LITURGY – Liturgy is really a rather new word in Christian Reformed churches. We learned the meaning of a rather substantial doctrinal and confessional vocabulary when I was growing up, but I don’t remember any instruction in this now very popular term. The “order of worship” was once quite consistent throughout Reformed churches (I do not think it was ever altered the first twenty years of my life, nor did we even think it might be). And you didn’t need much space on the Sunday bulletin for “liturgical matters.” Just a few lines to list the Psalter numbers, the Scripture reading, the sermon theme. Everybody knew that the worship service would begin with the recitation of Psalm 124:8, followed by the salutation (e.g. 1 Tim. 1:2, Rev. 1:4, 5), singing, the reading of the Decalogue or Apostles’ Creed, singing, the “long prayer,” singing (during which the offering was received), the sermon, prayer, singing, the benediction (e .g. 2 Cor. 13:14), and “the doxology” (always Old Hundredth). That was “church.”

Well, things have changed!

I have preached in something like thirty different congregations in both RCA and CRC since being emeritated some eighteen months ago and I can testify to the wide variation in liturgical practice. One can find most anything, from the simplest to the most complex, from the most traditional to an almost reckless innovationism. It seems as if there is little consensus as to what Reformed worship is, and what the principles are that govern it. It appears as well that the arrangement of the worship service is no longer regarded as the exclusive or even primary responsibility of the elders. Pastors individually or “worship committees” make up the program, and whatever they come up with seems to be acceptable.

Th is is another of those things which one finds hard to accept, and even more difficult to assess. The result, it seems to me, is such a hodgepodge of experiment and invention that one fee ls at a loss as to what to think or say. It seems to me that we have to hope that somehow greater clarity and conviction will emerge from this current confusion. All kinds of questions surface. What is essential to the worship of the church? If the sermon is central, why do some devise liturgies which give it little more than fifteen minutes of the first hour (and everyone knows that after the hour it becomes very difficult to keep people “in church” happily). Why did we read the Decalogue, and is it still important to do so? Should we give strict obedience to regular, systematic preaching according to the Heidelberg Catechism, and in its own order?

To these questions you can add many others.

I know that a great deal of work has been done by the Liturgical Committee of the CRC in recent years. Its last contribution is a defense and recommendation of the liturgical dance. (The rationale and need for this innovation eludes this simple writer!) My reason for mentioning this “permanent committee” is that, in spite of all of their lengthy studies, I do not notice any clearer understanding of the real meaning and purpose of a Reformed “service of the Word” (our fathers spoke of worship as dienst des Woords), in the churches.

Thanks to a ministerial colleague in another denomination of Reformed persuasion my attention was called to the following citation from C .S. Lewis. Under the heading Liturgy Lewis once wrote:

Every service is a structure of acts and words through which we receive a sacrament, or repent, or supplicate, or adore. And it enables us to do these things best if you like it, it “works” best—when, through long familiarity, we don’t have to think about it. As long as you notice , and have to count the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance. A good shoe is a shoe you don’t notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling. The perfect church service would be the one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God (italics inserted, JHP).

But every novelty prevents this. It fixes our attention on the service itself; and thinking about worship is a different thing from worshipping. The important question about the Grail (the cup or platter used according to medieval legend by our Lord at the Last Supper and the object of knightly search, JHP) was “for what does it serve?” “Tis mad idolatry that makes the service greater than the god.”

A still worse thing may happen. Novelty may fix our attention not even on the service but the celebrant. You know what I mean. Try as one may to exclude it, the question, “What on earth is he up to now?” will intrude. It lay one’s devotion waste. There is really some excuse for the man who said, “I wish they’d remember that the charge to Peter was Feed my sheep; not, Try experiments on my rats, or even, Teach my performing dogs new tricks.”

Thus my whole liturgiological position really boils down to an entreaty for permanence and uniformity . . . (From The Joyful Christian, Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. New York, 1977. pp. 80, 81.

Amen!

MEDIA FUSS IN GRAND RAPIDS – I am an out-state subscriber to The Grand Rapids Press. It has the best obituary department of any paper I know, and at my age it is of some interest to keep track of such things, even though the paper arrives several days late.

Recently a Calvin College decision not to go on with an art exhibit because one of the paintings was considered unedifying (I gather it featured a couple of people engaged in “the act”) has aroused a great deal of discussion. The artist(s) involved didn’t like the decision, and screamed of misunderstanding and intolerance. And all of this “got into the paper.” In fact, one of the more prominent Press columnists, John Douglas, was interested enough to offer his opinions. Against Calvin’s decision, of course, and in favor of the idea of showing this collection of art.

Calvin sympathizers gave him the business, as might be expected. Several letters appeared in the “Public Pulse” department berating Mr. Douglas and his supposedly “anti-Calvin” column.

Douglas is not running scared, however, and so he offered (Oct. 3, 1985) a second column on this business of art censorship. The heart of his second contribution might be these paragraphs:

My point was that adults should not be so afraid of a painting (and, I suppose, sex). And , since it was stated (by people connected with Calvin College, I suppose, JHP) that those who give money to the school might stop contributing if they saw this painting on the wall, I questioned just how much academic freedom there is at the school.

This isn’t the first time I’ve run into that brand of fear at Calvin. The school has one of the best film series in West Michigan and even though it is open to the general public I was told by a member of the administration that they didn’t want to publicize the series lest some of the wrong people be lured into the auditorium and see that they are showing Bergman instead of Bambi.

I have to wonder if that sort of fear hovers over the people who are buying textbooks or those who lecture in classrooms . . .

I think it is the college’s right to do any and all of these things, including rejecting the painting at the art show. Probably the only people with the right to attempt to institute change are the students or those who are paying for the students’ education. If they have no complaints, then everything is hunky-dory. However, I reserve my right to comment.

I must say that as a member of the CRC I find this both alarming and embarrassing.

I think it is alarming when Mr. Douglas writes that he really doesn’t know what to think of people who do things not out of Christian conviction or principle but in order to keep a segment of the pay ing constituency quiet. It seems to me as I read Douglas that he doesn’t really trust us.

And it is embarrassing when we continue, year in and year out, to experience these kinds of situations rising from the confusion which results when a church runs a school for higher education. That rather awkward sentence means that we ought to try once again to separate Calvin College from the CRC as institute. There is such a thing as academic freedom, of course. But when you mix that with ecclesiastical commitment you get a strange mixture which makes both church and school look very bad.

A FRIGHTENING ASSESSMENT – A rather recent institutional creation in the CRC is the Pastor-Church Relations Committee. It has seven members (Peter Borgdorff, Robert DeVries, Cal Kammeraad, Joanne DeJong, Eugene Los, Mirth Vos, Richard Westmaas). Its most recent report (Acts, 1985, pp. 271 ff.) explains that the “Synod of 1982 launched a ministry of pastoral care for pastors and councils, and appointed a standing committee to supervise that ministry.”

This committee is not afraid to state the facts. It tells us that 75 ministers in the CRC resigned, were deposed or released in the seventies, and that it appears as if no less than 55 such cases will have occurred by the end of this year. That comes to 130 people! It takes no imagination whatever to realize the burden of grief and pain this statistic implies.

In connection with this fact the committee offers its opinion as to the causes and conditions under which all of this professional disappointment and disaster takes place. It reports:

Pastors facing these traumatic experiences come from every age group, every size church, and every type of theological inclination. Since 1980, however, the age of pastors suffering from burnout has crept upward.

We live in an age of momentous problems involving increased levels of education, constant mobility, decreased family size, sophisticated communications systems, economic upheavals, and new and imaginative worship patterns in evangelical churches. None of these have left church life among us unaffected. People expect more from the churches than in the past. The ministry has become more demanding.

Added to the complexity of ministry is the growing polarization in our circles. In subtle ways various groupings solicit the backing of the pastor, and often without realizing it, withhold loyalty and encouragement when they feel the pastor does not give it to them. And pastors themselves have at times mistaken partisan approval for guileless response to the gospel ministry. Polarization tends to dim the vision of the central biblical kingdom themes and the core challenges of the Christian life. The silent majority in our churches seeks a type of church life that will restore them to spiritual joy and afford them genuine Christian fellowship. Where they don’t experience that many tend to join nearby evangelical churches. Our denomination is no longer growing in terms of numbers. The young people among us do not stay with their parents’ churches automatically, for reasons of loyalty only. The churches must be concerned to upgrade the quality of ministry to a new generation.

This is a very significant and, I believe, quite accurate statement. One might comment on almost every facet of it.

Please note that it singles out polarization as the chief culprit. Note also that the committee thinks it is growing. We aren’t, they assert, out of this problem yet. It is getting worse. And it is woefully effective. It renders pastors stupid (they think their supporters love the Truth when all they really love is their own party). It brings blindness to the “silent majority” (good people, I take it) so that they no longer see what is really at the heart of the kingdom and its challenges. This robs them of their joy and now they go looking around at other churches. Maybe still worse is the fact that we seem no longer to have firm hold on the loyalties of our Covenant youth, even though we spend huge amounts of time and effort, not to mention money, to give them sound catechetical instruction and Christian schooling from kindergarten through college.

It is interesting to note that people on both ends of the pole are said to agree on one thing: We need better ministers. I hope both Calvin and Mid-America Reformed Seminaries, not to mention other theological schools established on a Reformed basis, will set themselves tq this task with relentless determination.

ALLAN BOESAK – The Reverend Dr. Allen Boesak is a Minister of the Gospel in the troubled Republic of South Africa. He is well–educated, having done graduate work in theology in the seminary of the GKN , Kampen. He is bright, personable, articulate and dedicated. He is one of the best-known of anti-apartheid leaders, ranking in importance with Bishop Tutu and the imprisoned (since 1964) Nelson Mandela. Although he came under some suggestion of scandal recently, he was exonerated by his church and seems not to have lost popularity with his followers.

On August 27 Boesak was arrested in Cape Town, charged with violation of South Africa’s Internal Security Act.

Apparently the news of this arrest reached Grand Rapids very rapidly. The Banner (Sept. 30) tells us that Rev. Leonard Hofman, stated clerk of the CRC, cabled President P. W. Botha on August 29 protesting Boesak’s arrest. According to MM (Malcom McBryde) Hofman told Botha that there was “deep disturbance” in the CRC because of Dr.Boesak’s arrest.

I can share in sympathy for most anyone who falls into the toils of the law. I have seen Boesak interviewed on my television set, and I can also understand that those who know him feel very much attracted to him. And, as his year of teaching at our own Calvin College would indicate, Boesak, like Botha, is a Reformed Christian, and in such people we have a particular interest.

But . . . it seems to me that this whole business raises some very important questions. Questions to which we as the constituency of the CRC have a right to expect answers. To list a few:

1. How could our church authorities know so quickly that Boesak’s arrest was an act of injustice? Are we not the people of the Ninth Commandment, which means, says Lord’s Day 43 of the Heidelberg Catechism, that we never “join in condemning anyone without a hearing or without just cause?” 2. Upon whose authority did Leonard Hofman dispatch this cable? What procedure was followed to decide so to act? Why isn’t the CRC given the full text of the cable? Isn‘t this use of the office of the stated clerk a new development, and if so does it not look like something with alarming hierachical possibilities? 3. Are we sure that we know exactly how to understand the South African situation that we can, from this distance, offer opinions in the Name of Christ (I assume that Hofman and all other ecclesiastical officers will agree that a church is not just another organization, but very really the body of Christ entrusted with His Word)?

I think we ought to know a lot more than The Banner’s rather feeble explanation (“In an interview Hofman explained that the messages arose from his belief [italics inserted, JHP] that the Christian Reformed Church should take a stand on Boesak’s arrest. ‘I felt I should say something …We have made statements as a church about apartheid,’ he said.”).

Surely Hofman and whoever supervises his work (the Synodical Interim Committee, I suppose) can give us better explanations than that.