Deus Misereatur

Reformation Worship: Liturgies from the Past for the Present Ed. by Jonathan Gibson and Mark Earngey New Growth Press 1301 Carolina St., Suite L-101 Greensboro, NC 27401 ISBN: 978-1-948130-21-9; 23 April 2018; $69.99 Many American Presbyterian and Reformed believers are either out of touch with their Reformation roots, or have only snippets of information. One area where this is glaringly clear is in regard to worship, and specifically liturgy. Jonathan Gibson, assistant professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary,   and Mark Earngey, doctoral candidate at the University of Oxford, have accomplish a yoeman’s job in their new 736 page hardback “Reformation Worship: Liturgies from the past for the Present”.   This weighty tome is ideal for liturgists, worship leaders, pastors, seminary professors, and highly interested parties. It is a reference work that “aims to recover and reaffirm the significant part that worship played in the Magisteria...

You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit James K. A. Smith Brazos Press Baker Publishing Group 6030 East Fulton Road Ada, MI 49301 http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/brazospress ISBN: 9781587433801; $19.99; March 2016 Reviewed by Rev. Dr. Michael Philliber for Deus Misereatur The ancient essayist astutely quipped, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4.23). That truism surfaces in story form and didactic instruction throughout Scripture, and is substantiated when raising our children, supervising employees or shepherding parishioners: what has your heart rules your life. This is the central emphasis in the newly published 224 hardback, “You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit” by James K. A. Smith, professor of philosophy at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, accomplished author and editor. This short work appears to be a compression and reworking of his larger “Desiring the Kingdom” to mak...

Okay, so I'm thinking through the subject of Worship as the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) plays it out. What is below is simply a "thinking-out-loud" chart of the three basic "Regulative Principles of Worship" in Christianity (each branch, and all sub-branches have a regulative principle, or so it seems to me; but we simply draw up the lines in different places). Give it a look, and let me know what your thoughts are: 1.       Position A (More Constricted Position): Ÿ   True Worship -Only what is commanded in Scripture. Ÿ   False Worship -Anything outside what is commanded in Scripture. 2.       Position B (More Lutheran, Anglican, Some Reformed, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic) Ÿ   True Worship -What is commanded (and anything not specifically forbidden is permitted and at times mandated). Ÿ   What is prescribed by Church Councils sometimes required sometimes permitted, Ÿ   Gu...

James wrote: “If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one's religion is useless. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world” (1.26-27). If we have true religion, then our religion is not just ritual, but it is also real, regulating, respectful and resourceful (Watch how James’s point works out in 2.1-9, reinforcing this little mediation). Ritual : The very things we do in our worship gatherings week after week, in word, sacraments, and prayer, punctuated with singing Psalms, hymns & spiritual songs, follow order and decorum so that we don’t blunder into God’s presence slipshod and superficial. Real : Our ritual splashes out from Sunday into Monday and beyond. No part-time, once-a-week religion but a full-time faith and an around the clock faithfulness. Regulating : Our ritualized, real religio...

Since the supreme ambition of a congregation (and all it’s educational, evangelistic, missional activities) is to draw all into the worship of Almighty God, then what do we do with those who can’t read? This may appear a strange question at first. Yet almost every church service I’ve been in, whether Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, etc requires some hefty amounts of reading. Whether it’s reading the hymns, or the Scriptures, or responsive prayers, or confessions of faith. If a congregation is doing what it’s supposed to do, then the assembly will have to include non-reading children, illiterate adults, and aging older people whose eyes have gotten to a place where reading is a serious challenge. Are these, Christ’s vulnerable ones, to be marginalized, removed from the great assembly, left to be silent while the readers verbally worship? It’s really not so strange a question after all. There are several ways congregations have attempted to remedy this, some be excluding the non-re...

The Asian Assembly of God theologian, Simon Chan, has written an excellent book, "Liturgical Theology: The Church as Worshiping Community". Early on as he writes about the importance of Ecclesiology, he comments on Cyprian's dictum: "He who has not the Church as his mother, has not God for his father." Chan states: "We are not saved as individuals first & then incoporated into the church; rather, to be a Christian is to be incorporated into the church by baptism & nourished with the spiritual food of the body & blood of Christ in the Eucharist. Failure to understand this fact has led to a reduction of the church's role to a largely sociological one of a service provider catering to individual believers' spiritual needs" (24). This reductionistic trend is one that Philip Lee, in Against the Protestant Gnostics , pictured when he described the modern Protestant congregation as 'the church of & for the individual.' Le...