Worship Wars

As I have learned from my recent studying of the relationship between theology and practice, doctrine (that is the truth that the Church teaches) has effected every single part of the worship life of the Church, from the building and furniture, to songs and format of the service, and even what the pastor wears and what motions people make. These things have been developed over the last two thousand years or more to have meaning and to proclaim the Gospel and the teaching of the Church. Looking forward from the reformation there may be many divergent forms of worship, but looking backward for the ~1600 years from the time Christ instituted the Church, there was an amazing amount of uniformity. The Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox (including Coptic Christians), and many Reformed and Lutheran churches still do today. After completing my research into what worship is, what we do, what it means, and why we do it, I feel like I can finally keep up with with the arguments on both sides of the worship wars. Here I have attempted to summarize them below by making assertions and give links to other sites that make the arguments from people who know a lot more about it than I do, and who write better too.

The "new" seeker-driven church, which came out of the revival movement, also has a liturgy (albeit a different one than the historical orthodox church). Everything they do also has meaning which stems from their new modern (or postmodern) theology and philosophy, including armenianism. The point of worship for this crowd is twofold.  First it is to offer something to God, rather than receive something from God. However, Jesus tells us in Matthew 20:28, that He came to serve, not to be served. The second is to manipulate people into making a "decision for God". In our modern language this is referred to as decision theology. Their songs are written and produced to evoke and manipulate certain emotions, to give people a “spiritual high” that will lead them to make a decision for Christ. Their "sermons" are vague platitudes and self help advice. They tailor their style to what is popular in the culture to bring people in. As can be seen practice comes from doctrine.  A great book about this is The Fire and the Staff.

You can find a great resource into high church vs. low church in regards the confessional Lutheran worship here.

Many Lutheran Churches are just trying to imitate the larger church down the street or are falling into the trap of wanting to be more worldly. First of all, most Lutheran churches cannot put on a production on the scale of the mega-churches, so they just look like pale imitators (and imitators of things we should not be doing anyway). On common modern addition to the church is technology. Since everything in the church conveys meaning, what meaning does a large predominant projection screen convey?  Entertainment? Most of the time our attempt to add technology to the service is really just a distraction from God's word, as described here.

Some churches are trying to "keep" the liturgy, but updating the language to make it "more accessible."  However, since most of the parts of service come straight out of the Bible, all they are doing is replacing God's Word with human words. Many people want "Lutheran Substance with Evangelical Style", but those things are just plain incompatible, because doctrine and practice are linked.  You can read about how changing our liturgy will change our doctrine in a negative way here.

Unfortunately, this is already happening and our churches teaching and liturgy are already becoming more and more secularized, as read here.

Finally, and probably worst of all, there are some who are purposefully and willfully trying to change the worship style of confessional Lutheran churches because of a subtle, but real, shift in practical theology.  There is a great article about how "Functional Armenianism" is sneaking into our church here.

If we truly believe that God's Word is efficacious and that there is nothing we can do to be saved and that our will is bound against the will of God, then shouldn't we tailor the service around everything proclaiming God's Word? That is what the historic liturgy does! Of course, many of us recognize this and some have even signed a letter of admonition to congregations who are straying liturgically, which can be found here. While how this admonition was handled has been somewhat controversial, I have yet to see any decent, Bible-based argument against its content.

The ironic thing here is that most people want to make these ill-conceived changes to our wonderful heritage to try to attract a younger crowd. However, younger people are craving authenticity and substance.  They want something real and meaningful, which is why there is beginning to be a movement toward more liturgical and historical churches, as described here and many other places.

If we stay true to ourselves, we have a lot to offer (meaning truth and the way to salvation), but since too many of our churches aren't, these people who are searching for our church don't end up with us, but to Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy, as described here.

If we don't stay true to ourselves, even lifelong Lutherans, who want a richer and more meaningful and faithful worship will leave the our Church for others.  This is beginning to happen more and more to both our laity and clergy alike. I personally have friends who have made this move. An example of this is here and another is here.

*Addition:
Lastly, here is great Herman Sasse Quote: "Where pastors and congregations are no longer in agreement with the classic liturgy of their church, the deeper cause tends to be that the teaching contained in this liturgy is no longer understood."