In my reading this past week, I came across a quote by H.L. Mencken. He said, "The single contribution made by Protestantism is that Christianity is a bore". Now, Mencken was no friend of the Church, and is being supremely unfair, but think about the implications of his statement. He had observed a Protestant style of worship (and, I would expand this to also include Catholic and Orthodox) that was marked by its dullness and boredom.Most Church services are almost indistinguishable from a funeral service--except for the crying (maybe). Even worse is our "celebration" of the Lord's Supper. Being in both the Plymouth Brethren and Baptist traditions, I can say that both groups approach Communion with the same morbid drudgery. It is if people honestly believe that God wants us to be somber during this time. Isn't the Lord's Supper also to be an occasion of profound joy? If so, shouldn't that joy be expressed a little?
Also recently, I heard a story about the time the first organ was introduced to a church in the United States. It was in the city of Boston, and when it was brought in the "faithful" Christian remnant cried, "They have brought the Devil into the Church. Soon our young people will be dancing in the aisles." Leaving the issue of the organ (an organ!!!) aside for the moment, just exactly what is wrong with dancing in the aisle?
This morning I did a quick word search in the Bible for the word "dance". Ignoring the original Hebrew, and working only with the contemporary translations, I found that the word "dance" occurs less than 10 times in the Bible (though I suspect my brief search is inadequate. If someone has the time, please let me know what you find in your research). Interestingly, I only found one time when the word was used negatively. Almost always, the word was used in a positive context. Frankly, it was often used to describe or command dancing as part of worship.
Perhaps the Devil isn't with those dancing in the aisle, but with those sitting in the pew.
Put on your dancing shoes, and start dancing before the Lord.
In the Baptist churches we have attended or been members of, there was certainly not an issue with being too serious, in fact I would say that we noticed a serious lack of reverence. Granted, our experience has been more with Southern Baptist churches rather than severe fundamentalist churches.
ReplyDeleteThere must be a sensible, Biblical compromise between legalism/formalism for the sake of outward righteousness and over exuberance that negates the reverence due the worship of the risen Lord and the reading of His Word. It seems a right view of worship should be a mix or a balance, a sense of joyful reverence or solemn celebration. The Lord’s Supper should carry with it both a sense of the victory won as well as the very real price that He paid for His sheep with His broken body and shed blood. I rather wish Christians as a whole were more solemn, not out of a sense that the external demeanor is more important than the heart not to be dour and severe, but rather that they demonstrate that they know what the cost of their victory was.
Arthur,
ReplyDeleteYour right. People often confuse "being serious" with formality. I think both the formal and informal styles of worship both suffer from a massive lack of reverence.
It is hard to convince the "formals" that they can be (and probably are) irreverent in their formality.
It is hard to convince the "informals" that reverence for God should be determinative of worship.