Abstract
Liturgical worship has at times been controversial within parts of the Christian tradition. This article uses phenomenology—especially the thought of Paul Ricœur, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Gabriel Marcel—to analyse, evaluate, and respond to five common objections to liturgy by those who reject it: (1) the absence of freedom and spontaneity, (2) the absence of authenticity, (3) the use of symbols to mediate the divine, (4) the use of the liturgical calendar, and (5) liturgy’s repetitive nature. This article concludes that those who practice liturgy have something to learn from each objection, but that none of the objections invalidates liturgy. On the contrary, what phenomenology teaches us about the human condition suggests that liturgy is more suitable than forms of worship that try to do without it.
Highlights
Ever since the Reformation, Protestants have been divided over whether worship should be liturgical or not, a conflict that continues to this day and has recently been given the name of “worship wars” (Ruth and Lim 2017, p. 20)
We have examined the five most common objections to liturgical worship
Those who love liturgy and even those who take it for granted have important lessons to learn from each of these objections
Summary
Ever since the Reformation, Protestants have been divided over whether worship should be liturgical or not, a conflict that continues to this day and has recently been given the name of “worship wars” (Ruth and Lim 2017, p. 20). For others, the emotional nature of expressive worship seems false and coercive, and they are relieved to discover in liturgy that God does not require them to feel a certain way They take comfort in the fact that their faith is founded on an objective reality that does not depend on their feelings, and that their worship is acceptable if they are making every effort to live in a way that pleases God. Smail, for example, writes about how much he appreciated a period of attending a liturgical church, because “I was not under any pressure to shine with joy or glow with gifts, but was constantly reminded in the sacrament that, I might be feeling or faring, what Christ had done on Calvary was done for ever and was available for me” When we have become so constituted that God is the centre of our lives, we will find that our emotions follow suit; they are welcome passengers, but no longer in the driving seat
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