Yes, low liturgy (or no liturgy at all) can have all the elements. Yes, the priest, cantor, and other non-public celebrants may say the words and acts out the motion without conviction. But well-thought-out words in high liturgy is like literature where the public can have fresh benefits (like getting out different things while reading Shakespeare multiple times) while being assured that those have been communally reflected and theologically sound.
This morning I attended a CMA church, and the preaching was one of the best I have heard (on 2 Timothy 1:3-14) explaining 1) not being "ashamed" of the gospel and how/why we should not; 2) knowing doctrines vs. knowing Jesus connected to how power comes from Holy Spirit, not from knowledge (as general culture says: "knowledge is power").
I can clearly see how evangelical teaching churches (like this one), which dedicates about 45 minutes to preaching, can clearly do a lot more than Catholic homilies. And yes, I can hear elements of confession, worship, appreciation of what Jesus did, etc. in the songs chosen by the worship leader. But it's a different experience and I think high liturgy and non-denominational worship+teaching should be complementary.
@curiousdannii How about "This is my Body ... do this in memory of me?" I find that to be pretty clear, but all Protestants get it wrong.
@GratefulDisciple we've got the resources, but the teaching is pretty haphazard. After 30 years of observably bad catechesis, we're finding that teaching the teachers is the only way to get anything done in the Parish.
My wife homeschools the kids so we do religion every day, she uses the same material I used to teach in my old parish - I'd teach about 20 hours a year but she does that in 120 hours, so there's probably some important stuff being missed in 100 hours!
Still, nobody mentions what all the twirling of the incense means, why there's a Gospel side to the altar, why the priest wears a band around one arm.
(mainly because our priest has a traditional bent and most don't do this)
How often do they make you "give your testimony" at Protestant Churches?
@PeterTurner As clear as when he metaphorically calls himself a vine, or a door, etc. ;)
@PeterTurner hopefully they'd never force someone to because that's the surest way to induce people to lie. Most churches are cognisant that they have regular attendees who are not truly saved yet.
I think it would be pretty common for Protestant youth groups to encourage people to practice telling their stories, though not to the level of forcing them to, hopefully.
@SupportiveDante intelligible means easy to understand and comprehend, not lots of stuff for our intellects to grasp. Very basic things are often highly intelligible!
still a pretty good illustration of what having an official interpretation will do. Sola Scriptura could still be a basis for the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. But as Flannery O'Connor said, "if it's a symbol, then to to Hell with it"; Some Protestants go full "both/and" on the Real Presence, but that's one area where Catholics and Orthodox don't allow for nuanced belief, even though a distressing number of Catholics fail to believe core tenants of the faith.
@curiousdannii noted. I dont agree but in any case its besides the point. The point is that the more a thing is, the more there is for our intellect to grasp, and thus the more time and effort needed for our intellect.
Actually I do agree, that it is not a colloquial usage of "intelligible".
It's easy for me to see how people can go from using it as "able to be understood" (which is what the word literally means when you break it down as intellect + able) to "easy to be understood"
@PeterTurner that's the altar call, I believe. And It varies kinda like how practicing communion varies
@PeterTurner if theres a gospel side at all, is he saying the TLM? The depth of directions is entirely lost in the NO since the readings are just done from the ambo and the priest stands in the middle when he does stand at the altar
@SupportiveDante yeah, TLM. We started two years ago - our family was completely clueless. If I hadn't sat in on server training I wouldn't have known anything about Gospel sides and everything.
@SupportiveDante if you believe ideas are things - then the definition of intelligibility being that there are more hooks for our intellect to dig in to makes sense. If you don't believe ideas are things, then what is intelligibility anyway?
@curiousdannii I hope we already settled the aid to visitors unfamiliar with the liturgy, which should also take care of 1 Cor 14:26 because once the visitors understand the liturgy, they can be "built up" and then can be in sync with the rest of the body of Christ in the mass.
The analogy immediately comes to mind is someone coming to a classical music concert where rudimentary music theory is expected and familiarity with the pieces will enhance what they got out of the specific performance. Same applies to attending a Shakespeare play.
It's simply wrong to expect the same level of non-Christian "visitor friendly" worship service to attending a Catholic mass. I think some Catholic parishes supplement Mass services with events such as Alpha.
@GratefulDisciple The reason for both of those comparisons is that you're dealing with art that is no longer part of the contemporary culture. Certainly Shakespeare's original audiences would not have been familiar with the play beforehand, any more than modern audiences are familiar with a movie they're watching for the first time.
That's not to say that sort of service can't be done, but if you aren't offering something that's approachable to outsiders, you're basically failing at evangelism.
@curiousdannii As for the "inscrutable" charge, I can see how the Catholic church has clearly been trying to increase the mass's understandability since Vatican II, not only with the new rite in vernacular languages, but also in the wording of the 2021 further restriction of TLM. Reading the bullet points of the present regulation celebrating TLM shows how "spiritual growth" and understandability should not suffer.
@Matthew My point is that evangelism shouldn't suffer. Rather than dumbing down art/music/liturgy, the public should be educated to use these works as a means for artistic/spiritual growth. The purpose of Mass is not evangelism, it should be supplementary activities like Alpha. Musically, it should be college level Classical music appreciation courses.
I sadly realize that Western Great Books are greatly less appreciated in high schools and even universities (!) compared to a generation ago. To me Christians are responsible to arrest this wrong-headed trend and to re-culturize the society. Who are going to be the 21st century replacement of the medieval monks?
@PeterTurner It's really great that your wife can do proper religious education for the kids. My own wife initiated ours with the Bible (by now they have read the whole Bible cover to cover multiple times with understanding, not just rote reading!) and I'm amazed at their being able to cite verses when we discuss theology. But understandably she does not condone appreciating Catholic liturgy 🙁.
(I meant: "In music, the equivalence of Alpha is college level Western music appreciation courses.")
@Matthew So yes, I agree with you that liturgical churches will fail at evangelism if they don't offer something more like Alpha, or other events with similar function to revival meetings. Liturgical services should not be made to conform to revival meeting like in Baptist churches where there is a "liturgical element" after sermon where the preacher would invite people to come to Christ and to raise their hands and someone from a ready pool of volunteers will approach each one after service.
I think the Catholic approach is best, doing it in 3 tiers: 1) liturgical service including Catholic mass is designed for spiritual growth for already baptized Christians, 2) RCIA is for Catechumens, and 3) Alpha, Youth congress, etc. are to herd them to RCIA. @PeterTurner I agree that teacher education is central, probably mass appreciation should be an integral part of RCIA which should also be open to cradle Catholics wanting to learn more of their faith.
@PeterTurner Continuing my classical music analogy to liturgy, the abuses in the liturgy you cited is equivalent to free-improvisation of a "canonized" score of a great composer like Mozart. It is simply unheard off in concert halls for at least 200 years.
We classical performers adhere very closely to every note written in the autograph, even the slur and dynamic markings, tempo indications, etc. Editions by reputable publishers such as Breitkopf & Härtel, Henle, Bärenreiter, and Peters are very meticulous in their Urtext editions and would indicate their additional editorial marking intended to aiding a performer (like Bible verse footnotes), so each performer knows which one comes from the composer, which ones are editorial.
@TRiG well that's a long time coming. So it is the original version just not as fancy - that's a good thing if you've ever seen the song in sheet music form. Also, in the USA we sing "Golden rings" now, which never would have worked in the original tune.
@SupportiveDante everyone Chesterton took issue with in the second chapter of Orthodoxy
H.G. Wells, George Barnard Shaw, Friedrich Nietzsche, Hegel.
@SupportiveDante You can sensibly define thing in a way that includes or excludes ideas. Either definition is valid, and both are appropriate and useful in their contexts.
I'm a self-taught philosophy 101 type guy, so I had to look it up because I figured this might be misremembered and feel free to correct me if I'm using words wrong
Plato taught that ideas existed outside minds, but nominalism is opposed to that idea - saying that things are just named.
@GratefulDisciple No, I think 1 Cor 14:26 requires some level of agency. I do think most churches fail at it, even my own. (For the Sunday meeting I mean. We're better at it for mid week meetings.)
@GratefulDisciple Anything college level is too high for church!
@GratefulDisciple The purpose of the weekly gathering is not primarily evangelistic or for outsiders. But it should still be accessible to visitors. The big point of 1 Cor 14:1-25 is that intelligibility in church is crucial. As Paul says, "But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue." I think you're getting close to making the same mistake with liturgy as the Corinthians did with spiritual gifts.
Visitors don't need to understand everything perfectly. But they do need to be able to understand enough to know that God is there and be convicted by their sins.
@GratefulDisciple But cannot Christian liturgy be more akin to jazz? If you go to a world class jazz ensemble you want to hear a fresh interpretation even of the jazz standards. When I go to church I prefer to hear a new sermon written with the Spirit's guidance. I prefer to hear new prayers, thoughtfully composed and delivered. And I even prefer to hear a fresh explanation of communion as those few Bible verses are read with Godly insights, unpacking the multiple dimensions of the Gospel.
(And of course there is lots of range of interpretation of classical standards too. Lots of classical manuscripts are sparse in markings.)
@curiousdannii How do you solve the problem of someone who wants more being able to receive more, while someone who cannot take more is also able to receive enough?
@SupportiveDante Training, "adult sunday school", etc are good options many churches do. And I'm not saying that everything in the church service or the sermon must be ultra low depth. Just that the baseline academic standard shouldn't be tertiary educated. But there's a huge difference between spiritual depth and academic complexity. And often an inverse relationship!
I don't like the use of this phrasing, but I sort of mean like a situation where you need to "dumb things down" for some people but for others, doing so will alienate them; and then vice versa
A talented sermon author will be a little bit like a screenwriter of a good children's movie where there are some things that everyone understands and other things that only those more mature will be able to grasp and appreciate. Really good ones can do it without those who are young in the faith realising that there's depth they're not yet appreciating.
@SupportiveDante Not when you can't understand any of the words. "But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue."
God communicates to us through our heart languages. I'm closest to God when I'm thinking, hearing the scriptures, praying, confessing, singing in my heart language. God gave us a diversity of languages and he loves to be worshipped in that diversity.
@SupportiveDante That's why I said "as far as that analogy goes".
@SupportiveDante Yes. 1 Corinthians 14 is pretty indicative. "But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue."
The Upper Room
The Upper Room