Calvin

A Brief History of Dance in Worship

by

Christian dance has persisted throughout the history of the church, despite many official decrees against it. Christian churches that have incorporated dance and other stylized gestures in worship have benefited from a profound way of expressing their praise and enacting the gospel message. Dance as worship is one manifestation of the Spirit’s ongoing activity in the church.

The New Testament church was not born into a vacuum, but into a Jewish culture filled with heritage and saturated with rich traditions. T. W. Manson has commented: The first disciples were Jews by birth and upbringing, and it is a priori probable that they would bring into the new community some at least of the religious usages to which they had long been accustomed. (T. W. Manson, quoted in Ralph P. Martin, Worship in the Early Church [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974], 19)

Christianity entered into a tradition of already existing patterns of worship, including music and dance, as found recorded in both the Bible and ancient writings.

King David danced exuberantly in God’s presence (2 Sam. 6), while Miriam the prophetess led the women to dance with tambourines in response to their mighty deliverance from the pursuing Egyptian army (Exod. 15). Women are seen dancing in Shiloh at a feast (Judg. 21:21–23) and before David as a response to his military victories (1 Sam. 29:5). Visual images show both the bride and the bridegroom dancing: he leaping in dance (Song 2:8) and she as two dancing companies or armies with banners (Song 6:13). The Psalter commands the dance (Ps. 149:3; Ps. 150:4).

Other writings provide accounts of dancing in Jewish history. The Mishna describes a major ceremony of Sukkot, the seventh and final feast of the Jewish sacred year celebrating God’s rains and the increase of crops. The ritual is called Nissuch Ha-Mayin, in Hebrew meaning the water drawing. “The water-drawing ceremony was a joyous occasion, replete with grand activity and high drama” (Mitch and Zhava Glaeser, The Fall Feasts of Israel [Chicago: Moody Press, 1987], 175). “Levitical priests, worshipers, liturgical flutists, trumpeters, and a crowd carrying lulax (branches) and etrog (fruit) celebrated together in a great display of symbolic activity and festival rejoicing” (Sukkah 5:1). It was probably the viewing of this ceremony to which Jesus makes reference in his great teaching on the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in John 7:37–39.

Another celebration, which occurred on the first night of the feast of Sukkot, was the illumination of the Temple. Enormous golden candlesticks were set up in the court of the women.

The mood was festive. Pious men, members of the Sanhedrin, and heads of the different religious schools would dance well into the night holding burning torches and singing songs of praise to God. (M. and Z. Glaeser, Fall Feasts of Israel, 182)

The Glaesers go on to report: “Not only did they play instruments with fervor, but the Levitical choir stood chanting and singing as the leaders of Israel danced” (M. and Z. Glaeser, Fall Feasts of Israel, 183).

Dr. Sam Sasser writes: Recognized Norwegian scholar Sigmund Mowinckel, in what is believed to be one of the best books written on the Psalms in Israel’s worship, and a standard text in most graduate schools and seminaries, notes in definition: “Together with song and music goes the dance, which is a common way of expressing the encounter with the body. The dance is a spontaneous human expression of the sense of rapture.… At a higher religious level it develops into an expression of the joy at the encounter with the Holy One, an act for the glory of God (2 Sam. 6:20ff). It behooves one to give such a visible and boisterous expression of the joy before Yahweh.” (Sam Sasser, The Priesthood of the Believer [Plano, Tex.: Fountain Gate Publishers], 111)

The church from A.D. 30 to A.D. 70 was undergoing transition. There was a separation from Temple worship, and those elements in the old covenant which would not be continued in the new covenant. The epistles and the book of Acts outline the forms and ceremonies of Judaic worship that would be eliminated in the church. Blood sacrifice (Heb. 9), Levitical priesthood (Heb. 7:11–28), the practice of circumcision (Acts 15:5, 28–29), and the keeping of new moons and Sabbaths (Col. 2:16–23) were to be discontinued. However, there is no commentary about discontinuing the use of musical instruments, singing, and dancing. Nowhere are these condemned or forbidden. On the contrary, the following Scriptures seem to indicate the continuing practice of inherited worship patterns (Col. 3:16; Eph. 5:19–20; Acts 15:13–16; 1 Cor. 5:13, 14:26).

It is noteworthy that historically the book of Psalms has been the basic hymnbook for the church and her worship patterns, as David Chilton describes: When the church sang the Psalms—not just little snatches of them, but comprehensively, through the whole Psalter—she was strong, healthy, aggressive, and could not be stopped. That’s why the devil has sought to keep us from singing the Psalms, to rob us of our inheritance. If we are to recapture the eschatology of dominion, we must reform the church; and a crucial aspect of that reformation should be a return to the singing of Psalms. (David Chilton, Paradise Restored [Tyler, Tex.: Reconstruction Press, 1985], 8-9)

Although Jewish tradition is replete with accounts of dancing, Ecclesiastes 3:1 and 4 states, “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven / A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.” The New Testament church was soon to experience seasons of mourning and weeping. Lamentations 5:15 says: “The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned to mourning.” Laughing and dancing would again find their season in the church as God brought times of restoration, healing, and revival. Jeremiah 31:4 promises, “Again I will build thee, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel: thou shalt be adorned with thy tabrets, and shall go forth in the dances of them that make merry.”

Separation from Jewish heritage was not the only point of adaptation for the new church. Until the time of Constantine, a.d. 323, the church experienced extreme persecution at the hands of the Roman government. Christians were captured, used as human torches, compelled to fight in gladiatorial combat, and fed to lions in elaborate spectacles called Roman games. The games reflected the immoral decadence, monstrous abuses, unwieldy influence, and imperial sadism into which Rome had fallen. Incorporated into these games was the Roman dance, an art form borrowed from other cultures, mainly Greek, and consigned to slaves.

Christians had seen their friends and fathers martyred in amphitheaters where their agony was merely a prelude to, or an incident in, the shows. That the church Fathers would honestly have denied any desire to employ consciously a trace of taint from Roman spectacle we have no reason to doubt. Church history is full of the courageous and violent denunciations that the early Fathers launched against the shows.

As early as a.d. 300 a council at Elvera decided that no person in any way connected with circus or pantomime could be baptized. In 398, at the Council of Carthage, a rule was established excommunicating anyone who attended the theater on holy days (Lincoln Kirstein, Dance: A Short History of Classic Theatrical Dancing [Little Rock: Revival Press, 1982], 59-60).

Although church history of the first millennium finds the weight of evidence to be in opposition to dance, there are quotes from writings of the church fathers which indicate some trace of dancing remained in the Christian church.

  • “Of those in heaven and those on earth, a unison is made, one General Assembly, one single service of thanksgiving, one single transport of rejoicing, one joyous dance.” Chrysostom (a.d. 386)
  • “Everything is right when it springs from the fear of the Lord. Let’s dance as David did. Let’s not be ashamed to show adoration of God. Dance uplifts the body above the earth into the heavenlies. Dance bound up with faith is a testimony to the living grace of God. He who dances as David dances, dances in grace.” Ambrose (a.d. 390)
  • “To keep the sacred dances, discipline is most severe.” Augustine (a.d. 394)
  • “Could there be anything more blessed than to imitate on earth the dance of angels and saints? To join our voices in prayer and song to glorify the risen creator.” Bishop of Caesarea (a.d. 407)
  • “I see dance as a virtue in harmony with power from above.” Thodoret (a.d. 430)
  • “Dance as David danced.” Bishop of Milan (a.d. 600)
  • “Dance as David to true refreshment of The Ark which I consider to be the approach to God, the swift encircling steps in the manner of mystery.” St. Gregory of Nazianzus (a.d. 600) (all quoted from Debbie Roberts, Rejoice: A Biblical Study of the Dance [Little Rock: Revival Press, 1982], 39-40)

In his book on dance, Lincoln Kirstein records a few examples of dancing in Christian churches: The Abbot Meletius, an Englishman, upon the advice of the first Gregory, permitted dancing in his churches up to 604.… The Jesuit father Menestrier, whose history of dancing published in 1682 is full of valuable data about his own time as well as of curious earlier tales, tells of seeing in certain Parish churches the senior canon leading choirboys in a round dance during the singing of the psalm. The Parish Liturgy reads “Le chanoine ballera au premier psaume.” (“The canon will dance to the first psalm.”) (Kirstein, Dance, 63)

Continuing in this vein, Kirstein records three more examples: Scaliger said the first Roman bishops were called praesuls and they led a sacred “dance” around altars at festivals. Theodosius says that Christians of Antioch danced in church and in front of martyrs’ tombs. Los Seises, the dancing youths of the Cathedral of Seville, whose annual performance on the feasts of Corpus Christi and the Immaculate Conception was connected with the ancient Mozarabic rite, are often described as ritual dancers, though their dance was really an independent votive act, peculiar to the towns of Seville and Toledo. (Ibid.)

The writings of Augustine in the fourth century issue a complaint against dancing: It is preferable to till the soil and to dig ditches on the day of the Lord than to dance a choreic reigen. Oh, how times and manners change! What once was the business of lute players and shameless women only, namely to sing and to play, this is now considered an honor among Christian virgins and matrons who even engage masters in their art to teach them. (Walter Sorell, The Dance through the Ages [New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1967], 36)

On the one hand, condemned and on the other hand embraced, dance seems to have never completely disappeared from church history. Especially in the Mediterranean countries and the Orient, people never gave up dancing. Here, the clergy applied less coercive measures to restrain dance. However, taking the gospel to the north, the clergy had an uphill struggle to uproot the rituals and pagan rites.

With the Christian way of life taking root, the heathen quality was lost, but the people retained what they liked about the old way. How many things in which we still indulge nowadays have their roots in ancient pagan rituals, such as the idea of a June bridge, Halloween, or Yuletide! Or who would think today of the Maypole as a phallic symbol and of the dance around it as a fertility dance? (Ibid., 38)

Although dance was more often condemned by the millennium church than sanctioned, there were exceptions. As Alordyce Nicole writes, in his exhaustive work on the period, had this been actually enforced half of Christendom, including a section of the clergy, would have been out of communion with the church.… From East to West, in Constantinople, in Antioch, in Alexandria, in Rome, the mimic drama flourished, uniting together old pagans and new Christians in the one common enjoyment of pure secularism. (Kirstein, Dance, 60)

Because of the increase in heresy, the leaders desired more centralization of authority and a set pattern of doctrine. A series of traceable events, beyond the scope of this article, gave rise to priestly class and eventually the formation of the Roman Catholic church.

From the scriptural position of the priesthood of all believers there grew up a distinct priestly class.… The early leaders warned against falling from this idea, but soon a priestly class was developed and the priests began to do things for common Christians that, they were told, they could not do for themselves. This was not only a retrogression to Jewish days, but was also a compromise with paganism. If the ministers were to be priests they had to interpret the items of worship in such a way as to give themselves special functions and to justify their position.… Along with these developments was a general increase of ceremonialism. Simple services became ritualistic. (F. W. Mattox, The Eternal Kingdom [Delight, Ark.: Gospel Light Publishing House, 1961], 151)

Combining the practice of asceticism and the sharp cleavage between clergy and laity, this period finds little expression of dance in the church; and what can be found is in the ceremony and service of the priests. Hence, the rise of the Mass. The Mass is based on Christ’s passion. It is called Eucharist or Thanksgiving, since those celebrating give thanks for the bread and wine. The Mass continued to be arranged until it supported “an astonishing exuberance of minute detail, each tiny point related to a central truth of the religion” (Kirstein, Dance, 70).

The expression of one’s beliefs and feelings through movement is the very foundation of dance. Though the worship form of dance was removed from the people and repressed in the priesthood, the basic elements of dance found its expression in the Mass. It is the indirect contribution of the Mass with which we are occupied but even so, there were definite preordained movements and postures for the participants. However, we do not infer nor should we “easily assume that basilicas were sacred opera houses, or the Mass was a holy pantomime” (Ibid., 67). But dancing as a form of worship is not an isolated phenomenon or an ancient relic of our distant Hebraic ancestors. Therefore, we must understand the forms worship may take when it emerges as the dance.

  • Outside the walls of the church, people were still expressing religion in dance, although their belief was more a fear of death than faith in the living God that prompted Israel’s dance.
  • In no other epoch besides the late Middle Ages has the dance been more indicative of social phenomena. It reflected frightening aspects of the plague and the fear of death.
  • At Christian festivals people would suddenly begin to sing and dance in churchyards, disturbing divine service.
  • Hans Christian Anderson tells of little Karen who was cursed to dance without stopping and who could not find rest until the executioner cut off her feet. (Sorell, Dance through the Ages, 40, 42)

The church leaders tried to stamp out these obscene dances, which often began in the churchyard cemetery with people dancing around tombstones then moving through the town attracting more and more people as they went. This dance, also known as the dance macabre, reached a climax as the bubonic plague swept Europe in the fourteenth century. These dances of violent nature occurred everywhere. In Germany, they were called St. Vitus’ dance. In Italy, it was called tarantella and these dances indicated the tenor of life, particularly during the period of the plague (Ibid., 40).

The clergy maintained that the millennium would be the day of reckoning, Judgment Day. When the year 1000 passed without any visible changes, some of the fear subsided.

The Church remained powerful and the spirit of medievalism lingered on, even while man awakened to new inner freedom. From the crudeness of his carnal lust and mortal fear of it, he escaped into chivalry; checking his growing freedom, he forced himself into the straitjacket of ideal codes. (Sorell, Dance through the Ages, 39)

The fourteenth-century introduced more change for the world and the church with the beginning of the Renaissance, the great revival of art and learning in Europe in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. The world was revolting to set the soul and body free.

Above all, Renaissance man had a visual mind, as his accomplishments in printing, sculpture, and architecture prove. The eye became used to seeing in patterns. And it was a geometric design that inspired the first attempts at ballet. (Ibid., 90)

The Renaissance, emphasizing the dignity of the human person, laid the foundation for independence of thought which eventually broke the grip of Catholic theology. A revitalized interest in the study of the Scriptures caused people to be aware that the New Testament church was vastly different from the church in existence in Western Europe.

The religious and moral corruptions now could be effectively combated because of the intellectual freedom which had been encouraged by the Renaissance. Men began to see in the Scripture that the claims of the clergy were unfounded, and with a new intellectual basis for their criticism, ideas of opposition to the hierarchy spread rapidly. (F. W. Mattox, Eternal Kingdom, 240)

The sixteenth-century began the Reformation. Notable leaders sought to eliminate the unscriptural doctrines and practices of the Catholic church and, through reforms, return the church to New Testament patterns. One of the first reformers was Martin Luther (1483–1546). Along with emphasizing justification by faith, Luther stressed the priesthood of all believers. This was a preeminent step to releasing the people to express their worship unto God, which would eventually release all the Davidic expressions of praise, including dance.

John Calvin (1509–1564) was a leader of the Reformation in Switzerland who laid down principles that have influenced a large part of the Protestant world today.

The church of Luther experienced and preached the ideal of renunciation of the world more strongly than the Reformed church, which desires to proclaim the glory of God in all areas of life. The Reformed Churches do not view this world as a vale of tears but as the vineyard of the Lord, which is to be cultivated. They do not shun the world, but meet it, accepting the danger of becoming secularized in order to magnify God’s name within it and by its means. Thus in the last analysis, they subject nothing to a judgment of absolute condemnation. Everything must and can serve to the glorification of God, even art. We may recall the thought of the Neo-Calvinist Abraham Kuyper. Basically, the art of the dance should also be capable of being incorporated into the service of God. (Gerardus Van Der Leeuw, Religion in Essence and Manifestation [Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986], 51-52)

Writings on the Renaissance and Reformation periods are scattered with accounts of a revitalized interest in dance in the church. Giovanni Boelaccio of the fourteenth century mentioned the carole, a dance in a ring to singing voices, originally performed in May only, but whose popularity grew until the carole was sung and danced throughout the year.

Variations of the carole arose everywhere. The minnesingers in Germany called it Springtang and put into it a great many hops and small leaps.… The people identified the carole—today known only as a Christmas song—with religious images as they appear in many “Last Judgment” paintings of the early Renaissance which show angels in heaven enjoying a carole. (Sorell, Dance through the Ages, 41)

The varied artistic styles of the Renaissance reflect the concept of dancing in the heavens. The works of Leonardo da Vinci pictured the entire cosmic order as dancing. Dante, a famous writer, poet, moral philosopher, and political thinker of his day saw the dance of the saints in heaven.

When those bright suns so gloriously singing
Had circled three items ‘round about us turning,
Like stars which closely ‘round the pole go swinging,
They seemed like women who are not yet willing
To dance, but to the melody stand clinging
While the new rhythm mind and ear is filling. (Van Der Leeuw, Religion, 30)

The works of Vondel reveal the same visual imagery:

… for the guests so merry
At the wedding, must not rest,
Since their dance is necessary.
Heaven holds no ghost nor quest
Who with holy dance and singing
Does not spend eternity.… (Van Der Leeuw, Religion, 30)

Vondel also sees how the church dances with God:

As air through many organ pipes is guided
One spirit is to many tongues divided,
In equal time through a field of equal sound,
Where Church and God together dance the sound.
The angel hosts from heaven’s height descending
Dance deeply down, our sacrifice attending,
About Christ’s body on His altar-stone.… (Van Der Leeuw, Religion, 30)

Apparently, the prevailing philosophy embraced dancing in heaven. “To die on earth as a martyr brings heavenly joy.… In Fra Angelico’s The Last Judgment, the virgins and martyrs dance the heavenly dance” (Van Der Leeuw, Religion, 68). Luther, describing heaven’s garden for his young song, portrays “a small beautiful meadow, which was arrayed for a dance. There hung lutes, pipes, trumpets, and beautiful silver cymbals” (Van Der Leeuw, Religion, 68). Although the church may have somewhat embraced the concept of dancing in heaven, the practice of dancing on earth was, for the most part, shunned if not declared anathema.

No longer under the heavy restraints of the church, Renaissance society was, therefore, dancing. Two opposite poles of dance developed in Europe between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries: the peasants, or the populace at large, stood for the earthiness and crude joy, while the nobility replaced the primary impulses with refinement and polish. “The court dance was subjected more and more to rules. Contributing to this development was, no doubt, the reliance of the nobility on professional entertainers” (Sorrel, Dance through the Ages, 45).

Further refinements and more popularity came to dance because of Catherine de Medici, a daughter of a great house in Italy who came to France to marry Henry II. “She brought with her a company of musicians and dancers from her native city of Florence to supervise her artistic presentations, and highly impressive they were” (John Martin, The Book of Dance [New York: Tudor Publishing Company, 1963], 26). In 1581, with the expertise of Balthasar de Beaujoyeux (an Italian by birth though bearing a French name), Catherine de Medici produced what is considered the first ballet, Ballet Comigue de la Rein.

The populace was also dancing. Folk dances such as the egg dance, the country Thread-the-Needle, and ring-shaped or choral dances grew in popularity. Labyrinth dances signifying resurrection themes were popular in many parts of the world, sometimes even being incorporated into Christian holidays. At Easter, in the province of Twente, in Oatmarsum, the children danced or processed through the entire town in a serpentine motion singing a very old Easter song:

Hallelujah! The happy melody
Is now sung loud and prettily.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

This dance is sluip-door-kruip-door in Dutch, Magdeburger in German, forandole in French, and the cramignon of Limburg. These also had two other names, taken from Biblical antiquity and the classics: Jericho and labyrinth.

From the Reformation period until the present, the church has experienced many spiritual awakenings or revivals, including the restoration of many New Testament truths. The energies of the clergy, theologians, and even whole denominations has been to embrace and preserve the truths that were being revealed. If the loss of truth or the embrace of heresy propelled the church into the dark ages (which is the prevailing philosophy of church historians), then the converse is also true. Embracing truth is responsible for returning the church to her calling, commission, and glory. Scripture compares truth to walls and salvation (Isa. 26:11; 60:18; Ps. 51:18). The rebuilding of truth is analogous to the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem after captivity, defeat, and judgment (Ezra 9:9; Neh. 2:17; Isa. 26:1). In Israel of old, such restoration was the promised season of release, rejoicing, and dance (Jer. 31:1–13; Neh. 7:1; 12:27–30). Likewise, as the church has experienced reforming and rebuilding, rejoicing and dancing have accompanied each season of restoration. (Below you will find quotes from various revival periods and special religious sects that validate this view.)

A unique group called the Shakers was founded in England in 1747. The term Shaker came from the rapid up-and-down movement of their hands, mostly in their wrists. Shaking the hands with the palms turned upward as if to receive a blessing meant they were expressing the open petition, “Come, life Eternal.” Shaking of the hands with the palms turned downward to the floor was a symbolic motion that they were shaking out all that was carnal.

The Shakers believed that by keeping their inner and outer lives in perfect order they were reflecting the perfect order of God’s kingdom. The practicing Shaker was held accountable to his religion when he stepped out of bed, when he dressed, when he ate when he spoke, and when he worked. Worldly lusts were suppressed by rules: carnality was held at bay by a dress code that insured modesty, by a series of orders restricting the body’s movements and appetites, and by architectural designs that segregated the sexes. Unity was enforced by the requirements of obedience—the submission of the individual to the authority of God’s appointed leaders.

On Sundays the Shakers danced to the honor of God. Their worship—in vivid contrast to the restrained order of their weekday lives—was an exuberant spectacle that veered unpredictably through many hours of the day. Formal dances could at any time break off into spontaneous displays of whirling, weeping, and shaking. Scathing or uplifting sermons were delivered extemporaneously by the elders, or by individual worshipers who were suddenly seized by the power of God and compelled to speak. Throngs of spectators—“the world’s people”—packed the little meetinghouses to be entertained, shocked, or inspired. No one who witnessed Shaker worship, whether horrified or enraptured, ever forgot it.

The first ordered dance of the Shakers, the “Square Order Shuffle” was introduced by Joseph Meacham about 1785. In 1820 a variation was introduced, men and women shuffled forward and backward in a series of parallel lines, weaving, in imaginative designs, a fabric of union and love.

A 19th Century American engraving called “Shakers Dancing” can be seen at the Dance Collection, Performing Arts Research Center, The New York Public Library at Lincoln Center. (Amy Stechler Burns and Ken Burns, “The Shakers,” American History Illustrated [Summer 1988], 27)

During the early 1800s in the slave community, dance was an important part of their worship. A syncretism of African and conventional Western religious beliefs, the praise meeting in the quarters was unique in the United States. While whites might be carried away by religious frenzy at occasional “awakenings,” slaves had an even more intense emotional involvement with their God every week. In contrast to most white churches, a meeting in the quarters was the scene of perpetual motion and constant singing. Robert Anderson recalled that in meetings on his plantation there was much singing. He noted, “While singing these songs, the singers and the entire congregation kept time to the music by the swaying of their bodies, or by the patting of the foot or hand. Practically all of their songs were accompanied by a motion of some kind.” A black plantation preacher testified to the uniqueness of the religion in the quarters when he asserted: “The way in which we worshiped is almost indescribable. The singing was accompanied by a certain ecstasy of motion, clapping of hands, tossing of heads, which would continue without cessation about half an hour; one would lead off in a kind of recitative style, others joining in the chorus. The old house partook of the ecstasy; it rang with their jubilant shouts, and shook in all its joints (John W. Blassingame, The Slave Community [New York: Oxford, 1972]: 27). Two outstanding features of the slave community worship were the “ring shout” and the “juba.” H. G. Spaulding gave an excellent description of the “shout” on the Sea Islands in 1863:

After the praise meeting is over, there usually follows the very singular and impressive performance of the “Shout” or religious dance of the negroes. Three or four, standing still, clapping their hands and beating time with their feet, commence singing in unison one of the peculiar shout melodies, while the others walk round in a ring, in single file, joining also in the song. Soon those in the ring leave off their singing, the others keeping it up the while with increased vigor, and strike into the shout step, observing most accurate time with the music. This step is something halfway between a shuffle and a dance, as difficult for an uninitiated person to describe as to imitate. At the end of each stanza of the song the dancers stop short with a slight stamp on the last note, and then, putting the other foot forward, proceed through the next verse.… The shout is a simple outburst and manifestation of religious fervor—a “rejoicing in the Lord”—making a “joyful noise unto the God of their salvation.” (Blassingame, Slave Community, 65–66)

Accompanying their singing was the practice of the “patting juba.”

When slaves had no musical instruments they achieved a high degree of rhythmic complexity by clapping their hands. Solomon Northup, an accomplished slave musician, observed that in juba the clapping involved “striking the hands on the knees, then stroking the hands together, then stroking the right shoulder with one hand, the left with the other—all the while keeping time with the feet, and singing.… ” Often the rhythmic patterns used in juba were little short of amazing. After viewing a performance in Georgia in 1841, a traveler from Rhode Island observed that, while the slaves were patting juba, it was “really astonishing to witness the rapidity of their motions, their accurate time, and the precision of their music and dance.” (Ibid.)

The world was in a period of change. The Industrial Revolution followed the Reformation changing the character of life as people had known it. Likewise, the reformers continued to bring change to the church. The late 1800s produced a church concerned about holiness, some Christians even seeking a second work of grace called sanctification. Holiness evangelist, pastor, and church leader Ambrose Blackman Crumper, a licensed Methodist Episcopal preacher, was determined to establish the holiness message in his native state of North Carolina. “Everywhere he went, people shouted, danced before the Lord, and ‘fell under the Spirit’ when they received the second blessing.”

The Holiness movement spawned the great outpouring of the Holy Spirit at the turn of the century. Pentecostalism was born on Azusa Street, prompted in part by the Great Welsh Revival. Seekers of the baptism of the Holy Spirit would receive the gift of tongues. “Dancing in the spirit” was often a regular happening at their meetings. Dancing in the spirit is physical movement akin to dancing, presumably done while under the influence and control of the Holy Spirit. “Most older Pentecostal believers who have participated in spiritual revivals over a period of years have witnessed what is known as ‘dancing in the spirit’ ” (Stanley M. Burgess and Gary B. McGee, eds., Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988], 236). According to the Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, various phrases applied to the dance movements observed in the Pentecostal believers included: holy roller, orgiastic worship, physical agitation, physically demonstrated praises, orgasmic worship, noisy and expressive worship, holy jumpers, and others.

Dancing is a phenomenon closely tied to the fresh encounters with God found in the message of sanctification, baptism of the Holy Spirit, or healing revivals. One famous woman healing evangelist, Maria Woodworth-Etter, whose meetings journal has many accounts of people dancing, had this to say on the subject:

David danced with all his might before the Lord. The word is full of dancing. Where dancing in the Bible is mentioned, it always signified victory for the Lord’s hosts. It was always done to glorify God. The Lord placed the spirit of power and love of the dance in the Church, and wherever the Scripture speaks of dancing it implies that they danced in inspiration, and were moved by the Spirit, and the Lord was always pleased and smiled His approval, but the devil stole it away and made capital of it. In these last days, when God is pouring out His Spirit in great cloudbursts and tidal waves from the floodgates of Heaven, and the great river of life is flooding our spirit and body, and baptizing us with fire and resurrection life, and divine energy, the Lord is doing His acts, His strange acts, and dancing in the Spirit and speaking in other tongues, and many other operations and gifts. The Holy Ghost is confirming the last message of the coming King, with great signs and wonders, and miracles. If you read carefully what the Scripture says about dancing, you will be surprised and will see that singing, music, and dancing has a humble and holy place in the Lord’s Church.… All the great company was blessed but Michael, and she was stricken with barrenness till the day of her death, so you see she sinned in making light of the power of God in the holy dance (just as some do today), and attributed it to the flesh or the devil. They always lost out, and many are in darkness till death. (Maria Woodworth-Etter, A Diary of Signs and Wonders [Tulsa: Harrison House, 1981], 524-525)

The Pentecostal revival was not limited to the United States, but spread quickly to the European continent, bringing with it the Holy Spirit’s gifts, anointing, and also the dance. Between the two world wars, a revival of Christian drama won wide popularity, especially in Germany.

I shall never forget seeing one of these bands of German young people as they produced a thrilling version of the Totentanz (Dance of Death) before a Chinese student-group in Peking. Being chiefly a dance, with music but no words, it spoke an international language; and the intensity of the emotion among these oriental and largely non-Christian observers aroused by this European and thoroughly Christian play was surprising and extraordinary. (Richard H. Ritter, The Arts of the Church [Boston: The Pilgrim Press, 1947], 97-98)

From that time until the present day, dancing has been incorporated by many evangelistic groups. Currently, two outstanding examples are YWAM (Youth With A Mission), founded by Loren Cunningham, and Toymaker’s Dream by Impact Productions. The year 1948 hosted another outpouring of the Holy Spirit known as the Latter Rain Movement. With a strong emphasis on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, laying on of hands, and prophecy, this visitation, like earlier revivals, hosted manifestations of spiritual dancing. Rev. Charlotte Baker, a modern-day prophet and anointed teacher, comments on that outpouring in her book On Eagle’s Wings: “Dancing is not new to the Christian who is familiar with worship in the realm of Pentecostal churches. Since the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at the turn of the century, dancing in the Spirit has been a part of Pentecostal praise and worship.” However, a shift began to take place in the understanding of teachers such as Charlotte Baker. Although not doubting the validity of dancing while yielded to the Holy Spirit’s influence, she and others also believed dancing as a voluntary act is a true act of worship. She goes on to comment:

It must be noted, however, “dancing in the Spirit,” the term which has been so widely used throughout the years, is not found in God’s Word. Careful study of the Word reveals that the appropriate expression is dancing before the Lord. For example, David danced before the Lord with all his might at the time of the return of the Ark of the Covenant to Israel. “Dancing in the Spirit” suggests that the Holy Spirit takes hold of the Christian, causing him or her to enter into uncontrollable motions and contortions, all supposedly manifestations of the Spirit. “Dancing before the Lord” suggests the worshiper’s strength, training, and expertise as fully under the control of the dancer, who expresses worship and joy in actions and steps which bring pleasure to the heart of God. While it is true that the believer is admonished to “leap for joy,” it is also true that there are many Scriptures that indicate that intricate steps, marches, group dances, twirling, and twisting were part of the expression of the dance. There is a growing conviction among the people of God that He is most pleased when we offer to Him, as an act of worship, all of our ability whether it be in art, in the dance, or in any other creative expression with which the Lord has blessed us. Every activity of life is designed to become an act of worship. In the past five years, we have seen many gifted dancers come to Jesus for salvation and add to the Body of Christ a wonderful ability to express, in an excellent manner, their worship unto Him in dance. Just as there are those who have been given the ability to sing and to edify the Body through excellence in song, so are there those who have been given the ability to pour out to God a similar ministry through the dance. Room should be made within the worship structure of the Church for the full expression of each individual; such expression should always remain within the confines of the Word and under the leadership of the ministries. (Charlotte E. Baker, On Eagle’s Wings [Shippensburg, Pa.: Destiny Image Publishers, 1990], 101-102)

In the 1950s and 60s, a few churches pioneered new territory in choreographed dancing, pageants, dance troupes, and trained artists. Among these was The King’s Temple in Seattle, Washington, pastored by Rev. Charlotte Baker, a disciple of the late Reg. Layzell, and Living Waters Fellowship in Pasadena, California, pastored by Willard and Ione Glaeser.

By the early 1960s, the charismatic renewal movement was building momentum, sweeping people from every denomination into the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. An outstanding feature of the charismatic meetings was the importance placed on singing Psalms and other Scriptures. “The rise of singing psalms and Scripture songs, as well as the rebirth of dance in worship, in the charismatic movement is directly attributed to Old Testament examples” (Burgess and McGee, Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, 689). Exuberance and freshness marked the worship services: “As in the early days of the Pentecostal revival, it is not unusual to find charismatic worshipers singing, shouting, clapping hands, leaping and even dancing before the Lord as they offer him sincere praise and thanksgiving” (Burgess and McGee, Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, 693).

In 1978 God raised up four men—Rev. Larry Dempsey, Rev. Barry Griffing, Rev. Steve Griffing, and Rev. David Fisher—to begin a teaching worship conference called the International Worship Symposium. This worship seminar, along with one of its offshoots, and the International Feast of Tabernacles Celebration in Jerusalem have done much to encourage local assemblies to begin creative worship in the area of dance.

Dancing in churches currently ranges from simple folk style steps in which whole congregations participate, to traveling professional artists such as Ballet Magnificat. Liturgical dance, the name having been just recently coined to identify the style of dance, is becoming more common.

Practiced by liturgical artists, dance serves and functions as a conduit from the inner workings of the spirit to the outer expression of today’s worship.… dances for the liturgy change with the seasons: fall, winter, spring, and summer match advent, Christmas/Epiphany, Lent/Easter, and Pentecost. Becoming immersed in the cyclical process, a dancer discovers that he or she has become a student of religion. Dances are designed from personal reflections on the spirituality of the liturgical season. Scripture and prayer, mingled with the urgings of the dancer’s soul, and enriched by the experience of life, are shaped through the medium of dance. (Doug Adams and Diane Apostolos-Cappodona, eds., Dance as Religious Studies [New York: Crossroad, 1990], 153-154)

It appears that there is an inescapable link with restoration and rejoicing, with rebuilding and responding—“going forth in the dances of them that make merry” (Jer. 31:4). Indeed “to everything, there is a season.” The season of weeping over our spiritual captivity has come to an end, for He has “turned our mourning into dancing.”

Historical Perspectives on the Reformed View of the Arts in Worship

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Of all the theologians and church leaders who are cited as being opposed to the use of visual arts in worship, Protestant Reformer John Calvin is perhaps the most famous. The following article describes the cultural context in which Calvin worked and the specific nature of his views on the visual arts in worship, suggesting that Calvin was more concerned with confronting idolatry than with opposing the visual arts in worship.

Liturgy is a muscular word, an image derived in part from its intrinsic visual quality. The worshiping community gathers around the Table, pulpit, and baptismal font. Water is sprinkled; bread is broken and wine poured; hands are folded and knees are bent; collection plates are passed. Because of the visual nature of liturgy, the church from its very beginning perceived the opportunity to teach and edify itself by producing works of art that would enrich these various aspects of its liturgy. More importantly, there was little distinction, if any at all, between art for life and art for worship, as the church understood that the spiritual was discerned through the material.

But during the sixteenth century, distrust of symbols began to take root in the European church. The Protesters rejected many forms of liturgical art. Leaders of the Reformed tradition, in rethinking the role and use of symbols and iconography, forged so strong an understanding of the arts that it is reflected in almost every Reformed church building to this day. In one of the most astonishing transitions in the history of the church, the church reversed its role from artistic proponent to artistic opponent, all in a time span of less than a generation. John Calvin was one leader responsible for this fundamental shift.

Calvin in Context

In the sixteenth century, Christian belief emphasized God’s immanence. God was believed to be always close to earth working miracles and protecting Christians through venerated relics. The great domes of the basilicas were held in place by large, over-proportioned columns, not because the domes required such heavy pillars to support them, but because the dome, representing the orb of the universe, was being tied down close to the earth and the church. Europe pulsated with expectations of the miraculous. Medieval Catholicism held that the actual body and blood of Christ could be found in the consecrated host. The practice of obtaining and housing icons and relics became big business, for the power of God was thought to be in and around the pieces of bone, wood, canvas, or fabric.

This is the world into which John Calvin was born and a world he would, in turn, shape and change. In particular, Calvin redefined the understanding of God’s presence in the world. For Calvin and the other Reformers, the medieval church limited access to God’s grace to ways that were too one-sidedly “visual” in their orientation. The Reformers, instead, asserted a transcendent understanding of the presence of God. In this awareness, God ruled from Heaven, though his power permeated the world. The centerpiece of Calvin’s theology is not so much humankind grasping for concepts of God, but a gracious God revealing himself to humankind. As such, basing his reasoning in part on John 4:24 and the second commandment, Calvin asserted that true worship of God does not happen through the aid of worldly trappings, but only through the Spirit of God.

The second matter that characterized the world of the sixteenth century was the rise of humanism. The rise of biblical scholarship urged a re-emphasis on the Bible as the standard for worship instead of tradition. The printing press aided literacy and learning. Rhetoric led to the exaltation of the spoken word, encouraging a revival in preaching. For the learned Reformed leaders, these verbal, scholastic expressions came to be invested with greater authority and value in worship than its visual aspects (Philip W. Butin, “Constructive Iconoclasm: Trinitarian Concern in Reformed Worship,” Studia Liturgica 9:2 [1989]: 133-139).

At the root of this theological paradigm shift was a revived interest in Neoplatonism. This phenomenon was an expression of the Renaissance at the time of the Reformation. In the manner of Neoplatonism, Lefèvre, Calvin, and other Reformers seem to have favored the spiritual over the material as a more vital contribution to Reformed worship.

Yet, the Reformed are not primarily antimaterial or antiaesthetic. Rather, as Carlos Eire points out in his recent and thorough treatise on the subject, Reformed iconoclasm was primarily an attempt to avoid all idolatry (Carlos M. N. Eire, War Against the Idols [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986]). Reformed aesthetics, therefore, stems from a broad, theologically motivated concern to avoid all forms of idolatry in worship. Admittedly, it was formed largely as a reactionary defense, in response to various criticisms of perceived liturgical abuses. Calvin argues for simple, direct (i.e., nonvisual) communication with the Deity.

Calvin’s Biblical Understanding of Aesthetics

As Calvin forged his aesthetic theology, he was prone to reference two key Scripture texts. First, Calvin’s theology emphasized the role of the law, as summarized in the Decalogue. In particular, the first and second commandments were persuasive in warranting the expulsion of anything considered idolatrous. A second text, John 4:24, was also prominent. In John 4:24, Jesus, as exegeted by the Reformers, was calling for true worship is worship “in spirit and in truth.” A Reformed liturgic—shaped by the writings of Zwingli, Bucer, and Calvin—is influenced by these two texts. These texts are the basis of the ongoing Reformed concern to avoid idolatry, while also contributing to an essentially positive thrust that promoted the idea of “true worship.” This may be illustrated through a discussion of John Calvin’s development of what constitutes “true worship” and a right understanding of Reformed aesthetics.

Although Calvin never explicitly writes about aesthetic theory per se, his approach can be discerned from his writing on liturgical art and icons, particularly from his various warnings about worshiping relics (John Calvin, An Admonition, Showing the Advantages Which Christendom Might Derive From an Inventory of Relics, in Selected Works of John Calvin: Tracts and Letters, vol. 1, ed. Henry Beveridge and Jules Bonnet [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983]). In addition, some of his commentaries and sermons provide us with his thought about beauty and the arts.

To understand Calvin’s view of aesthetics, it is necessary to pull together his reflections upon the nature of art and the nature of worship; it is these two areas that Calvin does explicitly address, often in tandem. Understanding Calvin’s view of aesthetics grows out of studying Calvin’s theological reflection upon nature, human nature, and the function of art.

Art is dependent upon beauty, says Calvin, and beauty comes only from God. In fact, Calvin often interchanges the words art and beauty. Beauty, as expressed through the arts, is related to God and his existence as Creator. Calvin believes that God’s beauty is transcendent but that it can be perceived in the created physical world and in the moral order. In describing God as the author of physical and moral creation, Calvin clarifies how God is able to be known as the Trinity. God, the Father, created the heavens and earth; he is the consummate artist since he formed the world and everything in it. These creative acts of God, the paradigm artist, are exhaustive and complete (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 1:5 [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959], 59). Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, came to earth and exhibited a perfect spiritual beauty. His spiritual presence, self-sacrifice, and love exemplify the lovely. The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, exhibits moral beauty, placing in the hearts of people such virtues as love, justice, goodness, wisdom, and compassion.

In addition to seeing God’s beauty as revealed by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Calvin also believes that humankind, in both the physical and spiritual sense, is beautiful. We are the chief creatures of God’s creation. We are made in God’s image: awesome, mysterious, complex, and beautiful. These attributes are vestiges of the imago dei (the image of God) and testify to heavenly grace, even though they are sullied by sin.

True Worship and Aesthetics

Calvin’s understanding of art had implications for the use of art in worship. His view of liturgical art involves an understanding of the worshipers and the effect of beauty upon them. Visual imagery was thought to be too powerful a force, especially in the relic-packed Catholic churches of Calvin’s time, to be used successfully in worship. As beholders of art are sinful and have a natural inclination toward idolatry, the majesty of God was to be guarded against any idolatrous confusion with images used to worship or represent him, the very issue addressed so directly in the second commandment. Thus, in order to resist the temptation to idolize and worship the works of creatures rather than the creator, Calvin railed against the use of many art forms in worship (Calvin, Inventory, 290).

Calvin was more interested in worshiping in “spirit and in truth” (John 4:24); that is, worshiping the Creator directly without relying on the works of his creatures. To this end, Calvin’s worship environments were purged. Altars were removed and plain tables were brought in. The pulpit—representing the preaching of the Word—took central place; the centrality of the Word was represented architecturally by placing the pulpit in the middle of the chancel. Baptismal fonts were brought to the front of the sanctuary, forming a triangle with a pulpit and table. Organ cases were closed (at least during the worship service proper) and relics and icons were removed. All these actions brought the central acts of worship before the congregation in a clear, simplified way (James White, Protestant Worship: Traditions in Transition [Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989], 65-66). The result was a re-formed Reformed worship service that simplified the visual and accentuated the verbal.

Later Calvinist Manifestations

Later expressions of Calvinism continued to glean the implications of its original concern to avoid idolatry in worship. The Puritans, for one example, were heavily influenced by the Calvinistic aesthetic. More recently, Dutch Calvinist thinkers such as Abraham Kuyper and Herman Dooyeweerd sought to refocus the problem of idolatry by warning against the idolatrous potential of misdirected worldviews. Another Dutchman, Gerardus van der Leeuw, though he takes Calvinism down a different path, nevertheless expresses again the role of Christ as the unique expression of God, who alone is worthy of ultimate loyalty. Karl Barth focused the problem of idolatry on idols of culture, race, and state. Reformed churches, in short, following the model cast by John Calvin, have always intentionally attempted to counteract anything that would replace Christ as the central focus of the church or worship. This can especially be seen in recent attempts to counteract nationalism, militarism, racism, and sexism.

Yet it cannot be denied that the Reformed concern to avoid all forms of idolatry has come with a cost: a cost many perceive to be the loss of imaginative and artistic expressions in worship. In a grand irony, many see the perceived lack of creativity to be unrepresentative of the Creator God—the God so many Calvinists are attempting to worship in a non-idolatrous way. And, though confessionally Trinitarian, many see Reformed worship as predominantly the worship of God the Father, with little emphasis on God as revealed in Jesus Christ or as revealed in the mysterious nature of the Spirit.

Fortunately, this understanding of Calvinism and the practice of it are changing. The ecumenically oriented liturgical movement has facilitated an openness to new expressions from the broader streams of Christian worship, albeit sometimes slavishly uncritical and eclectic in its borrowing.

Calvin’s concerns remain valid for today. Reformed worshipers agree that they must not, in the rampant liturgical renewal, confuse an image with its reality, or a symbol with the reality symbolized. A distinction must be maintained, the Reformed insist, between symbol and adornment. Symbol is necessary; adornment should be used judiciously, if at all. We must not develop an autonomous taste for the sensuous or romantic. Nor can we delight only in the forms we have produced, unable or unwilling to discern the enabling grace of God in and through the forms. Likewise, the iconoclastic urge must continually be tempered so that the connection between the mystery of God and the beauty in creation and in our creativity is maintained.

Thus, the chief contribution of the Reformed tradition is to insist that all imagination and art is a servant to the word of God. The Reformed liturgist is one who asks, “How can every action, color, banner, anthem, sermon point away from itself to God?” And the Reformed Christian is one who sings with the English hymn writer William Cowper, “ … the dearest idol I have known, whatever that idol be, help me to tear it from thy throne and worship only thee.”

Historical and Theological Perspectives on Musical Instruments in Worship

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The use of instruments in worship has engendered great controversy throughout the history of the church. The following article describes the most important issues at stake in these controversies, highlighting important principles that can guide our use of instruments in worship today.

The Psalms contain numerous statements urging God’s people to praise him with instruments. The classic passage of this sort is the catalogue of instruments contained in Psalm 150.

Praise him with trumpet sound;
Praise him with lute and harp!
Praise him with timbrel and dance;
Praise him with strings and pipe!
Praise him with sounding cymbals;
Praise him with loud clashing cymbals!

A person knowing this and similar passages from the Psalms but not knowing anything of the history of the church would not be surprised by what he or she observed at most worship services in Western churches today. Whether Catholic or Protestant, just about any service this visitor wandered into would include the use of musical instruments. At a minimum, he or she would hear an organ or a piano or a guitar accompanying singing. But it would not be unusual to encounter churches where large ensembles not only accompany singing but also play alone before or after or during any number of other liturgical acts. Knowing the Psalms but not church history, this visitor would likely assume that the congregation being observed was simply following a mandate given in its sacred book, doing a normal Christian act of worship.

But, of course, there is a long history between the Psalms and the church today, and through most of that history, the church has been very reticent about using instruments in worship. From the New Testament through the patristic era, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance, the use of instruments in Christian worship was highly exceptional. And even after instruments found their way into worship on a more regular basis after 1600, there continued to be questions about their proper use, and always there continued to be a few voices calling for their exclusion. Even today, despite the increasingly warm welcome instruments, have received in many churches, there are still a few bodies of Christians who worship without them and others that do not go much beyond instrumental introductions to and accompaniments of congregational singing. Donald Hustad summarizes the situation as follows:

Eastern Orthodox worship for the most part continues to use only vocal music. In the Western church as well, the use of instruments has been opposed from time to time, both before and since the 16th century Reformation. Until recently, a fairly large number of evangelical groups in America (e.g., the Free Methodist Church, primitive Baptists, old Mennonites, and certain Presbyterian bodies) perpetuated the “no instrument” practice, but the antagonism is waning. At the present time, the prohibition is most conspicuously continued and defended by certain Churches of Christ, whose leaders argue that they must adhere strictly to what the New Testament authorizes. (Jubilate! Church Music in the Evangelical Tradition [Carol Stream, Ill.: Hope Publishing, 1981, 42])

Obviously, the matter is not a simple one of literally following the injunctions of the Psalms. Just as obviously, there is no universal agreement among Christians as to how, or even whether, musical instruments are appropriate in worship.

The history of the church’s various and varying attitudes towards musical instruments in worship is long and complex. But the big picture is clear. Our current situation in which there is a widespread and often unquestioning acceptance of instruments in worship is “a minority position in the church’s whole history” (Paul Westermeyer, “Instruments in Christian Worship,” Reformed Liturgy and Music 25:3 [Summer 1991]: 111). The majority position over the whole history of the church can be summed up in the words of Rev. Joseph Gelineau: “vocal praise is essential to Christian worship. Instruments are only accessory” (Joseph Gelineau, Voices and Instruments in Christian Worship: Principles, Laws, and Applications, trans. Clifford Howell, S.J. [Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1964], 155).

I cannot trace here the long and complex history of musical instruments in Christian worship. Rather, I will focus on two instances in the church’s history when instruments were not used at all. Though I am not advocating a return to that extreme position (nor, on the other hand, objecting to any who would), I think the extreme position presents the clearest view of certain principles that should be in effect when we admit instruments into our worship. The two instances I am referring to are the patristic era and the Calvinist Reformation. But before turning our attention to these, we need to look briefly at Jewish worship before and at the time of Christ to see what light it might shed on the Psalm references to instruments. For that same purpose, we will also look briefly at what the New Testament says about instruments.

Little is known about the origin and early history of the Psalms. Tradition long ascribed the Psalms to David. But although it is likely that some go back to him, it is impossible to determine with certainty which are of his making. During the centuries following David, and probably under his influence, psalms continued to be composed, edited and compiled until by the third century before Christ the 150 Psalms stood together as a canonical Jewish hymnbook.

If the early history of the Psalms is obscure to our view, so is their function. Were they composed originally for liturgical purposes and were the instruments mentioned involved in the liturgy? Scholarly opinion is divided. Most scholars agree, however, that whatever their original functions might have been, the Psalms, in the process of being collected and compiled, were adapted for liturgical purposes—in particular, for singing at the sacrificial rites carried out in the temple.

There is scanty information about how the Psalms were used in temple worship. The few references in the Old Testament historical and prophetic books do not go very far towards giving us ideas about what music in temple worship was like. But we can be fairly certain that, at least for the second temple, the singing of Psalms at the sacrifices was quite an elaborate affair, performed by the Levites, that is, by highly trained singers and instrumentalists.

We have a somewhat clearer picture of temple worship around the time of Jesus owing to some fairly detailed description found in the Mishnah, a redaction of the Talmud from about the year 200 A.D. Every day of the year there was a solemn sacrifice in the morning and another in the afternoon. On Sabbaths and feast days there were additional sacrifices. With regard to instruments, we learn from the Mishnah that services began with the priests blowing three blasts on silver trumpets. Later in the ritual, trumpets again gave signals as did clashing cymbals, and the singing of psalms was accompanied by stringed instruments, the nevel and the kinnor. (See James McKinnon, “The Question of Psalmody in the Ancient Synagogue,” Early Music History 6 (1986): 162–163.)

It is significant that stringed instruments accompanied the singing. These were softer instruments that could support the singing without covering the words. This is an indication of the logocentric nature of Jewish temple music, a characteristic that set it apart from the music of the sacrificial rites of the Israelites’ pagan neighbors. Pagan sacrificial music typically featured the frenzy-inducing sound of the loud, double-reed instruments and the rhythms of orgiastic dancing. Words were superfluous. Temple music differed radically in each of these characteristics of pagan music. Words were primary and governed the musical rhythms. Instrumental accompaniment was by stringed instruments that supported the monophonic vocal line, perhaps with some heterophonic embellishments, but never covering or distracting attention away from the words. Instruments were used independently only for signaling purposes. Trumpets and cymbals signaled the beginning of the psalm and the places at the end of sections where the worshipers should prostrate themselves.

Music in Jewish synagogues was very different from that in the temple. The gatherings in the synagogues were not for sacrifice and did not require the priestly and Levitical classes. Their music, therefore, was not part of elaborate liturgical ceremony and was not in the hands of specially trained musicians like the Levites. It must have been simple and it definitely did not make use of musical instruments. Like temple psalmody, it was logocentric, but unlike temple psalmody, it did not make use of any instruments, not even those that could support singing without obscuring it.

Interpretations that read Psalm references to musical instruments as referring to Jewish worship practices receive little support from what we know of Jewish temple and synagogue worship. Furthermore, they receive little support from the New Testament. References to instruments in the New Testament are few and can easily be summarized. They are mentioned “in connection with pagan customs (Matt. 9:23; 11:17; Luke 7:32; Apoc. 18:22), or explanatory comparisons (1 Cor. 14:7–8; Matt. 6:2; 1 Cor. 13:1; Apoc. 14:2), [or] in an apocalyptic context where they have a symbolic value.… ” (Gelineau, Voices, 150). There is no evidence that the earliest Christians adopted a different attitude toward instruments in worship. They certainly did not read the Psalms as giving directives to use instruments in worship.

The indifference of the New Testament toward musical instruments does not, however, extend to song. Song, one can say, frames the New Testament. The birth of Jesus brought about an outburst of four songs recorded in the first two chapters of Luke. The second outburst occurs in Revelation when the song to the Lamb is picked up by ever-widening circles until the whole cosmos has joined (Rev. 4). In between Luke and Revelation, the New Testament says little about music. What it does say, however, unquestionably has a positive ring, as in the following familiar passages:

  • Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as you teach and admonish one another in all wisdom, and as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Col. 3:16)
  • Is any one among you suffering? Let him pray. Is any cheerful? Let him sing praise. (James 5:13)

But it is song, not “pure” music, that the New Testament speaks of so warmly. From its inception, the church, like its Jewish forebears, eschewed music separated from word. Without word, music is too vague, too mystifying. As P. Lasserre put it: Music expresses the sentiments but is not capable of defining them, and without the commentary of words, which are absent from instrumental music, the hearer always remains somewhat vague about the nature of the object of the sentiment by which the musician is inspired. (Quoted in Gelineau, Voices, 148)

For that reason, Christian musical thought has always insisted on the importance of logos for keeping music from drifting into vague and undefined spiritual territory. As Fr. Gelineau has put it, only singing, “because of its connection to the revealed word,” combines “explicit confession of faith in Christ with musical expression” (“Music and Singing in the Liturgy,” in The Study of Liturgy, ed. Cheslyn Jones, et al. [New York: Oxford University Press, 1978], 443). Word, he says elsewhere, “demystifies by naming.” Gelineau adds that “when word intervenes … the object of the lament is designated; the praise names its intended recipient” (“Path of Music,” Music and the Experience of God, ed. Mary Collins, et al. [Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, Ltd., 1989], 137-138). Christian musical thought has always been at odds with the Romantic notion of a “pure” music “which is all the purer the less it is dragged down into the region of vulgar meaning by words (which are always laden with connotations)” (Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 1801; from Dahlhaus, Esthetics of Music, trans. William Austin [New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982],27).

Against this background, the negative attitude of the early church toward musical instruments makes sense. In fact, as James McKinnon pointed out, the non-use of instruments in early Christian worship was not because instruments were banished. Rather, because they were irrelevant to the logocentric musical thought and practice the Christians inherited from the Jews, they simply did not enter the picture (see “The Meaning of the Patristic Polemic Against Musical Instruments,” Current Musicology 1(1965): 78).

Logocentric music need not, of course, totally exclude instruments. Instruments that could support singing were used in the temple and most contemporary Christians would likely attest from experience that instruments can indeed lend support to singing without obscuring or engulfing the words. But that danger and others connected with the use of instruments are always lurking, so throughout much of the church’s history leaders have thought the dangers outweighed the potential benefits.

The fathers of the first centuries of the Christian era and John Calvin in the sixteenth century are perhaps the best known of those who decided not to risk the dangers. So they rejected all use of instruments in worship. Involved in both rejections was the principle just discussed: Christian music, like its Jewish ancestor, is logocentric. One indication of how thoroughly logocentric was the early church fathers’ thought on music is their vocabulary. McKinnon points out that they rarely used the term music; instead, their normal terms were psalms and hymns (“Patristic Polemic,” 79).

Central to both the fathers’ and Calvin’s logocentric ideas on music, and hence to their rejection of instruments, was the importance they placed on understanding in worship. The apostle Paul stated the principle simply and directly: “I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the mind also” (1 Cor. 14:15). So, following Paul, St. Basil urged worshipers, “While your tongue sings, let your mind search out the meaning of the words, so that you might sing in spirit and sing also in understanding” (McKinnon, Music in the Early Christian Literature [New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987], 66). Centuries later Calvin was particularly explicit in relating the need for understanding in worship to Paul’s instructions to the Corinthian Christians.

For our Lord did not institute the order which we must observe when we gather together in His name merely that the world might be amused by seeing and looking upon it, but wished rather that therefrom should come profit to all His people. Thus witnesseth Saint Paul, commanding that all which is done in the church be directed unto the common edifying of all … For to say that we can have devotion, either at prayers or at ceremonies, without understanding anything of them, is a great mockery.… And indeed, if one could be edified by things which one sees without knowing what they mean, Saint Paul would not so rigorously forbid speaking in an unknown tongue. … (Foreword to the Geneva Psalter, in Source Readings in Music History, trans. Oliver Strunk [New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1950], 345-346)

In his commentary on Psalm 33, Calvin connected instrumental music and speaking in tongues: The name of God, no doubt, can, properly speaking, be celebrated only by the articulate voice; but it is not without reason that David adds to this those aids by which believers were wont to stimulate themselves the more to this exercise; especially considering that he was speaking to God’s ancient people. There is a distinction, however, to be observed here, that we may not indiscriminately consider as applicable to ourselves, everything which was formerly enjoined upon the Jews. I have no doubt that playing upon cymbals, touching the harp and the viol, and all that kind of music, which is so frequently mentioned in the Psalms, was a part of the education; that is to say, the puerile instruction of the law.… For even now, if believers choose to cheer themselves with musical instruments, they should, I think, make it their object not to dissever their cheerfulness from the praises of God. But when they frequent their sacred assemblies, musical instruments in celebrating the praises of God would be no more suitable than the burning of incense, the lighting up of lamps, and the restoration of the other shadows of the law.… Men who are fond of outward pomp may delight in that noise, but the simplicity which God recommends to us by the apostle is far more pleasing to him. Paul allows us to bless God in the public assembly of the saints only in a known tongue. (Commentary on the Book of Psalms, vol. 1, trans. James Anderson [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948], 538-539)

Calvin’s implication is clear: instruments speak in an unknown tongue.

Moreover, in this passage, in addition to expressing the ideal of logocentric music, Calvin gave an explanation of why God allowed instruments to his Old Testament people: it was a concession to their spiritual immaturity; it was “puerile instruction” that, after the coming of Christ, became as unnecessary as the other “shadows of the law.” Calvin’s thought here is precisely in line with that of the church fathers. St. John Chrysostom put it as follows: … in ancient times, they were thus led by these instruments due to the slowness of their understanding and were gradually drawn away from idolatry. Accordingly, just as he allowed sacrifices, so too did he permit instruments, making concessions to their weakness. (McKinnon, Music, 83)

The primacy of understanding through words, then, was fundamental in causing the early church to continue to practice a logocentric music like that which it inherited from its Jewish forebears; it was also fundamental to Calvin’s rejection of instruments in worship. But for both there was another reason almost as powerful. It is incapsulated in the phrase una voces dicentes, “singing with one voice.”

In his letter to the Romans, Paul wrote, “May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Jesus Christ, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (15:5–6). Although “with one mouth” does not here refer exclusively to singing, there can be no doubt that it articulated a principle that the early church took very seriously for its singing. The importance of singing “with one voice” is a frequent refrain among the early Christian writers. Listen to some of its variations over the first few centuries of the Christian era.

Let us consider the entire multitude of his angels, how standing by you they minister to his will. For the Scripture says: “Ten thousand times ten thousand stood by him and a thousand times a thousand ministered to him and cried out, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Sabaoth, the whole creation is full of his glory” (Isa. 6:3). Let us, therefore, gathered together in concord by conscience, cry out earnestly to him as if with one voice, so that we might come to share in his great and glorious promises. (Clement of Rome; trans. McKinnon, Music, 18)

And so more sweetly pleasing to God than any musical instrument would be the symphony of the people of God, by which, in every church of God, with kindred spirit and single disposition, with one mind and unanimity of faith and piety, we raise melody in unison in our psalmody. (Eusebius of Caesarea; trans. McKinnon, Music, 98)

[A psalm is] a pledge of peace and harmony, which produces one song from various and sundry voices in the manner of a cithara.… A psalm joins those with differences, unites those at odds, and reconciles those who have been offended, for who will not concede to him with whom one sings to God in one voice? It is after all a great bond of unity for the full number of people to join in one chorus. (Ambrose; trans. McKinnon, Music, 126–127)

Unity was an important matter to the early Christians and almost from the beginning, as these quotations show, singing “with one voice” became an expression of, a metaphor of, and even a means toward unity.

Calvin’s return to unison, unaccompanied, congregational singing was also spurred in part by his recognition of singing as an expression of the communal dimension of worship.

Moreover, since the glory of God ought, in a measure, to shine in the several parts of our bodies, it is especially fitting that the tongue has been assigned and destined for this task, both through singing and through speaking. For it was peculiarly created to tell and proclaim the praise of God. But the chief use of the tongue is in public prayers, which are offered in the assembly of believers, by which it comes about that with one common voice, and as it were, with the same mouth, we all glorify God together, worshiping him with one spirit and the same faith. (Institutes [III, xx, 31], 894-895)

The twin concerns for keeping the church’s music anchored in the Word (and hence in words) and for maintaining a liturgical activity that “touches on the essential mystery of the church as koinonia” (Gelineau, “Music,” 441) are the primary roots of the early church’s and Calvin’s avoidance of instruments. For the early church fathers, there was a third concern, a concern that had to do with association or context.

James McKinnon began his article on the church fathers’ attitude towards musical instruments with this striking observation: “The antagonism which the Fathers of the early church displayed toward instruments has two outstanding characteristics: vehemence and uniformity” (McKinnon, “Meaning,” 69). One need not read far to notice the vehemence, and no matter how far one reads, he will not encounter a significantly different view on the subject. It is hard to understand this vehemence and uniformity simply on the basis of the two concerns we have already discussed. After all, Calvin held those concerns as strongly as the early fathers did, but he does not display their vehemence. He objected to instruments in communal worship but his objection did not go beyond that. In his commentary on Psalm 33, he merely remarked that “if believers choose to cheer themselves with musical instruments, they should, I think, make it their object not to dissever their cheerfulness from the praises of God.” That is a long way removed, for example, from the fourth-century Alexandrian canon, which legislated: “When a reader learns to play the cithara, he shall be taught to confess it. If he does not return to it, he will endure his punishment for seven weeks. If he persists in it, he must be discharged and excluded from the church” (McKinnon, Music, 120).

Such legislation is likely to strike us as unimaginably harsh. Perhaps it was. But as one reads the fathers more broadly and begins to understand something of the context within which they wrote, their vehement and uniform denunciations of musical instruments become more understandable. The early church, we must remember, had music that was sufficient for its needs and for which instruments were superfluous. We must also remember that she found herself surrounded by a decadent pagan culture and, after Constantine, filled with people only recently turned from that culture. The music in that culture made prominent use of instruments, both in the sacrificial rites of pagan religions and in many morally degenerate activities common in the late Roman Empire. Invariably it is with specific reference to the religious or social context that the church fathers made their denunciations of musical instruments. Specifically, the church fathers’ statements about musical instruments come in the context of pagan cultic practices, the theater (often closely related to the cultic practices), pagan banquets, weddings, or, more generally, drunken carousing and sexual immorality. The following quotations are typical:

  • You will not honor these things, but rather despise them … and those castrations which the Phrygians perform, bewitched at first by the aulos.… (Gregory of Nazianzus; trans. McKinnon, Music, 71)
  • As the tragic actor loudly declaims, will one reflect upon the exclamations of a prophet, and as the effeminate tibicinist plays, will one call to mind a psalm? … (Tertullian; trans. McKinnon, Music, 44)
  • The irregular movements of auloi, psalteries, choruses, dances, Egyptian clappers, and other such playthings become altogether indecent and uncouth, especially when joined by beating cymbals and tympana and accompanied by the noisy instruments of deception. Such a symposium, it seems to me, becomes nothing but a theatre of drunkenness. (Clement of Alexandria; trans. McKinnon, Music, 32)
  • It is not the marriage of which I speak—one would hope not—but what accompanies it. Nature indulges in Bacchic frenzy then, those present become brutes rather than men; they neigh like horses and kick like asses. There is much dissipation, much dissolution, but nothing earnest, nothing high-minded; there is much pomp of the devil here—cymbals, auloi, and songs full of fornication and adultery. (John Chrysostom; McKinnon, Music, 85)
  • Therefore not without justification [does Isaiah say] woe unto them who require the drink of intoxication in the morning, who ought to render praise to God, to rise before dawn and meet in prayer the sun of justice, who visits his own and rises before us, if we rise for Christ rather than for wine and strong drink. Hymns are sung, and you grasp the cithara? Psalms are sung, and you take up the psaltery and tympanum? Woe indeed, because you disregard salvation and choose death. (Ambrose; McKinnon, Music, 128–129)

Similar quotations could be multiplied several times over. What they all point to are religiously repugnant and morally degenerate activities in which instruments were an inextricable part. The early Christians hardly knew any other use of instruments than in the music associated with objectionable pagan religious and social activities. Such close identification of instrument, music, and activity is what made the church fathers so uniformly and vehemently opposed to instruments, not only in worship but in all of Christian life.

Two principles—the primacy of words and the importance of community—led the early church Fathers and John Calvin to renounce the use of musical instruments in worship. A third principle—the need to keep free from inappropriate associations—reinforced the fathers’ position. Although conditions change from time to time and from place to place, the three principles that undergirded the fathers’ and Calvin’s renunciation of instruments in worship are relevant at all times and places. But none of the principles, nor all taken together, necessarily leads to a total renunciation of instruments in worship.

The principle of avoiding unwanted associations is, of course, the one whose application is going to be the most fluid. Suffice it to say here that in late twentieth-century Western culture the church should be wary of instruments, or at least the styles of playing them, that are inextricably involved in popular culture. The moral degeneracy of so much in that culture should make Christians today as wary as the church fathers were in the late Roman Empire.

With regard to the principle of “with one voice,” it should be obvious that the principle is most clearly practiced in unison singing and that it becomes successively less clear as part-singing, traditional instruments, and finally, electronic instruments are introduced.

From the moment human beings started to “train” their voices … there was the potential for driving a wedge between the song of the trained singer and the song of the rest of humanity. That potential took a large leap when instruments were introduced because now sounds were made by mechanisms different from that of the voice. The potential took a quantum leap, however, with the advent of electricity. Instruments severed sounds from the voice, but they still were forced to restrict themselves to acoustic boundaries. Amplification by electricity took away the acoustic boundaries and created sounds even further removed from the voice. (Westermeyer, “Instruments in Worship,” 114)

To this, I would add that the use of prerecorded music totally violates this principle. It is not the voice of any one of the gathered worshipers.

Finally, even the primacy of words need not necessarily negate the use of instruments. Although they can easily become distractions and overwhelm or obliterate words, if care is exercised, instruments can support and enhance singing in many ways. But even if this is granted, the question remains whether this principle negates the use of purely instrumental music. Again, not necessarily. Even the early church left an opening for wordless music. St. Augustine gave the classic description of the jubilus, the outpouring of joy beyond words.

One who jubilates (iubilat) does not speak words, but it is rather a sort of sound of joy without words since it is the voice of a soul poured out in joy and expressing, as best it can, the feeling, though not grasping the sense. A man delighting in his joy, from some words which cannot be spoken or understood, bursts forth in a certain voice of exultation without words, so that it seems he does indeed rejoice with his own voice, but as if, because filled with too much joy, he cannot explain in words what it is in which he delights. (Trans. McKinnon, Music, 361)

However, Augustine does add that proper jubilation ought to be “in justification” and “in confession,” which I take to mean in a specific context. In any case, it is worth noting that the closest music came to being wordless in the medieval liturgy was in the highly melismatic chants like the Graduals and Alleluias and even more so in the organa of Leonin and Perotin. But this music always had as its context the words of the liturgy. In fact, its context was not just words but the Word; it was always sung in the context of the Scripture lessons. If, as Augustine and medieval practice require, wordless music is kept in touch with words and the Word, instrumental music can have a place in Christian worship. But it must never be allowed to suggest that its beauty has some kind of spiritual efficacy. The ease with which Romantic thought about “pure” music slipped into a religion of music should serve to warn us about music’s seductive power. We must remember, as Fr. Gelineau’s memorable formulation puts it, that its beauty, indeed any perceptible beauty, “can be a sign of grace, but never the source of grace” (Voices, 26).

Music of the Reformation

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The reforms in music which attended the reform of worship in the Reformation ranged widely from the rejection of all instruments and the restriction of singing solely to the Psalms to the choral Eucharists of the Anglicans.

Christian Worship in the Reformation

During the Middle Ages, worship had developed into an elaborate ritual which evidenced serious distortions of apostolic standards, according to the Reformers, in both theology and practice. The following five developments were especially troubling to the Reformers.

(1) The Liturgy of the Word had little significance. Although provision was made for Scripture reading and a homily in the vernacular, a sermon was rarely heard since most local priests were too illiterate to be capable of preaching.

(2) Typical worshipers understood little of what was being said or sung since the service was in Latin. Their own vocal participation was almost nonexistent.

(3) The Eucharist was no longer a joyful action of the whole congregation; it had become the priestly function of the celebrant alone. The congregation’s devotion (mixed with superstition) was focused on the host (the bread) itself, on seeing the offering of the sacrifice, or on private prayers (e.g., the rosary).

(4) Each celebration of the Mass was regarded as a separate offering of the body and blood of Christ. The emphasis was limited to Christ’s death, with scant remembrance of his resurrection and second coming. Furthermore, the custom of offering votive masses for particular individuals and purposes became common.

(5) The Roman Canon was not a prayer of thanksgiving, but rather a long petition that voiced repeated pleas that God would receive the offering of the Mass, generating a spirit of fear lest it not be accepted. As a result, most of the congregation took Communion only once a year. On many occasions, only the officiating priests received the bread and the cup.

Our look at the worship of the Reformation churches will include a consideration of the German, English, and French-Swiss traditions. However, none of these was the first expression of rebellion against Rome. The Unitas Fratrum (United Brethren), which began under John Hus in Bohemia, had its own liturgical and musical expressions. However, the reforms that were begun in this movement were aborted because of the death of Hus, who was burned at the stake in 1415.

The Lutheran Reformation

Martin Luther’s quarrel with Rome had more to do with the sacerdotal interpretation of the Mass and the resultant abuses which accompanied it than with the structure of the liturgy itself. For him, the Communion service was a sacrament (God’s grace extended to man). A musician himself, he loved the great music and the Latin text which graced the mass. Consequently, in his first reformed liturgy—Formula missae et communionis (1523)—much of the historic mass outline remains. Luther (1483–1546) is remembered as the individual who gave the German people the Bible and the hymnbook in their own language in order to recover the doctrine of believer-priesthood. He also restored the sermon to its central place in the Liturgy of the Word. But in the Formula missae, only the hymns, Scripture readings, and sermons were in the vernacular; the rest continued to be in Latin. He achieved his theological purposes relating to the communion by removing many acts of the Liturgy. All that remained were the Preface and the Words of Institution.

The German Mass (Deutscher messe, 1526) was more drastic in its iconoclasm and may have been encouraged by some of Luther’s more radical associates. In it, many of the historic Latin songs were replaced by vernacular hymn versions set to German folksong melodies.

Throughout the sixteenth century, most Lutheran worship used a variant of the Western liturgy. The Formula missae was the norm for cathedrals and collegiate churches, and the German Mass was common in smaller towns and rural churches. Twentieth-century Lutherans tend to agree that Luther was excessively ruthless in the excisions made in the Communion service. Consequently, in recent service orders, they have recovered much of the pattern and texts of the third and fourth-century eucharistic prayers, while still retaining their Reformational and Lutheran theological emphasis.

We have already mentioned Luther’s love of the historic music of the church. In the Formula missae, the choir sang the traditional psalms, songs, and prayers in Latin to Gregorian chant or in polyphonic settings. They also functioned in leading the congregation in the new unaccompanied chorales. Later, they sang alternate stanzas of the chorales in four- and five-part settings by Johann Walther, published in 1524 in the Church Chorale Book. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the choir made significant new contributions to worship in the singing of motets, passions, and cantatas.

The treble parts of the choral music were sung by boys who were trained in the “Latin” (parochial and cathedral) schools. The lower parts were sung by Latin school “alumni” or by members of the Kantorei—a voluntary social-musical organization that placed its services at the disposal of the church. Where there was no choir, the congregation was led by a “cantor.” That title, meaning “chief singer,” was also given to a musical director of large churches such as J. S. Bach, whose career culminated with service to churches in Leipzig from 1723 to 1750.

Luther seems to have been indifferent to (and occasionally critical of) the organ in divine worship, as were most Roman Catholic leaders of that period. As in the Roman church, the organ gave “intonations” for the unaccompanied liturgical singing and also continued the alternatim practice in the chorales. The “intonation” for the congregational chorales developed into what we know as a “chorale prelude.” Later, as composing techniques moved toward homophonic styles with the melody in the soprano, the organ took over the responsibility of leading the congregation in the chorales.

Luther felt that the multiple services of the medieval offices had become an “intolerable burden.” Since monasteries had been abolished, he prescribed that only the most significant morning and evening “hours”—Matins and Vespers—would be observed daily in local churches. However, office worship never really caught on among Lutherans. The practice soon died out and has only recently been revived, with moderate success. For non-eucharistic worship, Luther’s followers have preferred a shortened Mass called an “ante-Communion,” which simply omits the Lord’s Supper observance from the regular liturgy.

The Reformation in England

The early impetus for the Reformation in England was more political than spiritual. This was partly evident in the fact that for years after Henry VIII broke with the pope (1534) and assumed himself the leadership of the English (Anglican) church, the Latin Roman Mass continued to be used without change. However, during the ensuing years, evangelical thought became more widespread and after Henry’s death in 1547, Archbishop Cranmer (1489–1556) set about to devise a truly reformed English liturgy.

The first Book of Common Prayer was released in 1549, the title (“common”) indicating that worship was now to be congregational. This vernacular Mass retained much of the form of the Roman rite, with drastic revision only in the Canon (eucharistic prayer), because of the rejection of the concepts of transubstantiation and sacrifice. A significant number of Anglicans (especially Anglo-Catholics) still express regret that this rite never became the norm for the Church of England. As was true in Lutheran Germany, popular opinion seemed to demand even more drastic revision, and three years later another prayer book was published. Much of the influence for the more radical trend came from the Calvinist movement in Strasbourg and Geneva.

In the Prayer Book of 1552, the word Mass was dropped as the title of the worship form, vestments were forbidden, and altars were replaced by Communion tables. The Agnus Dei, the Benedictus, and the Peace were all excised from the liturgy, and the Gloria in excelsis Deo was placed near the end of the service. Thus the beginning of the ritual became basically personal and penitential, losing the corporate expression of praise and thanksgiving. The introit, gradual, offertory song, and Communion song were replaced by congregational psalms in metrical versions and later by hymns. In comparison with the “Liturgy of the Eucharist” that Roman Catholics used c. 1500, the greatest difference lies in the very-much shortened eucharistic prayer.

During the brief reign of “Bloody Mary” (1553–1558), the Roman Catholic faith and worship were reinstated, and many Protestant leaders were burned at the stake or beheaded. Others fled to such European refuges as Frankfort and Geneva, where they came under the influence of John Calvin and John Knox. When they returned to their native country, they brought with them an even more radical revisionist attitude that eventually showed itself in the Puritan movement within the Church of England and the emerging of Nonconformist churches (Presbyterian, Independent, and Baptist). With the death of Mary, Queen Elizabeth I sought to heal the wounds of her broken country and to bring papists, traditionalists, and Puritans together. Under her leadership, the prayer book was revised in 1559. Some worship practices found in the 1549 version were restored, though the changes were slight. Vestments, for example, were once again permitted.

The Puritan movement gathered increasing momentum during the close of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century. In worship, its emphasis was on “scriptural simplicity”—no choral or instrumental music, no written liturgy, and no symbolism (vestment, liturgical movement, etc.), much after the pattern of John Calvin’s Geneva. Eventually, the group developed enough political strength to overthrow the king and set up a republic. In 1645 the Prayer Book was replaced by the Directory for the Plain Worship of God in the Three Kingdoms. For a brief period, the choral and instrumental worship of the church went into complete limbo.

In 1660 Charles II was placed on the throne. He immediately brought the prayer book back into use. Soon a new revision (1662) was brought out; it made no substantial changes in the old version, retaining basically the 1552 worship outline, and that book became the norm for the Church of England for the next 300 years. It remains basically the same today, though there is considerable sentiment for a thorough revision.

We have already noted Luther’s purpose pertaining to the continuance of the two “offices” Matins and Vespers as public, daily services of non-eucharistic worship. This practice was also adopted by Archbishop Cranmer for the English church, and liturgies for these services appeared in each of the prayer books mentioned above. As in the old Roman tradition, the emphasis was on the reading and singing of Scripture; the Psalter was to be sung through each month, the Old Testament read through each year, and the New Testament twice each year. In making this service completely “English,” the revisions of 1552 and 1662 had changed the titles of the services to “Morning Prayer” and “Evening Prayer,” placed a general confession and absolution (assurance of pardon) at the beginning, added the Jubilate Deo (Psalm 100) as a regular canticle plus an anthem, with four collects and a general thanksgiving as the prayers. In common practice, a sermon is also included, and this service has been for many Anglicans the “preferred” option for typical Sunday worship.

The 1549 Prayer Book had stressed the requirement that Communion was not to be celebrated unless communicants were present and participating, and specified that members in good standing would receive Communion at least three times a year. The 1552 prayer book indicated that “ante-Communion”—the same service but omitting the eucharistic prayer and Communion—would also be observed on Sundays and “holy days.” Because, like Lutherans, most Anglicans retained the medieval sense of awe and fear in receiving Communion, non-eucharistic services tended to be the most popular in Anglican worship until recent times.

We have already noted that congregational hymns became the norm of Protestant musical worship under Luther. In the early development of the English reformation church, this possibility was considered, and Bishop Myles Coverdale made an English translation of certain German and Latin hymns together with metrical versions of psalms and other liturgical material in a volume Goostly psalms and spiritual songs (1543), intended for use in private chapels and homes. But, eventually, the Lutheran example was rejected in favor of the Calvinist standard—metrical psalms. In 1549, a Thomas Sternhold, the robe-keeper to Henry VIII (Albert E. Bailey, The Gospel in Hymns [New York: Scribner, 1950], 7) published a small collection of nineteen psalms without music. By 1562, with the help of J. Hopkins, Sternhold completed the entire Psalter, which was named for its compilers. “Sternhold and Hopkins” remained in use (along with others) for more than two hundred years.

Psalm singing received added impetus during the exile of English Protestants in Geneva during the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots. There they produced a number of versions of the Anglo-Genevan Psalter, with tunes, beginning in 1556. This book was based on Sternhold and Hopkins with certain additions of texts (and especially tunes) from the French psalters of Calvin. In the early eighteenth century, English Nonconformists began to write and sing psalm paraphrases and “hymns of human composure,” beginning with Isaac Watts (1674–1748). But free hymns were not widely accepted in Anglicanism until well into the nineteenth century.

Particularly in the services of morning and evening prayer, the Psalms were regularly sung in prose version; this was also true of the Canticles (Benedictus, Te Deum, Magnificat, Nunc Dimittis). For this purpose, in the seventeenth century a new “Anglican chant” was produced, based on small snatches of Gregorian melody and sung in four-part harmony.

Despite its rejection of Luther’s hymns, the English church followed the example of the Lutherans in adapting the choir to its new Protestant patterns, particularly in the “cathedral tradition.” From almost the beginning of Anglicanism, the choir was retained to lead the congregation, but also to sing alone, as in a Choral Eucharist. In the sixteenth century, the Tudor composers who had produced Latin masses (e.g., William Byrd, John Merbecke, Thomas Tallis, Richard Farrant) began to set portions of the new prayer book services. A complete “service” included music for Holy Communion as well as for the canticles of morning and evening prayer. Anglican services have been written by British (and other) composers in every generation. These services are not performed in their entirety in one service as is the Latin mass, but they are published together for liturgical use in larger Anglican (including Episcopalian) churches.

In addition, the Anglican heritage made a unique contribution to church music in the anthem—originally an English motet, whose name is derived from “antiphon.” So-called anthems existed before 1550, but they remained in disfavor until the Restoration. In the prayer book of 1662, they are acknowledged to be a regular part of worship in churches that boasted a choir.

In the English tradition, it may be said that provision is made for a wide variety of musical tastes. In the parish church, congregational singing is central even though a modest choir may in some instances be available to sing an anthem and to lead the hymns and chants. In the cathedral setting, certain services are essentially choral, with less congregational participation. These services give the opportunity for the very finest examples of choral art to be used.

Both Anglicans and Lutherans continued to observe the liturgical calendar with its festivals and holy days. In both the eucharistic services and the offices, the “Ordinary” remained fairly constant throughout the year. The “Propers” provided Scripture readings, prayers, responses, and “sermon emphases” which changed according to the season and the day involved.

Worship in the Calvinist Tradition

In Reformation times, the most severe reaction to traditional Roman Catholic worship came in the Calvinist tradition; for this reason, it is closely related to modern evangelical practice. But first, we must look briefly at some of John Calvin’s predecessors.

Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531), whose reform leadership centered in Zurich, was more of a rationalist-humanist than Luther or Calvin, both of whom shared the medieval scholastic tradition. Consequently, Zwinglian worship tended to be more didactic than devotional. His typical morning service resembled the ancient Prone liturgy, consisting of Scripture reading (Epistle and Gospel), preaching, and a long prayer. In the first German liturgy of 1525, music was eliminated completely (although Zwingli himself was an accomplished musician); however, psalms and canticles were recited responsively. The Communion service was celebrated four times a year, with the congregation seated as for a family meal. The Eucharist service had no true eucharistic prayer and no prayer of intercession; it consisted of an exhortation, “Fencing of the Table,” the Lord’s Prayer, the prayer of “humble access,” words of institution, ministers’ Communion, Communion of the people, psalm, collect, Dismissal. According to Zwingli, the Eucharist was only “the congregation confessing its faith in obedience to our Lord’s command.”

Martin Bucer (1491–1551), a follower of Zwingli, developed quite a different tradition when he was put in charge of Reformed worship in Strasbourg in 1535. Prior to that time, the city had been dominated by Lutheranism. Consequently, Bucer’s liturgy of 1537 seems to combine Lutheran and Zwinglian elements. He retained the optional Kyrie and Gloria in Excelsis, though in time these were replaced by psalms or hymns. The Communion service included intercessions as well as a Prayer of Consecration.

When John Calvin (1509–1564) first preached and taught at Geneva, he evidently followed no set form of worship, and the service was entirely without music. When he was banished from Geneva in 1538, he went to be pastor of the French exiles in Strasbourg. He was quite impressed with Bucer’s German rite and, according to his own admission, “borrowed the greater part of it” for his own French liturgy of 1540. Later when he returned to Geneva, this liturgy was simplified slightly, becoming the Geneva rite of 1542 and the basis for Calvinist worship in all of Europe—Switzerland, France, Germany, Netherlands, and Scotland.

The medieval eucharistic vestments were discarded. (The traditional black cassock now worn by Presbyterian ministers is essentially a reminder that Calvin preached in his overcoat because the cathedral at Geneva was unheated!) Indeed, all the traditional Roman symbolism was stripped from the building. A Calvinist “processional” (particularly in Scotland) is headed by a deacon carrying the Bible into the sanctuary to place it on the pulpit. Calvin ignored the church calendar (except for the principal feast days) and with it the lectionary of readings. The Scripture was read-only to serve as a basis for the sermon.

Calvin’s ideas about the Eucharist were not radically different from those of Luther, though he rejected the idea of “consubstantiation.” He too saw the Eucharist as a sacrament and desired that it would be celebrated weekly as part of a full service of Word and Eucharist. But this was not to be, because many of the French Reformed leaders (including the magistrates at Geneva) had a more narrow view of Communion. Indeed, they restricted its observance to four times a year, despite Calvin’s persistent objections.

Calvin is most frequently criticized for his actions restricting music in worship. He discarded the choir and its literature completely, and Calvinist iconoclasts removed the organs from the formerly Catholic churches. As mentioned earlier, worship in Geneva had no singing at all, and Calvin complained about the resultant “cold tone” in the services. When he went to Strasbourg, he was pleased with the German Psalm versions he found in the congregations there, whereupon he set several Psalms himself in metrical French to tunes of Mattheus Greiter and Wolfgang Dachstein. These were included with his Strasbourg service book, The Form of Prayers and Manner of Ministering the Sacraments According to the Use of the Ancient Church (1640).

Later he commissioned the French court poet Clement Marot to set all the Psalms in meter, which resulted in the historic Genevan Psalter (1562). The Psalms were sung by the congregation in unison and without accompaniment. (Four-part settings of the Marot Psalms were composed by Sweelinck, Jannequin, and Goudimel, but they were heard only in the home and in educational circles.) Music editor for the volume was Louis Bourgeois (c. 1510–c. 1561), who adapted tunes from French and German secular sources and no doubt composed some himself.

This is not the place to debate Calvin’s decision for the Psalms and against hymns, in the light of his dictum “Only God’s Word is worthy to be used in God’s praise.” No doubt he was reacting strongly to the complex, verbose Roman liturgy, with its many “tropes” and “sequence” hymns. He did not have all the writings of the early church fathers at his disposal, from which he might have learned the significance of the New Testament “hymns and spiritual songs” (which in the early patristic period were not part of the biblical canon) and of the successors of those forms in the early church. The Calvinist tradition of singing Psalms was also inherited by the Anglican church and by early free churches in both England and America. It has persisted in some places to the present day.

Worship in the Free Church Tradition

In the closing years of the sixteenth century, the passion for religious reform was most intense in the most radical of the English Puritans. They are known historically as the Separatists since they intended to part company with the established Anglican church. When they did so, they were more iconoclastic than Calvin himself, reducing worship to something less than the essentials! They rejected all established liturgical forms. When they met together (in barns, in forests and fields, or in houses on back alleys, as such gatherings were forbidden by law), their services included only prayer and the exposition of Scripture. Prayer was always spontaneous; not even the Lord’s Prayer was used, since it was considered to be only a model for Christian improvising.

The early Separatists evidently had no music, but eventually, they began to sing unaccompanied metrical psalms. When it was possible for them to celebrate Communion, the appointed pastor broke the bread and delivered the cup, which was then passed to every member of the group while the leader repeated the words of 1 Corinthians 11:23–26. There is also a record that on such occasions an offering was received at the end of the service, by men who held their “hats in hand.”

The Separatists followed several traditions under a number of dynamic leaders, and eventually formed the churches known as Presbyterian, Independent (Congregational), and Baptist. Their negative attitude about earlier music is expressed in a quote from John Vicar in 1649, who was speaking as a convinced Puritan, but still an Anglican: … the most rare and strange alteration of things in the Cathedral Church of Westminster. Namely, that whereas there was wont to be heard nothing almost by Roaring-Boys, tooting and squeaking Organ Pipes, and the Cathedral catches of Moreley, and I know not what trash, now the Popish Altar is quite taken away, the bellowing organs are demolished and pull’d down; the treble or rather trouble and base singers, Chanters or Inchanters, driven out, and instead thereof, there is now a most blessed Orthodox Preaching Ministry, even every morning throughout the Week, and every Week throughout the year a Sermon Preached by the most learned grace and godly Ministers.

Anabaptists (“re-baptizers,” who insisted that baptism was only for adult believers) appeared both on the Continent and in Great Britain in the late sixteenth century. Records of a group in Holland in 1608 indicate that a typical service consisted of the following.

• Prayer
• Scripture (one or two chapters, with a running commentary on its meaning)
• Prayer
• Sermon (one hour, on a text)
• Spoken contributions by others present (as many as would)
• Prayer (led by the principal leader)
• Offering

It is not surprising that such a service often lasted as long as four hours. Sunday worship ran from about 8 a.m. to noon, and again from 2 p.m. to 5 or 6 p.m. (See Horton Davies, Worship and Theology in England, vol. 2 [Princeton: Princeton University, 1975], 89)

English Baptists were by no means of one mind theologically. They divided into General Baptists (more Arminian in theology), Calvinistic Baptists (John Bunyan belonged to this group), Seventh-day Baptists (who worshiped on Saturday), and Particular Baptist (radically Calvinist). For all of them, the typical worship consisted of the ministry of the Word (reading and exposition), extemporized prayer (lengthy—no collects) with a congregational “amen,” and possibly metrical psalms sung to open and to close the service.

There is evidence that in some churches the only music was sung by a single individual “who had a special gift.” John Bunyan once argued that open congregational singing could not fulfill the standard of Colossians 3:16 because some might participate who did not have “grace in the heart.” As late as 1690, Benjamin Keach (1640–1704) had difficulty persuading his own congregation to sing in unison. However, he did prevail, and it is said that he was the first to introduce hymns (in addition to psalms) to an English congregation. He wrote the first hymn to be sung at the conclusion of the Lord’s Supper, “following the example of Christ and his disciples in the upper room.” Beyond this, we have little indication of how Baptists celebrated Communion, except, ironically, that it was a weekly occurrence.

Evangelicals are in large part the successors of the Separatist movement, and in many instances have inherited the anti-Romanist, anti-liturgical, and anti-aesthetic attitudes of their forebears. It may help one understand why these prejudices are so deeply ingrained to remember that our forefathers were moved by a strong spiritual commitment to evangelism. Furthermore, as dissenters, they endured constant persecution by the Puritan/Anglican regime (or the Lutheran or Calvinist) under which they lived. To disobey the law by leading in clandestine worship was to risk a heavy fine and lengthy imprisonment.

Summary

This article, along with the others that have preceded it, has traced our worship-practice roots, from New Testament times through 1600 years of the history of the Christian church, ending with the Reformation and finally, the emergence of free churches. The purpose has been to show our universal Christian heritage, as well as the unique tradition of each individual fellowship.

To be sure, there is a common, universal heritage. We have seen that material from Scripture was the basis of musical worship in all medieval services. We have also traced the evangelical emphasis on preaching from New Testament times and the early church fathers, through the medieval Prone, the reformed services of Luther and Calvin, and the worship of the Separatists. All Christians continue to experience a Liturgy of the Word and a Liturgy of the Eucharist, though most Reformed and free churches have perpetuated the medieval reluctance to participate in Communion on a frequent basis. Furthermore, particularly in the free-church tradition, occasional observance tends to give the impression that the Lord’s Supper is an appendage that is not central to full-orbed worship. Most evangelical scholars agree that the early church celebrated the Eucharist each Lord’s Day. It may be that the free churches should face up to the question as to whether or not, in this matter, they are living up to their claim to be the New Testament church.

All the changes brought by the Reformation were responses to the sincere desire to be more “evangelical.” Obviously, the reaction of the free (Separatist) bodies was the most radical, but it tended to be tempered (as in the matter of the use of music) within a few years. Nevertheless, some of the attitudes and practices which began at that time have haunted certain free church groups ever since. It is important that we distinguish true evangelical reform from blind iconoclasm. In recent years, many Christian groups have taken a new look at their heritage and have tended to reinterpret those reforms.

A Reformation Model of Worship: John Calvin, The Form of Church Prayers, Strassburg Liturgy (1545)

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Although there is considerable diversity within the Reformed community, it is fair to say that the ideas of John Calvin strongly influenced Reformed worship practice. Calvin’s Strassburg Liturgy is presented below.

Introduction

Definition of Calvinist. It is often assumed that “Calvinist” and “Reformed” are synonymous, but in fact, the Reformed tradition includes considerable diversity. The most important streams within the Reformed family of churches are usually called Zwinglian and Calvinist, for the two most outstanding leaders, Ulrich Zwingli in Zurich and John Calvin in Geneva. One of the critical issues in the sixteenth century was who could share in the Lord’s Supper together; Zwinglians and Calvinists agreed upon intercommunion in 1549, but there continued to be a variety of theological and practical differences within this family of Reformed churches, particularly in ecclesiology and the liturgy.

Calvinist Worship and Liturgy in Context. Although their descendants have sometimes forgotten it, sixteenth-century reformers were very deeply concerned about worship and they devoted an immense amount of time, though, and care both to the theology and the practice of worship. Indeed, the primary purpose of much reform was to bring the church back to the right worship of God, according to God’s will. The negative task of attacking what they perceived as a perversion of worship was normally only a necessary first step toward the goal of pure worship which would glorify God and serve human salvation. There was no universal agreement on what exactly was the right and pure worship of God, and the process of discerning what was wrong and what should be put in its place took time and effort. Even where there was general agreement in principle, there were diversities in practice, particularly when it came to embodying worship in liturgical acts.

The liturgy which is called “Calvinist” is not the work of one person but of a community, though John Calvin gave the service his own particular impress, and his influence was very important in the spread of this liturgy. The Sunday service of Word and Sacrament is the fruit of many years of study, reflection, and practical experimentation on the part of a considerable number of church leaders, especially Martin Bucer and colleagues in Strassburg, in contact with other reformers across the whole spectrum of theological opinion. The liturgy published here also did not remain frozen, though it continues to be one of the best expressions of worship in the sixteenth-century Calvinist tradition.

Theological Principles. Calvin’s liturgy was clearly shaped by certain biblical principles and influenced by what was known of early church practice. Calvinists believed that there are some elements that are necessary for a rightly formed liturgy, and they read Acts 2:42 as a summary of the first Christians’ worship: “the teaching of the apostles, the breaking of bread, fellowship/koinonia, and prayers.” Calvinists generally understood this biblical pattern to mean that liturgy should include the Word/Gospel purely preached, the sacraments rightly administered, prayer (both spoken and sung), and the expression of communal love, for example in the kiss of peace or almsgiving.

Liturgical Practice. Early Calvinists were not as literalistic as some of their descendants; they did not read the Bible as a book of liturgical rubrics. In different circumstances, it was possible to have different practical expressions of the essentials, and early Calvinists were prepared to alter details to fit historical or pastoral situations. Such changes must not be made simply to be entertaining or creative; the fundamental basis for reshaping the precise order is a practical concern for how the right worship of God is best expressed in a given community (usually a region, not different congregations of the same city).

The church’s liturgy does not belong to the pastors, though those specially trained in the necessary knowledge (Bible, theology, history) are the proper leaders in formulating the community’s worship. One way of illustrating the minister’s role is through his dress, which was simply the ordinary street dress (outer garment) of an educated man. The “Genevan gown” was originally intended not to distinguish the minister from any other lay-educated person (physicians and lawyers wore the same thing); the academic gown did emphasize the importance of a learned ministry among Calvinists since the chief task of a pastor was to proclaim the gospel using every gift of mind as well as heart. Calvin himself was very conscious of the heart, though some Calvinists have focused narrowly on the mind.

The Development of Calvin’s Liturgy. The form of Calvin’s Sunday service printed here is his “Strassburg liturgy.” After his first ministry in Geneva ended in 1538, Calvin was for three years the pastor of a French-speaking refugee congregation in the German-speaking city of Strassburg. Here Calvin associated with Bucer and others and was much influenced by the Strassburg German liturgy which had been developing over the previous fifteen years.

Calvin was particularly impressed with the singing in Strasbourg, and his first liturgical publication (1539) was a small French Psalter containing twenty-two pieces: Psalms translated by the gifted French poet Clement Marot or by Calvin himself, and Simeon’s Song, the Decalogue, and the Apostles Creed, set to music. Later, as more of Marot’s translations became available, Calvin replaced his versions with Marot’s; Calvin’s colleague in Geneva, Theodore Beza, translated the rest of the Psalms and published the complete Psalter for the first time in 1562. After 1539, the Psalter and the Calvinist liturgy were normally printed together.

It is generally thought that Calvin published a version of his French Sunday service during his Strassburg pastorate, perhaps in 1540, but no copy of this exists, and its precise contents remain unclear. The first extant texts of Calvin’s service were published in 1542: one in Strassburg by his successor as pastor in the French congregation, one by Calvin himself in Geneva, where he had returned in the autumn of 1541. The two editions of 1542 were somewhat different since Calvin had been obliged to modify his text for the Genevan situation. Another edition of the Strassburg text, with more changes (which tended to combine elements of the two 1542 editions), was published in 1545, and editions of the Genevan service, with minor modifications, appeared during Calvin’s lifetime (1547, 1549, 1552, 1553, 1559, 1561) and later. The text followed here is Strassburg 1545, with the most important variants noted in the commentary.

One final word about the order: Calvin expressed clearly that he wanted to see the service of Word and the service of the Lord’s Supper celebrated weekly. He could accept a monthly celebration, however, because he believed that people needed time to prepare for right participation in the Supper, and in Strassburg, Calvin’s congregation celebrated the Supper monthly. The Word and the service of the Supper were not printed in a block, since the sacrament was not celebrated every time there was a service of the Word. (Besides the Sundays when the sacrament was not celebrated, there were weekday services of the Word, the most important being the days of prayers.) Here the order of the printed text has been slightly altered to present the whole service as it might have been experienced.

Text:

The Form of Church Prayers

On Sunday morning the following form is generally used.

Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Amen.

Commentary: The text is Psalm 124:8, the usual greeting in Calvinist services. In Strassburg the minister is probably at the Table; in Geneva, already in the pulpit.

Text:

Confession

My brethren, let each of you present himself before the face of the Lord, and confess his faults and sins, following my words in his heart.

O Lord God, eternal and almighty Father, we confess and acknowledge unfeignedly before thy holy majesty that we are poor sinners, conceived and born in iniquity and corruption, prone to do evil, incapable of any good, and that in our depravity we transgress thy holy commandments without end or ceasing: Wherefore we purchase for ourselves, through thy righteous judgment, our ruin and perdition. Nevertheless, O Lord, we are grieved that we have offended thee; and we condemn ourselves and our sins with true repentance, beseeching thy grace to relieve our distress. O God and Father most gracious and full of compassion, have mercy upon us in the name of thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. And as thou dost blot out our sins and stains, magnify and increase in us day by day the grace of thy Holy Spirit: that as we acknowledge our unrighteousness with all our heart, we may be moved by that sorrow which shall bring forth true repentance in us, mortifying all our sins, and producing in us the fruits of righteousness and innocence which are pleasing unto thee; through the same Jesus Christ &c.[Our Lord. Amen.]

Commentary: People kneel for the confession. In place of traditional individual confessions, Calvinists made confession a corporate act of the church as a body. Calvinists begin worship with the recognition of sinfulness because humans can only approach God rightly if they acknowledge what they are: sinners in need of God’s grace in Christ.

Text: Now the Minister delivers some word of Scripture to console the conscience; and then he pronounces the Absolution in this manner:

Let each of you truly acknowledge that he is a sinner, humbling himself before God, and believe that the heavenly Father wills to be gracious unto him in Jesus Christ. To all those that repent in this wise, and look to Jesus Christ for their salvation, I declare that the absolution of sins is effected, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Commentary: Calvin instructs the pastor to pronounce an appropriate text of Scripture. Bucer offers several examples: John 3:16; 3:35–36; Acts 10:43; 1 Tim. 2:1–2. For Calvinists, the power of forgiveness is attached to the Gospel, not particular persons, and Christians may confess to each other and have the promise of forgiveness, though the minister of the Word is the usual bearer of the Gospel and therefore of the Word of forgiveness. Genevans insisted on omitting the scriptural verses and absolution, probably because they associated these with the priestly monopoly on absolution in Roman Catholic tradition.

Text: Now the Congregation sings the first table of the Commandments, after which the Minister says:

The Lord be with us. Let us pray to the Lord.

Heavenly Father, full of goodness and grace, as thou art pleased to declare thy holy will unto thy poor servants, and to instruct them in the righteousness of thy law, grant that it may also be inscribed and impressed upon our hearts in such wise, that in all our life we may endeavor to serve and obey none beside thee. Neither impute to us at all the transgressions which we have committed against thy law: that, perceiving thy manifold grace upon us in such abundance, we may have cause to praise and glorify thee through Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord. Amen.

Commentary: The 1542 Strassburg text says “the people sing”; in 1545 the words “the first table of the law” are added—possibly simply expressing what had been the content of the singing, though this cannot be proved. Geneva omitted the Decalogue until 1549, then sang it after the sermon; here, between the confession and the prayer before the sermon, they sang a psalm. The first table (Num. 20:2–11) expresses how to worship and love God; the second concerns love of neighbor (Num. 20:12–17). The Decalogue may well have been placed after the confession and absolution because in Calvinist understanding, the most important use of the Law (in Calvin studies called “the third use of the Law”) is to show the forgiven sinner what a regenerate life looks like.

Text: While the congregation sings the rest of the commandments, the Minister goes into the pulpit; and then he offers prayers of the type which follows.

[Collect for Illumination]

We call upon our heavenly Father, Father of all goodness and mercy, asking Him to cast the eye of His mercy on us His poor servants, not imputing to us the many faults and offenses which we have committed, by which we have provoked His wrath against us, but [instead] seeing us in the face of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, as He has established Him as Mediator between Him and us. Let us pray that, as the whole plenitude of wisdom and light is in Him, He may guide us by His Holy Spirit to the true understanding of His holy teaching, and may make it bear in us all the fruits of righteousness, to the glory and exaltation of His Name and the instruction and edification of His church. And we will pray to Him in the name and the favor of His beloved Son Jesus Christ, as we have been taught by Him, saying: Our Father who art in heaven, [hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come, thy will be done, as in heaven so also on earth. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.]

Commentary: The invocation of the Holy Spirit before the Bible reading and sermon was at the minister’s discretion; Strassburg gives this example, Geneva simply lists key points. (Author’s translation.)

Text:

[Scripture reading and sermon]

Commentary: The Bible reading and sermon are not described in Calvin’s service, though Bucer gives a few instructions. Reformed theologians rejected the lectionary because they saw it as having treated Scripture in a very selective way, and they wanted people to hear the whole Bible proclaimed. Following the practice of John Chrysostom and others, Reformed pastors normally preached straight through a Biblical book, the system called “continuous reading” (lectio continua). At special times, such as Easter, Pentecost, and Christmas, Calvin would interrupt whatever series he was doing to preach on the appropriate biblical texts. He also envisioned interrupting a series for sermons on the Lord’s Supper (though probably this would not apply regularly if the Supper were celebrated frequently).

Normally, the pastor would read from the Bible, taking up the text where he had left off at the previous sermon and reading the number of verses he thought he could cover. Calvin’s sermons probably lasted about an hour, though many of his colleagues were less restrained and he took some of them to task for going on too long. Usually the Sunday morning text was a Gospel, occasionally an Epistle. On Sunday afternoons, Calvin preached on the Psalms or Epistles; on weekdays, the text was usually Old Testament. (Preaching services were held frequently in Reformed cities: at least several days a week, and often daily.) Calvin’s sermons (all extant ones were preached in Geneva) were biblical exposition and application. The text was explained verse by verse; the content was much like Calvin’s commentaries (lectures to future pastors) but suited to the education of his audience. One of the marked characteristics of the sermons is the application and/or exhortation for each person to apply to herself or himself what the Bible teaches.

Text: At the end of the Sermon, the Minister, having made exhortations to prayer, commences in this manner.

Almighty God, heavenly Father, thou hast promised to grant our requests which we make unto thee in the name of thy well-beloved Son, Jesus Christ our Lord: by whose teaching and that of His apostles we have also been taught to gather together in His name, with the promise that He will be in the midst of us, and will be our intercessor with thee, to obtain all those things for which we agree to ask on earth.

First we have thy commandment to pray for those whom thou hast established over us as rulers and governors; and then, for all the needs of thy people, and indeed of all mankind. Wherefore, with trust in thy holy doctrine and promises, and now especially that we are gathered here before thy face and in the name of thy Son, our Lord Jesus, we do heartily beseech thee, our gracious God and Father, in the name of our only Saviour and Mediator, to grant us the free pardon of our faults and offenses through thine infinite mercy, and to draw and lift up our thoughts and desires unto thee in such wise that we may be able to call upon thee with all our heart, yea agreeably to thy good pleasure and only-reasonable will.

Wherefore we pray thee, O heavenly Father, for all princes and lords, thy servants, to whom thou hast intrusted the administration of thy justice, and especially for the magistrates of this city. May it please thee to impart to them thy Spirit, who alone is good and truly sovereign, and daily increase in them the same, that with true faith they may acknowledge Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord, to be the King of kings and Lord of lords, as thou has given Him all power in heaven and earth. May they seek to serve Him and to exalt His kingdom in their government, guiding and ruling their subjects, who are the work of thy hands and the sheep of thy pasture, in accordance with thy good pleasure. So may all of us both here and throughout the earth, being kept in perfect peace and quietness, serve thee in all godliness and virtue, and being delivered and protected from the fear of our enemies, give praise unto thee all the days of our life.

We pray thee also, O faithful Father and Saviour, for all those whom thou hast ordained pastors of thy faithful people, to whom thou hast intrusted the care of souls and the ministry of thy holy Gospel. Direct and guide them by the Holy Spirit, that they be found faithful and loyal ministers of thy glory, having but one goal: that all the poor, wandering, and lost sheep be gathered and restored to the Lord Jesus Christ, the chief Shepherd and Prince of bishops, so that they may grow and increase in Him daily unto all righteousness and holiness. Wilt thou, on the contrary, deliver all the churches from the mouths of ravening wolves and from all mercenaries who seek their own ambition or profit, but never the exaltation of thy holy name alone, nor the salvation of thy flock.

We pray thee, now, O most gracious and merciful Father, for all men everywhere. As it is thy will to be acknowledged the Saviour of the whole world, through the redemption wrought by thy Son Jesus Christ, grant that those who are still estranged from the knowledge of Him, being in the darkness and captivity of error and ignorance, may be brought by the illumination of thy Holy Spirit and the preaching of thy Gospel to the straight way of salvation, which is to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. Grant that those whom thou hast already visited with thy grace and enlightened with the knowledge of thy Word may grow in goodness day by day, enriched by the spiritual blessings: so that all together we may worship thee with one heart and one voice, giving honor and reverence to thy Christ, our Master, King, and Lawgiver.

Likewise, O God of all comfort, we commend unto thee all those whom thou dost visit and chasten with cross and tribulation, whether by poverty, prison, sickness, or banishment, or any other misery of the body or affliction of the spirit. Enable them to perceive and understand thy fatherly affection which doth chasten them unto their correction that thy may turn unto thee with their whole heart, and having turned, receive full consolation and deliverance from every ill.

Finally, O God and Father, grant also to those who are gathered here in the name of thy Son Jesus to hear His Word (and to keep His holy Supper), that we may acknowledge truly, without hypocrisy, what perdition is ours by nature, what condemnation we deserve and heap upon ourselves from day to day by our unhappy and disordered life. Wherefore, seeing that there is nothing of good in us and that our flesh and blood cannot inherit thy kingdom, may we yield ourselves completely, with all our love and steadfast faith, to thy dear Son, our Lord, the only Saviour and Redeemer:

To the end that He, dwelling in us, may mortify our old Adam, renewing us for a better life, *by which thy name, according as it is holy and worthy, may be exalted and glorified everywhere and in all places, and that we with all creatures may give thee true and perfect obedience, even as thine angels and heavenly messengers have no desire but to fulfill thy commandments. Thus may thy will be done without any contradiction, and all men apply themselves to serve and please thee, renouncing their own will and all the desires of their flesh. *In this manner, mayest thou have lordship and dominion over us all, and may we learn more and more each day to submit and subject ourselves to thy majesty. In such wise, mayest thou be King and Ruler over all the earth, guiding thy people by the sceptre of thy Word and the power of thy Spirit, confounding thine enemies by the might of thy truth and righteousness.

*And thus may every power and principality which stands against thy glory be destroyed and abolished day by day, till the fulfillment of thy kingdom be manifest, when thou shalt appear in judgment.

*Grant that we who walk in the love and fear of thy name may be nourished by thy goodness; and supply us with all things necessary and expedient to eat our bread in peace. Then, seeing that thou carest for us, we may better acknowledge thee as our Father and await all good gifts from thy hand, withdrawing our trust from all creatures, to place it entirely in thee and thy goodness.

*And since in this mortal life we are poor sinners, so full of weakness that we fail continually and stray from the right way, may it please thee to pardon our faults by which we are beholden to thy judgment; and through that remission, deliver us from the obligation of eternal death in which we stand. Be pleased, therefore, to turn aside thy wrath from us, neither impute to us the iniquity which is in us; even as we, by reason of thy commandment, forget the injuries done to us, and in instead of seeking vengeance, solicit good for our enemies.

*Finally, may it please thee to sustain us by thy power for the time to come, that we may not stumble because of the weakness of our flesh. And especially as we of ourselves are so frail that we are not able to stand fast for a single moment, while, on the other hand, we are continually beset and assailed by so many enemies—the devil, the world, sin, and our own flesh never ceasing to make war upon us—wilt thou strengthen us by thy Holy Spirit and arm us with thy grace, that we may be able to resist all temptations firmly, and preserve in this spiritual battle until we shall attain full victory, to triumph at last in thy kingdom with our Captain and Protector, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Commentary: This prayer is primarily intercessory, concluding with a paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer (here marked with asterisks for: Your Name be hallowed, Your kingdom come, Your will be done, Give us our daily bread, Forgive our sins, Lead us not into temptation but deliver from evil). Note that the daily bread is physical, earthly food; the model prayer is concerned with all matters, including the ordinary nourishment of this life. The 1542 Strassburg text does not have the paraphrase, but after the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, the minister is instructed to explain it to the people. There is a significant addition to this prayer in 1559, intercession for those Christians who are being persecuted for their faith.

Text:

[The Manner of Celebrating the Lord’s Supper]

Rubric prefixed to the Supper service:

“It is proper to observe that on the Sunday prior to the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, the following admonitions are made to the people: first, that each person prepare and dispose himself to receive it worthily and with such reverence that it deserves; second, that children may certainly not be brought forward unless they are well instructed and have made profession of their faith in church; third, that if strangers are there who may still be untaught and ignorant, they proceed to present themselves for private instruction. On the day of the Lord’s Supper, the Minister touches upon it in the conclusion of his Sermon, or better, if there is occasion, preaches the whole Sermon about it, in order to explain to the people what our Lord wishes to say and signify by this mystery, and in what way it behooves us to receive it.”

Commentary: In the Strassburg text the Supper service is also prefaced by an essay explaining the meaning and character of the Supper and the whole service. This essay includes references to the giving of alms for the poor, and Calvinists considered koinonia (fellowship, communion) or love a necessary part of right worship (see Introduction). There are no rubrics in Calvin’s service, however, to indicate when the alms collection was to be made. The medieval “offertory” was the presentation of the host and wine for the sacrifice of the Mass, so Protestants eliminated it (see below). Most instituted a collection for the poor, but often did not include it in their rubrics. It is fairly clear that Calvin collected alms during the Supper service in Strassburg, and he certainly believed it should be done, but this alms collection cannot easily be assigned a precise place in the order.

The minister moves from pulpit to table. In Geneva the minister recited the creed in the name of the people. Geneva gives no instructions about preparing the table, though it was probably done at this point. The simple language—or omission—was intended to lessen the ceremonial focus on the material elements (and the idea of sacrifice).

Text: Then, after the accustomed prayers have been offered, the congregation, in making the confession of the faith, sings the Apostles Creed to testify that all wish to live and die in the Christian doctrine and religion. Meanwhile, the minister prepares the bread and wine on the table. Thereafter he prays in this fashion:

Inasmuch as we have made confession of our faith to testify that we are children of God, hoping therefore that He will take heed of us as a gracious Father, let us pray to Him saying:

Heavenly Father, full of all goodness and mercy, as our Lord Jesus Christ has not only offered His body and blood once on the Cross for the remission of our sins, but also desires to impart them to us as our nourishment unto everlasting life, we beseech thee to grant us this grace: that we may receive at His hands such a great gift and benefit with true sincerity of heart and with ardent zeal. In steadfast faith, may we receive His body and blood, yea Christ Himself entire, who, being true God and true man, is verily the holy bread of heaven which gives us life. So may we live no longer in ourselves, after our nature which is entirely corrupt and vicious, but may He live in us to lead us to the life that is holy, blessed, and everlasting: whereby we may truly become partakers of the new and eternal testament, the covenant of grace, assured that it is thy good pleasure to be our gracious Father forever, never reckoning our faults against us, and to provide for us, as thy well-beloved children and heirs, all our needs both of soul and body. Thus may we render praise and thanks unto thee without ceasing and magnify thy name in word and deed.

Grant us, therefore, O heavenly Father, so to celebrate this day the blessed memorial and remembrance of thy dear Son, to exercise ourselves in the same, and to proclaim the benefit of His death, that, receiving new growth and strength in faith and in all things good, we may with so much greater confidence proclaim thee our Father and glory in thee; through the same Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord, in whose name we pray unto thee, as He hath taught us.

Our Father which art in heaven, [hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, as in heaven so also on earth. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.]

Commentary: Note the emphasis on real communication of Christ’s body and blood and benefits. For Calvinists, the Lord’s Supper is a gift which God gives to the church, not a sacrifice which the church offers to God.

Text: Then the Minister says:

Let us hear how Jesus Christ instituted His holy Supper for us, as St. Paul relates it in the eleventh chapter of First Corinthians:

I have received of the Lord, he says, that which I have delivered unto you: That the Lord Jesus, on the night in which he was betrayed, took bread: And when He had given thanks, He brake it and said, Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner, when He had supped, He took the cup saying: This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do proclaim the Lord’s death till He come. Therefore, whosoever shall eat this bread and drink of this cup unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of this bread and drink of this cup. For whosoever eateth and drinketh unworthily, taketh his own condemnation, not discerning the Lord’s body.

Commentary: 1 Corinthians 11:23–29. Also in Geneva; Strassburg 1542 has only verses 23–26.

Text:

We have heard, my brethren, how our Lord observed His Supper with His disciples, from which we learn that strangers and those who do not belong to the company of His faithful people must not be admitted. *Therefore, following that precept in the name and by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, I excommunicate all idolaters, blasphemers, and despisers of God, all heretics and those who create private sects in order to break the unity of the Church, all perjurers, all who rebel against father or mother or superior, all who promote sedition or mutiny; brutal and disorderly persons, adulterers, lewd and lustful men, thieves, ravishers, greedy and graspy people, drunkards, gluttons, and all those who lead a scandalous and dissolute life. I warn them to abstain from this Holy Table, lest they defile and contaminate the holy food which our Lord Jesus Christ gives to none except they that belong to His household of faith.

Moreover, in accordance with the exhortation of St. Paul, let every man examine and prove his own conscience to see whether he truly repents of his faults and grieves over his sins, desiring to live henceforth a holy life according to God. **Above all, let him see whether he has his trust in the mercy of God and seeks his salvation wholly in Jesus Christ and, renouncing all hatred and rancor, has high resolve and courage to live in peace and brotherly love with his neighbors.

***If we have this witness in our hearts before God, never doubt that he claims us as His children, and that the Lord Jesus addresses His Word to us, to invite us to His Table and to give us this holy Sacrament which He imparted to His disciples.

And yet, we may be conscious of much frailty and misery in ourselves, such that we do not have perfect faith, but are inclined toward defiance and unbelief, or that we do not devote ourselves wholly to the service of God and with such zeal as we ought, but have to fight daily against the lusts of our flesh. Nevertheless, since our Lord has granted us the grace of having His Gospel graven on our hearts so that we may withstand all unbelief, and has given us the desire and longing to renounce our own wishes that we may follow His righteousness and His holy commandments: let us be assured that the sins and imperfections which remain in us will not prevent Him from receiving us and making us worthy partakers of this spiritual Table. For we do not come here to testify that we are perfect or righteous in ourselves. On the contrary, by seeking our life in Jesus Christ we confess that we are in death. Know, therefore, that this Sacrament is a medicine for the poor sick souls, and that the only worthiness which our Lord requires of us is to know ourselves sufficiently to deplore our sins and to find all our pleasure, joy, and satisfaction in Him alone.

Above all, therefore, let us believe those promises which Jesus Christ, who is the unfailing truth, has spoken with His own lips: He is truly willing to make us partakers of His body and blood, in order that we may possess Him wholly and in such wise that He may live in us and we in Him. And though we see but bread and wine, we must not doubt that He accomplishes spiritually in our souls all that He shows us outwardly by these visible signs, namely, that He is the bread of heaven to feed and nourish us unto eternal life. So, let us never be unmindful of the infinite goodness of our Savior who spreads out all His riches and blessings on this Table, to impart them to us. For in giving Himself to us, He makes a testimony to us that all that He has is ours. Therefore, let us receive this Sacrament as a pledge that the virtue of His death and passion is imputed to us for righteousness, even as though we had suffered them in our own persons. May we never be so perverse as to draw away when Jesus Christ invites us so gently by His Word. But accounting the worthiness of this precious gift which He gives, let us present ourselves to Him with ardent zeal, that He may make us capable of receiving it.

To do so, let us lift our spirits and hearts on high, where Jesus Christ is in the glory of His Father, whence we expect Him at our redemption. Let us not be fascinated by these earthly and corruptible elements which we see with our eyes and touch with our hands, seeking Him there as though He were enclosed in the bread or wine. Then only shall our souls be disposed to be nourished and vivified by His substance when they are lifted up above all earthly things, attaining even to heaven and entering the Kingdom of God where He dwells. Therefore let us be content to have the bread and wine as signs and witnesses, seeking the truth spiritually where the Word of God promises that we shall find it.

Commentary: Strassburg 1542 only gives a rubric, instructing the minister to excommunicate impenitent sinners, exhort all to a proper participation, and then the minister, the deacon, and the people receive communion. Calvin is usually remembered for his excommunication of the unworthy, and unworthiness is usually understood morally. In fact, one might be suspended from the Lord’s Supper as easily for ignorance as for improper behavior. The participation in the Supper requires at least a minimum understanding of the Gospel and faith (see above). Here the moral does come to the fore (*), but note that the most important thing about worthiness is not moral purity but trust in God’s mercy and loving relationships with one’s neighbors (**). This becomes particularly evident (***) in the description of who is welcomed—not the perfect, but those who recognize their need and trust only God.

Text: That done, the Minister, having informed the people that they are to come to the holy table in reverence, good order, and Christian humility, first partakes himself of the bread and wine, then administers them* to the deacon, and subsequently to the whole congregation, saying:

Take, eat, the body of Jesus, which has been delivered unto death for you.

And the deacon offers the cup, saying:

This is the cup of the new testament in the blood of Jesus, which has been shed for you.

Commentary: Asterisk indicates “it” changed to “them.” Geneva 1542 simply says “ministers” distribute the bread and wine to the people; from other sources we know that the pastor was assisted by deacons and elders. The words of delivery are not found in Strassburg 1542 or Geneva. Having deacons give the cup was a common patristic practice adopted by Calvinists. The deacons meant here are those whose primary work was the care of the poor and afflicted and whose other activity in the liturgy was the collection of alms.

Text: Meanwhile, the congregation sings the Psalm: “Louange et Grace” (Praise and thanks).

Commentary: “Praise and grace” are the opening words of Psalm 138. In Geneva during the communion, people sang psalms or heard some appropriate part of Scripture read.

Text: The thanksgiving after the Supper:

Heavenly Father, we offer thee eternal praise and thanks that thou hast granted so great a benefit to us poor sinners, having drawn us into the Communion of thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, whom thou hast delivered to death for us, and whom thou givest us as the meat and drink of life eternal. Now grant us this other benefit: that thou wilt never allow us to forget these things; but having them imprinted on our hearts, may we grow and increase daily in our faith, which is at work in every good deed. Thus may we order and pursue all our life to the exaltation of thy glory and the edification of our neighbor; through the same Jesus Christ, thy Son, who in the unity of the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth with thee, O God, forever. Amen.

Commentary: According to Calvinist understanding, thanksgiving is the right sacrifice we offer to God, and gratitude, a key to worship.

Text: After thanks has been given, the Canticle of Simeon is sung: “Maintenant Seigneur Dieu” (Now, Lord God).

Commentary: Luke 2:29–32. The Song of Simeon does not appear in the Genevan liturgy until 1549.

Text: Then the Minister dismisses the congregation by pronouncing the Benediction used on Sunday.

The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be merciful unto you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and keep you in virtuous prosperity. Amen.

Commentary: Numbers 6:24–26. This was the normal dismissal in all Calvin’s liturgies, daily as well as Sunday.