Disclaimer: I firmly believe the Mystery Underlying Creation (whom we call God) speaks to us in the way we are capable of hearing.
To paraphrase an old country song, maybe we're "Looking for God in all the wrong places", particularly "Up" there or "Out" there. In a pre-scientific or even a Newtonian "clockwork" universe this makes some sense. In a Quantum "relational" universe, it presents a heap of problems.
We keep trying to connect to this God "somewhere else" and don't see the reality of who and where God is in the pattern of the life, death, resurrection and 'ascension' of Jesus of Nazareth. God is, in fact, relational and relationship. Too many times we confuse worship with a pep rally for God. Worship must be, in essence, opening ourselves to the Divine relationship and relationships with each other, hence the centrality of the shared meal of the Eucharist (the biggest problem Catholics have here is they tend to focus on what's happening to the bread and wine to the exclusion of everything else). The whole focus of worship must point to the New Jerusalem and the healing of the nations.
The fruit of the church growth movement, which leveraged business and marketing tactics, has been a loss of the supernatural in exchange for meeting felt needs. Neither communion or baptism were practical with a 10,000 seat congregation and became sidelined as symbolic activity. Sacrament can't compete with "your best life now" and "financial peace".
Very interesting. I wish I understood the idea of worship better. I can understand feeling awe for God, and gratitude, and a desire to receive inspiration from God's wisdom and a sense of God's love, but I have somehow come to associate the word worship with praise, and I just can't see God's wanting our praise, as if we could make God feel better about Godself or proud of Godself.
One thing that helps me with this is to keep in mind that if our telos is communion with God, and if worship is a primary mode of communion with him (praise being one expression of worship) then it makes sense that he would want our praise - not because he needs it (God has no needs) but because, if we were made to commune with him, then actually we are the ones who need it. God is love, and I think inviting us to worship is one (maybe even the ultimate?) expression of that love he has for us.
I find myself intuitively agreeing with some of these ideas. It seems like these concepts infuse prayer and worship with more reason and purpose. It also aligns with ideas of personal responsibility while seeking the will of God over personal desires. Thanks for the article. I have more reading to do.
My gravitational pull back to the centrality of the Eucharist and Liturgy in worship, generally came from an experiential frustration and exasperation with aspects of my faith being hijacked and commandeered to facilitate Pre-Dispensationalistic political ideologies. That is not to say that my own current branch of the Faith has in anyway been immune to that tendency over the years, but experiencing a sense of spiritual and intellectual freedom by focusing on the essentials of what it means to be a follower of Jesus, now feels much more spiritually authentic, corporately real and mentally genuine. There is a sense of hypocrisy in that ideological divorce, where those who were “left behind” in that system, always leveled accusations of ritualistic behavior and propensities towards the occult, to those modes of worship that were not patriotically and nationalistically infused. Within those circles, there has been a deliberate shift away from the ‘theurgic’ aspects of faith and then to replace them with patriotic paraphernalia and political ‘armamentaria’. If the goal of Theurgic practices are for us to achieve a personal kind of ‘Henosis’ (a oneness with the Divine) that Jesus clearly spells out in John 17:21-23, then these customs and practices are clearly healthy and beneficial. However, as we all know, “Correct Theurgic Practice” can turn into a kind of ‘Gate Keepers’ issue, where if you’re not worshipping in the correctly specific mode, maturing through their initiation process, you can be chastised for it by the denominational hierarchy. It also can turn into a kind of ‘Upper Room Club’, where new or supposedly less spiritually enlightened individuals are denied access or kept out of the worship loop.
Richard, I have to agree with Ross, in that all of this needs to be connected to the Incarnate One. Nothing about what Dionysus says about liturgical actions makes sense unless we're talking about the GodMan, Christ crucified and risen as proclaimed by the very first Christians in line with how they interpreted the OT.
Have you read any Margaret Barker on the ritual of the Tabernacle and Temple? Much that connects to D. and Orthodox liturgical actions and particularly the Paschal liturgical poetry, re the renewal of the cosmos. On my phone, too much for a comment.
Disclaimer: I firmly believe the Mystery Underlying Creation (whom we call God) speaks to us in the way we are capable of hearing.
To paraphrase an old country song, maybe we're "Looking for God in all the wrong places", particularly "Up" there or "Out" there. In a pre-scientific or even a Newtonian "clockwork" universe this makes some sense. In a Quantum "relational" universe, it presents a heap of problems.
We keep trying to connect to this God "somewhere else" and don't see the reality of who and where God is in the pattern of the life, death, resurrection and 'ascension' of Jesus of Nazareth. God is, in fact, relational and relationship. Too many times we confuse worship with a pep rally for God. Worship must be, in essence, opening ourselves to the Divine relationship and relationships with each other, hence the centrality of the shared meal of the Eucharist (the biggest problem Catholics have here is they tend to focus on what's happening to the bread and wine to the exclusion of everything else). The whole focus of worship must point to the New Jerusalem and the healing of the nations.
The fruit of the church growth movement, which leveraged business and marketing tactics, has been a loss of the supernatural in exchange for meeting felt needs. Neither communion or baptism were practical with a 10,000 seat congregation and became sidelined as symbolic activity. Sacrament can't compete with "your best life now" and "financial peace".
Very interesting. I wish I understood the idea of worship better. I can understand feeling awe for God, and gratitude, and a desire to receive inspiration from God's wisdom and a sense of God's love, but I have somehow come to associate the word worship with praise, and I just can't see God's wanting our praise, as if we could make God feel better about Godself or proud of Godself.
One thing that helps me with this is to keep in mind that if our telos is communion with God, and if worship is a primary mode of communion with him (praise being one expression of worship) then it makes sense that he would want our praise - not because he needs it (God has no needs) but because, if we were made to commune with him, then actually we are the ones who need it. God is love, and I think inviting us to worship is one (maybe even the ultimate?) expression of that love he has for us.
I find myself intuitively agreeing with some of these ideas. It seems like these concepts infuse prayer and worship with more reason and purpose. It also aligns with ideas of personal responsibility while seeking the will of God over personal desires. Thanks for the article. I have more reading to do.
My gravitational pull back to the centrality of the Eucharist and Liturgy in worship, generally came from an experiential frustration and exasperation with aspects of my faith being hijacked and commandeered to facilitate Pre-Dispensationalistic political ideologies. That is not to say that my own current branch of the Faith has in anyway been immune to that tendency over the years, but experiencing a sense of spiritual and intellectual freedom by focusing on the essentials of what it means to be a follower of Jesus, now feels much more spiritually authentic, corporately real and mentally genuine. There is a sense of hypocrisy in that ideological divorce, where those who were “left behind” in that system, always leveled accusations of ritualistic behavior and propensities towards the occult, to those modes of worship that were not patriotically and nationalistically infused. Within those circles, there has been a deliberate shift away from the ‘theurgic’ aspects of faith and then to replace them with patriotic paraphernalia and political ‘armamentaria’. If the goal of Theurgic practices are for us to achieve a personal kind of ‘Henosis’ (a oneness with the Divine) that Jesus clearly spells out in John 17:21-23, then these customs and practices are clearly healthy and beneficial. However, as we all know, “Correct Theurgic Practice” can turn into a kind of ‘Gate Keepers’ issue, where if you’re not worshipping in the correctly specific mode, maturing through their initiation process, you can be chastised for it by the denominational hierarchy. It also can turn into a kind of ‘Upper Room Club’, where new or supposedly less spiritually enlightened individuals are denied access or kept out of the worship loop.
Richard, I have to agree with Ross, in that all of this needs to be connected to the Incarnate One. Nothing about what Dionysus says about liturgical actions makes sense unless we're talking about the GodMan, Christ crucified and risen as proclaimed by the very first Christians in line with how they interpreted the OT.
Have you read any Margaret Barker on the ritual of the Tabernacle and Temple? Much that connects to D. and Orthodox liturgical actions and particularly the Paschal liturgical poetry, re the renewal of the cosmos. On my phone, too much for a comment.
Dana
This helps shed light on the sacramental treadmill of non-Protestant churches.