Voices In My Head Podcast Episode #277: A History of Christian Worship Part Six - The 16th Century a

Have you ever thought to yourself, man, I'd like to host my own podcast? Well, guess what? You can go to podbean.com/voices and get everything you need to create, manage, and promote your podcast. I use Podbean every week for Voices in My Head. There's easy uploading and publishing tools, stunning templates, custom domains, social and promotional tools, an embeddable podcast player, monetization tools, and more. It is your all-in-one podcasting solution. With Podbean, you can create professional podcasts in minutes without any programming knowledge. Best of all, everything is mobile ready right from the start. So go to podbean.com/voices, and when you sign up, use the code "voices" and you'll get a sizable discount. Podbean, for your home podcasting. Thank you for listening to Voices in My Head. <LYRICS>Hymns, Prayers and Invitations</LYRICS> The latest album from Rick Lee James has garnered praise from CCM Magazine, Worship Leader Magazine, UTR Media and more. Written and arranged using hymnals and prayer books for inspiration, this collection of 10 modern hymn-like worship songs will inspire individuals and congregations to draw near to the heart of God. <LYRICS>Holy name of God.</LYRICS> Highlights include Christ Is Lord, inspired by St. Patrick's Breastplate Prayer, Advent Hymn, and the Communion Hymn: The Invitation. Worship leaders will be glad to know that all songs on the album are published through Lifeway Worship. Find hymns, prayers, and invitations on Amazon, Spotify, Apple Music, CD Baby, and at Rick Lee James. .com. Welcome to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of me, Rick Lee James. I'm a recording artist, a singer-songwriter, an author, a worship leader, and an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene. The Voices in My Head podcast is your source for discussions on music, literature, movies, pop culture, theology, and more. Now sit back, relax, and listen to the latest episode of the Voices in My Head podcast. And don't forget to let the voices in your head be heard by following me on Twitter @RickLeeJames and sharing your thoughts about today's show. Welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I am your host, Rick Lee James. I'm so glad you are here with me again this week for— yes, section 6— session 6. Sorry, it's been a long day. It's session, not section. And since I already messed up a word right out of the gate I should just say some of these words that are going to be in today's episodes are hard to say, so if I mess up royally, just know that I'm trying my best. But doing the research for this was a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to sharing part 6 with you. It's been very busy for me. I just got back from the Chicago area, played lots of gigs over the last few days, recorded a great podcast which I'm going to be sharing with you— two great podcasts actually— while I was in Chicago. Tomorrow, at least at the time of this recording, I have an interview coming up for the Voices in My Head podcast with the great musician John Tibbs. I am really looking forward to interviewing him tomorrow. But what my plan is, is to finish out the rest of this study on the history of Christian worship and just do them without missing a beat. So I want to do all 10 right in a row without putting any interviews in between. So we are at part 6 this week, and I figure, hey, we are already over half done after this week. So let's just finish it out, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and then the backlog of interviews that I've been recording, I'll start sharing on Voices in My Head. So that's the news for right now. So I'm going to get right into today's episode, which takes us into session 6, the 16th century and the Reformation. So buckle your seatbelts, it's Reformation time. All right, so All Hallows' Eve. Oh, hold on just a second, everybody. My, uh, my screen is doing something weird. I know this makes for great podcast listening for you to wonder what in the world's going on on my screen, but something is happening, so I'm gonna pause for just a second so I can fix it. Okay, I think I got the problem fixed, so now we are back into All Hallows' Eve in 1517, the Reformation. All right, here we go. History of Christian Worship, Part 6. In 1517, on the eve of All Saints' Day, a monk named Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg. In 1512, Luther had received his doctorate in theology. As a doctor of the church, he had taken vows to defend the church against false doctrine, and in nailing his 95 Theses to the door, he seems to be fulfilling his calling. In the theses, Luther unleashed a blistering bombardment against several things brought about by medieval theology, but primarily he was against the sale of indulgences. Through the Reformation— sorry, though the Reformation had begun, it would take 6 years. Guys, I'm sorry, my screen is messing up again. I'm gonna have to pause for just one more moment. All right, ladies and gents, I'm back again. I'm so sorry. I don't— don't— I think I fixed it now. I think the problem is solved, so I'm just going to start over one time. I apologize for this. I hate when things like that happen on the podcast, but sometimes it's all I can do. So here we go one more time. In 1517, on the eve of All Saints' Day, a monk named Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg. In 1512, Luther had received his doctorate in theology. As a doctor of the church, he had taken vows to defend the church against false doctrine. And in nailing his 95 Theses to the door, he seems to be fulfilling his calling. In these theses, Luther unleashed a blistering bombardment against several things brought about by medieval theology, but primarily he was against the sale of indulgences. Though the Reformation had begun, it would take 6 years before Luther even attempted worship reform. This is because Luther wasn't primarily concerned with worship. He was mainly concerned with the reform of church doctrine. However, our doctrines cannot help but affect change in our worship. The Reformers believed in Luther's principle of Sola Scriptura, the belief that Scripture alone had supreme authority in matters of faith and doctrine. In this belief, neither the present officials of the church nor the past traditions of the church outweigh the authority of Scripture. There are some real problems concerning Christian worship that arise from the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. One problem is that Scripture doesn't give us well-defined liturgical forms. So using Scripture alone to reform is a risky endeavor when it comes to worship. Another problem is that the Reformers had so few materials available on early church worship practices that they made some serious historical errors. In seeking to correct medieval abuses, they actually came to emphasize the most limited aspects of medieval worship instead of the most important ones. Because of their lack of interest in Christian corporate worship, the Reformers became closer to their medieval forerunners, emphasizing the role of clergy in worship, the sins of individuals, and treating the Passion of the Christ as the central fact of the Christ story. So let's look at the Lutheran reforms. Luther's main assault wasn't on the Eucharistic theology of his day. In fact, Luther never questioned the sacraments as a means of God's grace. What Luther primarily objected to was the misconception that in the Mass Jesus was daily being sacrificed at the altar. Luther stressed that the Mass was a Testamentum, God's gift to humanity. Luther would have seen it as idolatry to regard our worship as our good work, since this would be to set human acts in place of God's act of grace in Christ. Luther emphasized that we are being saved by grace, not works. Not even our good works in worship could save us, only the work of God in Christ. Christians do in fact offer themselves as a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving in the Mass, but they are in no way adding to the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus the Messiah. When Christians offer their gifts at the altar, they are receiving no merit or extra credit according to Luther's theology. Like many other Reformers of his day, Luther unfortunately tied Christ's sacrifice primarily to his atoning, redeeming death on the cross, instead of his whole life and work. Luther, rather than reforming this bad atonement theology, carried on the same old passion crucifixion emphasis from medieval times. For Luther, because the work of Christ on the cross is the finished reconciling act, the Eucharist is a human response to his divine gift. In communion we receive more than we give, and Christ's sacrifice calls forth— a continuous response from us. Thus, communion was for Luther our work at the table, not God's. Because Luther took this theological position, he eliminated any suggestion of sacrifice from the Mass itself. At first, he was reluctant to tamper with the liturgy, but in 1523, when one of his students, Andreas Karlstadt, began to make radical changes to the Mass, Luther published his own ideas on worship reform. He felt compelled to make these changes lest worship reform be left in the hands of "ignorant and mindless innovators," which tells us what Luther thought of his student. Luther's revisions of the Mass, the Formula Missae, kept the Latin and most of the vestments and ceremonials of the older Mass. Ironically, Luther's main reform to the Mass was to delete much of it. Since Luther believed that the doctrines of Eucharistic sacrifice, merit, and transubstantiation were untrue, he eliminated the offering and directed that the bread and wine instead be prepared during the singing of the Creed. He did this to remove any hint that the offering of bread and wine was a prelude to a propitiatory sacrifice. Luther also deleted the breaking of the bread, wanting no allegorical symbolism of Christ being sacrificed in the present attached to the meal. From the earliest times, the breaking of the bread was a major part of the Eucharist with obvious biblical significance, so this was an extreme deletion on Luther's part. The deletion of the breaking of the bread is all the more confusing when you consider that Luther didn't remove the elevation of the bread during the singing of the Sanctus. Many of Luther's fellow Reformers staunchly opposed this part of the Mass, but since it was the only part of the Mass left in which the average person participated, Luther kept it. Luther denied transubstantiation, preaching that Christ's presence is everywhere, but that he is truly, really, especially present in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. While Luther taught that Christ's presence was real in the Eucharist, he made no attempt to define how he was present, since only God knows that. The greatest challenge that Luther made in his Formula Missae was to reduce the canon from the words of institution to the words and actions of Jesus in the Last Supper. This deletion went hand in hand with the reformers' emphasis on Sola Scriptura. Although Luther's intent was to reform the Mass of the medieval period, what he actually did was accentuate it. By stripping away everything but the words of Jesus, the medieval emphasis on the substitutionary atonement of Christ and the forgiveness of sins as his central work was continued. Ultimately, Luther's first attempt at liturgical revision failed to meet the needs of the Reform movement in Germany. In 1526, Luther issued a second attempt at mass reformation, the Deutsch Mass. This mass was to be a kind of folk mass in the vernacular of common uneducated people. In the Deutsch Mass, Luther continued to delete, removing various parts like the Gloria in excelsis. He also replaced the Nicene Creed, which emphasized the Eucharist, with the Apostles' Creed, which emphasized baptism. His most creative contribution to worship reform was adding German hymns to the Mass. This, more than anything else, led to the laity being involved again in worship, and it also restored congregational music to the Eucharist. The sermon now became the climax of Protestant worship, and the Lord's Supper in practice became little more than an add-on. This is not to say that communion was not important to Luther. He insisted that some, or preferably all, of the congregation commune at every worship service and directed that those who wish to receive the elements should inform the pastor before the service. If no one informed the pastor beforehand of their intent to commune, then the minister was instructed to conduct a service of the word with prayer Scripture, hymns, and a sermon. Unfortunately, these abbreviated anti-communion services became the norm in most Lutheran services. In the same year that Luther wrote his Formula Missae, he also issued a much abbreviated baptismal rite. The rite did away with the medieval blessing of the water and also added a beautiful prayer that re-emphasized baptism as death and resurrection. This is that prayer: Almighty eternal God, who according to your righteous judgment condemned the unbelieving world through the flood, and in your great mercy preserved believing Noah and his family, and who drowned hard-hearted Pharaoh with all his host in the Red Sea, and led your people Israel through the same on dry ground, thereby prefigured this bath of Your baptism, and who through the baptism of Your dear Child, our Lord Jesus Christ, has consecrated and set apart the Jordan and all water as a salutary flood and a rich and full washing away of sins, we pray through the same, Your groundless mercy, that You will graciously Behold this person, and bless him with true faith in spirit, so that by means of this saving flood, that all that has been born in him from Adam, and of which he himself has added thereto, may be drowned in him and engulfed; and that he may be sundered from the number of the unbelieving, preserved dry and secure in the holy ark of Christendom, serve your name at all times, fervent in spirit and joyful in hope, so that with all believers he may be made worthy to attain eternal life according to your promise, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Well, in 1526, Luther wrote a simplified rite of baptism as a complement to his Deutsch Mess. The rite eliminating the use of oil eliminated the use of oil, the gift of the candle, and other such ceremonials. Lutherans rejected the belief in the damnation of unbaptized infants, the related practice of baptism by laypersons, and only allowed for private baptisms in extreme cases. These changes to the baptismal rite of the day helped to remove baptism from its preoccupation with questions of an individual's original sin and condemnation, setting baptism back in the context of the congregation. Because they thought it had always been done, Reformers never questioned infant baptism. Infant baptism did, however, create a problem because infant communion wasn't restored. Luther rejected Confirmation as a practice, calling it mumbo-jumbo, and instead devised catechisms which explained the fundamentals of the sacraments, specifying that children should learn them. The unfortunate effect is that baptism became even more separated from the Lord's Table, causing the significance of baptism to be further obscured. The Reformers weren't able to see that if they were to continue the practice of infant baptism, that in order to be consistent, infant communion would be a virtual necessity. Well, let's take a look at another Reformer, a Reformer named Zwingli. And I'm just gonna tell you now, I struggle with Zwingli's first name, and his last name's not that great either, so just bear with me. Shortly after Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to Wittenberg's door, a priest in Zurich named Huldrych Zwingli launched the Swiss Reformation. Even though Zwingli died in 1531, relatively early in the Reformation. He successfully founded the Reformed Church before his passing. The Reformed Church would go on to spread its liturgies throughout the world under the influence of a Frenchman named Jean Calvin. You've heard that name before. Zwingli's theological views on worship, unlike Luther's, were drastic and stood directly opposed to traditional Christianity. Even though the majority of later reformers would reject Zwingli's theology and his ideas on worship, Zwingli's minimalist view of the sacraments unfortunately affected all non-Roman Western churches to some extent. For Zwingli, material elements like bread and wine could never be instruments of the grace of God, because to him, God was a completely transcendent spirit. It's true that for Zwingli, Scripture was the sole and supreme authority, which makes it all the more curious that he held such a low view of the Lord's Supper and baptism. Sacraments that are clearly stressed in Scripture. For Zwingli, these sacraments were only signs of what God had done long ago for us through Christ. He viewed them simply as memorials or visual aids that reminded us of God's forgiveness and grace, but not as a means of the grace. For him, participation in the sacraments were simply a public testimony of a person's faith in Jesus. Reducing the sacraments even more to something humans do, not something God was working through. Zwingli's extreme views on the Lord's Supper led him to rejecting it as the normal Sunday activity for Christians. Unfortunately, the influence of his decree that the Lord's Supper be celebrated only 4 times a year, and only as an addition to the preaching service, can clearly be seen in the worship of the Church of the Nazarene I am a part of, and many others., as is the case with most evangelical worship. Zwingli believed that offering communion less frequently would restore a greater significance to the Lord's Supper, making it more meaningful, but the evidence in most Protestant churches has unquestionably done the opposite, making it less significant. In Zwingli's preaching services, he eliminated all music, the altar, vestments, and most congregational participation and response. His services did more educating than Luther's did, and it was the job of the congregation to listen, be enlightened and corrected by the preacher. The main response that Zwingli wanted from the congregation was inner, rational, subjective faith. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Zwingli's final version of the Lord's Supper followed Luther's lead, reducing the canon down to the words of institution. The prayers of the service were mostly instructions giving the congregation the meaning of the service. As for Scripture, Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians and John 6 were always used. Communion always began with a strong exhortation and explanation of the Reformed interpretation of Communion. This was followed by the Reformed practice of "fencing the table," warning all against the dangers of coming to the Lord's table in an unworthy manner. Now, in an attempt to give communion the feeling of a fellowship meal, the congregation would be seated when receiving the elements. Zwingli was specific that simple wooden vessels should be used and that the elements should be placed upon a simple table with the congregation seated around it. Ministers were to wear simple everyday black academic gowns and were to lead the service with a clear loud voice so that every person could know what was being done. Now, if you're familiar with Protestantism at all, you will clearly see Zwingli's influence on worship: preaching as worship's main event, lay involvement almost completely lacking, and emphasis on education and morality. On to another reformer, Calvin. Now on to Geneva, where we find the third major personality of the Protestant Reformation, John Calvin. Unlike Zwingli, Calvin had a high doctrine of the sacraments and strongly affirmed them as a means of grace. But unlike Luther, he avoided any doctrine of the real presence. There was room for mystery in Calvin's view of the sacraments, and his emphasis was on experience over understanding. Calvin believed that Christ was fully present in the Eucharist by the power of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, believers really participated spiritually in the presence of Christ in communion. Jesus was really present, but only spiritually. Landing Calvin's theology of the sacraments somewhere between Luther and Zwingli. Calvin was like Luther in that he wanted the Lord's Supper to be served in worship every single Sunday. But when he tried to restore the weekly celebration of communion at the Protestant Reformed Church in Geneva, Zwingli's devoted disciples defeated his efforts. He met similar resistance during his time serving in Strasbourg, and by the time he returned to Geneva in 1514, he compromised and only served communion once a month. Again, somewhere between Luther and Zwingli. So Calvinist worship was marked by this: sober intellectualism, didacticism, or education, wordiness, very little congregational participation, and communion received standing or around tables rather than at pews. Calvin's theology of baptism was as strong as Luther's, and his services for baptism were very Lutheran, marked by deletions to the liturgy rather than additions. In Calvin's version of baptism, there was a new emphasis on baptism as the receiving of God's covenant of grace. This emphasis was a natural counterpart to Calvin's covenantal theology. Well, now on to European Free Churches. While Lutherans and Reformed churches had strong reservations about the content and form of medieval liturgies, they never doubted that liturgy itself had value. Even though the Reformers brought, brought variety and adaptability back into Christian worship, Their services still followed set patterns. The content of their prayers were carefully fixed, and for the sake of uniformity and civil order, the liturgies of the church were officially approved for all churches within a given state. In the commotion of the Reformation, small sects began to arise demanding more freedom in doctrine and worship. These sects were eventually designated as Free Churches. And were made up of Anabaptists, Independents, Separatists, and eventually Puritans. Free churches generally upheld that the form of worship was a matter of choice for each individual congregation. Again, sounds very familiar. Their belief was that a fixed printed order of worship was a hindrance to true Christian worship. For one of the first times in Christian worship, fixed prayers were replaced with extemporaneous, quote, "free," unquote, prayers from the heart, open to the leading of the Spirit. Free Church worship was marked by lengthy scripture readings and even more lengthy sermons. All outward forms, vestments, etc., were universally rejected. Baptism and the Lord's Supper were practiced in Free Churches, but they were done very simply. Accompanied by scripture recitation and extemporaneous prayer. The congregation remained passively seated during communion. Even though they practiced baptism and the Lord's Supper, Free Churches rejected the idea that they were sacraments, divine acts conveying divine grace. For most Free Churches, baptism and communion were seen to be human activities ordained by Christ for education and edification. Communion and baptism came after faith rather than before it—signs of the presence of faith in the life of a believer. Because of this emphasis on personal confession of faith, Anabaptists believed infant baptism to be contrary to the teachings of the New Testament. For Anabaptists, baptism must be preceded by a confession of faith. Anabaptists only baptized adults after a confession of faith. They would also rebaptize people who had been baptized as infants. Their belief was that regeneration came not because of baptism, but that baptism came after regeneration. Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, the Free Churches were persecuted both by Roman Catholics and established Protestant churches like Lutherans, Calvinists, and Anglicans. It was during these persecutions that many Free Church members fled to America. It's no wonder that American Protestant churches are widely anti-establishment and voluntaristic with leanings toward free church worship. The mark that free church wor— that free churches have made upon the United States is undeniable, even on churches with no free church leanings. Methodists, Presbyterians, and many other American Protestants are still suspicious of liturgical service books, sacraments, fixed prayers, liturgical ornamentation. American Protestant congregations are generally more comfortable leaving the manner of Sunday worship to the prerogative of each local congregation and its pastor. So, reaction. In hopes of restoring and sustaining the old order, the Church of Rome vigorously reacted to the Reformation, working hard to stem the tide at the Council of Trent from 1545 to 1563. Even though it was dubbed the "Counter-Reformation," it did very little to actually bring reform. The council mostly solidified medieval liturgical doctrines as absolute truth from which no deviation could be permitted. Whatever the Reformers questioned, the Council of Trent defended as divinely ordained. In 1570, Pope Pius V officially decreed a uniform Missal or prayer book, for the entire Roman Church. Generally, this ended any variation or adaptation in local Roman churches. The Missal unified and solidified the Roman Liturgy, rigidly forbidding even the slightest variation. The medieval rite, with all of its limitations and problems, was now fixed as the official form of worship for Roman Catholic— for the Roman Catholic Church. Even merely translating the canon into the vernacular of the people for the sake of instruction and understanding became forbidden by official decree, and no real revision would happen for nearly 400 more years. The so-called "Counter-Reformation" perpetuated some of the worst problems of the medieval period. Now the Mass was even more of a divine drama where priests acted out a beautiful mystery on the stage of a Baroque theater. Complicated musical settings for the Mass were combined in a theatrical spectacle in front of the faithful, who rarely had a chance to participate. As a result, personal devotional practices such as the rosary increased in importance as substitutes for lay participation in worship. While the Reformers succeeded in achieving more congregational participation in worship, the role of the congregation remained passive for the most part. While Luther and Calvin emphasized the importance of Word and Table, they were unable to marry it to Protestant worship. The sermon now took the place of prominence in worship instead of the sacraments for the first time ever. As a result of the Reformation, Western worship was torn apart. Listen, as a result of the Reformation, Western worship was torn apart, split between ever-growing varieties of Protestant options. In many ways, we are still wandering, still trying to find our common ground. We are lost between the conservatism of Lutherans, the radicalism of Anabaptists, and the reactionary rigidness of the Roman Catholic Church. However, As we'll see next week, our story does not end there. Well, that's enough for tonight, everybody. I hope you enjoyed Part 6 of the History of Christian Worship. Tune in again next week for Part 7. We are counting them down. We're over halfway there now. Thank you so much for listening to Voices in My Head. As always, I'm your host, Rick Lee James. God bless you. Thank you for joining me here this week on Voices in My Head. I hope you'll visit me on my website at rickleejames.com. Follow me on Twitter @rickleejames. Like my artist page at facebook.com/rickleejames. And keep up to date on what I'm writing on my author page on Amazon. There's also the Voices in My Head Facebook community found at facebook.com/voicespodcast. And if you want to follow my alter ego on Twitter, follow my popular Mr. Rogers quote account found at @mrrogerssay. Also, make sure to follow my appearance schedule on my website, and if you would like to have me come to your town to do a concert, a speaking engagement, or a book event, you can book me through my website at rickleejames.com/bookings. And it would mean the world to me if you would write a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews we receive, the more visible this podcast is on the internet. And now the benediction. May the God of peace, who raised Christ from the dead, strengthen you in your inner being for every good work. And may the blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, rest upon you and dwell within you this day and forevermore. Amen.