Day 143 - Presbyterians and Worship

Some questions seem perennial, they always  pop up. In the South, one is "how are Baptists and Presbyterians different?" The best answer is "We are both Christians," but that does not always work. This short piece describes some basic idea of the Reformed tradition that form the basis of Presbyterian thought, at least for PC(USA). You may want to read in depth about Presbyterian thought. The information on worship comes from the Book Of Order 2013 . You can even download a pdf version at that link. It is the "constitution" of the PC(USA).  As you will find, this entry reflects my personal (interpretive) discernment of the topics contained below (see #2 for an explanation of why).
This entry contains the following, in order:

1. What is Reformed faith?
2.  The Basics.
3.  What is God?
4.  Who is Jesus Christ?
5.  What is the Holy Spirit?
6.  What is the Word? 
7.  Why do we worship?
8.  Worship has four parts.
9.  Worship of God is about the Word.
10.  How do we worship God?

A good place to begin understanding what Presbyterians believe and the nature of worship is to answer this question:

1.    What is Reformed Faith?

The idea of Reformed Faith dates from the early 1500’s when Martin Luther and then John Calvin, John Knox  and all the others who formed the original thinking of modern Protestantism objected to certain Catholic practices. It is also important to understand that the 1500’s were a “pre-scientific” world. The interpretation of history, the knowledge of the universe and how things work was explained in ideas of that time that today we recognize as limited with our present knowledge. Even those reformers recognized this limit because a basic premise of our faith is: 

Reformed and always reforming.

The world may change, but God’s purpose remains constant.  As Paul said, we may be able to do many things, but everything we can do is not necessarily proper. Sometimes the growing knowledge and mastery of the world runs headlong into that predicament. 

2. The basics. Generally Christianity holds to these basic ideas:

1.      We are saved by Christ alone: sola Christo.
2.      We are saved completely by God’s grace: sola gratia.
3.      We are saved by faith alone in God’s grace through Christ: sola fide.
4.      We rely on scripture alone as the authority: sola scriptura..

The third can be considered to wrap up the first two. The fourth idea has been the source of great anguish in Christian believers, often lumped into the extreme camps of literalists and liberals.  

Reformed Christianity (for example, Presbyterians) recognizes the necessity of reform and always reforming, and therefore, that Scripture has two characteristics

Ø  A timeless guide for God’s communication to us

Ø  Particular applications of that guide to specific historical occasions.

           

Individual conscience is the authoritative guide (note possibility of conflict, and similarity to traditional Baptist thought)

            - the Reformed Christian (1) reads with faith, (2) listens through prayer and thought, and (3) decides in collaboration with fellow congregants how to apply God’s Word to ordinary, specific circumstances.

            

Creeds are the collective effort to make a statement of how what we believe applies to current time and circumstances. Creeds are subordinate to scripture and therefore to individual conscience.

Caution, remember this: The creeds of the 1500’s formalized the written Word as the 66 books of the Bible. Ta biblia, “the books” are about 500 yrs old,  Christian faith is 2,000 years old (+/-). Trivia: When people started writing in Latin it became "Book," since the Greek "ta" has no Latin counterpart for articles, and now in romance languages, The Book.

homework: If you want to see how controversial the above points are, and how hard it is to find common ground and respect in the rule of conscience guided by the Holy Spirit, do a Google search of "essential tenets of the Reformed Faith."  To get the view from the Southern Baptist side you can go to the Samaritan's Purse web site and look for the creed you must affirm to seek employment there. We have created quite a mess trying to reinterpret the words of Jesus who said, "I am the truth, the way and the light,"and "whoever believes in me shall not perish..." as the essential criteria.

“Reformed Thinkers” struggled to explain their experience of God, the paradox of describing what resists description:

3. What is God?

Presbyterians believe God cannot be described literally in language because God is beyond characterization. Moses asked who he was to tell had sent him to the Hebrews and God replied, “tell them I AM” sends you.  As the creator of everything, God stands beyond and outside it. That is, God transcends creation and cannot be reduced to anything in creation. Symbol or metaphor are required, and thus we lose quantity to gain quality of definition.

4. Who is Jesus Christ?

Presbyterians believe in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We formalize our belief is our creeds, for example the Apostle’s Creed expresses four central elements:

            Born a human (of Mary).

            Suffered at the hands of Rome and was crucified.

            Was raised from the dead and sits with and is God for eternity.

            His death defeated death for us.

5. What is the Holy Spirit?

Presbyterians believe that God communicates to us through the Holy Spirit; thereby working on our own conscience which guides our understanding of the Bible and God’s plan.  This is a great personal and collective responsibility on us that cannot be overstated. To understand and apply God’s purpose to our ordinary life and that of our neighbors through the historical teaching of Scripture requires careful prayer and discernment. Presbyterians don’t think there is any other rule than this, we are obligated personally and collectively to understand the Word of God.

6. What is the Word²?

Presbyterians believe The Word is the communication by God of who God is. It spoken, read and proclaimed.

- God at Creation spoke the Word

- God spoke the Word in every covenant made with his people.

- The Word lived among us as Jesus, as flesh that was crucified, raised to power and who shall return in triumph with the New Jerusalem.

- The Word is read in Scripture.

- The Word is proclaimed in preaching.

- The Word is enacted and experienced in our sacraments, Baptism and The Lord’s Supper.

Aside on Word as Scripture:

When Presbyterians say “The Word is read in Scripture,” Scripture means the canon (rule) of our Bible, the 66 books of The Old and New Testament. Ta Biblia – “the books.” Until the printing press (about 1500 CE), scripture was primarily an oral/scribed and interpreted tradition. 

7. Why do we worship?

We worship because we believe all power rests in the Triune¹ God:

            - God chose to create everything and us.

            - God blessed us with his Love and care.

            - God chose to reveal God to us as the “Triune God.”¹

            - God blessed us with the end of death.        

Therefore everything we have, everything we owe, we owe to God who deserves all our praise and honor.

8. Worship has four parts.

            -     A shared experience.

-       Personal discipleship.

-       Mutual ministry.

-       Common ministry to the world.

9. Worship of God is about The Word.

Worship is about experiencing The Word of God:

-       We hear it proclaimed in preaching.

-       We receive it and enacted in the sacraments.

-       We discover the Word in the world around us.

-       We are sent to follow The Word into the world

10. How do we worship God?

Presbyterians believe we “use the language of worship.”  We can:

-   call God by name

-   invoke his presence

-   beseech God in prayer

-   stand before God in silence and contemplation

-   sing, praise dance

-   bring heart, soul, mind and strength together in drama, pageantry of worship.

The language of worship:

-     Must be symbolic since God transcends creation to convey meaning.

-     Is authentic and appropriate when it is faithful to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

  

Some Notes:

1.“Triune God” is a shorthand way to describe the nature of what we call the Trinity. Presbyterians (and almost all Christians) believe God makes his presence known among us through the invisible power of creation, through Jesus Christ who shared our human condition and redeemed us, and through his presence as the Spirit of God (Holy Spirit) that guides and leads us to faith in God.  No one really actually explains the Trinity, since by point 3 above, we can't literally describe God. We use the word "Trinity" or "Triune" as a "marker" to describe the transcendent and immanent nature of God and God's power to assume a special human form. Humans are perplexed by what they cannot understand and currently loathe to call anything mystery, so we try at every point to explain what cannot be quantified. Humor us.

2.  For a little more humor: At Georgia Tech where I attended undergraduate and graduate school,  the Chemical Engineering students had to learn a lot of operational methods to apply chemistry to manufacturing processes. Many courses were aimed at simply teaching these rule-based ways of doing the things of chemistry and thermodynamics, and they use the same kind of teaching problems over and over. The students began collecting these homework problems and their solutions and placed them in the student library so everyone could come and look up the solution to a certain type of problem for their classwork. This collection of solutions became known  as “The Word.”