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At the Origins of Christian Worship
Larry W. Hurtado, Wm.B.Eerdmans 2000 138pp
Review by Ray Hoekzema
The author, professor of NT language, literature, and theology at the
University of Edinburgh, Scotland, in three chapters gives us a review
of earliest Christian worship within the religious environment of the
Roman era. In the first two chapters he advances the premise of the
exclusivity of Jewish religious life and early Christian worship which
pagans found curious and anti-social. In the third chapter he focuses on
what he calls ‘binitarian’ worship, by which he contends that Christian
worship has two recipients, God and Christ. Then in a final chapter,
writing as a worshipping Christian, as he says, he raises some questions
and offers some reflections intended to shape Christian worship today.
He sees himself as a scholar. The fact that only 118 pages of actual
script are backed up by a bibliography of no less than 200 other
authors, some with multiple publications, seem to bear this out.
The earliest context for Christian worship was the Roman empire. Birth,
death, marriage, the domestic sphere, civil and wider political life,
work, the military, socialising, entertainment, arts, music – all were
imbued with religious significance. Each association of tradesman and
each military unit had its own patron deity and any official or civic
ritual had religious connotations. Overwhelmingly, the masses
participated in religious activities both regularly and with enthusiasm.
Pagan temples, shrines and images for the multitude of gods were present
everywhere and manifested in many forms, each ethnic group having their
own deity. Having one’s own in no way prevented one from acknowledging
the validity of the deities of other groups. They also argued that the
images merely functioned as objects to facilitate devotion to gods,
providing a localised and tangible focus of worship. In contrast, both
Jewish and Christian practice demanded a renunciation of all other
cultic activity directed to any other gods, a ‘conversion’ as well as
exclusivity. The unadorned house-church worship over against the
colourful ritual life made Christianity unique.
Meals were a feature of pagan and Christian worship. Though both were
seen as occasions for celebration, the pagan meals were of a type that
called for warnings at the entrance of some shrines not to vomit up
one’s wine within the sacred precincts. Jewish and Christian meals were
also celebrated in a joyous mood, but no tension was felt between the
religious character of the sacred meal and the social dimension. In
their worship, early Christians found themselves in a lively and active
religious environment. The incorporation of Christ as the recipient of
cultic devotion gave Christian worship a distinctive ‘binitarian’ shape
that distinguished it from pagan and Jewish practices at the time.
Earliest Christian religious experience involved God, Christ and the
Spirit; but the devotional pattern was more ‘binitarian’ as to the
divine recipients of worship but always in the exclusivistic,
monotheistic sense.
Hurtado then focuses on some features of early Christian worship such as
intimacy, participation, fervour, significance and says that the
ecclesia itself was an event of eschatological meaning, a foretaste of
the blessings of the coming age. In his reflections he emphasises the
Christ-centredness of our worship in that Jesus is our access to God. We
worship God in Jesus’ name and through Jesus.
If you expect to discover new ways of worshipping from the author’s
reflections, let me quote his ultimate response to that idea: “If
Christian worship has transcendent significance, it is not by virtue of
particular liturgical styles or practices” – as in guitars verses
organs, sedate style verses ‘happy-clappy’, “but by our worship really
being the worship of the one God and of the one who, having been made
Christ and Lord, sits at God’s ‘right-hand’, bearing unique divine
favour and authority.” Reflecting on the worship of Jesus can lead to a
deeper discovery of God and of what we are called to be in God’s
redemptive grace. Although the Bible is the ultimate source for doing
so, this book can serve as an aid.
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