David R. Bains

A survey of the history, theology, and contemporary diversity of Christian worship. Students will examine key issues in the development and practice of Christian worship through examination of theological and liturgical texts and participant observation.

Goals: Upon completion of this course students will be able to:

1. describe and interpret major historical developments, theological positions, and liturgical practices in an intelligent and persuasive fashion
2. analyze worship spaces, liturgical texts, patterns of worship, worship services, and prescriptive texts on worship with respect to their theological messages and historical antecedents
3. evaluate worship practices in terms of their theology, fidelity to tradition, and contemporary effectiveness.

Two tests (end of unit I and end of unit II): 30% Scheduled for Feb. 26 and April 9. Study guides will be provided at least a week in advance.

Unit II essay: 15% This essay will focus on the evaluation of some set of theological arguments discussed in unit II (e.g., veneration of images, role of the sacraments, nature of church architecture). This essay will be based primarily on assigned readings, but relevant outside reading will be helpful.

Final project / essay: 15% Your final project should demonstrate you ability to apply what you have learned in this course to a contemporary, theological, or historical problem.

Option I: A detailed assessment of a worship service. This may be of a church you have visited earlier in term. Interview worship leaders, congregation members, and visitors for their understanding of the service. Examine all texts and prescriptive documents used in the service. Evaluate the goals of the service and whether or not they are met. Make recommendations for improving the goals of the service and the end result.

Option II: A paper on the theology of worship. Drawing on readings from this term and other research write an theological essay on some aspect of worship. Possible topics include: the Lord's Supper, Baptism, evangelism, preaching, music, prayer, architecture, the church year, dress and vestments, marriage, burial, reconciliation. In your paper, present your own views on this theological issue and discuss at least two other viewpoints.

Option III: A paper on the history of worship. This paper should present your own original research on some aspect of the history of Christian worship. Primary sources for this paper can include liturgical texts, hymnals, old church bulletins, church archives, sermons, articles and other prescriptive reflections on worship, diaries, oral history interviews, extent church buildings. You might, for example, want to research the history of worship in a local congregation. What did worship look like thirty, fifty, or even seventy years ago? Alternatively, you might want to examine the history of some theological issue or the views on worship of some historic person.

Option IV: Worship and culture: This paper will focus on themes raised in the last unit of the course. You may examine the issues behind "traditional" and "contemporary" worship, or explore how worship is inculturated in various cultures (e.g. Southern, African-American, Hispanic, Rural, Suburban, etc.)

Field visits, reports, quizzes, participation: 20% Field visits and participation in class discussion are an essential part of this course. Class meetings will be divided between lecture and discussion of the readings. Be sure to bring the readings being discussed to class each day. You are expected to complete the assigned reading before class and come to class prepared to contribute to a thoughtful discussion of the readings. Several times throughout the term you will be assigned in-class writing assignments, quizzes, or presentations. In-class writing will be graded on a pass-fail basis. Short essays and quizzes will be given letter grades.

Attendance of class the days of class field trips is very important.

You also need to visit weekend worship services from various traditions on your own. While many of these experiences may be satisfied by attending services at times other than Sunday morning, this course will probably require you to attend a Sunday morning service at a church other than your own at least once. If your schedule will make this difficult, see me as soon as possible. Based on your field visit you will have to write a report. These reports are primarily descriptive in nature. Specific guidelines will be provided later, but note the following schedule.

Two visits to the same Sunday (or Saturday evening or Feast-Day) eucharistic liturgy in a Roman Catholic, Episcopalian, or approved Lutheran or Presbyterian church. The purpose of this visit is to gain familiarity with a service that reflects the influence of the twentieth-century liturgical movement. The congregation and the service you attend must come from the list I give you or be approved by me in advance.

Feb. 17 -- first visit must be completed

Feb. 24 -- second visit must be completed. Short essay responding to questions due.

One visit to a preaching-centered, non-Pentecostal Protestant service Any service that meets this description will satisfy.

April 14 -- Short essay responding to questions due.

One visit to a Pentecostal or Charismatic service. Suggested churches and denominations will be provided.

April 28--Short essay responding to questions due.

One visit to a church service in the same historical tradition as your own, but oriented toward a different culture. For example, if you are a white Episcopalian, go to St. Marks, a historically black parish; f you are a white Baptist attend a Hispanic or African-American Baptist church; if you are Irish Catholic go to a Spanish-language mass; if you always attend a "contemporary" service go to a traditional one.

May 5--Short essay responding to questions due.

Exact essay assignments available at a later date.

Class Schedule: The daily schedule for the last two units will be announced at a later date.

• paradigms of worship in the Old and New Testaments
• the development of weekly worship and Christian initiation in both Eastern and Western Christianity to the sixth-century
• how the "Liturgical Movement" in the twentieth-century has sought to recover theologies and practices of worship from this period

Isaiah 6:1-8
Luke 24: 13-35
I Corinthians 10-14

Assignment: Self-Assessment Essay Bring Documents to class.

February 5 [St. Agatha, Martyrs of Japan]: What is Christian Worship?

Introduction, 13-46

discussion of self-assessment essays

Feb. 10 Worship in the pre-Constantinian Church I

Feb. 12 Worship in the early Church

Feb. 17 Medieval Development and Early Modern Reform

First site visit completed

The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom; The Mass of the Roman Rite; Introduction on Calvin and Calvin The Form of Church Prayers; The Prayer Book of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America (1790), packet

158-163, 211-215,

Documents, 101-112

Feb. 19 Twentieth-Century Reform I

Virgil Michel, O.S.B. "The Liturgy the Basis of Social Regeneration,"

Fenwick and Spinks, Worship in Transition

Documents, 211-217

All other readings in Unit I of packet

Feb. 24 [St. Matthais] Twentieth-Century Reform II

Submission and discussion of reports on field visits

Meyers, "Journeys of Faith" in Johnson, 83-98

Topics:

• the development of the "Christian Year" in the early church and its use today
• the other events which structure the temporal cycle of Christian worship in America today
• the tension between material objects and spiritual worship in Christian worship and theology, especially in regard to images, the sacraments, and dress
• the role of space and architecture in Christian worship

Feb. 26 TEST ON UNIT I & Introduction to Time

Introduction, 131-150; Documents, 75-99

March 3 [John and Charles Wesley] Intro to Church Year--Class meets in Divinity Chapel

Introduction, 47-67; Documents, 17-32

Ash Wednesday, beginning of Lent, March 5 More on Time

Introduction, 67-80; Documents, 32-39

March 10 Introduction to Space

Introduction, 81-109; Documents, 41-74

March 12 [Gregory the Great] Space and Image Field Trip I--class meets downtown

March 14 Space and Image Field Trip II--2:30pm or by yourself at your own day & time

"Sacred Treasures," Birmingham Museum of Art, Eighth Ave. N. Parking lot is off of 21St. N between 8th and 9th Ave. I will distribute a guide to the exhibition outlining what you need to see. Catalogue for exhibition will be on reserve in Samford's library

March 17 [Patrick, Apostle of Ireland]: Space and Image Field Trip III

St. Stephen the Martyr Catholic Campus Center, 1515 12th Ave. S.

Holy Trinity / Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Cathedral 3rd Ave. at 19th St. S.

[Independent Presbyterian Church, Highland Ave. at 31st St. S.]

March 19: [Joseph] Follow-up on Field Trips & Veneration of Images

John of Damascus, On the Divine Images

March 31: Veneration of Images continued

April 2: Sacramental Theology

Documents, (Initiation) 164-179, (Eucharist) 193-213

Introduction (Initiation) 211-228, (Eucharist) 252-262

Baptist Faith and Message, and Hobbs packet

Topic Continued

Topics:

• the place of Bible reading and preaching in worship, especially in the following movements: sixteenth-century Reformation, eighteenth-century pietism, and nineteenth-century evangelical revivalism; twentieth-century "seeker services"
• the pervasive influence of revivalism on American Protestant worship
• critics and defenders of revivalism
• a typology of preaching styles
• the history of the Quaker tradition
• the history of the Pentecostal / Charismatic tradition

John Williamson Nevin, Anxious Bench, (selections) (on reserve)

Charles Grandison Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion,

• debates on the Victorian Evangelical style in the late nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries
• unpacking what is meant by "traditional" and contemporary" in contemporary Protestant discourse on worship
• ethnicity, culture, and worship
• inclusive language

Johnson, ed. Conviction of Things Not Seen