On
(Notes by
Preface: Keifert is examining the public character of Christian life, using the metaphor of
“hospitality to the stranger”—especially as this relates to worship and evangelism.
Introduction: Public
Worship and the Stranger
Sunday
worship in most congregations has become evangelism time (like it or not)
because unbelievers simply show up for worship and both they and regular
worshipers are unprepared for this. (For
example, how to be hospitable to such visitors.) Keifert thinks that this means that Sunday
worship must also be evangelism; as followers of Christ we don’t have a choice
on this. Yet congregations and
individual members often are stumped.
What shall we do? Ignore the
visitors/seekers? Deal with them in some
other context? Protect our liturgy from
being “ruined” by trying to accommodate people who can’t follow it or
understand it? Or design new forms of
Sunday worship that can connect with the visitors? Many Christians think correct traditional
liturgical worship and evangelism are two quite different things. Keifert, on the other hand, thinks that they
complement and enhance one another.
Evangelism
must involve a “direct address that makes present in the life of the addressee
the liberating presence of the triune God” and leads them to identify with that
God through Christ. (p. 5) Evangelism is not only about inviting
people to join a religious institution, although that is part of it; but the
chief goal is not making members but making disciples, Christians! The word of the gospel makes Christ present
and creates faith. Worship is grounded in God and in God’s presence and actions
in worship. What is common to both evangelism and
worship from a theological point of view is God’s presence and activity among
people. We must ask how God is present
and active—in worship and in life generally.
For example, if we
mistakenly idealize our personal and intimate relationships as being what
“hospitality” is about (in either evangelism or worship), we will try to have
intense, long-term friendships with everyone (like a family or other private
experience, rather than a public one); this doesn’t fit well with ministry with
strangers. The problem comes from
considering congregations to be extended families and then worship isn’t
public—it’s only for insiders.
Evangelism actually becomes more difficult in this case (cf.,
evangelizing a close relative or close friend—it threatens the intimacy).
It is important to consider the role of ritual in
the public sphere, since liturgy considered as ritual doesn’t work as a private
thing, because it excludes the stranger and outsider (the public). For example, God is the host of public
worship (understood theologically); we aren’t the hosts. This is different from our experiences of
family and groups of friends, where all are insiders. When God is seen to be the host, all
of us (insiders and outsiders) are on the same level—depending on God’s hosting
us. This is when we all need a public
ritual that we can understand and join.
Keifert refers here to “ritual hospitality” and the importance of
training Christians to have “ritual competence” that makes public life possible
for the Christian community and that opens the way to think of worship in
relation to evangelism.
Chapter 1. Public Worship in an Intimate Society
Trying
to make worship intimate does not work, finally, because it says that only the
private aspects of life are truly real and important—and in that case strangers
and outsiders will never feel welcome.
And God will not be worshiped; instead, we insiders will be the
focus: our church, our family, our worship, our community, our values,
etc. This sets up an “insider-outsider”
situation which will not be hospitable or enable the presentation of the gospel
(and not something else) to the stranger.
When
the assumptions of the supremacy of intimacy are used to judge ways of worship,
traditional liturgical ritual will seem cold, formal and distant. Ritual in public worship forces us as private
individuals to act in ways beyond withdrawal or passive watching; it may seem
to invade our privacy (cf. negative reactions when the Passing of the Peace was
introduced). Also, the ritual words and
actions won’t seem personally meaningful in our interpersonal intimate world.
Chapter 2. Undercurrents of Individualism
The
intimate and individualistic society values private over public and the
individual over society. In fact, groups
are understood as being made up of private individuals who create the group;
and this is how we will think of a congregation as well—and build our doctrine
of the church on this model! (As if we
create the body of Christ.) What Keifert
calls “expressive individualism” values shared feelings and intuitions over
impersonal interactions. For such
persons worship is only good as it involves the blending of similar selves—that
is, it is private and for the like-minded.
It is family worship. But
families also exclude. Congregations
with family worship exclude even those members who are “inside strangers” (not
part of the central group). Focusing
only on “relational ministry” is no substitute for public worship—both for
members and strangers.
If religion is assumed to be private, then God is assumed
to be not in the (public) world. This
assumption is based on the “fact-value” split.
“Facts” in this model refer to all things that are and can be
seen or experienced and measured.
“Values” refer to what ought to be. Facts are said to be “objective,” while
values are considered “subjective.” [See
the chart on p. 33.] Different types of persons give different weight or
validity to these terms, of course. One
type may see facts as being based on reason and therefore being true; for such
persons, values are irrational, since they are based only on emotions and
prejudices. Religion then must be
private because it is not derived from facts (reason) but from private,
irrational desires. If public life is
based on facts and reason, religion must be excluded from the public
sphere. In this view, whatever “public
God” there might be is “nature’s God,” the distant creator, providence,
abstract, invoked in civil religion and political prayer. The private God, on the other hand, is
Jesus—in our hearts, close to us, our personal savior. A different type of person might describe
things in a similar fashion but locate what is really important as the opposite
pole in each instance. But both types
would share in the fact-value and public-private split. Keifert calls this shared set of assumptions
the “modern dogma,” following Wayne Booth.
Chapter 3. Undercurrents and Liturgical Renewal
It
is because of these assumed splits (above) that we think good traditional
liturgical worship and effective evangelism do not go together. The person who thinks in terms of facts (the
“scientismist”) will see worship as being objectively empty and
irrational—meaningless in terms of reason and therefore unable to appeal to
rational unbelievers in terms of leading them to faith. The person who emphasizes values (the
“irrationalist”) expects worship to be subjectively appealing and to enable
intimacy and family-feeling—but this will exclude strangers. Both types of persons will be disappointed by
public liturgical worship.
Further, since most Christians know little about worship,
it tends to be treated mostly in terms of values, not reason. For the scientismist, therefore, worship is
not seen as central to human experience (it is at best optional or a means to
something else) and certainly is not related to God. For the irrationalist (or subjectivist)
worship is about mystery or nostalgia; it appeals to one’s taste or private
opinions. Given this situation, Keifert
concludes that the practice of worship must change if it is to break out of the
constraints of the “modern dogma.”
Enter the liturgical renewal movements of the 19th
and 20th centuries, which have tried to rescue public worship even
while the liturgical scholars themselves participated to some extent in the
world as shaped by the modern dogma.
Keifert says that liturgical renewal proved the value and power of
Christian ritual even in the face of the fact-value split and its exclusive
poles. For example, it showed that
public prayer in liturgical worship was a meaningful activity and that it had
social implications (and not only private or individual implications). Certainly, such prayer was not merely
aesthetic or elitist. The renewers
retrieved ritual as an elemental form of discourse.
Liturgical renewal in the 19th century sought to
restore pre-modern physical ritual activity in a new culture which had little
experience (especially among Protestants) of such ritual to build on. It pointed out that physical ritual (e.g.,
kneeling, standing, making the sign of the cross, processions, other movements)
integrates mind and body, public and private.
The ritual “ideal” forms were taken largely from the late 15th
century by Roman Catholics and Anglicans because these forms were thought to be
free of the attacks of modernity, even as they needed to be reformed by being
filtered through the insights of the Protestant reformation of the 16th
century.
By the 20th century, this route of drawing on
ideal past liturgical forms (justified historically but not very much by
theology) changed only to the extent that the ideal was taken from the 4th century—probably because 20th-century
Christians had come to realize that Christianity always would be a minority
among the world’s population and therefore the worship forms of Christendom
(e.g., the 15th century) were not as appropriate as those of the
early church (4th century) before Christianity became the religion
of the Roman Empire. Keifert judges this
movement in both its Catholic and Protestant forms to have been highly romantic
and affected very little by confessional theology. It idealized certain past forms and high
points and sought to restore them.
An important contribution from the earlier (19th-century)
renewal was its recovering of the idea of sacred space. As these insights came to North America, this
also took the form of examining how space is to be used in worship (which way
we face, what shape the gathering takes, for what purpose). The need for evangelism in the face of huge
immigration movements, given the lack of pastors and Christian education, made
worship that also served as evangelism more appealing in North America than in
Europe, where most of the population still were Christians (nominally, at
least). Among Lutherans, Wilhelm Loehe’s
contributions come to mind.
Nevertheless, ancient forms favored by the liturgical leaders weren’t
automatically accepted by the people (Christians or strangers) as being
helpful, since they seemed foreign, puzzling, elitist, too Catholic, too
medieval, smelling of privilege, etc.
[See the list on p. 44.] For
some, however, in the face of the crude and irrational approach of some of the
revival movements, liturgical ritual worship was a preferred alternative and
often had some similarity to new immigrants’ European church experience.
In the 20th century, after the neoorthodox
renewal of church and theology following the First World War, along with the
growth in ecumenical study of the Bible and later of theology, along with the
ending of Christendom, the importance of the church’s worship became very
important even as greater and greater diversity of worship patterns
developed. [See the list on pp. 47-48 of
the assumptions that shape most present-day liturgical worship.] Late 20th-century worship renewal
movements, however, are still overly nostalgic for and idealistic about early
Christian liturgical forms, emphasizing smaller groups, intimacy, and being
counter-cultural, according to Keifert.
Key issues that need to be addressed include Direction (Do the people
face East or to the altar or do they face each other? Or, is the direction of worship from God to
the people or from the people to God?), Attitude toward God (Awe and mystery or
familiarity and everydayness?), Worship as Verbal or Physical/Ritual? Lay-led
or clergy-led? And whether Confirmation is a key rite of passage to Holy
Communion or simply an affirmation of Baptism (as in the LBW).
[Interim reflections by
MK. If we are going to worship
“Christianly,” we will need to base it on doctrine and critical theological
reflection and not only on historical retrieval. But until we worship Christianly (in each
local context), effective evangelism will not easily relate to worship. Both worship and evangelism depend on
overcoming the modern dogma (and especially overcoming the
“values-private-irrational-subjective-free choice” mentality with regard to
what religion is about).]
Chapter 4. The Stranger and the Self-Giving God
The time of Christ was a time of religious pluralism; there
was no single established religion until Constantine (313 AD). In this regard, there are some similarities
between the earliest church and our time.
The OT tradition, which was the background of the apostolic period, was
quite foreign to Gentile converts—probably more foreign than Christianity is to
today’s newcomers to worship. Also,
there were some of the same problems facing Christianity: e.g., racism,
classism, and sexism. The need for hospitality
toward strangers is important in our time and has a large role in the N.T. as
well. Hospitality was and is the bridge
between the people’s private lives and the church’s public rites. God who is the host of public worship
is also the one who is often revealed in and through the stranger. Also, God who is present in worship is a
gracious God who gives to outsiders and strangers.
Robert Webber speaks of “liturgical evangelism,” which he
calls “a conversion experience regulated and ordered by the liturgical rites of
the church.” (p. 58) Through its
hospitality, in the Lord’s Supper and in worship generally, as well as in
evangelism, the church believed that God was liberating people to trust God’s
presence and to live as both hosts and as members of a company of
strangers. Early Christians entered an
“odd space and time” (worship) to form an extraordinary community where
“normal” social relationships did not apply.
In fact, Keifert states, worship re-orders people’s other worlds (public
and private). God’s hospitality
de-centers our self-centered lives and this is disturbing; it involves risk and
requires wisdom. Fellow members are not,
in fact, fully understood in terms of their various private worlds but remain
in some sense “others.” This means that
we all have to be converted (transformed) each time we worship.
Christian worship in the first century was actually the
Christianization of Israel’s worship.
Israel’s worship always involved a place for hospitality to strangers,
as did Israel’s life and practice generally (sharing food, not oppressing
aliens, the witness of the prophets).
Israel’s own status as stranger (alien, exile) and God’s liberation in
the Exodus and in the return from exile reminded the people that they always
lived only as guests of God. They, in
turn, were expected to be hospitable. In
their worship, God promised to be present and God’s presence required the
presence of the stranger. Thus, Israel’s
worship was essentially public—open to all. It took place in the Lord’s house,
in the presence of the Lord, who invited the stranger too.
Their
liturgy was an expression of how God sees things; it was not understood
to be a human creation but God’s gift of God’s self—continuously. In this regard, it is better to speak of
God’s self-giving than of God’s “grace”—which often gets understood as
some “thing” (a substance, power, or object)—rather than as God’s self, to
which people can relate. Ritual in
Israel’s worship was to draw people away from the self and to God. Ritual was essential as God’s means of giving
his self through words and actions. For Israel
and for most Christianity, there is no immediate (or unmediated)
relation to God: there is God’s self, the recipients, and a means of
giving. One cannot give if no one
receives; and giving requires words and actions. Ritual actions are the means of receiving
God’s gift of God’s self. Ritual also is
the means of the worshipers’ response to the gift. The prophetic criticism of Israel’s worship
was not criticism of worship per se but of worship that excluded strangers (was
not hospitable) and was not about repentance and doing justice. Keifert notes that here repentance follows
God’s gift of self; it is not a condition for it. Also, 1 Cor. 11 is a very important statement
about hospitality and inclusion in relation to the Lord’s Supper—a statement that
reveals the continuity of Christian worship with Israel’s worship precisely in
the place where Christians receive Christ’s self (body and blood).
Christian
public worship thus will always resist the temptation to be private and will
retain its missionary and evangelistic dimension. Keifert lists four principles which
are keys to this understanding. 1) God is the host of Christian public worship
and God’s presence often comes precisely through the presence there of
strangers. 2) God in Christ is the victor
who liberates the Christian to live a life of hospitality. 3) The church is a hospitable and nurturing
community that in its nurturing remains open to the stranger. And 4) external
rites can be a critical means of ordering internal experience and integrating
the public and private dimensions of the life of faith.
How might we integrate a renewed
understanding and practice of public worship with effective evangelism? Keifert begins with a theology of public life
from the perspective of hospitality to the stranger and from that he will
construct a theological strategy for public worship and evangelism. In the present we have tended to domesticate
hospitality, seeing it as being directed to a few select persons (intimates). This is quite unlike the Bible, in which the
stranger represents those who are unlike us in many ways and often represents a
potential threat as well as a promise.
(Cf. Abraham and Sarah and the three strangers they hosted—see the rich
discussion on pp. 76-79, in which a self is constituted by the stranger, the
Other, the Infinite, God—through the stranger.
When we obey God’s command, as Abraham and Sarah did, we come to be
selves constructed [by God] within the metaphor of hospitality to the stranger.)
This is very different from the view
of public space as cold and impersonal, in contrast to intimacy, warmth, and
familiarity and as unsuitable for morally sensitive individuals. The biblical witness is more concerned with
wisdom, love, and justice for strangers and outsiders. It does not require an intimacy that would
not respect the otherness of the stranger.
For the Bible, hospitality happens in the face of difference. This, in turn, requires ritual and public
offices for public interaction—even though the ideology of intimacy would
denigrate these. Yet in terms of
hospitality to strangers, bureaucracy (literally, the power of office) is a way
to exercise impersonal but genuine hospitality.
If we depart from the ideology of
intimacy, we will realize that in the Bible God’s primary work is creating, not
redeeming. People, therefore, are
primarily stewards of creation rather than objects of God’s salvation. Redemption frees people to be faithful
creatures (a public role). We are in
relationship to God, our creator, not only in the church but in every aspect of
creaturely life. God may not always be
redeeming and sanctifying, but God is always creating. (See pp. 81-84.)
Thinking in this way affects the way we understand
Jesus as God incarnate. Jesus practices
hospitality to the stranger in ways we cannot achieve, for he gives to others
even at the cost of losing his own life.
And in his death he takes death itself into God’s own life, so that his
death becomes victory. And his resurrection
becomes new creation. He takes our sin
and death upon himself and gives us his new life. The triune God is revealed as a community of
self-expenditure and need: a Father who needs a Son, a Father and Son who need
a Holy Spirit to make them one God.
Salvation is being grasped into this divine life, first in sharing
Christ’s death and resurrection—which is at the heart of Christian evangelism
and conversion. Death and resurrection
are required in our case because of our captivity to various systems of
self-justification that at the same time demean others. A profound change must take place in us. We must die and be re-born as a
self-for-the-other, which is our new identity in Christ. Baptism begins this conversion because in
baptism we die with Christ, are buried with him, and are raised to newness of
life. The Word and the Lord’s Supper in
worship continue the discipline (discipleship) of Baptism. “The church sees itself as an evangelical
conversation and life on behalf of the world, characterized by hospitality to
the stranger . . . [and it] seeks to invite strangers into this divine life. .
. .” (p. 87) For us not to share God’s
liberating activity with others would truly be immoral.
Here the church is anything but a warm alternative
to the cold and impersonal world. While
it can appreciate the importance of intimate relationships, it does not do so
at the expense of public life. Many
terms of the ideology of intimacy will need to be redefined. For example, the church is a family primarily
in terms of our being sisters and brothers of Christ and our family
relationships in the church are not based on intimacy with one another but on
God’s intimacy with us through the public word and sacrament. We will need to be careful in speaking about
ourselves as God’s people, lest it suggest that some people are not God’s
people. Finally, “family” imagery for
the church musts not suppose that everything about families is warm and
wonderful. Keifert suggests the image of
the church as a company of strangers conversing with and about God and living
on behalf of God’s world. Here it is
helpful to remind ourselves of the difference between “personal” and “private”
or “individual.” The latter two words
usually indicate a turning away from others, while “personal” is usually
understood to refer to a person in relationship to other persons. Christianity’s proclamation of the gospel is
highly personal, in that it creates a new relationship between God and humans. But it is not private or individualistic, because
as we relate to the savior of the world we are also related to those others
whom he saves and intends to save.
Conversion is personal, but not private—for Christ’s original saving
actions were public and are proclaimed to the public through public words and
actions—intended for all people, including strangers.
Chapter
6. Liturgical Evangelism
Most of the liturgical renewal
movements inadvertently played into the ideology of intimacy, emphasizing
individuals and insiders. Even the
church growth movement encourages worship attendees to remain individuals in an
audience gathered for worship. Keifert
seeks to develop a new worship strategy for the church as a company of
strangers, practicing hospitality toward all and concerned with evangelization
and conversion. He proposes a dual
strategy, a “home” and “away” approach (borrowing a sports image), in which
congregations would have services (“at
home”) for experienced long-time Christians (with traditional liturgy and Holy
Communion) and (“away”) for inquirers with little knowledge of the Bible or
Christian faith (focused on the proclamation of God’s Word). [See the discussion on pp. 96-99, which is
much fuller than the above summary. See
also the description of a process of liturgical evangelism on pp. 100-07.]
Chapters
7-10 plus the Postscript contain
theologically-based brief chapters discussing worship practices intended to
overcome the ideology of intimacy by taking advantage of the place of ritual in
worship as a bridge between the private and public worlds. The goal is that worship itself should become
a major form of evangelism (of members as well as strangers). These are some of the most valuable parts of
the book, but their specificity makes summarizing them of questionable value;
it is better to read them to get the most out of their very practical and
highly theological insights and suggestions.
-------------------------------------