Jeffrey C. Long

Someone recently wrote to ask “I’m interested in why you are interested in liturgy.” I thought it was a good question, so I’ve posted my response below.

re: liturgy.

i too have gone to catholic mass periodically. even attended an episcopal church once. years ago i bought a book of common prayer (they aren’t really expensive… you can get a pew edition for like $10).

at least two or three reasons. first, i have two impulses faith wise. i enjoy the cultural sweep of the historic church handed down from age to age. the episcopal and anglican churches represent the culmination of the western church’s spirituality but with some protestant corrections of roman catholicism. my other impulse though is what is called “primitivism,” a desire to reclaim the freshness of the early church from the time of Christ to before emperor Constantine. in terms of my upcoming new blog, westminster represents the culmination of western spirituality whereas schleithiem and anabaptism represent the 16th century impulse to reclaim the first century church. so my first reason for liking liturgy is that i like to be grounded in the historic church. i like the smell of the dust. i like the sound of the stone cathedral. i love to pray prayers and sing hymns that are 1000′s of years old and represent the human devotion to Christ that has been handed down from the ages.

second is that i am a “frustrated pentecostal.” i put it in quotes because it is a phrase i use to describe myself. i grew up in a pentecostal church and for the most part agree with pentecostal theology (my pastoral ministries bachelor of arts is from an assembly of God bible college). and my picture of a biblically functioning church is that it’s members are spirit-filled in the pentecostal sense, though i do not believe that speaking in tongues is a necessary component of that. however… though i can speak in tongues, i rarely do (only in private… i believe that paul prohibits public speaking of tongues as the pentecostals practice it, only allowing it when their was supernatural interpretation). and my experience of God is not so spectacular as that claimed by some pentecostals. but I _do_ experience God profoundly when I pray prayers that someone else wrote, or pray the prayers of the psalms, or run my finger through a lap sized labyrinth or listen to the compline service at st. mark’s episcopal cathedral. so, ironically, i _experience_ God as the pentecostals describe, but I do it through liturgy.

there. two paragraph sized reasons. i thought i had three, but i can’t think of a third.

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