[Apologetics] Would Jesus Recognize Catholic Worship? and The Problem with Primitivism

[DianneD]

Would Jesus Recognize Catholic Worship?
November 12, 2012 By Fr.
Dwight Longenecker49 Comments
I posted a picture the
other day of worship at St Peter’s. There was a crowd of altar servers, robed
clergy in procession and clouds of incense.
In the combox someone
observed, “Would Jesus recognize this as worship?” I don’t know the commenter
and his background, but it sounds like the comment is based on a common
misunderstanding of the roots of Catholic worship and the nature of Jewish
worship in Jesus’ time. I’ll be writing more on this subject later in the week
as I begin reviewing Evangelical-Frank Viola’s bookTheography.
However, let’s stop for
a moment and ask whether Jesus would recognize Catholic worship. The assumption
is that Jesus is a simple, wandering preacher–a rustic carpenter from Nazareth.
Jesus is the equivalent of Pastor Bob from the Backwoods Bible Church who has
studied for two years at Buckboard Bible College and then set up his church.
He’s a homely country man with a sincere message and a good heart. He goes in
for no frills religion–prayers from the heart not out of a book. He wanders the
countryside as an itinerant preacher–sort of like an old time revivalist. If he
is not this, then he is a Franciscan sort of person–wandering about in tattered
robes preaching to the birds and living a life of holy poverty far removed from
all the pomp and ceremony of the overblown and worldly Catholic religion.
The view of Jesus as the
simple country preacher does have some connection with the real Jesus, but we
also have to remember that Jesus was a first century Jew. He would have been
familiar with, and shared in the rituals and traditions of synagogue worship as
well as the worship of the temple. What was this worship like? First of all,
the synagogue worship was formal and liturgical. They used set prayers and
established readings as Catholics do with their liturgy and tables of readings.
Furthermore, the worship of the ‘domestic church’ for Jews was structured
around seasons and feasts. Throughout the year, as Catholics do, they
celebrated certain feast days and fast days. For the feasts they had
structured, ceremonial meals that they shared together. These ceremonial meals
consisted of set, written prayers and psalms and Scripture readings.
In addition to the
worship of the domestic church and the synagogue the Jews in the time of Jesus
all worshipped at the temple in Jerusalem. The worship in this splendid and
ornate structure was predicated by the temple of Solomon which was in turn
established according to the instructions given by God in Exodus for the
construction of the tabernacle. The tabernacle, and both the Herodian and
Solomonic temples in Jerusalem were splendid, ornate and rich buildings where
the worship was ceremonial and ritualistic. The priests wore ornate vestments,
there were ritualistic processions into and around the temple, ornate images of
angels surround the worship space and incense was burned before God to
symbolize the prayers of the faithful rising to heaven.
So would Jesus recognize
the Catholic worship that goes on in the great cathedrals and Catholic
churches? There are clearly differences between Catholic and Jewish worship,
but think of the things Jesuswould recognize:
1.Splendid, rich and ornate temple of God
2.Priests in rich vestments
3.Set readings from the Old Testament
4.the Chanting of psalms
5.the burning of incense
6.an altar of sacrifice
7.golden candlesticks
8.the bread of the presence
9.the holy of holies (the Catholic tabernacle)
10.   the lamp of the presence
11.   processions of priests
and people
12.   the offering of the holy
sacrifice
13.   The laver or font for
cleansing the offerings
14.   water fonts for ritual
ablutions before entering worship
15.   Beautiful decorations of
fabrics, carvings and embroidery
I can only assume that
my commenter was a non-Catholic Christian. What, I may ask, would Jesus
recognize in Protestant worship? Do Protestants actually know how first century
Jews worshipped? Do they therefore know the religious world in which Jesus
lived and moved and preached? From what we can glean from the Bible about
Jewish worship–both in the Old Testament and from the Book of Revelation (where
the worship of heaven is pictured) it all looks far more like a traditional
Catholic Mass than the bare preaching rooms and long Bible lectures of the
Protestants.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Primitivism is the idea
that for a thing to be ‘pure’ it needs to be taken back to the original version.
Protestantism is a primitivism movement–they want to get rid of all the
Catholic “extra trappings” and return to the original “new testament church”.
Read this article from my archived articles section: The Problem with Primitivism
The Problem with Primitivism
As a boy I attended a
church that was founded in 1962. It grew from a group of Christians meeting
together in their homes for Bible study. They were disenchanted with the
liberal drift of the mainstream Protestant denominations and decided to get
back to basics. They did not believe they were doing anything new. Instead they
were returning to the simple principles of the early church.
From their reading of
the New Testament, they concluded that the first Christians met in homes to
sing hymns, study the Bible and pray together. Eventually the founders of our
church wrote a constitution, bought land and built a church building and
school. They did not regard this as anything more than a natural outgrowth of
their first, simple communal meetings in their homes.
The idea that a new
church or denomination is really a return to the simple, early days of
Christianity is called Restorationism. It is the active result of an underlying
assumption called Christian Primitivism, which is the Christian expression of a
more general philosophical position called ‘Primitivism’–the belief that some
earlier, simpler and more basic civilization is better than the present one.
Christian Primitivism
and its active expression, Restorationism is written into the genetic code of
Protestantism. It is an seductive ideal, but it provides a fatally flawed
foundation for Protestant churches. Before we examine the problems of
Restorationism (and it’s foundation, Primitivism), it is worth looking at its
history.
Let’s Start at the Very
Beginning
The urge to shed
accumulated ‘traditions of men’ and return to the simple gospel message is
nothing new. The first Christians to fall into this trap may have been the
Montanists in the mid second century. Like modern-day Pentecostals, the
Montanists emphasized the work of the Holy Spirit and prophecy. Their opposition
to the organized church and ‘loyalty’ to the Holy Spirit suggests a
restorationist agenda.
Other ancient heretical
groups had primitivist tendencies, but the first separatist group to be clearly
driven by restorationist zeal, were the Paulicians. They were founded in the
mid 600s by an Armenian named Constantine, who claimed to be restoring the pure
Christianity of St Paul. The Paulicians were Adoptionists (believing that Jesus
became the Son of God at his baptism). Influenced by Manichaeism, they rejected
infant baptism, the clergy, monasticism, the doctrine of the real presence, and
all iconography
In Bulgaria three
hundred years later a new shoot sprang out of the Paulician sect. The Bogomils
(meaning Dear Ones of God) grew in reaction to what they perceived as the
corrupt established church of their time. They met in their own homes, rejected
the priesthood, rejected the doctrine of the real presence and believed that
all should be taught by the simple minded. They also rejected monasticism and did
not accept marriage as a sacrament. Like the Paulicians, the Bogomils were
dualists–believing in equal good and evil forces in the world.
Henry the Monk and
Waldes (from whom the Waldensians are descended) were wandering preachers in
the twelfth century who lived simple lives and preached against the corruption
of the church. They gathered groups of disciples around them, while at the same
time the Cathars carried on the dualistic and heretical teaching of the
Bogomils. All these pre-Reformation groups were primitivist in their beliefs
and restorationist in their actions. As such they were the pre-cursors of the
Protestant Reformation.
Anti Tradition Tradition
Restorationists might be
opposed to human tradition, but by the sixteenth century they had developed
their own venerable anti-tradition traditions. Usually their reasons were
sincere and urgent. Wherever the church is corrupt, complex and privileged the
urge for primitivism and restorationism is strong. People long for a simple and
pure church of the early days. Simple Christians want the church to be for
simple people. They read the gospel and see Christ ministering to the outcasts,
the sick and the ordinary people and believe that is what the Church should be
like. They are not wrong in their desire for simplicity and purity, and so it
is easy to see why Restorationist movements are so attractive and successful.
While Luther and Calvin
initially wished to reform the established church, the more extreme Protestants
were radical in their restorationist zeal. The Hussites and the Anabaptists
were the most radical, and it is the radical restorationism of the Anabaptists
which comes down to us today as the grand-daddy of all the subsequent
restorationist movements.
The Anabaptist line
continues through the Quakers, Shakers and other sects to the Landmarkists, who
claim a line of succession for Baptists right back to John the Baptist. The
Calvinist and Wesleyan ‘Great Awakening’ in the eighteenth century was
radically restorationist, followed by the similarly restorationist ‘Second
Great Awakening’ in the United States, but by now the restorationists were not
only reacting against the Catholic Church, but against all the other historic
Protestant denominations.
Through the nineteenth
century in America wave after wave of Restorationist churches sprang up. The
Christadelphians, Christian Conventions, Seventh Day Adventists, Latter Day
Saints, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. At the same time a strong restorationist
movement (the Cambellites) fostered independent groups like the Churches of
Christ, Disciples of Christ and the Christian Church.
The tradition continues
today with each new wave of Protestantism reacting not only against Catholicism
and liberal Protestantism, but also against the previous generation of restorationists.
In the 1960s my family attended an independent fundamental Bible Church. Then
in the 70s the charismatics, with their house churches and local communities
picked up the restorationist baton. The eighties saw the growth of charismatic
mega churches like John Wimber’sVineyard and now a whole range of local
community churches fly the restorationist flag. For all their rejection of
tradition, it seems the restorationists follow their own well established
traditions.
Restoration or
Reproduction?
My grandmother had a
‘French Provincial’ dining room suite. Her white and gold ornate table and
chairs had nothing to do with Louis XIV however. They were a twentieth century
furniture designer’s take off. Similarly, Restorationist churches are the
product of the imagination of ‘church designers’ who produce an imitation
product. They are attracted to an idea, draw some inspiration and come up with
their own reproduction.
There are ten problems
with Primitivism and Restorationism. Five have to do with Restorationism
itself, and five go to the roots of the Primitivist instinct. When the problems
are outlined we can understand why Restorationist movements are inherently
unstable and why the deeper Primitivist instinct is ultimately unsatisfactory.
Firstly, each restorationist
movement, although it seeks to return to the ancient church of the apostolic
age, is actually produced as a reaction to the circumstances of its own age and
culture. For example, the peasant movement of the Bogomils came out of a church
weighed down with corruption and aristocratic influence. The radical reformers
in sixteenth century Europe and the New World were influenced by the
utopianism, the rise of the nation state, and revolutionary spirit of their
age. Similarly, the American restorationist movement of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries was determined more by the independent, anti-establishment
mentality of the American frontier than by any real reference to the church of
the apostolic age. Restorationists believe they are restoring something
ancient. In fact all they do is create an expression of Christianity which is a
reaction against the circumstances and assumptions of the age in which they
live.
Secondly, while
Restorationist movements are reactions to the particular age in which they
live, they are also conditioned by the long history of Restorationist
movements. For hundreds of years Protestants have perpetuated a particular
vision of the early church. Each new Restorationist movement borrows those
ideas, never questioning whether the tradition they are inheriting is actually
true to the reality of the early church or not. Therefore, the Restorationist
doesn’t so much restore primitive Christianity; he simply replicates are
earlier Restorationist model, re-producing what he has been told early
Christianity was like.
This assumption leads to
the third problem: The Restorationists are usually totally ignorant of what the
early Church was really like. They assume is that the early church was
congregational, not hierarchical. They assume it was non liturgical and non
sacramental. They assume it was Bible based. They assume there was no clergy
and that the congregation met in people’s homes. They don’t have any evidence
for these assumptions, and all of these assumptions are simply not true, or if
they were true in some isolated places they are not the whole truth. (see my
article inThis Rock )
The reason the
Primitivists are ignorant of what the primitive Church was really like is
because they are largely unaware of the writings of the Early Church fathers.
Most if them do not know that we have documents telling us just what the early
Christians believed, how they worshipped, how the Church was structured.
This ignorance is not
only the lack of education, it is also the result of the Protestant dogma ofsola
Scriptura. The Christian primitivist believes that his hymn-singing, Bible
studying little home church is what is found in the Bible, but even that is
unsupportable. While we do find examples of house churches in the New Testament
(Rom.16:5; I Cor.16:19; Col.4:15) we also find the apostles meeting for worship
regularly in the Temple, (Acts 2:46; 3:1; 5:42) and St Paul always went to
worship first in the synagogue when he went to a new city in his missionary
travels. (Acts 14:1; 17:2)
The fourth obvious
problem with Restorationist movements, is that they are blind to their own
cultural and historical contradictions. On the one hand, they wish to go back
to the basics, but on the other hand, they wish to be ‘relevant’ to the modern
age. How can they be both? Can a restorationist church have a radio station?
Can they have high tech worship? Can they have a website? What about moral
issues? Can a primitivist congregation speak aboutin vitro fertilization,
climate change, artificial contraception, globalization and a whole range of
other contemporary issues? If so, where does he find the information and
authority to do so?
The fifth problem with
the Restorationist movements is that they contradict one another. If each group
was simply returning to a beautiful, basic Bible religion, wouldn’t they all
agree? Instead the different Restorationist movements all disagree with the
other Restorationist churches, and to make matters worse, the Restorationist
movements are notoriously fissiparous. If they were returning to a simple,
clear and unadulterated gospel message and church structure why have they split
and splintered into tens of thousands of separate ecclesial groups?
Primitivism’s Problem
Principles
The first five problems
are critiques of Restorationism, which is the outworking of Christian
Primitivism. They reveal deep fractures in the edifice, but the fractures are
there because of deeper fault lines that run through Primitivism–the
philosophical foundation of Restorationism. Like all faulty foundations, the
problems lay hidden, but it is in examining the foundations that we see the
deeper problems.
The first foundational
problem of Christian Primitivism is the denial of the necessity for the visible
church. One of the foundation assumptions is that all church institutions are
provisional. They are necessary evils. They are man made institutions. As such
they are to be distrusted and they are disposable. Built into this assumption
is the bias that the Catholic Church ‘cannot possibly be right.’ Therefore the
Catholic Church is simply ‘another denomination’ like every other, and if it
seems corrupt or apostate it should be scrapped to start again.
The second problem is
the naive belief that the Church should be immaculate. In other words, that it
is possible that the Church should be sinless. Rightly shocked by the
corruption of members of the established church, primitivists wished to return
to a purer and more basic church. This is unrealistic. What they failed to see
was that there is no such thing as the perfect church. They overlooked the fact
that among the apostles themselves there was a traitor, one who betrayed the
Lord, cowards, sinners and weaklings, and that the Lord prophesied and allowed
that the wheat and the tares would grow together.
The third foundational
problem of Christian Primitivism is that while the Primitivist wants an
immaculate church he does not believe in an infallible Church. Along with the
denial of a visible church, Primitivists also deny an infallible church. Because
the Catholic church has (in their view) departed from the truth, she cannot be
infallible. But this assumption is leaky, because the primitivist’s whole
enterprise is an attempt to recover a church that was pristine and pure and (by
inference) infallible. Either there was an ancient infallible church, in which
case it has never failed because it cannot fail, or there was never an ancient
infallible church, in which case, why bother to attempt a recovery of it?
The fourth foundational
problem is connected with the third. Primitivism is based on the assumption
that the Catholic Church is not infallible, and that there is no such thing as
an infallible church, but the primitivist would have us believe that his
‘restored’ church is infallible. It is true that he does not state this belief
openly, yet he heartily believes it is so, for he has given his total
allegiance to this church. But if his restored church is infallible, why does
it clash with all the other restored churches and why did God allow six or ten
or nineteen centuries to pass before establishing it? If, on the other hand,
this restored church is not infallible, why should I (or anyone else for that
matter) be expected to owe allegiance to it?
The fifth underlying
problem of Primitivism is the most blatant of all. Assuming that the primitive
church is the church of the first century (and this assumes that there is a cut
off point when the church ceases to be ‘primitive’–and who decides that?) how
can anyone really know what the first century church was like? We have
archeological evidence. We have Scriptural evidence. We have documentary
evidence, but all we can do is the delicate and tentative work of the
historian. We cannot really get back into the skin of first century Christians
in the Roman Empire. We can’t really understand the culture, the assumptions
and the worldview of former Jewish and Gentile Christians in the Roman Empire.
Even if we could come up with an accurate checklist of all the attributes of
the primitive church, who would decide which of the attributes we wanted to
re-create and which ones we would omit? Shall we have house churches or mega
churches? Shall we exclude women from ordination, but allow them to not cover
their heads in church? Shall we have simple Bible preaching, but not speaking
in tongues and miraculous handkerchiefs? Shall we have sacraments but not
slaves; Bible studies, but not bishops?
Linked with this problem
is the biggest elephant in the living room: Why it should necessarily be a good
thing to re-create the primitive church at all? We live in the twenty first
century, not the first. Any attempt at recovery can never be anything more than
an artificial reproduction–with the same relationship to primitive Christianity
as my grandmother’s dining room table has to the furniture of Versailles or
Cinderella’s castle at Disneyland to Windsor Castle.
The Alternative
When faced with a church
that is corrupt, complex and seemingly out of touch, Christian Primitivism
seems like an admirable ideal. To establish a simple, down to earth form of
Christianity seems laudable. If one is going to start a religion, it is a good
thing to wish for that religion to be the ancient faith that comes to us from
the Apostles.
Given that it is a
laudable thing to want one’s church to be connected with the Church of the
first century, and accepting the arguments put forward here on the intrinsic
flaws of Primitivism, one has therefore to ask if any link with the primitive
church exists, and if it does, where one might find it.
Catholics have always
believed that the primitive church never ceased to exist. It was established by
Jesus Christ himself on the rock of Peter and his divinely inspired profession
that Jesus was the Son of God. This church, as Christ promised, has withstood
the test of time. She has been buffeted by corruption from within and
persecuted by enemies from without. Nevertheless, the gates of hell have not
prevailed against her, and time and again, led by the Holy Spirit, the Catholic
Church has been reformed, renewed and refreshed.
The primitive church may
have become more complex, but she did not cease to constantly preach the simple
message of Jesus Christ and his saving work on the cross. The primitive church
may have adapted and changed and grown throughout two thousand years of
history, but she has not become something different. Her understanding of the
apostolic deposit of faith may have developed and matured, but she did not
alter that faith once delivered to the saints. Members of that primitive church
may have stumbled and fallen; they may have sinned and caused scandal; they may
have obscured the gospel and betrayed the gospel, but in every age there have
always been saints who have remained radiantly faithful.
Catholics maintain
today, as we have always done, that the primitive church is alive in the world
as she has always been. Just as the simple pauper’s tomb of the fisherman lies beneath the soaring dome of St Peter’s so the primitive church lies at the heart
of Catholicism.
At her head is the
successor of Peter and at her feet is a world more in need of her message of
forgiveness and love than ever before. It is a good thing to search for the
primitive church, but why embark on an empty quest to create your own when the
Catholic Church stands waiting–ever ancient and ever new.
Fr Dwight Longenecker is
Pastor of Our Lady of the Rosary parish in Greenville, South Carolina. He is
the author ten books on the Catholic faith includingMore Christianity–a friendly explanation of
the Catholic faith for Evangelical Christians. Check out his website and blog
atwww.dwightlongenecker.com
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