Lex credendi, lex orandi they say, and fair enough – worship should be a source of theology – but who creates liturgy, and who critiques it?
Three contemporary methods of liturgical theology brutally summarised:
a) Stanley Hauerwas (e.g. The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics): there’s no gap between ethics and theology; worship shapes character, which is what ethics is about.
b) The Orthodox Church: liturgy as a direct and primary source for theology.
c) Elaine Graham (e.g. Transforming Practice): practical theology is the exposition and critique of church praxis, including worship.
The question is, why is worship considered correct in the first place? Is it because it sustains a community’s vision and way of inhabiting the world? There seems to be more to it than that: it is privileged as a source of knowledge and truth. Why? We could invoke the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we could claim revelation from God (beginning with Israel and all she passed on to the church). Yet we must also invoke all the human processes, the political and ecclesial controversies that shape liturgy. Hence, liturgy is far from perfect.
Only Graham makes explicit the need to correct liturgy, and that is surely correct. (The Anglicans and Vatican II have already done this, not sure about the Orthodox in the modern period (but we could ask why they privilege the liturgies of Basil and Chrysostom)). The crucial thing to bear in mind is not to treat worship statically, as if it has all the answers or contains no problems (this is how theology (should) treats scripture), but to be open to revising it if the need arises. This is the advantage Graham has over, say, Hauerwas or Zizioulas. Yet it’s important to do that carefully, with an eye to what is lost as well as gained.
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