Rite and Wrong Worship
“When Aaron made the golden calf, he proclaimed a feast to Jehovah. In other words, the Israelites in their idolatry did not think of themselves as forsaking the true God for a pagan God. But they were worshiping Him as if He were a pagan god.”
The above quote comes from Touchstone magazine, July/August 2023 from the Quodlibet column in which the editors and contributors write whatever comes to mind. It is the Touchstone equivalent of a blog. Unfortunately, this column is behind a paywall. If you are a subscriber, you might want to read the rest of his short, pithy, and trenchant observation entitled “Wrong Worship.”
Dr. Williams is not a Lutheran, so I wanted to build a little on his quip from the perspective of our particular confession.
Unlike the believers of the Old Testament, who were given specifics regarding worship, we post-Incarnation Christians were not given explicit instructions for what a sanctuary should look like, nor exactly how worship should be conducted. Unlike the Anglican communion, whose Book of Common Prayer is a sort-of “common law” tradition of worship, we Lutherans have a less codified understanding of what a worship done rightly. And in fact, many Lutherans bristle at the thought that worship can be done rightly or wrongly - especially if we all accept the Bible as our norming norm and the Book of Concord as our normed norm. Moreover, we are Evangelicals, and we do emphasize the freedom of the Christian - especially regarding matters of Galatian Christian liberty and adiaphora.
And we do identify catechesis as the chief reason for public ceremonies of the church: “For ceremonies are needed to this end alone that the unlearned be taught [what they need to know of Christ]” (AC 24:3-4).
These days, we call catechesis “teaching.” And teaching has undergone a change in recent years, for many reasons. Whereas past generations emphasized one person lecturing, and the learners sitting in rows listening, that methodology is today scornfully dismissed as an outdated “sage on the stage” model. Today, a more interactive learning methodology is emphasized, one that turns lectures into dialogues, and encourages conversation - the much preferred “guide on the side” model. We see even elementary schools adapt to this method by encouraging small discussion groups and a lot of input from the learners themselves.
The newer method has its advantages. It can incorporate more spontaneous back-and-forth, and take the learning in different directions. We see this in the Socratic Method, where the teaching is not so much impartation of knowledge, but the asking leading questions which make the learner draw the right conclusions. Some people learn better in the newer paradigm, and it can prevent a learner from “zoning out” - especially if the lecturer or the material is dry. There are also disadvantages. It can lead to a sense of groupthink. It can reduce an actual expert to the status of just one more voice in the room. It can suggest that all opinions are equal, and nobody is right or wrong. It can reduce the learning experience to feelings instead of a search for objective truth. Finally, a teacher who is not familiar with the Socratic Method, or whose knowledge of the subject matter is wanting, can lose control of the classroom, and this can degrade the learning experience.
The newer style of learning has made screens and PowerPoint almost necessary, to the point where if there is a technical glitch, it can impede the actual presentation. It is certainly a far cry from the days of the classical world, where learning was largely listening to a speaker - or to the reading of a sacred text, relying on memory rather than each person having a personal copy of the written text, or even taking notes for oneself.
Our Lutheran emphasis on catechesis and seeing the liturgy as primarily about teaching has led us subconsciously to perhaps over-emphasize the catechetical aspect of the liturgy to the detriment of what else the liturgy is, namely, a participation, a communion, a koinonia in the divine and with one another. We all know that “Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night when He was betrayed, took bread.” And indeed, very few in the worshiping assembly are ignorant of the fact “He suffered and was buried. And the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures.” There is no new information being imparted here, whether we are hearing the Words of Institution from the “sage on the stage” or saying the Creed together, led by a “guide on the side.” Of course, for children and for new Christians, this information may be somewhat less than familiar, but after one has heard these things repeated a couple dozen times, one might be tempted to say that there is no real teaching and learning going on here.
Or, the repetition leads to a bored learner, a zoning out, a desire for mental stimulation that is stultified by the liturgy. Hence the “creative worship” movement in the late 20th century that mixed things up, made worship unpredictable, with various new litanies and creeds every week, perhaps even juggling around parts of the liturgy - or even omitting them - so as to keep the learner on his toes. To the modern learner, especially one who is used to massive high-definition screens and surround-sound stereo, it is very easy to fall into boredom. Lutherans also may look around and see local megachurches with massive stage presentations, big screens, and pop music - not to mention thousands upon thousands of comfortable stadium-style seats - with nary an empty spot - and compare it to their own little sanctuaries with empty pews - and to conclude that we need to change.
And without guidance from our pastors, or with weak pastors who are either ignorant or lack the backbone to shepherd the congregation, our services can easily change into something completely different - as we see with Aaron and the the golden calf incident. While Moses was receiving the Word of God - of which the Ten Commandments was only a small part (Ex 25-31 gives meticulous details regarding what the true worship of the true God was to look like) - Aaron was giving the people the kind of service that they wanted: worship that involved “play” (Ex 32:6). And as Dr. Williams points out, the Aaron declared the golden calf festival to be a “feast of YHWH” (Ex 32:5). And though this worship was offered to YHWH, it was not received by Him. It was wrong worship. It was idolatry. Indeed, God did say in numerous places to make graven images of gold for use in worship (e.g. Ex 25:18), but He said nothing about a golden calf. Moreover, although there is nothing inherently wrong with “play,” such as dancing, clapping, laughing, and showing emotion, and such things can indeed provide opportunities for learning - and even to the praise of God (e.g. Ps 150), but this is not what God considers right worship in His Presence.
If you want to know the mind of God concerning right worship, take some time to read through Exodus 25-31.
In spite of this, and many other accounts of wrong worship in the Holy Scriptures, those who want to play, dance, and clap in the sanctuary will say that the Old Testament has become a dead letter, and for us, worship style - even play-worship - is a matter of Christian freedom. There are also pragmatic justifications offered, such as this will attract people to church - especially the youth - who are used to pop music and video games. They may even impute impure motives to those who disagree with them, such as the accusations that those who insist on traditional liturgy are legalists, do not love the lost, hate the youth, and just selfishly want what they want instead of engaging in evangelism.
And in the name of that kind of pragmatism, many Lutherans - including those who ought to know better: pastors, district and synod leaders, and professors - will justify simply ignoring Article 24 (The Mass) in the Augsburg Confession and the Apology, turning it into something that is “no longer binding” or “descriptive not proscriptive” or simply ignore it altogether. Others will push the limits of the Christian liberty that is confessed in Article 10 of the Formula of Concord to the status of worship as anything-goes.
And yet, even without specific instructions to the contrary, I doubt that even one of the most adamant of those who believe worship is an adiaphoron would, say, defend the inclusion of a statue of Buddha, or decorative golden calves, in our sanctuaries. So everyone actually does draw the line somewhere about what constitutes right and wrong worship, both in how our sanctuaries are adorned, and what ceremonies and rites we do in them.
Of course, we all understand that the unauthorized “graven image” of the calf was idolatry. But that was not the only component of sin committed by the Israelites in their experimental liturgy in the absence of Moses. For had they not made the golden calf, they would still have been engaging in “play” - even without the idol. God did not give instructions for the priests or the laity to “play” when worshiping. And in fact, we have lost the life-and-death seriousness of worship that involved blood. For the Old Testament sanctuary was a bloody place of slaughter, in which the substitutionary atonement was on full display. It was not hidden behind sanitized artwork depicting unbloody lambs. The worshiper saw the priest slaughtering the sacrificial animals that they themselves brought. And blood was an irreplaceable element in the worship of YHWH - as blood was necessary for the forgiveness of sins. Worship was indeed a matter of life and death. We have largely lost touch with that reality - which is carried forth into the New Testament church by the centrality of the cross.
And this is also a sad consequence of the loss of art in our modern churches - as traditional pre-Reformation and Reformation era art freely depicted the bloody Lamb, as well as the imagery of Christ’s blood in artwork in the sanctuary. Today, this has largely been sanitized, even to the point of some people reacting viscerally against the use of the image of the corpus of Jesus on the cross. The era of Pietism and Rationalism reducing the weekly celebrations of the Lord’s Supper also had the effect of taking the blood out of our worship, with planned and intentional denials of the Eucharist to the assembly gathered together, worshiping the Lamb whose blood has redeemed them. Pietism also replaced the objective blood of the cross and sacrament with warm feelings and emotion. And we have not recovered from this infelicitous development.
Following Article 21 in the Augsburg Confession, and just before Article 22 - there is an introduction to the articles summarizing reforms that were implemented in our churches (22-28). The end of this introduction indeed makes it clear that ceremonies are not a matter of “anything goes,” that they can indeed be done “rightly” (which in Latin is “rite” - which can also be rendered “according to the rite”).
And if they can be done “rightly” (“ritely”), they can also be done “wrongly” (“unritely,” as the Israelites found out at Mt. Sinai and at several other points in their history).
Worship that downplays the blood of Christ and replaces it with maudlin emotion or even “play” is wrong worship. It may be directed to YHWH, and it certainly does indeed teach something - but such worship doesn’t honor how the true God Himself wishes to be worshiped, nor does it make Christ Crucified and the forgiveness of sins central. This is why Lutheran churches have, until recent times, universally worshiped liturgically according to our received tradition. It is simply the right (and rite) way to worship.
Nothing would serve better to maintain the dignity of ceremonies, and to nourish reverence and pious devotion among the people than if the ceremonies were observed rightly in the churches [Nihil magis prodesse ad dignitatem ceremoniarum observandam et alendam reverentiam ac pietatem in populo, quam ceremoniae rite fiant in ecclesiis] ~ AC Articles in Which Are Reviewed the Abuses Which Have Been Corrected 6.