Well, yes – protestant in the sense that it still protests against the RC church, but perhaps it also protests against the reformation.
Excellent post and excellent thoughts. I am going to go off topic a bit (sorry Scot). I am struggling at this time with the purpose of church (meaning church services, not church as people of Christ). I can consider several possibilities:
Is the purpose teaching? Evangelism? Exortation? Worship? Participation with the communion of Saints? Sacrament? Entertainment?
I think that your comment about a Church order that reflects the historic order of the Church, along with a strong element of worship describes what I mean by “participation in the communion of saints.”
Frankly, (and this is a tough admission because I have a great deal of respect for the leadership of the church I attend and think that the church is doing great things in general – there is an excellent missional emphasis), being relatively low church evangelical protestant much of the time I only go because of family – I am not sure I would if it was just me.
Right now worship is —
a few minutes of a traditional song,
a prayer and welcome,
15+ minutes of music which is fine (I like the “style” and the songs are “theologically reasonable”) but so loud I sit at the back in order to leave when it gets too bad because I am physically sensitive to volume. (I cannot take the uniform and sustained volume for that long.)
Announcements and Offering, sometimes an interview.
A sermon – at a “general level” in order to welcome all (a good thing in general but means that I can count on one hand the number of times a year I learn something new). The sermon includes some kind of exhortation, … again a good thing.
Once a month – a communion table (I would go for this as often as able).
There is no Bible reading except what is connected to the sermon, and that is generally taken out of context and in bite size chunks). There is no connection with the history of the church (biblical or extrabiblical). There seems little texture except in the sermon, and this is intentionally directed at a target group (or groups) of which I am not part. There is a deep concern to avoid being “too intellectual” or to use language that could be considered “church language”.
Maybe I need to move to a more liturgical church…

Scot, stirring stuff you’ve written; superb. I think many evangelicals who depart for Rome are unaware of the rich liturgical tradition of Protestantism.
Nevertheless, something absent in these rich liturgies is the emphasis of every member participation in the 1 Cor.14 sense (i.e. each has a psalm, a hymn, a revelation, etc). I’ve grown up in a Brethren context which has majored on this, but to the neglect of a liturgy and psalmody. I wonder if there is a way of combining the two approaches?

Good questions. But we can also ask, when (and why) did the church drop eating a common meal as part of celebrating the Lord’s Supper? Tertullian was still doing it in the 3rd or 4th century. Does ekklesia and koinonia lose anything spiritually when we take away the meal?
The radical reformation looks to the Biblical church, not the “ancient church” of the 4th century on, and not to the Reformation. The practices in 1 Cor. 14 (interactive mutual participation) don’t look too much like a Lutheran ceremony.

Scot,
You seem to propose “Protestant” as a corrective, as a bar low church-style evangelical churches should aspire to meet to achieve competency. As one who comes out of a liturgical church tradition, I would agree there’s much good in a 1,000 year old set liturgy, but it’s also no shining city on the hill … . The best part of the liturgy is the exposure of the congregation to the entire Bible in weekly chunks. That’s a great thing. And liturgical order is good … but it can also be mind-numbingly boring after the 5,000th singing of “lamb of God take away the sin of the world.” You can say the words, but not be there at all. Also, in my experience, what the liturgy really means is seldom taught (I think this is a failing that could be easily fixed) and the protestant church is often not prone to teach more than a very narrow church history, to be lopsided in its teaching and shallow in its preaching … hmmmm, sounds familiar …. I understand the value in setting a bar for evangelical churches, and I do hear you on shallowness and lack of Biblical knowledge/understanding, but adding a liturgy and more order may not be the way to achieve the desired result. Stimulating to think about though.

As one who has been on both sides of his fence, I see the value in connection to the whole history of the church, active engagement with the creeds, weekly communion, etc. Plenty of low church evangelicals are questioning whether the “seeker-sensitive” model puts too much emphasis on the felt-needs of seekers and not enough on a connection to some core fundamental elements of worship that have existed for 2000 years. But I also see the reason for the rejection of ritual when it becomes mindless repetition, rejection of symbols that owe more to medeival theology than to scriptural truth, particularly viewing communion as a “sacrifice for the remission of sins” and for viewing sacraments as having effect based on the action of the clergy independent of the faith of the individual. Reading scripture according the liturgical calendar puts the story into a context – the liturgical year including advent, pentecost, etc., but that context can sometimes be at odds with the context of the text itself because it jumps from one book to another without seeing what came before in the actual text. It is a good question to ask, but there are valid points on both ends of the spectrum.
I do think the way the question is phrased is needlessly inflammatory. It is good to ask if we should have a longer view of church history and liturgy, not good to imply that maybe low-church evangelicals don’t deserve to be called real protestants.

@RJS – my brother paraphrases CS Lewis: “It seems strange to believe that we can worship the God who gave us the marvelous gift of hearing, by causing its damage.”

Exactly what I have been wondering. As a born and raised evangelical who never confessed a creed in church or the Lord’s prayer or made use of the lectionary or..or..or..or, I have in later life been enriched by the liturgy. The free-flowing character of what is now predominant in my branch of the evangelical community (non-denominational community churches) is beginning to scare me a bit. It feels so rootless and without the appropriate “controls” of the historical wisdom of the church. Actually, when my sons went to college and we talked through what kind of church to seek out, I was a bit nervous about the offerings of evangelical churches. When it goes all the way from Osteen to TD Jakes to Rick Warren to Word of Faith churches, etc., I found myself no longer able to say without some kind of reservation, “find an evangelical church.” I consider myself an evangelical still but one who is being shaped by a desire to connect with the larger tradition that provides some kind of boundary that keeps balance.

Wouldn’t many of these problems be solved simply by better preaching that took context into account? Were the preacher is committed to preaching whole books from all over the Bible the overall picture of God’s word as well as the details tend to become clearer.

Scot,
Why do you say “deserves to be called Protestant”? Is “Protestant” a goal to which we should aspire? Should a theology be congratulated for being Protestant?
The reason I say this is that if one defines “Protestant” as those things that Luther and Calvin held in common, then Wesleyanism is not so much Protestant as it is post-Protestant, and I count those differences to its advantage. You don’t win any points with me by arguing that your theology is more “Protestant” than someone else’s.

John, I’m not sure I’m understood: I have no desire to hold Protestantism up to the gold mark and see if evangelicalism (low church, mind you) measures up. I’m speaking into the issue of the evangelical claim to be Protestant and what counts for that.
I did not mean to exclude Wesley — I was simply observing what Chappell had in his columns on the order of worship. So, by all means for me Wesley is Protestant — and liturgical and deeply committed to the creedal tradition.

Furthermore, I’m connecting some readings I’ve done of late and how they are so at variance with my experiences in low church evangelicalism, of which megachurches are but one species.

By the way – early in October means you’ve been pondering this for almost a year?

Scot,
To re-submit a question that was too late in the previous discussion …
How exactly do you attend Willow Creek (WC), when you feel this way about Liturgy? I’d be interested to hear about your WC experience and how you feel the gospel could better shape the WC Liturgy.
BTW, at our non-denominational church we have made a significant shift toward a more formal liturgy (Gathering, The Word, The Table, Sending, prayers of the people, corporate reading, etc.). As of yet, we haven’t been able to adopt the regular confessing of the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer because of an anti-Roman Catholic bias. I’ve received some push back against what I call “Prepared Prayers,” which essentially are the daily collect adapted to our community’s context.
I didn’t realize how much this historical form of gathering now means to me until I recently attended a bigger evangelical church while I was on vacation. Even though I dearly love my brothers and sisters who were leading, everything felt so contemporary and over-simplified that all feeling of transcendence and connection to the past had been eliminated. The “sanctuary” had zero religious symbols, which gave the impression we were attending a business seminar. I left with very little awareness that I had communed with Christ and his Body from all time, which I believe is the purpose of the Gathering of the Body.
Do you feel “impoverished” at WC? How do you deal with it?
Sincerely,
A Distinctively Christian Orthodox Confessing Evangelical Protestant

I grew up in an Orthodox Presbyterian Church congregation and every sunday the minister would read I John 1:9 as an invitation to confess our sins, a confession of sin (the exact content of which escapes me at the moment, but it might have been a metrical Psalm 51 from the 1912 Psalter), followed by a reading of the Decalogue from Exodus 20. I don’t think we recited the Apostles’ Creed every week, but perhaps every month. It’s only recently that I have come to understand how much this shaped my own liturgical sensibilities.
Scott, I don’t know a lot about the evangelical churches you mention, but would they actually repudiate the creeds? Or do they simply ignore them? I definitely claim the evangelical label for myself, but I think there’s more than one meaning attached to it.

i recall the title of a book: anabaptism, neither catholic nor protestant. I was wondering if the anabaptists have used much liturgy in their history?

For me, a low church Evangelical all my life, Protestant is still useful because it categorizes me as not Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox. A multiplicity of labels causes confusion. We can’t expect people to have a glossary with them at all times so that we can be precise about our location on the theological/ecclesial grid.
I protest, still, against what I see as quite wrong aspects of both the Catholic and Orthodox positions. So, I’m a Protestant. Because neither of those two historic churches will accept me to take the Eucharist.
Even more, while talking about Calvin and Luther, and even Wesley, is good as historic study of Protestantism, we probably should also mention other groups such as the Quakers. Are Quakers protestant? I’d say yes. Indeed, I’d say Quakers are the ultimate Protestants. George Fox sought a radical turn away from the clericalism and empty liturgy of his day and back towards a radical trust that it’s the Holy Spirit who leads each person in community.
As far as creeds go, I’ve had many conversations with people of different backgrounds, and I’ve realized that there’s almost entirely no difference between regular repetition of creeds and actual understanding of the Christian faith. Indeed, I’d dare to say that for the most part, low church Evangelicals are more informed about the basics of the faith than mainstream Catholics or liturgical church participants. I’m not talking about official doctrine, or the most theologically astute. I think high church people intellectuals go to a very high plane of understanding the historic church. I’m talking about the mass in the middle. And I’ve been shocked by how little a lot of Catholics,and a lot of liturgical church attenders, know about Scripture and basic theology–even as they can go through all the ritual.
Low church protestantism tends to be have less really profound teaching, but significantly more expectation that the average person be engaged in regular maturation. Plus, low church Protestantism tends to insist more on an integration of faith and life, though this isn’t always successful.
Liturgy, I might dare say, is useful, and it is helpful. But it’s also cultural. Without any clear liturgy in Scripture, nor a standard organizational model, we are left, it seems, to be flexible in our response. We do not, for instance, have to hold to the Jewish liturgy (though some of the best churches I’ve been to are Messianic–repeating the Shema each week–as Jesus probably did). Paul advocates, it seems, use of the spiritual gifts, everyone contributing as they have been enabled by the Spirit for the edification of the whole body of Christ. Is hearing a spiritualized lecture a spiritual gift? Is repetition of set words a spiritual gift?
But here, I think, I’ve probably betrayed the root of why I still consider myself a Protestant. Sola Scriptura.
Low church folks are always into what the Bible says about something, not nearly as interested in church history or tradition.
Which was, it seems, a bit part of the Reformation, even as the early reformers didn’t protest as far as they might have against cultural accretions on the faith.

Scot,
If low-church evangelicals aren’t Protestant, what do you think they should be called? Sub-protestant?

Scot -
You should check out Hauerwas’ “Community of Character” and “Performing the Faith”
Both of these give clear insight to the formative nature of the liturgical context within the life of a community.
And this may be “off the beaten path” a bit, but I think a key distinction in contemporary evangelicalism (as opposed to high-church communal structures) it its incessant focus on values. As an evangelical, I am fighting in my own church to convince my brothers and sisters to rid themselves of talk on values. In a society that has gone mad with possession of all things, whether tangible or not, I think such discourse is inappropriate. Furthermore, I tend to think this comes from the lack of communal formation. Being a virtuous people, living by faith, hope and love, ought to instead be our aim.
An example is patience. High church communities tend to have less problems with members becoming anxious and distraught over politics. Instead, high-church communities tend to be more patient and less obsessive, because they have been formed into the kind of people who pray the Lord’s prayer rather than yelling at their political opponent. I am not saying that high-churches are less socially active. Rather that they are patient enough to discern the Spirit’s leading for the community as to what kinds of social activity are in alignment with “The will of God on earth as it is in heaven.” This kind of patience comes from a life given to liturgical formation. A life where patience is the virtue of faith.
Again, Hauerwas provides clarity here, where I probably am not making much sense. (Also, I am a “low-churcher” from the churches of Christ sect of evangelicals, so my perspective is limited. Though I live daily with the liturgy.)

Scot,
Thanks for bringing Chapell’s book to our attention. I’m enjoying it and planning on using it in our Worship Ministry Team Meetings. However, there’s one theological issue I think changes the whole direction of all Worship (Music!) discussions – The Priestly Ministry of Mediation By the Incarnate Christ. I believe you blogged through Andrew Purves’ book The Crucifixion of Ministry which addresses this issue. James B. Torrance’s “Worship, Community, and the Triune God of Grace,” hits the issue squarely. We don’t offer acceptable worship. Torrance says that most worship in the Western Hemisphere is unitarian rather than trinitarian. He feels most people, even pastors, believe worshippers approach God with their own “offering” of worship. Hebrews, however teaches us that the Incarnate Risen Christ mediates all approaches to the Father by the Spirit. So worship (and salvation) is the gift of participating in the incarnate Son’s communion with the Father by the Spirit. Therefore, what style of worship (contemporary or traditional, upbeat or contemplative) helps ME worship best is really insignificant. Christ is the only one who offers acceptable worship to his Father. My experience, my feelings, my worship is never acceptable. Only, the worship mediated by Christ is acceptable. Worship that highlights this will place a priority on the Table as communion with the risen Christ, the prayers of the people and not the experience or tastes of the people present. This distinctively Christian worship will also practically recognize Christ as the true leader of worship.

Couple more thoughts. Are the creeds and liturgy exhaustive and comprehensive?
Moltmann, for instance, has argued there needs to be additions to the creeds that deal more with the life of Jesus. The creeds teach us, I think, very good but also very limited answers based on particular questions of particular cultures from many centuries ago.
Which makes me wonder? By insisting on the Medieval Europeanized expressions of faith are we alienating contributions by Africans, Asians, South Americans, etc? Are Pentecostals, often extremely low-church, Protestants? The RC reaction to them in South America has sure suggested so. Indeed, while creeds and liturgy are helpful, what is the good news for the poor? Where do the poor turn? In what churches do we tend to see growth among the poor? If the Gospel is good news for the poor and suffering, is an intellectualized sermon that insists on cultural foreign expressions of worship really better? How are the liturgically dominant regions doing? Say, in Europe? Is the work of the Holy Spirit and the dedication to Christ stronger there? If liturgy and creeds were the defining attribute of a living, Protestant faith, then it seems there would be examples of liturgical revival.
Where’s the Holy Spirit really experienced in a holistic way? What does liturgy and, dare I say, even creeds have on the Holy Spirit–who the NT seems to immensely emphasize as a core participant in anything that could Scripturally be called Christian church and theology.
I think now I’ve gotten my dander up a bit on this topic, protesting against the old models gets me going.

Having read the initial post and the follow ups I have to admit I haven’t a clue. Having left evangelical Protestantism for the Roman Catholic Church, I was under the impression that the yellow pages of the local directory, under Church, were largely but not exclusively Protestant.
(I admit to the local bias against the Jehovah’s Witnesses and any other group which effectively denied the Trinity, but assumed that the remainder were Protestant, including the Pentecostals such as the Assemblies.)
Strangely enough, some of the more dynamic charismatics claimed not to be Protestant. They did not see themselves as being against something nearly so much as being for something, that is for charismata and the experience thereof. In the Assemblies, charisma was expected to be in evidence by the individual as a sign.
By way of comparison we (I speak of my time in the Assemblies), we occasionally got members of other religions, notably Baptists, who found themselves experiencing charismatic gifts, and who were then driven out by the Baptists because the Baptists did not believe in the charisma in this way.
I assumed Protestantism was a denial of Rome, and after a while, it was a cascade effect of splits not only against Rome, but also against the group from which the new congregation / religion had split. To be sure, Rome waas to be denied, but so was the intermediate stage before this new attempt at “revival.”
There was a desire to “return to the primitive gospel” by a lot of people who could read but had no experience of what it was like in Palestine or Greece or Italy and who had noted that the original fervor that motived the original founders of their church was dying.
The Wesley experience lead from Anglicanism to Methodism, and Wesley was an ordained minister in the Church of England.
Methodism is a protest against the Church of England, and there is a great distance between those religions and churches.
If this understanding is correct, high church / low church is not the dividing line for “Protestantism.” It would appear that a split and a departure not only from Rome but from nearly wherever is Protestantism. Using that understanding, it would appear that the Witnesses (a breakaway bible study), and the Mormons with Joseph Smith’s reviling of the Protestants in upstate New York, are also Protestant, no matter what words they use to justify the departure and creation of a new religion.

Of course Luther and Calvin were very similar to Roman Catholics in worship — they were recovering Catholics. Change takes time, and those old, familiar forms make other changes more managable.
When did it change? I don’t know. Why? Partly a desire to further remove themselves from anything that appeared “Catholic” — not to mention dislike of protestant state churches that forced them to flee to the new world.
Then there’s theology. I don’t believe Christ went to hell, so how can I “confess” the Apostles Creed?

Okay, still pondering, and have to add one more thought.
Seems to me that Protestantism seems to be defined here according to liturgical traditions. However, as I think about it, liturgy is not really the key bit of being Protestant.
Luther wasn’t protesting the Catholic liturgy–though there were later changes he made.
Seems to me that the issue of Catholic/Orthodox/Protestant is not about liturgy but about power. Who is in charge? Catholics say the Pope is the final word on ecclesial matters here on earth. The Orthodox say the church is formed by the bishops. Catholics and Orthodox disagree about there being a single leader, but agree that there is a very strong hierarchy.
Protestants, it seems to me, dispute the inherent ability of a pope or the college of bishops to be the indisputable power structure. Apostolic succession in the Orthodox/Catholic traditions goes from Jesus, to Peter, to bishops down the line. In Protestant churches Apostolic succession is accomplished by the Spirit, who blows as the Spirit will, wherever and on whoever. The book of Acts seems to suggest that the Apostles were always trying to play catch up with where the Spirit was approving people for ministry, participation, and leadership. The Spirit told Peter to accept Cornelius, Peter didn’t tell God that Cornelius was acceptable.
It’s about power. Protestants break away from the historic traditions, even if they use the historic creeds. Often, but not always, setting up their own power structures in return, which often, but not always, gets protested against by other people.
As far as JWs or Mormons being Protestants, I think there is the strong key distinction that almost all low-church Evangelicals have statements of faith that purposefully align with a historic Christian doctrine. Even as these are not often repeated in a set form, acknowledging and accepting these statements of faith is demanded of clergy and members of these churches.
And, I dare say, saying Jesus is not God will likely get you kicked out of a lot more low-church Evangelical congregations than high-church liturgical ones.

Scot-
Thanks for this post. I think some of the resistance to “liturgy” has to do with a deficient theology of worship. I’ve seen this transformation in my own life. What I see in myself is viewing worship as being chiefly about receiving something from God to my offering to God. Worship is more than an intellective or emotional activity; it’s also a somatic and “spiritual” experience whose formative influence is much deeper than the former categories. It’s a matter of being assimilated to God in these deep places (which is also a communal experience)by having my human dispositions changed rather than simply seeking to have God meet my “felt needs.” This has constituted for me a very real kind of conversion over the years. Real Christian spirituality is work–just like marriage or any kind of relationship.
When I get up and say the same prayers at Matins or Morning Prayer every morning at times I am bored, sometimes my mind wanders, I’m assaulted by all kinds of thoughts from within and without,etc. But this is my offering to God;it constitutes my identity. At times you do experience the glory of God, when God so choosed that to be present, but it’s on God’s terms not mine. I can say the same thing about the Litury as a communal activity, the form of which I serve around the altar every week is a version of the Old Roman Rite.
All communal worship in the biblical tradition and in the church can be characterized as “liturgical.” Jesus and Paul was shaped in this milieu.

in my understanding, most of modern evangelicalism, especially in its low church or nondenominational forms, grows out of REVIVALISM, which is where the historic liturgy was abandoned for an invitational, decisional style of meeting. Revivalism is a branch of Protestantism, primarily in its adherence to an evangelical core of beliefs, but its practices go back to Finney and the evangelical awakenings.
IMHO, the goal of the meetings in the revivalist tradition is not worship, per se, but fellowship, and preaching and teaching for edification and making decisions for salvation or discipleship.

“Low church evangelicalism is too often theologically shallow, frequently chaotic in its order of worship, nearly always lopsided in which parts of the Bible it preaches and teaches and knows, and inexcusably ignorant when it comes to the history of God’s people called the Church.”
In my own evangelical church experience I am discovering more and more the truth of this statement. It terms of ecclesiology we are adrift indeed.

ChrisB,
Christ “descending to hell” doesn’t mean he suffered there (well, some Calvinists teach something along those lines…) but rather that he went to the place of the dead, declared who he was, liberated the saints, then left the place of the dead to resurrect, finally conquering death.
Scot & Patrick,
Protestants claim to believe the creed, but do they really? The Nicene creed speaks of belief in an apostolic church, and I’m not convinced that Protestants really believe that. While they may believe in the first-century apostolic church, they almost universally reject apostolic succession, which was universally held by the bishops who formulated that same creed. Without a succession of bishops, I cannot see how Protestants are doing other than lip service to the creed.
The only NT “wrinkle” in the normal order of things is the Apostle Paul, who received his apostleship by a direct vision of Christ, but even he visibly and publicly ordained bishops, as did all the other apostles. His apostleship was confirmed by the other apostles publicly as well. Nobody else in the NT is “ordained” by the Spirit, so to speak. Those who are outside the apostolic authority structure are immediately brought under it when the apostles recognize the work of the Spirit. Think of Apollos in Acts 18/19, where Paul has to clear up confusion over baptism. There may be chaos for a time, but it doesn’t stay that way.

“Low church evangelicalism is too often theologically shallow, frequently chaotic in its order of worship, nearly always lopsided in which parts of the Bible it preaches and teaches and knows, and inexcusably ignorant when it comes to the history of God’s people called the Church.”
In my own evangelical, “Bible church” experience I am finding this statement more and more to be true. In terms of ecclesiology and connection to our historical past we are adrift indeed.

Nathan,
That’s certainly one interpretation of the appropriate passage from Peter, but that’s not the only one.
I’ve heard the Greek version of the Creed says “Hades,” but I’ve never seen it. The Latin clearly says “infernio,” or hell as opposed to death, and a great many confessors of the Creed believe it means that Christ suffered in hell.
How I wish they’d skipped that line.

Nathan, Protestants absolutely believe in Apostolic succession. They differ in who particularly is in charge of passing this succession on.
Bishops? Well, of course, those of the early church, for the most part, valued Bishops. Bishops were the men who were in the front lines, evangelizing, leading, risking their very lives. Until after Constantine, there was no public benefit to being a church leader. These were men dedicated to service of God, wise in their faith.
Are we really to all believe that the history of the church through the medieval period still supports the fact that Apostolic succession is passed on from bishop to bishop from pope to pope. When, it’s pretty clear, there were popes and bishops who not only did not know Christ but were, one might say, anti-Christ. Yes, there are arguments, and good ones, why God still can work in a Church with a shaky history of leadership. But so often these arguments are based on God being faithful to the Gospel mission. If we believe in the Holy Spirit, however, who works in men and women all over the world without needing church approval, then we can agree on an Apostolic succession that at certain points of history was entirely dependent on working outside the hierarchy of established churches.
Patrick of Ireland, for instance called by God to go to the Irish. He went, and disputed with church leaders, it seems, about his mission and life. “I declare myself to be bishop” he says in his letter to Coroticus. The hierarchy is fine, but if it gets in the way of the Sending, then Apostolic succession, in the power of the Holy Spirit, will continue to send men and women, with the message of the Apostles, in the power of God’s work. The church grows, is built, reaches the poor, and weary, and unreached often apart and outside of high church approval.
Sure, people will disagree with this interpretation, but using the early church leaders to support later church developments, and using their support of a system then to overlook the significant disasters of a system throughout history is pretty shaky.
God works. And he doesn’t need anyone’s approval to choose who to work through or where. That was precisely the lesson Peter learned and told the church.
Precisely why we’re not all eating kosher, demanding circumcision, and otherwise liturgical Jews who believe in Messiah.

# 26 Chas -
“Low church evangelicalism is too often theologically shallow, frequently chaotic in its order of worship, nearly always lopsided in which parts of the Bible it preaches and teaches and knows, and inexcusably ignorant when it comes to the history of God’s people called the Church.”
I totally agree with you, Chas. I am having the same struggle, to convince our folks that liturgical formation is far more “honest” and maintains biblical integrity by way of the lectionary and seasons.
And I just want to point out that the seasons and church calendar is not something that the Roman Catholic church just made up, or accepted haphazardly. The calendar has been important to the balanced and careful formation of God’s people since before the law was given to Israel! It keeps us historically and biblically honest without hierarchical structures that oppress.
It also aids in keeping “other liturgies” (such as 4th of July celebrations) out of the calendar year. David Gushee is helpful on this point, and we would be wise to listen. (Gushee is baptist, btw)

There are some realities that all of the great traditions (even outside Christianity & monotheism) seem to have in common. All make various attempts 1) to articulate the truth they’ve encountered, 2) to celebrate the beauty they’ve experienced, 3) to preserve the goodness they’ve been gifted and 4) to enjoy the fellowship for which we were born as radically social animals. And all seem 5) to affirm and refer to some form of pneumatological reality or Spirit.
The essential elements of our attempts to re-ligate a human reality often torn asunder seem to involve to different extents these articulations, celebrations, preservations, enjoyments and affirmations, which all have both propositional and participatory aspects at the level of our primary encounter of God as we fallibly attempt to describe it, effabling, so to speak, about the Ineffable. This Spirit, universally, seems to come after us in a radically incarnational way, using other people and other creaturely realities to mediate this encounter thru creed (dogma), cult (liturgy, ritual), code (law, disciplines) and community (fellowship), all fingers pointing at the moon. Fallible and sinful as we are, dogma decays into dogmatism, ritual into ritualism, law into legalism and community into institutionalism, the Spirit ever blowing where and when and on whom It will.
As I have surveyed the differences between my own Roman Catholicism and the Anglican tradition, it has seemed to me that we do not so much differ on these essential aspects but, instead, on accidentals like church polity & disciplines. And, honestly, I am in deeper sympathy with the Anglican approach to these realities (but instead of bolting traditions, which I see no sense in doing over accidentals, I remain with my dysfunctional family and in loyal opposition). In theory, what is called the Magisterium or teaching office, is that servant of the people who listens to the sensus fidelium (sense of the faithful) and then articulates it. In practice, this hierarchical structure, in my view, has often gotten this process backwards, especially with its over-reliance on speculative metaphysics vis a vis morality rather than listening to the lived experience of the faithful. So, if Protestantism gone awry has it sola scriptura, Roman Catholicism has its solum magisterium and an institutionalism run amok.
What we seem to be about then, in our interdenominational comparisons, I think has much to do with those five categories and the norms we attempt to establish for them via orthodoxy, orthopraxy, orthopathy and orthocommunio. When they are authentically ortho- the Spirit authenticates them by the fruits of the Spirit. Ortho-, however, has more to do with being whole and complete and nothing really to do with being perfect, so the Spirit moves in surprising places to those not attuned to Its Reality. In those 5 categories, we will locate our differences, I propose.
And it is incumbent upon us to discern which of these differences are rooted in essentials and which in accidentals, realities that lend themselves to our insidious over- and under-emphases. And we might recognize that we want to avoid any progressivism that treats essentials as if they were accidentals, and any traditionalism that treats any accidentals as if they were essentials. And we want to avoid any so-called Third Ways that are insidiously indifferent to these important distinctions and embrace any Third Way that is working earnestly to discern what it is that we truly have in common, which I submit is a LOT more than that which we have allowed to separate us, again and again and again.
I toss this out as one way to frame this discussion and not THE way.

Hey RJS, I’ll look for you this Sunday – you must go to my church!
and look for my wife out in the hall; she physically can’t take the volume during the songs.
: )

I’m late to this post but enjoying the discussion! Just some miscellaneous (curmudgeonly) thoughts . . .
I was pleased a few weeks ago when, as an elder and I were interviewing a young couple for church membership, the gentleman commented on how much he appreciated our worship service. He was a “lapsed Catholic” (we have lots of those in northern Wisconsin!), but even though our service is somewhat informal he had recognized the historic “Shape of the Liturgy” in the various prayers, Scripture readings and general order.
And then, just this past Sunday, when we were interviewing another family, they asked why we never recited the creed! (We actually do from time to time, but their question has motivated me to do it more often!)
I am somewhat amused, as I visit other churches during our vacations and travels, at the “set liturgy” of contemporary Evangelical churches today. They’re rebelling against “formalism,” but they’ve instituted their own formalism, haven’t they?! From one end of the country to the other, from churches large and small, I can almost predict what the service will be like (if it’s a “contemporary” service): 1) We will stand for what (to this rapidly aging old guy) seems like an interminable time, as we’re led by a “worship team” of singers and musicians. 2) We will sing (and repeat over again) short worship choruses (some theologically superb others worse than the choruses I grew up with in the ’50s). 3) They will be projected on a screen or screens with words only (so that if we don’t know the tune, we’re left to hash it out, and if we like to sing harmony we’re on our own). And 4) It will be loud (sometimes dangerously so). I’ve experienced variations of these, but it’s amazing to me how consistent this liturgy is among churches of many denominations.
I’ve lived long enough now to have seen many worship fads come and go, but I have a theory that in 5 years or so worship teams will discover the latest and greatest: pipe organs and “Holy, Holy, Holy!” It will be hailed as the newest thing in worship.

ChrisB,
I’m not aware of any Roman Catholic/Latin theologians who consider the idea that Christ suffered in hell to be anything but heresy, despite the wording.
Patrick,
Clement wrote about arguments over the office of bishop two centuries before Constantine. There were always power struggles, experienced not least by Paul.
Clement said this: “And our Apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife over the name of the bishop’s office. For this cause therefore, having received complete foreknowledge, they appointed the aforesaid persons, and afterwards they provided a continuance, that if these should fall asleep, other approved men should succeed to their ministration.”
The complexities of English (especially older forms) mean that “I declare myself to be a bishop” does not necessarily mean what you think it means. Maybe the untranslated letter really reads that way; I do not know. The audience he is writing to were not other church officials, and he was not trying to get into an ecclesiastical dispute over his ministry, so it seems doubtful that he is doing more than declaring who he is, his position of authority, and that by implication his audience should obey him because of it.
For all his apparent maverick tendencies, he doesn’t strike me as being a Protestant. He trained and ordained priests, he chrismated converts, he said, “avarice is a mortal sin.” Upsetting the status quo and claiming apostolic authority for oneself are very different things.
We’re not all eating kosher, demanding circumcision, and following Jewish customs because the apostles, at the instigation of Paul, recognized what God was doing and brought the whole church into acceptance (Acts 16:4). If new developments are never recognized by the successors of the apostles, they just might not be from God.

Love these questions. When you google ‘number of Christian denominations’, you get 33k+. It would be hard to have that characterized by one word. To me I see pendulums swinging back and forth through history concerning what it means to follow in the way of Jesus and be the Body. I grew up in a more liturgical church, but they slowly shed the robes and the high church symbols.
Both can be equally shallow and not connected to the call of God’s people through history. I remember wanting to be far away from the ‘high’ church because it didn’t seem to connect with a call for daily transformation. People showed up on Sunday and Monday in completely different roles. Well, after years at a low church, that is equally true there. We all want to see authenticity and depth, and that are usually drawn to the places that are opposite to the familiar hipocrisy (which is anywhere we get below the surface and find humans!)
I underestimated how much of the liturgy I catried with me to ‘low’ church. I went there to find Jesus, and the kids in my family are seeking out liturgical environments to find Jesus. I thought the high church was shallow, but value it now. They were part of deeper community, but did not have the imprinted though liturgy. They see the low church as shallow, but I believe they will look back in 20 years and see the ‘community’ imprinted which is also valuable.
This has left me with new questions, thanks again Scot.

Yes, yes; let’s talk about the historic Protestant faith and lament its passing among mainstream evangelicals. Let’s get ancient, dudes! It’s hip! Scott and Bryan are–like–in the zone together.
Just don’t mention sexuality. We want to get ancient, but not that ancient. I mean, think how people would laugh at us if we didn’t tip the hat to the Spirit of the Age.
Those old guys were so very narrow and sexist and bigoted, you know. Old. Anciently patriarchal. Benighted. Stupid.
Can you imagine a day when women weren’t allowed to be pastors and elders?
Alright now, everyone back to liturgy. Look at the birdie!

ChrisB @29,
The Nicene Creed does not have the line about descending into Hades; that’s the Apostles’ Creed. See text and notes for latter here:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/creeds2.iv.i.i.i.html
Dana

Now to throw a cat in with the pigeons. Is the church supposed to remain static or develop? Thus should our model be from the book of Acts and thus we should have no discernable creeds, from the early to middle church and have the creeds that Chapell talks about or should it be developed to the more recent multiple models some without creeds though not disagreeing with them?
There are issues of continuity which Scott rightly raises but does reading the liturgy, which probably starts with the early church even if we do not hear it in the book of Acts, or not reading the liturgy define continuity? What happens to loving the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as a community of Christ-followers? Or doctrines? Are we elevating one aspect of the churches life to be the mark of the church?
For some reason I see a paper coming out of this.

Nathan, Ignatius also has strong support for bishops. My point wasn’t that there wasn’t support for bishops, rather that the role of bishops became different after Constantine. After that, being a leader in the church involved societal power as well. A different breed of man enters.
I strongly suspect Clement would have had extremely potent words to say against his later successors and would have emphasized the Gospel being preached rather than the roles being filled.
“If new developments are never recognized by the successors of the apostles, they just might not be from God.”
But who are the successors? And who gets to choose? A number of church leaders in Acts did not agree with Peter and inclusion of the Gentiles. What if they had been in charge? What if men and women like Ananias and Sapphira had been in charge of the church? And, in fact, that’s exactly what bishops became like. And for that matter, what do we do with the 1054 split? Which bishops? What about later councils? The succession becomes extremely murky if we do not hold to an apostolic succession that is based on the original writings of the Apostles rather than roles which can be, and have been, filled by men with other motives than Christ and Kingdom.
Which is, it seems, precisely the disagreement at hand with being Protestant. They accept the creeds. And the early creeds say what they say. And they say nothing about Bishops.
Nor do they talk about liturgy. Because if it was unnecessary for a Gentile to be a Jew, who used liturgy given by God himself to the Israelites in the desert, it seems a fair bit silly to then go on to demand later Christians follow later liturgies.
Indeed, that’s a pretty near the parable about the forgiveness of debt. The servant who was forgiven from paying a significant amount shouldn’t then condemn the man who owes just a little.
Which is why, I think, low church Evangelicals should be considered Protestants. Essentially, they’re continuing the Protestant response against both the two old churches and against others who try to make smaller, newer, forms of authority and equate it with Gospel.

Socalled “low church Evangelicals” often forget their indebtedness to the radical reformation. Although it was Luther himself who at the Diet of Worms renounced taking ones stand on the decrees of popes, councils, canons an creeds, yet it was groups like the early Baptists who declared themselves non-creedal. As to worship and order, the evangelical spirit has always been one committed to contextualization. This is at the heart of being missional. Form must follow function and make tradition a secondary, if not marginal concern. It is the message that matters. And when the gospel becomes central, the Holy Spirit often has to burst old wineskins in order for the Kingdom of God to break into (and through) the cliches we’ve created. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.” And that Spirit cries out: “Sing to the Lord a new song!” and “‘in those days I will do a new thing,’ declares the Lord.” The liturgies of the past are a fossil record of the Spirit’s life. But life does not come from the fossil or shell left behind. Although like cliches they may once have been filled with manna.

Pam mentioned “transformation” and that, in my view, is quite the essence. And while it may be true that certain dogma, rites, laws and institutions might not foster ongoing transformation as well as others — intellectually, affectively, morally, socially & religiously (Cf Lonergan via Don Gelpi)— I think it is also true that dogmatism, ritualism, legalism and institutionalism often have a lot more to do with the individual believer and worshiper and follower and congregant than necessarily with the dogma, rite, law or congregation, itself. We shouldn’t just show up at church to have it done unto us but should show up as church, being church and doing church, prepared to give and receive. There’s room for high and low church, a diversity of ministry and unity of mission, many different spiritualities playing out via temperament and charisms, many expressions of piety, many authentic lifestyles (eremitic, monastic, lay, religious) and so on. We need boundaries and norms but can still honor a significant degree of catholicity and plurality. For example, without being heterodox, in my tradition, I don’t but into traditional notions of atonement but go with the Franciscans and Scotists, who take the Incarnation as a cosmic inevitability built into the cards from the get-go and not the result of any felix culpa. At any rate, some claims to empty rituals and boring liturgies just might say more about the claimant than the celebration, itself?

Dave (#41)
I don’t think that “fossil” is the right analogy. But we don’t want to live in the past – we need to live today.
There is a skeleton, and if we don’t retain this skeleton we have no structure and no form; no support; no resistance to external influence. But it needs to be fleshed-out for today. If we retain only the skeleton we have a fossil.
So when Scot claims that “Low church evangelicalism is too often theologically shallow, frequently chaotic in its order of worship, nearly always lopsided in which parts of the Bible it preaches and teaches and knows, and inexcusably ignorant when it comes to the history of God’s people called the Church.” What I see is not a desire to return to the past, but a desire to have a skeleton supporting the body.

erratum: one can probably figure this out but I meant to say don’t BUY into traditional notions of atonement
Again, though, we might ask what’s at stake? And I think the answer is transformation. And I also think we are aspiring to be able to run the good race with the greatest facility and the least amount of hindrances, to live a life – not just of abundance, but – of superabundance. After all, there are those of us who believe that all persons of goodwill will be saved. We will that all persons share in our Good News and its transformative efficacies out of compassion for all. We want to get it right and are deliberating out of compassion how to best cooperate with the Spirit in us all.

i think part of the challenge with low-church evangelicals is education. when a community has largely emptied historic spiritual practices that have sustained the people of God from their gatherings, their inheritors in the pews may genuinely be unaware of the rich resources available to us.
it takes time, patience and a commitment to the “long view” of worship education.
finally, resistance to these things really speaks of our besetting sin of hyper-individualism that permeates low-church ecclesiology.
we have a responsibility to nurture a celebration of God’s ongoing work of creating “a people”, not merely saving souls that happen to aggregate in a church building as part of God’s divine, short-term support group till “we all get to heaven.”

As a Wesleyan, it warms my heart to read your observations. The added note about evangelical ecclesiology is also important to note. All too often we have a tendency to stress one aspect of the Gospel or our interpretation of it, while ignoring the ways in which we are not faithful to Scripture and the early church practice. Ecclesiolgy that resembles the US constitution is an obvious example of a practice with no Biblical foundation.
The Reformation has multiple factors that go beyond Luther, Calvin and co. One of these was the linkage of the reformation with the rise of rationalism. Once we found that we could place our reasoning ahead of tradition, there was little to stop us from jettisoning 1500 years of Christian experience as irrelevant. Faith came to be the belief structure of a particular rationalistic construction of Scripture which was usually universalized to condemn any other view. In that context, use of an historical creed ran contrary to the primacy of reason–masked as primacy of Scripture according to the “right” reading. Liberals and conservatives, mainliners and evangelicals by in large have all bought rationalism hook line and sinker, they just differ in particular ideas/constructs that they elevate to the level of ideology. Prior to rationalism, there was faith and theology that related to God and Scripture quite differently than does rationalism—and oddly perhaps these older ways seem to “fit” with Scripture more fluidly than the rationalism of the past 500 years. As we leave modernity behind, it may be useful to go back to these older forms of theological reflection and practice—in which the creeds will once again sing the faith of the people.

i think it’s actually quite dangerous to refer to the creedal formulations of trinitarian doctrine as “fossils”.
I understand that comment and what is around that particular word to say that the defining theological work of nearly a quarter of the Church’s life merely stands as some kind of theological artifact we can appreciate like so much obscure art in some equally obscure period gallery at the local museum.
nicea-chalcedon matters, not only as some kind of touch point of “settled dogma”, but also as that which shapes and forms our ecclesiology, christology, etc. etc. etc. etc.
frankly, it’s not enough to say “I believe the Bible”.
because any person worth their salt will have to ask, “what do you believe the Bible is saying?”
and the creed gives the answer.

For RJS: I take it you mean a church with a more ritualistic liturgy. I attended a Congregational church in my youth. Moved on to the Episcopal church in my 30s. And was confirmed in the Catholic church less than 10 years ago. Two years ago I began a brief search to find yet another community. During my second visit to a Unitarian community it became clear to me that the ties that bind are also the ties that separate. I can count on one hand the number of times I attended church in the past year. Today I no longer search for community. My search has ended. I have found what I have sought. I am, always have been and always will be a member of the communion of saints and the Body of Christ. I count all people as my brothers and sisters.

Coming late to this discussion. Maybe Scot another angle on this to discuss sometime is where else low church evangelicals depart from the Reformers. Take sacraments and baptism in particular for example. Seems to me that the Reformers had a strongly instrumental view of baptism that would seem incomprehensible to many evangelicals?

What I’d like to know, Scot, is why you, as a confessing Anabaptist, care whether any particular church group is “Protestant.” The link you provide to Anabaptism explicitly denies being either Protestant or Catholic; and Anabaptism is also (arguably) the historic predecessor to present-day “low church evangelicalism.”
RJS – may I recommend some concert earplugs (should be available at any music store)? They’re designed to lessen the volume without muffling everything.

Keith,
That’s productive advice…I’ll give it a try.

RJS #43
That may be the claimed intent. But instead of tradition serving as a skeleton, what I observe is an exoskeleton. I see the Holy Spirit’s work in the church being much in nature like crustaceans of the sea. With each new stage of growth, the shell is cast off. Yet along comes others, like hermit crabs, who adopt and inhabit the shell. Their mistake is to think the shell is the source of the life that was once there, but which has moved on. The Life produces and casts off the shell, not vice versa.
Jesus taught us that just as the we cannot tell where the wind came from or where it is going, so is everyone born of the Spirit. I have yet to see a tradition, denomination, or church designed for such a person. Tradition cannot do it. And even the most innovative are addicted to cliches.

Keith @ #50 I wondered the same exact thing, and read the same exact line on Scot’s link to anabaptist’s claiming not to be either protestant or catholic. The last paragraph on this post seemed a little harsh in tone too.

And speaking of going one’s own way. How can you go your own way any more than Martin Luther? Sola Scriptura had never been taught up to that point. Sola Fide had never been taught.

Keith @50 and Taylor @53: I would never presume to speak for Dr. McKnight but I don’t think he’s a “confessing Anabaptist.” More like a follower of Arminianism, especially as contra-point to the Neo-Calvinists. Personally, I’m closer to Arianism so the squabble is pure entertainment to me.

Ok, maybe anabaptist (small “a”) but he wouldn’t Confess (big “C”) it!

I’m late to this discussion, but here is my two cents worth:
As a military chaplain, I would say, “Yes, low church evangelicalism is Protestant.” It definitely is in my world, but as we’ve read, there are many breeds of Protestantism.
Why don’t we follow the (historic) vision of Protestant worship? A previous response was spot-on: revivalism. American Protestant churches have generally reduced worship to evangelistic services designed to generate a “response.” Robert Webber described this reductionism (I think it was in “Ancient-Future Worship”).
Modern American services cannot bear the weight of everything we try to put on them. Is worship for education, evangelism, edification, fellowship, prayer or something else? My tradition used to have Wednesday night prayer meeting, bible studies and Sunday night evangelism services. Our one hour on Sunday morning cannot do accomplish all of those things. I see worship as WORSHIP! The primary function of worship is to proclaim the story of God and how we fit into the broad scheme of God’s kingdom.