of a school year
using the insights and tools provided by the theory of worship as
expressive form. Commentary on these revealed that while they were
traditional in appearance, they were actually designed to be faithful
to specific aesthetic and liturgical principles outlined in this study.
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- 222 -
The community^ response to them was summarized, but the reader was
urged to evaluate them on the basis of his immediate response to them
rather than by the presented discursive categories alone, since one of
the corollaries of this theory of worship is that no purely discursive
measurement of worship is adequate to its subject. The experimental use
of these liturgies re-emphasized the degree of previous learning demand¬
ed by them or by any such relatively complex symbol structure for suc¬
cessful appropriation and use, but it also demonstrated that the theory
is capable of producing viable liturgy.
On the basis of this study, it is possible to make some general¬
izations about worship in the present situation of the church. The study
appears to confirm the witness of church history that worship is an
extraordinarily important if not central aspect of the life of the
church, and this for at least two reasons. First, liturgy offers the
church an unexcelled way of preserving and communicating the experience
that called the church into being, and is rich in significant art forms
developed in the past which do just this. And even more important, lit¬
urgy is the best means that the church has for creating and nurturing
the sense of community so essential to it. In this sense, the altar is
quite literally at the center of the church f s life, and all that the
church is and does ultimately finds its best meaning at the altar, and
before the risen Lord which the altar symbolizes. The church is incon¬
ceivable without worship, and the congregation which neglects it is in
peril of its very life as a community of the faithful.
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While affirming this f it is also necessary to admit that worship
is in very serious trouble in the modern world. The old demons of pride,
stupidity, and indifference which caused liturgy such grief in the past
are still with us, and still as active as ever. But they have a great
new ally in twentieth-century America in the increasingly non-partici-
pational character of the culture itself; the fragmentation of experi¬
ence, the breakdown of relationship, the weakening of such structures
as the family all point to a style of life which is antithetical to the
liturgy and to the Gospel as well. Liturgy could be a major solution to
this problem with its unique capacity for establishing relationships
between people and between the individual and his experience* But the
process works both ways, and it appears possible that the demonic ele¬
ments in the culture may reduce liturgy to insignificance before the
liturgy can exorcise them in the name of its Lord* Even the best tool
is useless if no one knows how to use it or is concerned enough to try*
Clearly, then, it is once more time to make a serious attempt to
recover liturgy# Such an attempt will require analytic study of the
nature of worship, much attention to the creation of viable expressive
form, and perhaps most urgently, effective education designed to equip
the people to participate fully in liturgy and to use it as an important
tool in their religious quest* Despite the emphasis on the last factor,
all three approaches are essential to any such recovery; the study of
liturgy apart from its practice is as unsatisfactory as the promulgation
of inadequate or defective liturgy. One wonders how much previous
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- 224 -
liturgical reform has failed because it was not responsible in all
three of these areas*
A number of specific proposals for the reform of present
worship practices have been made in the body of this paper* They
are both extensive and radical in nature, reflecting the writer f s
conviction that present practices are for the most part corrupt
beyond hope of redemption. The amount of effort that the reform of
these practices would cost and the amount of resistance it would meet
at the hands of the average churchman are some measure of the dedica¬
tion required of anyone who would undertake liturgical renewal in
our time. Such dedication can come only from devotion to the liturgy
itself, which in turn can come only from devotion to a church radically
dependent upon liturgy for its very life, which in turn can come only
from an ultimate devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ, of whose Incarnation
the church is an extension through all time.
To this task of liturgical renewal this study is offered, with
acknowledgement of its modest contribution in the face of the work
which remains to be done. Its character is basically that of a first
exploration, not a definitive statement, for the serious and scientific
study of expressive forms is only now coming of age. Despite an ancient
and honorable history, for example, the study of art has just recently
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- 225 -
been established on secure epistemological foundations. The old
aestheticians, following Plato, concerned themselves largely with
the question of the nature of the beautiful, and produced a literature
proverbial for its diffuseness and incoherency. But a new generation
of scholars have cut the Gordian knot of the old discipline, and
sought rather to explore the role of expressive form in human exper¬
ience. Out of this quest has come a new understanding of art, and
the possibility of an analogous new understanding of worship; with
patience, effort, and God’s grace, we may hope that the quest will
lead to the creation of a style of worship powerful to aid man in
his struggle to become fully and authentically human even in this
tragic age.
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NOTES
1. It is possible to make a useful distinction between the terns
’’worship” and "liturgy,” particularly at the connotational level, "Wor¬
ship" is often used generically to describe the many things which take
place in the average Protestant church service, while "liturgy" is more
frequently used in a technical or historical sense, or used to refer to
the services of those churches which have preserved something analogous
to the primitive Roman mass. The latter usage is much closer to the
understanding of worship which this paper advocates, but unfortunately
has become the victim of ecclesiastical party politics. The two terms
are therefore used interchangeably in this paper, to stress the idea
that when correctly understood, both refer to the same human expressive
activity.
2. Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key (second edition;
New York: The New American Library of World Literature, Inc., 1951).
3. Susanne K. Langer, Feeling and Form (New York: Charles Scrib¬
ner’s Sons, 1953).
4. Susanne K. Langer, Problems of Art (New York: Charles Scrib¬
ner's Sons, 1957), p. 7.
5. This is discussed in some detail by Raymond A. KcElroy in his
unpublished Master's thesis, "The Directions of the Roman Catholic Re¬
form of the Low Mass in English Speaking Territorial North America Since
the Second Vatican Council" (School of Theology at Claremont, 1966).
6. Gregory Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy (London: A. and C. Black,
1945), pp. 50 ff.
7. Martin Luther, Works of Martin Luther, ed. Paul Z. Strodach
(Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 19327, VI, 84.
8. Ibid.
9. John Wesley, Letters of John Wesley (London: Epworth, 1931),
VII, 239.
10. Douglas Horton, The Meaning of Worship (New York: Harper,
1959).
11. George Hedley, Christian Worship (New York: Macmillan, 1953).
12. This is particularly stressed in the fifth chapter; see verses
eleven through twenty-four.
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-227-
13. St. Matthew 25:31-46.
14. St. Matthew 8:1-4 (cf. parallel passages in St. Mark 1:40-45
and St. Luke 5:12-14).
15. Theodor Reik, Ritual (New York: Norton, 1931).
16. Sigmund Freud, Totem and Tabu , trans. James Strachey (New
York: Norton, 1952).
17. Dorothy Lee, Freedom and Culture (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-
Hall, 1959), p. 1.
18. Susanne K. Langer, Problems of Art , p. 7. It is important to
note that this definition, while basic to Langer’s thought, does not do
justice to her treatment of the relationship of conceptual material to
the forms of art. This theme is more fully developed throughout her work,
especially in Feeling and Form .
19. This idea is developed in great detail in Chapter 2 of Langer,
Philosophy in a_ New Key, "Symbolic Transformation."
20. The process of transformation from participational to non-
participational forms has also been characteristic of the development of
western art music. See Donald Jay Grout, A History of Western Music,
(New York: Norton, 1960).
21. Susanne K. Langer, Problems of Art , p. 86.
22. Published as Volume II of Richard Wagner, Prose Works (London:
Kegan Paul, Trench, Truebner 6 Co., 1893-99).
23. Adolphe Appia, Die Musik und die Inscenierung (Munchen: Ft
Bruckmann A.G., 1899).
24. Rudolph Arnheim, Film as Art (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1957/64).
25. AdolphejAppia, La Mise en Scene du Drame Wagnerien (Paris; 1895).
26. John Hospers, Meaning and Truth in the Arts (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1946), p. 12.
27. Informal remark made to the writer, March, 1959.
28. The Book of Common Prayer (New York: Harper and Brothers,
1952).
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- 228 -
29. Remark made in Convocation of the School of Theology at Clare¬
mont, June, 1966.
30. Remark made in Aesthetics Seminar, February, 1964.
31. This adjustment was made in a revision of the service during
the spring semester, 1967.
32. Erik Routley, Twentieth Century Church Music (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1964), p. 108.
33. The Methodist Hymnal (Nashville: The Methodist Publishing
House, 1932).
34. The Hymnal 1940 (New York: The Church Pension Fund, 1940).
35. D-13, Liturgy and Ecclesiology, offered in the Spring of 1966.
36. The Hymnal 1940 , No. 130.
37. Romans 5:1-10.
38. The Hymnal 1940 , No. 479.
39. The Methodist Hymnal , No. 372.
40. John Wesley, The Journal (London: Epworth, 1931), p. 472.
41. This particular excerpt is a liturgical reworking of Luther,
from The Bock of Worship (Nashville: The Methodist Publishing House,
1964/577 P* 391.
42. The Book of Common Prayer , p. 595.
43. The Book of Worship , p. 392.
44. The Hymnal 1940 , Mo. 325.
45. The Methodist Hymnal , pp, 523-532.
46. Written by the Very Reverend Eric Milner-White, Dean of York,
and printed in Reginald Jacques and David Willcocks (eds.), Carols for
Choirs (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), p. 176.
47. Gregory.Dix,. The Shape of the Liturgy .
48. The Hymnal 1940 , No. 158.
49. Ibid., Ho. 329.
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-229-
50. Ibid. . No. 195.
51. As of one year later, the Committee had succeeded in refining
the services even further, but had not progressed significantly in the
task of educating the community about worship. It continues to regard
this as its most pressing task, but is uncertain as to how to go about
it within the present community structure.
52. Charles H. Heimsath, The Genius of Public Vtorship (New York;
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1944).
53. George Hedley, op. cit.
54. Massey H. Shepherd, The Worship of the Church (Greenwich,
Conn.; Seabury Press, 1952).
55. Paul R. Clifford, "Baptist Forms of Worship," Foundations,
111:221-233, July-September, 1960, and "The Structuring and Ordering of
Baptist Worship," Foundations, 111:348-361, October-December, 1960.
56. Massey H. Shepherd, Forms and Varieties of Christian Worship
(New York: Committee for the Interseminary Movement, 1962), p.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MATERIALS REFERRED TO IN THE TEXT
Appia, Adolphe. Die Musik und die Inscenierung . Munchen: F. Bruckmann
A.G., 1899
__. La Mise en Scene da Drame Wagaerien . Paris: L. Chailley, 1895.
Amheim, Rudolph. Film as Art. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1957/64.
The Book of Common Prayer. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1952.
The Book of Worship. Nashville: The Methodist Publishing House, 1964/5.
Clifford, Paul R. "Baptist Forms of Worship," Foundations, 111:221-233,
July-Septeraber, 1960.
_. "The Structuring and Ordering of Baptist Worship," Foundations,
111:348-361, October-December, 1960.
Dix, Gregory. Hie Shape of the Liturgy. London: A. and C. Black, 1945.
Freud, Sigmund. Totem and Tabu. Translated by James Strachey. Hew York:
Morton, 1952.
Grout, Donald Jay. A History of Western Music. New York: Norton, 1960.
Hedley, George. Christian Worship . Mew York: Macmillan, 1953.
Heimsath, Charles H. The Genius of Public Worship . Mew York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1944.
Horton, Douglas. The Meaning of Worship. Hew York: Harper, 1959.
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The Hymnal 1940. Mew York: The Church Pension Fund, 1940.
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_. Philosophy in a Hew Key. Second edition. Mew York: The Mew
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. Problems of Art. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1957.
Lee, Dorothy. Freedom and Culture .- Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1959.
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Luther, Martin. Works of Martin Luther. Edited by Paul Z. Strodach.
Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1932.
McElroy, Raymond A, "The Directions of the Roman Catholic Reform of
the Low Mass in English Speaking Territorial North America Since
the Second Vatican Council." Unpublished Master’s thesis. The
School of Theology at Claremont, 1966.
The Methodist Hymnal. Nashville: The Methodist Publishing House, 1932.
Reik, Theodor. Ritual. New York: Norton, 1931.
Routley, Erik. Twentieth Century Church Music. New York: Oxford Univer¬
sity Press, 1964.
Shepherd, Massey H. Forms and Varieties of Christian Worship. New York:
Committee for the Interseminary Movement, 1962.
. The Worship of the Church. Greenwich, Conn.: Seabury Press,
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Wagner, Richard. Opera and Drama. Vol. II of the Prose Works. 8 vols.
London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Truebner £ Co., 1893-99.
Wesley, John. The Journal . London: Epworth, 1931.
_. Letters of John Wesley. London: Epworth, 1931.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
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