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Presbyterian Worship in America
Melton, Julius
200 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 26, 2023
Top rate scholarship; although the field is admittedly scarce. It'll confirm suspicion, cause frustration, and breathes an air of caution. Triumphalistic in tone; it nonetheless is frank.
Taken at face value, the main current of American Presbyterian worship has traded, what the author calls "puritanical" or what conservatives call " the regulative principle of worship" (anything explicitly described as normative for worship as per the scriptures only), for a functional normative principle of worship (anything not explicitly forbidden in scripture as normative for worship). The problems that facilitated this were not imagined nor exaggerated. The solutions were not always purely pragmatic yet theoligized.
It seemed the main current of the church was more influenced by its immediate problems and found its own articulation of theological movements outside of its own scope. The traditional insistence on religious liberty and purity of worship grounded upon scipture morphed into an American individualism that seemingly, in the pursuit to retrace its own roots, caricatured its predecessors in order to avoid the elephant in the room; the particular practices origin in scipture.
This went both sides of the aile, both schools, but this books findings also flatly ignores the old school's eventual departure from the mainstream. The author doesn't even mention it actually but rather presses on to appreciate the historical ecumenism of the PCUSA and their accomplishments in uniformity of worship. He does so with caution, I can appreciate that, but I heavily question his conclusions as if this departure was apparently irrelevant to not only the authors analysis but the concerns and theological conceptions of the unified church.
On the other hand, I don't expect the author to detail every sect's worship practices but I at least would of appreciated a clearer explanation when describing between the old/new school debates in the 1800s and the unified efforts, using 1901, the 1950s and 1960s as that linkage. He articulated well the morphing concerns and conceptions but overlooks, that the church had changed so drastically apart from that conservative departure, with simple descriptions. It just doesn't clearly account for it or is rather simply telling that old school/new school concerns eventually became irrelevant.
The author is mainly using the Northern Presbyterian Church as his catalyst and perhaps that in of itself accounts for this neglect and generalizing. His research definitely would of have been limited as a result. He does gives credence to old school Southerners and stricter Scottish Presbyterian descendents but they plateau at a point. This plateau is simply explained as a departure from puritanism.
That being said, I can sympathize with wanting to recapture liturgies of both the ancient and reformation age, the concept of an order of worship is indeed biblical and discernable within the scriptures, but the desire must be tempered with a balance that only scripture can give which is simplicity. The book's conclusion is that the PCUSA has this (or least had, as this work is now decades old) as their aim but I assert that they rather changed the definitions (the formulations entirely), theologized pragmatism, and have so doggedly and vainly pursued cultural revelance that they find themselves as what anyone wants them to be which is really just something that means nothing in the end. They that stand for anything, stand for nothing; as the saying goes. That wasn't their intention but is the only conclusion if followed consistently.
The worship of God is on HIS terms. It cannot simply be an act or aim of evangelism nor a neighborly communion. The solemnity that it demands cannot be enduced or fabricated by echos of popery and religious experintalism indistinguishable from paganism. Rather, these aims are effects of the worship of God. Not the worship itself.
This survey should be a cautionary tale to conservative Presbyterians. Not an influence.
Taken at face value, the main current of American Presbyterian worship has traded, what the author calls "puritanical" or what conservatives call " the regulative principle of worship" (anything explicitly described as normative for worship as per the scriptures only), for a functional normative principle of worship (anything not explicitly forbidden in scripture as normative for worship). The problems that facilitated this were not imagined nor exaggerated. The solutions were not always purely pragmatic yet theoligized.
It seemed the main current of the church was more influenced by its immediate problems and found its own articulation of theological movements outside of its own scope. The traditional insistence on religious liberty and purity of worship grounded upon scipture morphed into an American individualism that seemingly, in the pursuit to retrace its own roots, caricatured its predecessors in order to avoid the elephant in the room; the particular practices origin in scipture.
This went both sides of the aile, both schools, but this books findings also flatly ignores the old school's eventual departure from the mainstream. The author doesn't even mention it actually but rather presses on to appreciate the historical ecumenism of the PCUSA and their accomplishments in uniformity of worship. He does so with caution, I can appreciate that, but I heavily question his conclusions as if this departure was apparently irrelevant to not only the authors analysis but the concerns and theological conceptions of the unified church.
On the other hand, I don't expect the author to detail every sect's worship practices but I at least would of appreciated a clearer explanation when describing between the old/new school debates in the 1800s and the unified efforts, using 1901, the 1950s and 1960s as that linkage. He articulated well the morphing concerns and conceptions but overlooks, that the church had changed so drastically apart from that conservative departure, with simple descriptions. It just doesn't clearly account for it or is rather simply telling that old school/new school concerns eventually became irrelevant.
The author is mainly using the Northern Presbyterian Church as his catalyst and perhaps that in of itself accounts for this neglect and generalizing. His research definitely would of have been limited as a result. He does gives credence to old school Southerners and stricter Scottish Presbyterian descendents but they plateau at a point. This plateau is simply explained as a departure from puritanism.
That being said, I can sympathize with wanting to recapture liturgies of both the ancient and reformation age, the concept of an order of worship is indeed biblical and discernable within the scriptures, but the desire must be tempered with a balance that only scripture can give which is simplicity. The book's conclusion is that the PCUSA has this (or least had, as this work is now decades old) as their aim but I assert that they rather changed the definitions (the formulations entirely), theologized pragmatism, and have so doggedly and vainly pursued cultural revelance that they find themselves as what anyone wants them to be which is really just something that means nothing in the end. They that stand for anything, stand for nothing; as the saying goes. That wasn't their intention but is the only conclusion if followed consistently.
The worship of God is on HIS terms. It cannot simply be an act or aim of evangelism nor a neighborly communion. The solemnity that it demands cannot be enduced or fabricated by echos of popery and religious experintalism indistinguishable from paganism. Rather, these aims are effects of the worship of God. Not the worship itself.
This survey should be a cautionary tale to conservative Presbyterians. Not an influence.
June 7, 2012
Great treatment of the development of Presbyterian worship practices during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Navigates Old School/New School controversies and how it played out in worship, giving a solid primer for the present day reader about the current divisions between Presbyterian denominations. Also really helpful in understanding how the Directory of Worship developed by the Westminster Assembly created the anti-liturgical culture in America, though the influence of Puritanism was never really addressed.
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May 1, 2009Presbyterian worship in America: changing patterns since 1787 by Julius Melton (1967)
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews