Worship Wars

I listened in on a conversation recently on “the worship wars” in evangelical-style congregations and I heard some interesting observations. My main dissent, which I did not express, was that the discussants were treating the battles about worship as a relatively recent phenomenon—several references were made, for example, to “the last two decades.” If I had decided to chime in I would have recommended reading Ian Bradley’s fine book Abide With Me: The World of Victorian Hymns (1997), where he details the heated debates in 19th century England over whether to have choirs, and if so, if they should be kept at the rear of the sanctuary in order to “back up” the congregation in its worship rather than being a visual distraction in the front. I could even have pointed them further back in church history to Oscar Cullmann’s review in his little book Early Christian Worship of the arguments conducted by the Church Fathers about when the catechumens should be sent off from the worship service to engage in their own “youth” activities.