Liturgy Lessons from Owen -- By: Douglas Jones

Journal: Reformation and Revival
Volume: RAR 05:3 (Summer 1996)
Article: Liturgy Lessons from Owen
Author: Douglas Jones


Liturgy Lessons from Owen

Douglas Jones

Only Americans could so deftly separate joy from solemnity. Perhaps it is our deep prohibitionist streak. We tend to think that joy has to be rather chaotic and unbounded, like a fraternity party, and that it loses its heart when structured in any way. In our opposition to solemn rituals, we are quite lonely in the history of the world and the church. Our Christian worship often follows in this American trench: some insist that it must be spontaneous and unbounded, and others insist on funereal solemnity.

But why must joy be unstructured? Scripture certainly does not divide joy and solemnity in the way moderns do. In Scripture, worship is compared to a wonderful ritual of joy and solemnity: a wedding, a marriage feast. The interesting mixture of hope, tension, peace, and righteousness presented in a wedding rite make cold indifference very difficult. And a wedding’s awe and solemnity would make aisle-rolling, shouting, and hand-waving appear arrogantly self-centered. If modern evangelicals clung to the biblical image of worship as a wedding, then we would not bristle so much at older liturgical forms. Like weddings, worship can be both solemn and deeply joyous.

Puritans, like John Owen, highlight such points. In particular, his essay, “A Discourse Concerning Liturgies and Their Imposition,” 1 provides an interesting contrast for us, not so much in what it condemns, but for what it assumes. The early Protestants were a deeply joyful lot, and yet most modern evangelicals would be appalled to sit through one of those early services. Even many of us who appreciate Puritan and Reformed teaching would get a little uneasy during parts of their worship. Most would probably view them as dreary and overly formal, let alone know what to do with ministerial absolutions and set prayers so encouraged by Calvin and friends. But we should remember that rowdies stepping out of Mardi Gras would also be impatient

with the simple beauty of a wedding. The Reformers were well aware of what they were doing, especially in regard to worship, but they were not as antihistorical and antiritual as we modern Americans are.

Owen wrote the above essay in early 1662, during the ongoing, heated ecclesiastical negotiations between the Puritan Nonconformists, primarily Presbyterians, and the court bishops of the recently restored Charles II. The king had been returned to the throne partly through the efforts of the Presbyterians, and so though he despised their faith, he could not jettison Presbyterian concerns too high handedly. He needed to make some show of attempted compromise before final...

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