If I have to go to another church service and turn to the people around me to discuss something-or-other, I think I’ll cry. Seriously, is that all we’ve got in this period of lockdown? Zoom breakouts and socially distanced groupwork? Without the singing or the preaching, evangelical church services just resemble a staff development day.
Why are evangelicals so impoverished when it comes to Christian liturgy?
To answer that, we need to define that highly contested (and notoriously slippery) term, evangelical.
One historian once quipped that an evangelical Christian was “anyone who likes Billy Graham.” But when Billy Graham was asked to define the term in the late 1980s, he replied, “Actually, that’s a question I’d like to ask somebody too.”
It turned out that the world’s most famous evangelical couldn’t describe the term either.
One thing we can say about the term evangelical is it’s got a lot to do with the love of words.
The term itself derives from the Greek, euangelion meaning “gospel” or “good news.” So technically evangelical refers to a person, church, or organization that believes and is devoted to the message that Jesus Christ is the king and savior of humanity. In other words, a believer of God’s word.
But things evolved over time. The Reformers used the Latinized form of the word evangelium to describe the non-Catholic churches birthed by the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s. These were Christians who read the Word for themselves and believed in justification based on the individual’s faith, not the church’s imprimatur.
Later, during the Great Awakening, evangelicalism became synonymous with revivalism, thanks to the hellfire and brimstone preaching of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield, which led to the movement being marked by an emphasis on preaching the Word and converting outsiders.
Then, in the 1970s, evangelicals took to referring to themselves as “born again Christians,” signified that an evangelical wasn’t just someone who believed the right words, but in whose heart the Word lived and reigned.
One thing that has consistently defined evangelicals throughout their history is their distrust of liturgy.
While liturgies can be word-based (prayers, recitations, benedictions, chants), for the most part, the term is used to describe religious rituals. The term itself is a combination of “laos” (people) and “ergon” (work) and refers to the public work or practices of the people, or done on behalf of the people, to appease the gods.
Christians in general believe that God doesn’t need to be appeased so much as pleased. Christian liturgies are practices and ritualized behaviors designed to honor God, and the lift up the name of Jesus.
And when it comes to it, evangelicals are definitely in what the Anglicans call the “low church“ camp. That is, a church that emphasizes preaching and puts a low priority on the sacraments, church rituals, and church authority. Evangelicals don’t want anything that has to be dispensed by a religious practitioner getting in the way of the individual believer hearing the Word and responding to it.
This means, understandably, their preferred worship style involves word-heavy practices like singing hymns and spiritual songs and listening to preaching.
Even the central Christian practice of the Lord’s Supper or Eucharist gets short shrift in a lot of evangelical denominations. Where it is practised, it is occasional and slipped quickly in between singing and preaching. It also often involves a mini-sermon explaining the practice. More words!
Nevertheless, evangelicals have definitely played to their strengths. They have turned singing and preaching into art-forms. Evangelical singing has conquered the world through the publishing and recording juggernauts, Hillsong and Bethel. Although, interestingly, where evangelicals disagree over the quality of a newly released song it’s always about the words!
And as for preaching, well, it’s what evangelicals are known for.
All of which brings me back to life in coronavirus lockdown.
Depending on the intensity of the restrictions in your community, churches are either entirely livestreaming their services or offering a hybrid experience with some face-to-face participation and some online. But even where evangelicals are meeting in person, they are required to limit their numbers, and public singing has been banned.
What’s more, it’s not possible to preach long sermons via Zoom or a streaming platform. Recently, I wrote about how churchgoers are quite enjoying the shortened teaching happening during lockdown.
No singing and shorter preaching? What is an evangelical left with? How are we expected to fill up the 60 to 90 minutes our services usually take? No wonder some evangelical churches are defying the authorities!
This crisis has shown how bereft evangelicals are when it comes to liturgy.
What many evangelical churches resort to are discussion groups, either in Zoom breakout rooms or socially distanced and masked. I attended one such church service recently where we were asked to break into groups three or four times to discuss the ideas raised by short bursts of preaching. It felt like a work seminar to me. Words are great. I make my living out of them. But whoever came up with the idea that talking, talking, talking was the only way to worship God?
I saw this church sign online recently. At first I thought it was just your standard cutesy topical church sign, but I got thinking about it.
No, social distancing does not apply to God. We can draw near to Christ. In fact, that’s what I’m yearning to do when I attend a church service. I don’t really want to discuss good ideas. I want to meet God. And, at its best, that’s what Christian liturgy is designed to do.
I understand the evangelical anxiety about practices or symbols becoming objects of worship in themselves. I share that anxiety. I also don’t want rituals performed by rote long after they’ve lost their initial power and meaning. But could it be that this global pandemic will force evangelicals to face up to their limited views of worship and recover such ancient Christian practices as the use of religious symbols and imagery, the recitation of prayers and congregational responses, the use of candles and incense, and fasting and feast days.
If you’re an evangelical you might not think your church is up for adopting the yearly liturgical calendar just yet. Most evangelicals would blanch at the use of antiphons, kontakia or troparia (look them up). But instead of having congregants simply sitting, listening, and observing, why not incorporate active worship practices like reciting, responding, sitting, standing, kneeling, etc.?
Is it un-evangelical to kneel in contrition? Am I in danger of losing my dissenting credentials if I recite written prayers, or confess my sins, or light a candle, or walk a labyrinth?
And, of course, please let us linger over the communion meal. Don’t cover it up with blankets of explanatory words.
Let us taste God’s grace in Christ, our friend and king who is never far from us, even if we’re being kept far from each other for a time.
by Impressum
10 thoughts on “Coronavirus has unveiled the liturgical poverty of evangelicals”
Thanks! a good summary of a conundrum! I have been sampling various online services and I’ve made similar observations. “Low church Anglican” has well and truly gone, morphed into neo-charismatic/pseudo Baptist, somehow putting some music together a few prayers and then of course the sermon!
Liturgy, even for those who don’t think they are doing it, is about the thread of meaning we make out of meeting together and working through the various parts and how we join them together. Some online services are made up of various segments which you can select from according to your interest, tolerance, etc. I think the corporate, communal, gathered nature of worship gets lost and breaking into discussion groups is probably not going to work!
Thank you, Mike! I have been reading your blog and books and every time I go to church have a sense of grief over how much we are missing out by doing so little. At the same time, I have to always remind myself that our worship will still be acceptable to God as long as we worship in Spirit and Truth. It seems like many churches have the full-on liturgy and little heart or understanding with it, while others reduced the liturgy but at least worship from their heart. It would be good to have both somehow.
Growing up as a Presbyterian minister’s kid I used to sneak out to join midnight mass and now, each Monday, as a Baptist pastor, I get the same slightly furtive feeling joining Good Shepherd New York’s weekly service on YouTube.
When ministering with the most Gifted and first Woman Senior Minister UCA In Melbourne, being COC, the monthly Communion Service administered by her, myself and helped with some Elders, took on a Special Significance…
The same happened when ministering in a Parish of 500+ Members, 4 Morning and 3 Evening Services In Brighton, Melbourne…
However, when an opportunity opened to be ministering with the largest Church in Australia, Wesley Mission, Sydney, with multiple congregations and one of the finest Evangelists Australia produced in the 20th Century, Rev Dr Gordon Moyes, I had the best of both traditions, weekly Communion@COC and monthly@ Wesley Mission, where both Male and Female Ministers were Senior and Associate Ministers and administered communion…
I look forward to and prefer weekly communion and see it as the main feature of worship services I prepare, giving all who have gathered, longer times to reflect, refresh, pray being a Relational Evangelist…
Mike, my experience for 50+ years in faith was evangelical. 5 years ago I moved rental house, and having to get around in a powered wheelchair, I as looking for a place to worship I could get to by myself – Taxi fares add up and become affordably expensive. The nearest was a bigger Pentecostal church, and I wasn’t looking for that type of church at this time of life, or an Anglican, which was liturgical.
I have discovered a whole new way of worship, and am finding it meets my deepest spiritual needs. I love saying words that have in one way and another been said (in a variety of languages) since the early church. I love that the epicentre of the service is the Eucharist/communion. I love the emphasis in communion is not on remembering and being obedient (which are important I know), but indeed receiving the body and blood of Christ from his representative in the community – the priest. Rather than being something we did each week, it has become a love encounter with Christ.
Well said!
I think all this is true, but I see a different picture. You used to ask the question, if we were starting over again, would we start church like we see it now? And the obvious answer (you inferred, and I agreed), was no.
So if we were the first apostles and Jesus had just ascended, would we do what we do now, or what you suggest? I can’t help feeling that, if all we had was the stories and teachings of Jesus as we find them now in the gospels, the christian movement would be quite different. The teachings of jesus seem to me to be based more on living than meeting, on serving more than “worshiping” (inverted commas because that word has too many meanings and connotations).
So maybe our meetings might focus more on following the way of Jesus, which, not coincidentally, is the subject of a book by Mark Scandrette that has a glowing (and quite accurate) recommendation from you on the back. We are finding Mark’s ideas of “experiments” to be an excellent basis for meeting, and I think they could be adapted to “church”. There would be ritual, recitation of prayers, repeating credal/commitment statements, etc, as you suggest, but they would be in a different context and serving an end rather than being almost an end in themselves.
Good thoughts! It’s true liturgy is just as important & essential as singing, & is a form of worship in its own right.
Thanks for pointing out going to church is to be / feel closer to God, not only know Him/Them.
I think a lot of people think worship consists of mostly singing, but that isn’t true. I think you worship God whenever you do good & something you love.
Evangelicals tossed out everything except singing, sermon, and a brief communion service taken in silence and solitude. Gone were the psalms, Te Deum, Gloria, nunc dimmittis, magnificat, and confession. It took a long time for me to find the Anglican where I could say the prayers and get a one point homily.
As Andy Stanley would say, “we are in the tension between what is and what could be..” there is/was a projection of the church, that projection became a story, then a prescription, and finally a prophecy. The church may have indeed begun to loose her relevance but new stories are out, new possibilities. I am very thankful for those that taught us as if they knew this was coming. I love their hearts, I love their minds. The church has many questions, life cycle, how do we start a new, relationships, how do we remain supportive, do we pause and ask why, are we more motivated and willing to sacrifice, how do we navigate our most important relationship? “All to be saved”