Authority and Litugical Formation: About a Reformational Dream, a Complex Set of Relationships, and a Play Worth Playing

Abstract

The question of authority interrupts self-evident relationships of liturgical praxis and liturgical formation. It makes visible what otherwise would usually remain hidden. Both implicit actors and hidden power structures become identifiable. The Reformation was, among other things, a movement that became powerful by questioning previously dominant power structures. Liturgically it meant a normative centering of liturgical worship on just two active subjects: God and the community. In any case that is how we can describe the liturgical dream of the reformers to which Luther gave special expression in his 1544 Torgau church-dedication sermon. To be sure, this dream was never a reality at any time. For it was above all the pastor who gained control of the worship service; and from the outset, Evangelical worship was threatened by a horizontalizing of liturgical communication that tented to push, along with the community, even ‘God’ into becoming secondary subjects of the liturgy. Hence it is necessary to paint a more realistic picture of those who play a part in the liturgy. This results in a liturgical pyramid at the horizontal base of which we find pastors, the community, and the ‘Agende’ (ritual/tradition/Church), and whose verticals are constituted by the God-relation. Liturgical praxis takes place in the interplay of these poles, whereby in Evangelical Christianity it is usually the pastor who turns out to be the strong liturgical subject (even today in the context of the “Evangelisches Gottesdienstbuch”, 1999). Hence the question: How can we bring about a strengthening of the authority of the community in the God-community word-exchange of the liturgy? This requires liturgical instruction on at least three levels: