The reformation of worship

Abstract

There is probably no activity of man at once so congenial to his instincts and baffling to his intelligence as the worship of God. Worship may be described as congenial to man's instincts since it exists, and has existed, in some form or other in every human society, and is a recognisable impulse in even the most secularised product of a modern sceptical world. It may be described as baffling to his intelligence since it escapes the definitions of our scientific culture, and is, in fact, so unaccountable on any merely rational view of human nature that rationalism has handed the problem over to the psychologist to explain in terms of repressions, mother-fixations, infantile-regressions and the like. This modern rejection of worship with the surface of the mind, coupled with the persistence of the instinct in powerful and often perverted forms is worth examining in the light of the enduring summons of the Christian Church to the worship of Almighty God.