The Decalogue In The Reformation Liturgies

Worship is the right, fitting, and delightful response of moral beings—angelic and human—to God the Creator, Redeemer, and Consummator, for who he is as one eternal God in three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and for what he has done in creation and redemption, and for what he will do in the coming consummation, to whom be all praise ...

Explores how the English Reformation transformed the meaning of the Ten Commandments, which in turn helped shape the Reformation itself.

There are many forms of liturgy in the contemporary church, but they are not always critically assessed. Liturgy can be viewed as a sealed encounter in which behind closed doors heaven and earth meet and participate in each other. But it can also be viewed as an exercise in acceptance of the world outside, where critical assessment is neglected in favor of socio-political engagement for what passes as “ethical” on the world stage. But true liturgy, writes Dr. Noordmans, is accomplished in the full consciousness of sin, and the sacrifice by which that sin is dealt with. There can then be no unquestioned acceptance of the world; by the same token, there is no turning away from the world in an otherworldly flight to transcendence. There is only the critical confrontation with ourselves and the world around us, in the liturgy which, as the apostle Paul emphasizes, takes place not behind church walls so much as in the “field of the world” (Matthew 13: 38). The liturgy is restrained by the eschatological realizations of original sin and the death and resurrection of the Savior, as contained in the sacraments. And the Word can then operate in the field of the world as it ought to. Reformed liturgy as it has come down through the ages is, Dr. Noordmans is convinced, a reflection of these realities. And only such a liturgy can do justice to the gospel.

The English Civil War and its aftermath was a time of human devastation, political uncertainty and religious instability. Amid the turmoil of those times, however, the Church of England also saw intense liturgical inventiveness. The Directory for Public Worship, Jeremy Taylor's Communion Office, and Richard Baxter's Reformed Liturgy, are all examples of resourceful liturgies born out of the ashes of the English Civil War. The Church of England had not witnessed such liturgical innovation since Thomas Cranmer, and would not see such creativity again until the end of the twentieth century - at least in terms of liturgical texts. In Richard Baxter's Reformation of the Liturgy, Glen J. Segger examines the theology and ecclesiology of Baxter’s liturgical opus. While never approved for public use, the Reformed Liturgy remains an important and creative liturgy representative of those who fought for their Puritan convictions, but lost.

In every age, the church must consider what it means to gather together to worship God. If the church is primarily the people who follow the risen Christ, then its worship should be "gospel-centered." But where might the church find an example of such worship for today? In this Dynamics of Christian Worship volume, scholar, worship leader, and songwriter Zac Hicks contends that such a focus can be found in the theology of worship presented by Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury during the English Reformation. Hicks argues that Cranmer's reformation of the church's worship and liturgy was shaped primarily by the Protestant principle of justification by faith alone as reflected in his 1552 edition of the Book of Common Prayer, which was later codified under Elizabeth I and has guided Anglican worship for centuries. Here, we find a model of "gospel-centered" worship through which the church of today might be reformed yet again. The Dynamics of Christian Worship series draws from a wide range of worshiping contexts and denominational backgrounds to unpack the many dynamics of Christian worship—including prayer, reading the Bible, preaching, baptism, the Lord's Supper, music, visual art, architecture, and more—to deepen both the theology and practice of Christian worship for the life of the church.

Sacrosanctum Concilium opened the door to all Christians to understand the contemporary challenge to their life and health, and it started with the reform of the liturgy. In the words of Paul VI the liturgy is the 'first source of life communicated to us, the first school of our spiritual life, the first gift we can give to Christian people by our believing and praying, and the first invitation to the world.' That is surely true for all of us.

A liturgical study of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer and its creation and amendments during the Protestant Reformation