Ancient-Future Worship: Our Liturgical Back Pages?

Abstract

I had just begun my orientation as new faculty member at Loyola University in Chicago—an evangelical hired to teach liturgy and sacraments—when a venerable and a bit grizzled Jesuit approached me before the start of an orientation session on “The Values of a Jesuit Education.” “So, you’re a liturgist,” he cackled. “I once was at a meeting in Rome in the Fifties where we discussed when Jesus gave Saint Peter the Canon of the Mass. What do you think about that?” Like a pitcher throwing an inside fastball, he waited to see if I would flinch. “Well, that depends on what you decided,” I replied. He looked at me with a wry grin and said, “You’ll do fine here, Sonny.” As laughable as the premise of said conference was, liturgists have been pursuing similar liturgical bedrock for some time. Where is it that we find the liturgical Rosetta Stone? In the New Testament, the second century, or the fourth century? Maybe elsewhere? The fact is that the relationship between authority and tradition is often negotiated by historical precedence and resources. It is this quest that I would like to use to frame my examination of the Ancient-Future Worship movement. I am not entirely objective in this task. The Ancient-Future paradigm was created by Robert Webber, for whom I edited a festschrift. Also in my first year at Fuller Theological Seminary, I taught a doctoral seminar on “Ancient-Future Worship.” This seminar had three components: first, an assessment of the historical sources used by Webber using historical methods for the study of liturgy developed by Paul Bradshaw and his colleagues; second, an assessment of contemporary culture and its relationship to Webber’s appraisal of contemporary culture; and last, the compatibility of the use of ancient rituals and practices in contemporary culture. Ironically, my first year at Fuller was one of Bob’s last years on earth, as he was living with terminal cancer. I invited Bob to come out to visit Fuller and meet with my seminar and with other groups on campus as well. Bob accepted my invitation and made one of his very last trips. Here my students and I were able to engage Bob about his work and our research. It was in this week when Bob revealed a number of insights into his thoughts and hopes.