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Course 21 · Lesson 2.3

The Reformation and the revision of worship

11 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 21 outline

Module 1: The Theology of Worship

  1. What liturgy is: the word, the idea and the debate
  2. Worship in the Old and New Testaments
  3. Praying and believing: how worship shapes doctrine and doctrine shapes worship
  4. Word, sacrament and sign across the traditions

Module 2: How Christian Liturgy Developed

  1. The earliest descriptions: the Didache, Justin Martyr and the early church orders
  2. The liturgical families of East and West
  3. The Reformation and the revision of worship
  4. Liturgical renewal in the twentieth century

Module 3: The Christian Year: Calendars, Feasts and Fasts

  1. Sunday, the week and the hours of the day
  2. Easter, Holy Week and the dispute over the date
  3. Advent, Christmas and Epiphany
  4. Lent, the Orthodox fasting seasons and Protestant approaches to fasting
  5. Saints days and the second cycle of the calendar

Module 4: Sacred Space and Sacred Images

  1. From house church to basilica: the development of church buildings
  2. The meaning of church buildings: altar, table, orientation and the Orthodox and Gothic examples
  3. Icons and the Incarnation: John of Damascus and the Second Council of Nicaea
  4. Images and the Reformation: Lutheran, Reformed and Anglican approaches

Module 5: Material Signs: Incense, Water, Oil and Blessings

  1. Incense: Scripture, temple worship and its use in the churches
  2. Water: baptism, the renewal of baptismal vows and holy water
  3. Oil: anointing of the sick, chrismation, confirmation and ordination
  4. Blessings: what the church means when it blesses a person, a house or an object
  5. Sacraments and sacramentals: the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant vocabulary

Module 6: Popular Piety and Devotional Practice

  1. What popular piety is, and why scholars take it seriously
  2. Pilgrimage, relics, medals and pious objects
  3. The rosary, the Stations of the Cross, litanies and akathists
  4. How the churches have regulated and corrected popular devotion

Module 7: Telling Tradition from Superstition

  1. What the theologians mean by superstition, and why the line is hard to draw
  2. A method: source, date, doctrine, authority and consequence
  3. Case studies: apocryphal legends, magical formulas and invented history
  4. Honesty and respect in judging other people’s devotion

All courses

Program / Course 21: Liturgical Theology / Lesson 2.3

What you will learn

  • Describe the main liturgical complaints of the Reformers and the replies of the Catholic Church.
  • Compare the Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican and Anabaptist approaches to revising worship.
  • Explain the Reformed regulative principle and the Lutheran and Anglican alternative.
  • Identify what each approach kept from earlier worship and what it removed.

The big idea

In the sixteenth century, reformers in several parts of Europe revised worship because they believed that medieval practice had obscured the gospel. They agreed on putting Scripture, preaching and the vernacular language at the center, but they did not agree on how much of the old order to keep. Lutherans and Anglicans kept much of the historic structure. Reformed churches cut more deeply. Anabaptists and later free churches stripped worship further still. Catholics defended their rites at the Council of Trent and revised them in 1570.

Key terms

Vernacular
The ordinary spoken language of a people, as opposed to Latin.
Mass
The medieval name for the Eucharist, still used by Catholics. The Reformers criticized the idea of the Mass as a sacrifice offered by the priest.
Book of Common Prayer
The English service book first issued in 1549 under Thomas Cranmer and revised several times, notably in 1552, 1559 and 1662.
Regulative principle
The Reformed teaching that only what Scripture commands or clearly implies may be included in worship.
Adiaphora
Greek for things indifferent. Matters that Scripture neither commands nor forbids, which churches may keep or drop freely.
Anabaptist
A member of the radical reformation movements who rejected infant baptism and favored simple, voluntary church life.
Directory for Public Worship
A guide produced by the Westminster Assembly in 1645, which replaced the Prayer Book for Presbyterians in Scotland and parts of England.

Background

Late medieval worship was in Latin, with the people often watching and not speaking, and with many private Masses said for the dead. The Reformers objected to several things. They said that the Mass was treated as a human work offered to God, that the cup was withheld from the laity in the Western church, that the Bible was not read or preached enough in a language the people could understand, and that invocation of saints and many ceremonies had no scriptural basis. The Catholic defenders replied that the Mass was Christ’s one sacrifice made present, that withholding the cup did not diminish the sacrament, and that the church’s tradition was a legitimate guide.

The Reformers did not agree among themselves on what to do. The result was several streams of revised worship, each with its own reasons, which are described below. Their disagreements often concerned adiaphora, the things Scripture does not directly address, and how the church should treat them.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Luther and the Lutheran stream

Luther revised the Latin Mass in 1523 and published a German Mass in 1526. He removed the parts of the canon that spoke of the Mass as an offering of sacrifice by the priest, restored the cup to the laity, put preaching and hymns in German at the center, and kept the basic shape of the old order, including readings, creed, vestments and, for a time, candles. He taught that things not forbidden by Scripture could be kept if they served the gospel. Lutheran church orders in many places kept the form of the Mass in a reformed version. Hymns, many written by Luther himself, became a primary way of teaching the faith.

Step 2: Zwingli, Calvin and the Reformed stream

In Zurich Zwingli replaced the Mass with a service of preaching and a simple Lord’s Supper, celebrated a few times a year, and removed images and instruments. Calvin in Strasbourg and Geneva compiled a service of prayer, psalm singing in the vernacular, a long sermon and a Lord’s Supper that he wished to be celebrated weekly, though the Genevan magistrates allowed it less often. Reformed churches developed the regulative principle, which holds that worship must be limited to what Scripture commands or clearly supports. The Westminster Directory of 1645 put this into practice. Reformed worship is thus marked by the Word, the Psalter, extemporaneous or directed prayer and few ceremonies.

Step 3: The Church of England

Thomas Cranmer produced the first Book of Common Prayer in 1549 and a more reformed one in 1552, under Edward VI. Mary I restored Catholic worship, and Elizabeth I issued a revised book in 1559. After the upheavals of the seventeenth century, a revision of 1662 became a standard text for centuries. The Prayer Book gave the English church a vernacular liturgy in which Scripture, the Psalms, collects, the creeds and the Eucharist were set in order. It kept the pattern of daily Morning and Evening Prayer drawn from the monastic hours. The Church of England thus reformed doctrine while keeping much historic structure, and it later contained several parties that read it differently, from Puritans to Anglo-Catholics.

Step 4: Anabaptists, Puritans and free churches

Anabaptist groups held that worship should be a gathering of believers, with simple preaching, prayer and singing, and with baptism only for those who profess faith. Puritans in England wished to purify the Church of England of ceremonies they considered unscriptural, such as the surplice and the sign of the cross in baptism. Later Baptists, Quakers and others went further in rejecting set forms, and the Quakers set aside outward sacraments for silent waiting. John Wesley in 1784 sent a revised Prayer Book, the Sunday Service, to Methodists in America, which shows that the line between liturgical and free worship was not always sharp.

Step 5: The Catholic response

The Council of Trent affirmed that the Mass is a true sacrifice, that Latin could be kept, and that images and the invocation of saints are lawful with correction of abuses. In 1570 the Roman Missal of Pius V replaced many local uses. The council did not simply defend the late medieval state of things: it corrected abuses and called for better preaching and instruction. Meanwhile Catholic worship kept its tradition of Latin, chant and ceremony, which later reformers criticized and defenders honored. A person studying today can read the Reformation sources side by side and see where the churches truly differed and where they used the same words with different meanings.

  1. What did this reformer want to change, and what did he want to keep?
  2. What was the reason given: Scripture, history, or pastoral need?
  3. Did he treat the matter as essential or as adiaphora?
  4. How did Catholic defenders of the old rite respond?
  5. What was the effect on the congregation’s part in the service?
  6. How do the members of this tradition describe the reforms today?

Examples

The cup restored

In the late Middle Ages, laypeople in the Western church usually received only the bread. Lutheran and Reformed churches restored the cup to all. Later, in the twentieth century, the Catholic Church allowed communion under both kinds in many cases. This one example shows how a Reformation demand shaped later Catholic practice.

A Genevan service

A Reformed congregation sings a psalm in French, hears a prayer of confession, a reading and a sermon, and prays for the church. The people sing the creed as a psalm. The order is spare, and every part has a scriptural reason according to the regulative principle.

Morning Prayer

In Anglican parishes, the service of Morning Prayer from the Prayer Book was for centuries the main Sunday service. It gathers Psalms, readings, canticles and prayers, and was drawn from older daily offices. Many families used the same book at home.

Different perspectives

Lutheran

Worship should proclaim the gospel and give Christ’s gifts. What does not contradict Scripture and helps the people may be kept, so Lutherans retained much of the historic order of the Mass in revised form. They hold that forcing uniformity as a matter of necessity is wrong.

Reformed

Worship should be governed by Scripture, so human inventions are not allowed. This is not meant as coldness but as obedience. Reformed churches differ among themselves on how strictly to apply the principle, for example on hymns and instruments.

Anglican

The Church of England sought a middle way by preserving the structure of catholic worship in the vernacular and under Scripture. Article 34 of the Thirty-Nine Articles says that churches may change rites provided they are not contrary to God’s word.

Anabaptist and free-church

Worship should be the voluntary gathering of believers. Set forms and state-church structures were criticized, and baptism of adult believers was practiced. These churches stress freedom and simplicity.

Catholic

The Mass is the sacrifice of Christ made present, and the church has the authority to order its rites. Reform was needed in preaching, instruction and abuses, but not in the rejection of the sacrifice or the tradition.

Why it matters

Most of the differences in worship among Christians today go back to this century. When a student visits a Lutheran, a Presbyterian or an Anglican church, the order of service and its omissions can be traced to choices made then. Knowing the reasons lets the student describe each tradition in its own terms, and avoid calling one form of worship cold or another cluttered without understanding the convictions behind it.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: The Reformers threw out all liturgy.

Correction: Lutherans and Anglicans kept much, and even the Reformed produced ordered services. The Reformers removed what they judged contrary to Scripture and kept what they thought helpful.

Misunderstanding: The Council of Trent refused to reform anything about worship.

Correction: Trent corrected abuses, required instruction and preaching, and led to the Missal of 1570. It rejected the Reformers’ doctrinal changes but did reform practice.

Misunderstanding: All Protestant churches follow the regulative principle.

Correction: It is a Reformed principle and is applied variously even there. Lutherans and Anglicans explicitly rejected it in favor of freedom over matters not forbidden by Scripture.

Misunderstanding: Cranmer’s Prayer Book was the same as the Catholic Mass in English.

Correction: The Prayer Book changed the doctrine of the Eucharist, especially in 1552, and removed the sacrifice language. It is a reformed liturgy, though in historic form.

Knowledge check

Name two things the Reformers criticized in late medieval worship.

Examples are Latin services that the people could not follow, the idea of the Mass as a priest’s sacrifice, the withholding of the cup from laypeople, and ceremonies and devotions that the Reformers judged to lack a scriptural basis.

What is the regulative principle?

It is the Reformed teaching that worship must include only what Scripture commands or clearly supports. Lutherans and Anglicans did not hold it and allowed whatever Scripture did not forbid and the church found useful.

What was the Book of Common Prayer?

It was the English service book first issued in 1549 by Cranmer and revised several times, notably in 1552, 1559 and 1662. It provided Scripture, Psalms, prayers and the Eucharist in the vernacular and became central to Anglican life.

How did Trent respond to the Reformers on worship?

It affirmed the Mass as a true sacrifice and defended Latin, images and the invocation of saints while correcting abuses. The Roman Missal of 1570 standardized the rite.

Think it through

  1. Should a church keep a practice that is not forbidden but has been abused?
  2. What are the strongest reasons for the regulative principle, and the strongest against it?
  3. How might a Lutheran and a Reformed Christian each describe the other’s worship fairly?
  4. What does the Reformation show about the link between doctrine and worship?

Independent assignment

Three orders of service

In your own notebook, write 400 to 600 words. Find the order of service for a Lutheran, a Reformed and an Anglican service from a church book or catechism available to you. List each part in order, and mark the parts that came from the medieval Mass, the parts that were added and the parts that were removed. Note one thing each tradition would say is essential. Do not send this to anyone.

Further study