A theologian is one who truly prays, and one who truly prays is a theologian.1
To qualify as a dogma of the church…a doctrine had to conform not only to the apostolic tradition, as set down in Scripture and in such magisterial witnesses as the decrees of the Council of Nicea, but also to the worship and devotion of the [c]atholic and apostolic church.2
Introduction
Michael Kandjian believes the fact that the PCA has survived almost fifty years without a Directory for Worship means we don't need one. In presenting his case, he comes very close to claiming his opponents are engaged in cosplay:
[A]t times arguments for things like a Directory for Worship…are framed to come across as stands for orthodoxy, against a creeping liberalism….in the Church.
He, on the other hand, is trying to stave off a civil war in the PCA, positioning himself as standing with men who have left us without a Directory because they have known the harm it would do to the PCA:
[T]hose who have gone before us wisely knew that this would produce a civil war within the PCA like it has never known. It would divide the PCA. Regardless of which side would ‘win,’ is it worth losing half the denomination? Wouldn’t that make the PCA a different entity?3
The answer to that last question is, “Yes.” It likely will make the PCA a different entity, perhaps a better entity, just as the recent proposed amendments to the BCO will do: we are, for example, likely not to be a Side B denomination, so long as we enforce the provisions. The answer to the first question (whether adopting a constitutionally binding Directory is worth losing half the denomination) is, “No.” But being held hostage by the possibility that congregations such as his own (who might be prevented from allowing women to read scripture and pray in public worship) might leave the PCA, isn't very wise. If it were wise, then the Ecumenical Councils were a bad idea for similar reasons, which raises the issue of the connection between doctrine and worship.
Even if orthodoxy itself is not at stake, the claim by proponents of a Directory, that their efforts are intended to preserve orthodoxy, is not false. It is not out of line, therefore, to frame it as a stand for orthodoxy.
Orthodoxy and the Worship of the Church
The Gospels work very hard at establishing the fact that our Lord and King, Jesus Christ, was a man.4 His genealogy is thoroughly human (Matthew 1.2-16). Joseph and Mary were commanded by an angel to take the baby and flee to Egypt because Herod wanted to kill him; so he was subject to death (Matthew 2.13-16). He was circumcised (Luke 2.21). He died and was buried. So clear is the teaching of the gospels that Jesus was a human being, that it is a wonder his divinity would be controversial. After all, the gospels are so clear, how could anyone even assert his divinity?
And yet, for all the clarity that the gospels provide regarding the Lord’s humanity, the earliest Christians worshiped him as God. This is true even of Arius, who was not deposed for denying the divinity of Jesus; he did not deny the Lord’s divinity — per se. He did deny, however, that Jesus’s divinity is identical to the Father’s, similar yes, but not identical. The Nicene Creed (and it’s emended form issued at Constantinople in 381) was a rebuke to Arius and his ilk: in his divinity, the only begotten of the Father is consubstantial with his Father.
The Church did not publish the Creed and then resume business as usual. Nicene orthodoxy was soon reflected in the worship of the Church, that is, in her liturgies. This is why the Arian churches departed: even if they could find a way to give lip service to the Creed, as soon as they opened their mouths in worship, their heresy would be on full display for all to see and to hear. This should come as no surprise: it was the worship of Christ as God that raised the question of Christ’s divine nature in the first place; it stands to reason that, once the issue was resolved, that resolution would be reflected in worship. That is, references in the liturgies to the divinity of Jesus would very clearly and unquestionably assert his divinity as consubstantial with the divinity of the Father Almighty.
To this day, denials by Arians, and Arian-adjacent, of the full divinity of Christ, are reflected in their worship. For example, while Jehova’s Witnesses hail Christ as Son of God, it is clear, not from their doctrinal pronouncements alone, but also from their hymnody, that they do not honor him as consubstantial with the Father in his divinity. Logically, they do not worship him. As a former Roman Catholic, who spent two years studying with Jehova’s Witnesses, I do not believe it an exaggeration to say that the word to describe the Witnesses’ attention to Jesus, is devotion, perhaps even veneration. Whenever I would get together with them, listening to them talk about Jesus they sounded the way Catholics do when talking about the saints, especially Mary, the Queen of Heaven.5
As an example of dogmatic pronouncements being incorporated into the worship of the Church consider this prayer from “The Small Litany” of the liturgy of John Chrysostom:6
Commemorating our most holy, pure, blessed, and glorious Lady, the Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary, with all the saints, let us commend ourselves and one another and our whole life to Christ our God.
True, we make no mention of the mother of God in our worship, certainly no commemoration, nor should we do so. I point it out as an example of dogmatic formulations being incorporated into worship. In this instance, the commemoration of the blessed virgin is a reference to the Chalcedonian Creed. It bears mentioning that this commemoration of Mary, though illegitimate, follows this prayer from “The Second Antiphon”:
Only-begotten Son and Logos of God, being immortal, You condescended for our salvation to take flesh from the holy Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary and, without change, became man. Christ, our God, You were crucified and conquered death by death. Being one of the Holy Trinity, glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit: Save us.
The prayer before the reading of the gospel:
Shine in our hearts, O Master Who loves mankind, the pure light of Your divine knowledge, and open the eyes of our mind that we may comprehend the proclamations of Your Gospels. Instill in us also reverence for Your blessed commandments so that, having trampled down all carnal desires, we may lead a spiritual life, both thinking and doing all those things that are pleasing to You. For You, Christ our God, are the illumination of our souls and bodies, and to You we offer up glory, together with Your Father, Who is without beginning, and Your all-holy, good, and life-creating Spirit, now and forever and to the ages of ages. Amen.
And finally there is the recitation of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. It is worth pointing out that the liturgy is followed to the letter each week. The reason for this is that true theology is done on our knees, not in our studies and lecture halls: each week the people hear, proclaim, sing, and pray their theology. Repetition is the mother of learning. The point, in liturgical traditions, is not control, but to teach proper worship by properly worshiping, as our Lord's prayer is intended to teach proper prayer by having us properly pray. To the extent that formal liturgy is about control, the intent is to maintain dogma, as that dogma is expressed in word, sacrament, and prayer. Prayer books are not about prayers; prayer books are about dogmas. We should bear in mind that for much of church history, few “priests” were very literate; the officers most commonly entrusted with actual preaching were the more formally educated bishops. Strict conduct of worship according to the forms in the prayer book was intended to keep congregations, led by illiterate priests, within the bounds of orthodox dogma.
I would not commend the adoption of a prayer book as the approach we should take to the worship of the PCA: we have an educated presbyterate, both ruling and teaching; most of our laity are no slouches, either. I will say, however, that the “imposition” of a prayer book on some evangelical congregations would be superior to the slip-shod, lazy, ad-libbed, amateur-hour-at-the-improv, evangelical worship show hosted by a mattress salesman (or ripped-jeans sporting shredder) fronting as pastor and master of ceremonies in so many churches. And we must also admit that this approach to worship both informs and is informed by their approach to doctrine, some form of the moral, therapeutic deism we hear so much of, the “rogue belief system” formerly unique to Christian teen culture, left uncorrected by distracted adults, and which is now the reigning theological and philosophical paradigm in American Protestant religious traditions. This system simply assimilates the surrounding culture, and preaches its paradigm back to them, translated into christianese — the very essence of theological liberalism:
Are you the child of a single unwed mother? Wow, so was Jesus. Are you being oppressed by white Europeans? So was Jesus. Did you have to flee your homeland and seek refuge in a foreign country? Well, did you know Jesus did, also? Do you hate capitalism? So did Jesus, who taught people to give away most of their money. Do you believe men and women are equal? So did Jesus. Why, did you know the first people to proclaim the good news of his glorious resurrection were women? True story. And there were even women apostles, until the White Male — the quintessential devil of human history — took control of the church away from the Jews, and replaced the true, apostolic, cosmic-redemptive Christianity with their “Great Commission Christianity.”
The MTD approach to theology and worship sees male and female equality and claims that men and women, strictly by virtue of being equal, should both be ordered to the ministry of the word and sacrament (only one of many ways that the MTD virus affects its host). It escapes their notice that this approach to ordination confuses two categories: (i) the category of being (equal) and (ii) the category of action (ordination). The issue with regard to who is to shepherd the flock of God, to preach and teach, is not resolved by asking if men and women are equal (category of being). The issue is resolved by asking who God has said may be ordained to the ministry (category of action). Ordination, it hardly needs to be said, is an act. The simple fact is that men are the ones God has commanded to be ordained. The category of being is invoked in order to render the distinction between male and female irrelevant to the issue of ordination; and it only goes downhill from there: if the distinction between male and female can be dismissed on the basis of equality, we are hard pressed to locate circumstances under which the distinction does matter — if we can even make the distinction. But practitioners of this greasy truck stop men’s room way of doing theology have no time for, or interest in, such fine distinctions, any more than the surrounding culture they are so eager to ape. The equality of the sexes: so they believe; so they preach; so they pray. And what they believe, and preach, and pray becomes part and parcel of their church laws, whether those laws are formal or informal.
Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy: Acquiring a Calvinistic Phronema
American Presbyterians in the Scottish tradition (including the PCA) have a knee jerk reaction to prayer books, no doubt grounded in the attempt by the Stuarts, attempting to unify Scotland, Wales, and Ireland under a single, British crown, to impose the Anglican Book of Common Prayer upon the churches in those nations. But it was not merely prayers to which those churchmen objected; it was the theology in that prayer book which posed the greater problem. And if one is inclined to dismiss that, preferring instead to believe it is set prayers alone that make a church “romanized”, consider what C. S. Lewis says, in answer to the very legitimate question (considering his purpose in writing) about his own religious beliefs in the Preface to Mere Christianity:
All this is said simply in order to make clear what kind of book I was trying to write; not in the least to conceal or evade responsibility for my own beliefs. About those…there is no secret. To quote Uncle Toby: "They are written in the Common-Prayer Book."
As an example of the theology of a prayer book, think about how the eucharist is conducted in an Anglican church, even the most theologically conservative of them. There are a great many things, taken without emendation from the ACNA prayerbook, a Presbyterian might like to see in our own worship. The Prayer of Consecration (p. 132) serves as a fine example:
Holy and gracious Father: In your infinite love you made us for yourself; and when we had sinned against you and become subject to evil and death, you, in your mercy, sent your only Son Jesus Christ into the world for our salvation. By the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary he became flesh and dwelt among us. In obedience to your will, he stretched out his arms upon the Cross and offered himself once for all, that by his suffering and death we might be saved. By his resurrection he broke the bonds of death, trampling Hell and Satan under his feet. As our great high priest, he ascended to your right hand in glory, that we might come with confidence before the throne of grace.
On the night that he was betrayed, our Lord Jesus Christ took bread; and when he had given thanks, he broke it,* and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take, eat; this is my Body, which is given for you: Do this in remembrance of me.” Likewise, after supper, Jesus took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink this, all of you; for this is my Blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for you, and for many, for the forgiveness of sins: Whenever you drink it, do this in remembrance of me.”
Therefore we proclaim the mystery of faith:
Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.
We celebrate the memorial of our redemption, O Father, in this sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, and we offer you these gifts. Sanctify them by your Word and Holy Spirit to be for your people the Body and Blood of your Son Jesus Christ. Sanctify us also, that we may worthily receive this holy Sacrament, and be made one body with him, that he may dwell in us and we in him. In the fullness of time, put all things in subjection under your Christ, and bring us with all your saints into the joy of your heavenly kingdom, where we shall see our Lord face to face. All this we ask through your Son Jesus Christ: By him, and with him, and in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all honor and glory is yours, Almighty Father, now and for ever. Amen.
I should also include The Prayer of Humble Access:
We do not presume to come to this your table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your abundant and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table; but you are the same Lord whose character is always to have mercy. Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of your dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.
For Presbyterians, so far so good. But the consecration (I speak from experience) is conducted in just about exactly the same way one would experience it in a Roman Catholic Church, including the use of an “altar” which, though not in word, at least performatively suggests the eucharist as a sacrifice without actually saying so. Also, in the distribution of the elements, the people rise, pew by pew, and go forth and, before the “altar” (either standing or kneeling depending upon congregational practice), receive the bread and the cup from a priest (or assistants from the congregation). What is objectionable, on the basis of Presbyterian sacramentology, is that this practice does not reflect the understanding of communion as a meal, which is how the gospel narratives record it, how our standards teach it, and how our Directory presents it.
But the prayer book doesn’t teach only a different sacramentology. It also has a view of church offices which, understandably (given their form of government), differ from our own. The “Preface to the Ordinal” asserts that from the apostolic times, there have been three ordained offices: bishop, priest, and deacon. The “Ordinal”, which is the service manual for their ordination, explains those offices, reflects the Anglican understanding of church office and reinforces the Anglican view of church government, just as the relevant portions of our BCO do for our church officers.7 In many ways, whether contained in prayer books or directories for worship, our liturgical laws are just as much a part of our spiritual formation as our Scriptures, our creeds, and our confessions.
In my larger extended family, I am the lone Presbyterian. The vast majority of my family are Anglican and Roman Catholic, mostly the latter. Over a period of years, I have learned that given enough time, of the two groups, I can tell you which of the Anglicans and Catholics pray their respective daily offices. Of the Catholics I think I have become adept at discerning who among them pray their rosaries daily. It’s not magic; it’s coming out of those traditions, and knowing how those practices affect even their conversations, not because those conversations exhibit a worldview, but because they demonstrate a mindset, or phronema, the development of which is a result of one’s worship, not one’s study.8
The briefest of comparisons of the Anglican prayer book, with the PCA’s Directory for the Worship of God (BCO 47-63), will demonstrate the ways in which a church’s theology and its worship are bound to each other. There is no correct doctrine without correct worship, no orthodoxy without orthopraxy, and vice-versa. Taking to heart the adage that Christianity is not a religion, but a way of life, that way of life may be more a matter of how the Christian worships and less a matter of the Bible studies and theology books he reads — if any. Those of us whose task it is to order the worship of our churches should do so as if (God forbid!) that worship is the only engagement with our doctrines a worshiper may have all week long. And the best means of doing so is to have them confessing, singing, and praying those doctrines, along with hearing them proclaimed from pulpits, and in forms which are just as binding as the doctrines themselves.
It is true that, for good reasons, we (Presbyterians) are resistant to having forms of worship imposed upon us by some hierarchical structure: one of the things our forebears fought against was the imposition of a prayer book. This seems to be enough for many to resist a constitutionally binding Directory for Worship. But this is superficial. The purpose of formal liturgies and binding prayer books is not to control worship for its own sake, but to teach the proper worship and proper prayer, both of which express dogmas. The imposition of a prayer book is more importantly the imposition of dogma, hence the resistance to impositions of prayer books composed and imposed by non-Presbyterians. While we, the PCA, do not have a prayer book, our Directory for Worship serves the same purpose, to teach and also to enforce the proper worship of God, to ensure that our dogmas are encapsulated and promoted in our worship.
One would think, therefore, that members of a tradition which grounds itself in a desire to reform — first of all — the worship of the Church,9 and laying claim to what they call the Regulative Principle of Worship, would desire that their Directory for the Worship of God be as constitutionally binding as the dogmas they profess to be guarding, by the enforcing of that regulative principle.
The Issue in the PCA
It stands to reason that the theology we claim to believe and to preach, should be reflected in our church law, but not merely in our Form of Government: there is more to being Presbyterian than our polity. Neither is it sufficient that our theology be reflected in our Rules of Discipline. If we adhere to something we call the Regulative Principle of Worship, that Principle should find not only expression, but exposition, in our Directory for Worship, which should, being Regulative, be raised to constitutional status.10 Our approach, though suspended in a sort of limbo for decades, is quite consistent with our theology of worship. It directs us how worship should be conducted according to our understanding of proper worship. But it does not prescribe prayers: unlike our more formally liturgical brethren, our clergy are educated, and do not need the “training wheels” provided by specific prayers in order to prevent straying out of doctrinal bounds. (Maybe.) Absent as well, in the ordination services, is any mention of “canonical” obedience to a superior. We (elders) affirm mutual subjection to our brother elders (see BCO 21-5 [4]; BCO 24-6[5]), our Teaching Elders being not even “first among equals” (see BCO 8-9).
It also stands to reason that, the relation of doctrine and worship being what it is, a Directory for Worship would have something to say, for example, about the role of women in worship. Should women read scripture portions and pray on behalf of congregations in the worship service? For the most part, if not its entirety, the answer will depend upon the relation of a church’s worship service to the concept of male-led churches; in turn this depends upon what, in fact, worship is. If men are to lead churches, then men are also to lead worship, including the reading of the scripture portion appointed for the day’s worship services, as well as the prayers (which are offered to God on behalf of the congregation). On that view, only men, specifically elders, should be engaged in the reading of the scripture portions and the offering of prayers on behalf of the congregation. A contrary view would be that, just so long as these determinations are made by the session, the reading of scripture portions and the offering of prayers on behalf of the congregational by women meet the standard of male-led worship, and on this contrary view the question of allowing women to read scripture portions and to pray on behalf of congregations is legitimately left to sessions. But that doesn’t answer the question, which is whether our theology of male headship over churches, includes the conduct of their public worship, their leitourgia.
The liturgy, formal or informal, shaped by a prayer book or a Directory for Worship, is a public, official act of the church. Those who lead worship, whether by preaching, teaching, reading scripture portions or offering prayers on behalf of a congregation, are acting in an official, public, capacity. When the Church acts, publically and “unitedly as His…people” (see BCO 47-7) she does so through her representatives, her spiritual leadership. It is not unreasonable to claim that body of church law governing the church’s worship of God should be given full, binding, constitutional status.
Jaroslav Pelikan, Mary Through the Centuries: Her Place in History and Culture, p. 62. Emphases added.
One of “those who have gone before us”, namely Morton Smith, seems to have been unaware of this reasoning. In his Commentary on the Book of Church Order, Smith refers to the status of the Directory as “unprecedented.” He continues: “The question of the constitutional force of the Directory has never been put to the test.” This remains true.
Yes, we should say is a man, but permit it now for argument’s sake.
A perusal of the Jehovah’s Witnesses hymnbook (here) demonstrates this. See hymn numbers 13 through 20.
A worship service which begins with this Trinitarian blessing: “Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, now and forever and to the ages of ages.”
Consider the following declaration of a candidate for ordination as priest, paying close attention to the matter of “canonical” obedience:
I, [name of ordinand], do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God and to contain all things necessary to salvation, and I consequently hold myself bound to conform my life and ministry thereto, and therefore I do solemnly engage to conform to the Doctrine, Discipline, and Worship of Christ as this Church has received them.
And I do promise, here in the presence of Almighty God and of the Church, that I will pay true and canonical obedience in all things lawful and honest to the Bishop of [name of diocese], and his successors, so help me God.
Compare with the consecration of a bishop, again noting the matter of obedience:
I, [name], do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God and to contain all things necessary to salvation, and I consequently hold myself bound to conform my life and ministry thereto, and therefore I do solemnly engage to conform to the Doctrine, Discipline, and Worship of Christ as this Church has received them. And I do promise, here in the presence of Almighty God and of the Church, that I will pay true and canonical obedience in all things lawful and honest to the Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America, and his successors, so help me God.
What is missing, from a Presbyterian perspective, is any suggestion of mutual subjection to an elder’s brethren, his fellow presbyters.
A brief definition of phronema is “worldview” but that is like defining the purpose of astronomy by singing, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Sadly, discussions of phronema among Protestants are, or devolve into, discussions of worldview, which are usually about changing the world, as Andy Crouch writes about in, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling (InterVarsity Press, 2008). The acquisition of a phronema is not about world transformation, but inner transformation, such as St Paul refers to in Romans 12. To my mind, one of the best examples of a man who had acquired a Calvinistic phronema is General Thomas Jackson, whose wife recounted the following story in her biography:
[A] friend once asked him what was his understanding of the Bible command to be 'instant in prayer' and to 'pray without ceasing.' 'I can give you,' he said, 'my idea of it by illustration, if you will allow it, and will not think that I am setting myself up as a model for others. I have so fixed the habit in my own mind that I never raise a glass of water to my lips without lifting my heart to God in thanks and prayer for the water of life. Then, when we take our meals, there is the grace. Whenever I drop a letter in the post-office, I sent a petition along with it for God's blessing upon its mission and the person to whom it is sent. When I break the seal of a letter just received, I stop to ask God to prepare me for its contents, and make it a messenger of good. When I go to my class-room and await the arrangements of the cadets in their places, that is my time to intercede with God for them. And so in every act of the day I have made the practice habitual.'
'And don't you sometimes forget to do this?' asked his friend.
'I can hardly say that I do; the habit has become almost as fixed as to breathe.'
This is an example of the difference between a worldview and a mindset (phronema). Conceivably, one could apply a Christian worldview without holding to the Christian faith. But someone applying a Christian worldview would not necessarily be mindful of being “instant in prayer” or of “praying without ceasing.” Only someone with a Christian mindset would do so.
It seems lost on a great many people, that one of the purposes of theological exposition, such as Calvin’s Institutes is to explain and defend Protestant and Reformed liturgical reforms.
The Directory in fact restates the Regulative Principle, at BCO 47-1 (cf. Smith’s Commentary).