This is the complete collection of liturgies and acts of worship that have appeared on this site over the years plus a few more. It replaces a number of files scattered about on various pages.
Classical Liturgy Complete Texts Download
The fifty page Word.doc includes hyperlinked Table of Contents and notes. It contains rites for membership care such as baptism, confirmation, reception into membership, re-affirmation of faith, The Lord’s Supper and more. Each section and rite is accompanied by commentary and rubrics. It is offered without cost or restriction.
Very little of this is original work, as is made clear repeatedly in the compilation (Hence, classical liturgy). It is mostly a revision and update of public domain materials–primarily the original Sunday Service for Methodists, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, and 16th through 19th century English language translations of ancient works. I believe I have adequately noted the sources. If you find places where I have neglected to do so, please forgive me and let me know. In the places where my work is unique enough to be deemed original by others, I neither identify it as my own nor claim any copyright.
The only copyrighted materials are the few phrases and short passages from the Doctrine and Discipline of the Global Methodist Church which are clearly identified and fall inside the fourfold test for fair use.
A very brief overview of the process and rationale (Why Classical Liturgy) follows below.
These rites can be improved. Adaptations should be made with careful consideration. Do not let the modification modify the truth to make it more palatable. Do not let the omission omit the truth for the sake of brevity. Do not let the addition add novelty. Never make perfectly clear that which the Holy Spirit never intended to be perfectly clear. “Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.” (2 Thessalonians 2:15)
If anyone would like a hard copy, I will provide a comb-bound copy as pictured above, pages printed front and back, at cost. Contact me through this link. I don’t expect an overwhelming volume. I will do it as long as I am able.
Why Classical Liturgy?
There is no shortage of liturgies with both feet planted firmly in the 1970s, and more show up in my inbox every day. Those mid-twentieth century reforms, which I once taught and defended, were based on bad scholarship and bad theology. Meanwhile, no one seems interested in restoring classical liturgy without first passing it through the smoke of the Woodstock generation. Yet, it is those classical liturgies that contain the faith once delivered to the saints and have proven reliable at preserving and propagating that faith in every place where such liturgies are retained.
Integrity demands a liturgy that speaks plainly about what God requires of us and makes those claims with a distinctive Methodist articulation. Theological vagueness is the bane of wearisome modern rites. Liturgists that set out for Winsome without the company of Gravitas find themselves lost in Frivolity. People notice. We must recover the Biblical narrative and not be afraid to speak honestly of the character of God and the nature of man.
The aim is to eliminate accumulated innovations, not add to them: to restore the sacramental theology, but not the verbatim.
We abandon the invented rites of Beatniks and Baby Boomers to which we are emotionally invested. We start fresh with John Wesley’s 1784 Sunday Service (which is effectively the Book of Common Prayer 1662, abridged). Standing in 1784 and with our Bible open, we look back to the work of Cranmer’s Common Prayer, Calvin’s Church Prayers, Luther’s Formulae Missae, the Sarum Use, the Roman Rite, Apostolic Constitutions, and the liturgies of Chrysostom, Basil, and James. Standing in 1784 and with our Bible open, we move forward through the doctrine, discipline, and hymnals of the MEC, MEC South, Methodist Protestant Church, the Methodist Church, the Evangelical United Brethren, and the UMC; all the while keeping an eye on parallel events with our Anglican kin. We seek the counsel of teachers from every age; the respected commentators of our day and those whom “being dead, yet they speak.” We listen to their cautions and their encouragement.
Leave a Reply