Worship with One Accord: Where Liturgy and Ecumenism Embrace

289 Pages·1997·17.07 MB·English

by  Geoffrey Wainwright

Worship
with
One
Accord
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Worship
with
One
Accord
WHERE LITURGY AND
ECUMENISM EMBRACE
GEOFFREY WAINWRIGHT
New York Oxford « Oxford University Press 1997
Oxford University Press
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Copyright © 1997 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
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Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
AH rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
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without prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wainwright, Geoffrey, 1939-
Worship with one accord : where liturgy and ecumenism embrace /
Geoffrey Wainwright.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-19-511610-0
1. Liturgies and Christian union. II. Title.
BX9.5.L55W35 1997
262'.001'1—dc21 96-53170
135798642
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To
Wiebe Vos,
founder of Studia Liturgica and Societas Liturgica,
who believes that liturgy and ecumenism
should not simply embrace
but marry.
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Preface
In his Rule St. Benedict told the monks that, as they magnified the
Lord at work in them (operantem in se Dominum magnificant; pro-
logue, 30), their mind must be in harmony with their voice (ut mens
nostra concordet voci nostrae; chapter 19,7). According to the Apostle
Paul (Rom 15:5f.), the Christian community should have a single
soul and mouth in order to glorify the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ (hina homothumadon en heni stomati doxazete ton Theon kai
Patera tou Kuriou hemon lesou Christou). Lip service of God is useless
unless accompanied not only by faith in the heart (Rom 10:8-10) but
also by matching deeds (Mt7:21; Heb 13:15f.). The church's worship
assembly is an expression and a school of faith; its liturgical celebra-
tion enacts, in ritual mode, the love toward God and neighbor in
which true religion consists. These are the constant themes of this
book, even if now one, now another of the strands in its complex
argument receives the greater attention.
Another way of reading this book is to take the subsequent
chapters as illuminating various facets of the first chapter. For much
of the twentieth century, the Liturgical and Ecumenical Movements
have kept close company. Liturgy provides a test case for "faith and
order," "life and work," "mission and evangelism." Worship is
intimately connected with doctrine, discipline, social organization,
ethical conduct, charitable action, testimony to Christ. In all these
areas, discord must give way to harmony if the Gospel of reconcili-
vii
ation is to be gratefully received and effectively witnessed to.
Worship practices should—in the delicate relationship between
signifying what is already the case and effecting what is still to be—
both reflect the existing degree of unity and further it.
The variety in this book arises from the several occasions that
originally called forth its chapters (a list of these "sources" is given
after the copyright page). Its coherence resides in its being the work
of a thinker who claims to stand within evangelical, orthodox,
catholic Christianity and seeks the manifestation of the church's
unity for the glory of God and the salvation of the world. Most of the
various papers have arisen out of my activities as an academic
theologian. Concurrently, I have been engaged in more directly
ecclesial forms of ecumenism, both in the Faith and Order Commis-
sion of the World Council of Churches (Baptism, Eucharist and
Ministry and Confessing the One Faith) and in international bilateral
dialogues (I chair on the Methodist side the Joint Commission
between the Roman Catholic Church and the World Methodist
Council); and a collection of my papers from those contexts—often
with liturgical dimensions—has recently appeared with Abingdon
Press/Kingswood Books under the title Methodists in Dialogue.
Conversations with my colleague Karen Westerfield Tucker
helped me to find an appropriate sequence for presenting within a
single set of covers the material in this book. The first chapter offers
an interpretative history of the relations between the Liturgical and
the Ecumenical Movements in the twentieth century. Chapter two
then expounds the encompassing ecclesiology that takes worship as
a primary duty of the church (with witness and service), and as its
most enduring delight. Chapters three and four make the liturgical
assembly the home of both Scripture and Tradition; this move may
help in the regulation of the relations between these two, which is an
indispensable criteriological concern in the search for ecclesial unity.
Chapters five, six, and seven focus on the sacraments in an ecumeni-
cal perspective, treating the Faith and Order work on Baptism,
Eucharist and Ministry, the "world church" discovered at Vatican II,
and the inheritance which at least one world Christian communion
(my own Methodist) needs to reclaim for itself and then offer to
others. The following two chapters review liturgical revision, espe-
cially in the English-speaking world, stressing the ecumenical im-
portance of the recovery of classical patterns. Chapters ten and
viii
eleven look at liturgical embodiments of the reconciliation that is
integral to the Gospel and to its witness before the world (the Irish
chapter springs from my longstanding and deep affection for St.
Patrick's people). Chapters twelve and thirteen link worship with
the ethical and the political, in the hope that the connections thus
established will provide a framework for treating some issues that
have proved theoretically and practically divisive among the
churches. Chapter fourteen returns to the dogmatic heartland by
displaying the profoundly trinitarian structure of Christian wor-
ship at a time when the doctrine of God is once more controversial.
The concluding chapter arises from an attempt to speak of liturgy
and ecumenism to an academic society many of whose members no
longer manifest much enthusiasm for either; it ends with an auto-
biographical confession of commitment to the worship, mission,
and unity of the church, called together to praise God and bear
witness to the world.
In the revision of these chapters for present publication, some
modest updating has been made in points of fact and information.
In some smaller matters of judgment I have declined the advantages
of retrospection that Monday morning provides not only to quarter-
backs but also to liturgists and preachers. In any case, the decade
from which these chapters come has seen me consistent in funda-
mental principles and in the larger arguments. Occasionally brief
overlaps in material have been retained among the chapters for the
sake of the integrity of the argument in each context. The scripture
quotations have usually been taken from the Revised Standard
Version.
My thanks are due to Virgil Funk for initiating this project, to
Larry Johnson for carrying it along, and to Cynthia Read for seeing
it through. The book is dedicated to a dear friend over the past three
decades, whose cheerful commitment to the worship and unity of
Christians has "endured through many afflictions and hardships"
(2 Cor 6:4): Wiebe Vos, servant of the Word of God in the Nether-
lands Reformed Church.
Geoffrey Wainwright
Duke University
Michaelmas 1996
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