Understanding Of Worship Research Articles

The Anvil, the Ascent, and Enoch

First Enoch, a pseudepigraphical work from the Second Temple period, contains visions of the natural and supernatural world that cause the visionary, Enoch, to understand anew the beyond-human world. Written during a time of environmental devastation, 1 Enoch can be a resource for helping today’s readers rewild our religious imaginations, our understanding of worship, and our relationship with nonhuman creation. This essay offers a reflection on how the Book of the Watchers in 1 Enoch and the author’s failed attempts to reach a mountain peak helped the author better understand the unseating of humanity as the center of creation as an experience of grace.

Odes of Solomon, the LXX Odes and worship

The LXX Odes or the so-called Biblical odes are often overlooked in LXX studies. It is easy to confuse the LXX Odes with the pseudepigraphal Odes of Solomon. Both are collections of hymns that illuminates the early Christian reception of hymns and prayers. A distinction needs to be drawn between these collections. The LXX Odes consists of 14 songs and prayers which were transmitted by the Greek (Eastern) Church. It was from its inception used in liturgy. This article offers some remarks for orientation in the LXX Odes, but also explores whether the Odes can shed some light on early Christian worship and how it applies to our modern setting. It is the aim of this article to investigate the value of the Biblical Odes, particularly Ode 2, the Song of Moses, for our understanding of worship.

Descriptive empirical perspectives on participants’ attitudes on virtual worship services kindle an ineluctable revisiting of ecclesial assumptions in a post-pandemic world

When it comes to debating the background of this article, the matter of participants’ attitudes in virtual worship in a post-pandemic world is the central theme. One should always acknowledge that participants in the liturgy and faith communities have to cope with the effects of the pandemic. The physical attendance of worship services is an essential pillar in faith communities understanding of corporeal worship. Because of the lockdown measures and with the insistence on staying away from social gatherings, most people were obliged to adapt to new ways of engaging in virtual worship services. People hope that the previous normal will return whilst participating in virtual liturgy or limited groups of 50 people within church buildings. This article wants to embark on descriptive empirical perspectives to determine whether the virtual environment has not resulted in an inevitable revisiting of ecclesial assumptions regarding people’s understanding of worship. Many complex questions about how worship services will realise when the lockdown measures have been lifted remain unanswered. This article offers a descriptive section on what are the currently concerning aspects related to a topic like this. Secondly, a Likert scale with numerous statements was provided to 60 respondents from three denominations in the Potchefstroom area. The request to respondents was to indicate what their attitudes about certain statements are. This investigation will be conducted from a reformational paradigm and is interested in debating the responses of participants that is related to attitudes on virtual worship services in a post-pandemic world.Contribution: The article concludes with some practical theological perspectives that could lead to a follow-up article on how this matter could be revisited in the light of more clarity on people’s attitudes.

Embodied Ecumenical Eco-spirituality: Revised Christian Attitudes Toward the Creation

ABSTRACT This article argues that what is currently perceived as an ecological turn in Christian theology is actually a re-turn to ancient beliefs going back at least one thousand years. These eco-theologies lend themselves in embodied ways to the fight against climate change. To prove its point, this essay does a literary study of selected texts by prominent theologians' and thinkers' ecologies. To establish an equity among female and male theologists, this essay has chosen two women and two men. To obtain some geographical diversity, it includes one North American, one Swede, one German, and one Latin American; two are Catholic, two are Protestant. They are brought together across space and time in an ecumenical dialogue. They are Hildegard von Bingen, Olov Hartman, Pope Francis, and Sallie McFague. Applying theatricality and performativity, in combination with Hjalmar Sundén's psychological role-playing theory and understanding of worship- and spirituality-driven identity-formation as the basis for an embodied ecumenical eco-spiritual program. At the end of the article, this program is outlined.

From Universal Design for Learning to Universal Design for Communion with the Living God

In this article, Jay Dolmage and John Calvin are brought into conversation with one another to develop a theological framework for pastoral and practical reflection on the intersection of disability and Christian worship. Dolmage has pressed his imagination into accessible education, accommodation, and Universal Design for Learning. His discussion of especially accommodation prompts imaginative consideration of Calvin’s appropriation of the Christian tradition’s theology of divine accommodation. This in turn yields an understanding of worship and its multiple practices as God’s Universal Design for Communion with the Living God, an understanding that is then given practical illustration.

The Korean Church’s Reflection on Worship, Church, and Mission in the Calamity of the COVID-19 Pandemic

This article considers the response of the Korean church to the crisis of COVID-19, giving a theological reflection on worship, church, and mission. Through the various challenges and responses, the Korean church has come to rethink each of these topics. Though a gathering worship is still important, how to worship is more essential than where to worship. Church as God’s people is more important than church as its building or as its hierarchical structure. And in mission, wherever is more essential than whereto. These insights can contribute significantly to a deeper understanding of worship, church, and mission for these times.

‘Creative Worship’: Howard Brinton, John William Graham and the Quaker Meeting for Worship: A Comparison

This essay compares the views of two Quakers, John William Graham (1859–1932) and Howard Haines Brinton (1888–1973), on the Quaker Meeting for Worship. One was British, one American, both were active in succeeding generations, and both were committed to the view that the Meeting for Worship, based on silence, was essential to true Quakerism. Each developed a theology of the Meeting, drawing on both current thinking, especially with respect to evolutionary theory, and original Quaker belief and practice. They agreed on the essentially mystical character of Quakerism, but had different interpretations of the concept. My argument is that, in Brinton’s terms, Graham’s view of the meeting is akin to the ‘Puritan’ or ‘Protestant’ understanding of worship: in this view it deserves to be called ‘mechanical’ rather than ‘organic’ or ‘creative’. In Blakean terms, Graham is limited to ‘single vision and Newton’s sleep’.

Shaping the worship of the Reformed Church in Geneva: Calvin on prayer and praise

The article aims to investigate the Calvin’s Genevan Service Order. It focuses on the question how the Psalter Calvin shaped the worship of the Reformed Church in Geneva. The article follows the critical edition of the Genevan prayer in Calvini Opera Selecta and in the German Studienausgabe as the two main published editions of the Genevan order with its related texts. The article shows that Calvin adhered to the general line of the Swiss and Upper German Reformations. It explores the understanding of worship reflected in the Genevan Service Order and the specific significance of its musical aspect. The article illustrates why Calvin gave the psalms the place he did in Genevan Reformed worship.

Mission-Shaped or Paul-Shaped? Apostolic Challenges to theMission-Shaped Church

AbstractJohn M. Hull has raised a number of criticisms about the understanding of worship found inMission-Shaped Church: Church Planting and Fresh Expressions of Church in a Changing Context. In this article, some of these criticisms are explored further. Analysis of Paul’s proposed reforms to the Lord’s Supper in Corinth show that worship must address social concerns and not focus exclusively on a God-ward aspect. Paul does this by describing the Lord’s Supper as a paradigm for behaviour and world-view using the Greek symposium tradition. Paul’s response to the Corinthian situation raises questions about the suitability of the Homogeneous Unit Principle and its role in mission, as do aspects of the controversy with Peter documented in Galatians 2. His wider exploration of the sacramental dimension of ritual meals (1 Cor. 10–11) further shows that worship cannot be divorced from ethics and behaviour if it is to be truly effective and based on Pauline principles

Worship as Radical Reversal in Martin Luther's Theologia Crucis

Worship, grounded in Luther's theology of die cross, is understood as a radical reversal in which God alone must begin and lay the first stone, without any entreaty or desire of the creatures. God is the causative agency of our responsive worship of him. Yet it is nor by our response, but through Christ's efficacious response imputed to us through the Holy Spirit that our worship reaches the heavenly sanctuary. Worship then, is a performative action in which God is both subject and object. In addition, hearing God's Word via human speech (preaching), an instrument of divine power, and taking it to heart, is worship at its highest. This essay offers a systematic presentation of Luther's understanding of worship.

On Understanding Worship in School Part Two: On worship and educating

This article continues a discussion begun in Part One. Together they re-examine the central thesis of Professor John Hull's (1975) book, School Worship, An Obituary, that the practice of worship in school is inappropriate. He attempted to establish his thesis through the analysis of the concept of education and of the concept of worship, and thus to show their essential incompatibility. Part One reviewed what an incompatibility might mean in the school context. After all, many diverse activities are pursued during the school day that, practically speaking, could not be done simultaneously in the same room. His thesis must be taken in the stronger form that, theoretically, the sense of education and the sense of worship are such that the two activities together are conceptually incoherent. The earlier article also reviewed his analysis of the concept of education. It questioned his definition and showed that it hinged on some of the dubious assumptions of an evidentialist philosophy. A better view of understanding and pedagogy might actually require the practise of worship in school. If it is the intention of our society to communicate the substance of religious life to the young, training them in worship may be the best, if not the only, way to do this. The features of education that Hull has identified have been selected for their rhetorical force. They appear to challenge what are assumed to be essential features of worship. Whether they do so in fact will depend on one's understanding of worship, but in what follows, his key assumptions about worship are put to the test and found wanting. Part Two, therefore, investigates Hull's understanding of worship. It finds that he believes a prior unconditional commitment to the belief 'God exists' is of the essence of worship. For him, it is this commitment that puts it at odds with education which he believes must scrutinise everything. The arguments against Hull here are designed to show that he is mistaken in his understanding of worship. Practices do not develop on the formation of belief systems first. Furthermore, religiously speaking, worship actually embraces a radical questioning. Finally, his assumption that there is a logical incompatibility in having an unconditional commitment and in embracing the practice of radical questioning is tested against the figure of Socrates. In the life of Socrates one can see how piety and educational practice belong together in such a way that one is the expression of the other. It is concluded that the nature of education and worship are at stake. These may have changed in such a way that they can no longer be pursued together. But there was a time when education flowered into worship, and worship found its substance in education. Hull's case concerning their intrinsic conceptual incoherence through philosophical analysis does not succeed. He has only shown us how our world has changed, and that, not necessarily for the better.

The Need and Promise of Christian Preaching

This article takes its title from a 1922 lecture by Karl Barth and explores the contemporary relevance of some of Barth’s ideas towards a re-affirmation of the nature and importance of preaching within the church. Fundamental to preaching is the potential of such communication to change relationships, but this in turn requires a dialectic involving a questioning congregation and a theological articulation of the questions of the day. This aspect of Barth's thinking expresses his understanding of worship as the goal of preaching, derived from Kierkegaard's idea of contemporaneity. The theological foundations of such communication require that we see preaching as a work of the Holy Spirit and thus as a sacrament of the divine presence, with preacher and congregation as sacramentals.