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Lex Orandi and Lex Credendi — Strange Bed-Fellows?: Some Reflections on Worship and Doctrine
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
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Easter 1985 in the Church of England was a strange experience, resounding with the controversy which David Jenkins had begun the previous year during a television interview, after he had been elected Bishop of Durham. The scenario has been widely discussed by the media, by professional theologians, and by ordinary church-folk, north and south of the border. For the writer, it was the first Easter he can remember since being ordained when the resurrection was actually being discussed, not just in Senior Common Rooms, but in pubs. I was even taken to task by someone working in my local wine-store. In some respects, the furore was well summed-up in his attitude: he had long ceased to attend church, but shouldn't church-leaders believe in what they are supposed to believe?
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References
page 225 note 1 For full text of Dennis Nineham's sermon at the consecration of Jenkins, David, see Theology 87 (1984), pp. 361–367, which alludes in places to the controversy.Google Scholar
page 225 note 2 Seen on BBC TV news, Easter Day, 1985.
page 226 note 3 It was reported that the congregation numbered 800, instead of the usual 400.
page 226 note 4 The Bishops met at Manchester Business School from Monday 15th to Wednesday 17th June, 1985; they worshipped at the writer's Chaplaincy, each morning and evening. On the first morning, the Archbishop of Canterbury presided at the eucharist, to be followed on the next morning by another Scot, Bishop Alastair Haggart, of Edinburgh.
page 227 note 5 See Gy's, P.-M. Foreword in Stevenson, Kenneth (ed.), Liturgy Reshaped, London: SPCK, 1982, pp. 1–3, which notes the ecumenical character of the work, as well as future paths for historical research.Google Scholar
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page 227 note 8 The Alternative Service Book, London: SPCK, 1980.Google Scholar
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page 230 note 19 Formed in 1969, its initial meeting is chronicled in Studia Liturgica 6 (1969), pp. 189fGoogle Scholar. It has met every two years since that date; the most recent conference was held in August, 1985, at Boston University, U.S.A., with the theme, the WCC ‘Lima’ Statement on Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry.
page 231 note 20 Original text in Migne, Patrologia Latina 50, col. 55.
page 231 note 21 For a discussion of this text, see De Clerck, Paul, ‘Lex orandi, lex credendi: sens originel et avatars historiques d'un adage equivoque’, Questions Liturgiques (1978), pp. 193–212.Google Scholar
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page 232 note 23 See below, on Kavanagh, pp. 235ff.
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page 232 note 25 His book discusses the origin of the ‘Ordo’ and its development towards the ‘Typicon’; but his theological-liturgical method is summarised in the opening chapter, pp. 99ff.
page 233 note 26 On Basil of Caesarea and the anaphoras attributed to him, see J. Doresse and E. Lanne, ‘Un témoin archaïque de la liturgie copte de S. Basile’, and Capelle, B., ‘Les liturgies “basiliennes” de saint Basile’, Bibliothèque du Muséon 47 (1960)Google Scholar. This early fragment helped to provide a basis for the 1975 ‘Common Eucharistic Prayer’, agreed by an unofficial group of liturgists representing various churches (including Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, Methodist, Episcopalian, and Lutheran) in the U.S.A. The text is to be found in The Book of Common Prayer, New York: Seabury, 1979, pp. 372–375Google Scholar. On John Chrysostom, see the spirited (but not entirely successful), defence of the authorship of the eucharistic prayer, Wagner, Georg, Der Ursprung Der Chrysostomusliturgie (Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen Und Forschungen 59), Münster: Aschendorff, 1973Google Scholar; this is assessed in a review by Cuming, Geoffrey J., Eastern Churches Review 7 (1975), pp. 95–97.Google Scholar
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page 234 note 28 Ibid., p. 279.
page 234 note 29 See review by Power, David N., Worship 55 (1981), pp. 61–69Google Scholar; see also Kavanagh's remarks (op. cit., below, n. 37) on ‘absolute certainty’, pp. 125ff.
page 234 note 30 Sykes, Stephen W., The Integrity of Anglicanism, London: Mowbrays, 1978.Google Scholar
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page 235 note 32 This is an expression much-used by Sykes in lectures and talks, and it is to be applauded in the era of ‘relevance’.
page 235 note 33 Kavanagh, Aidan, The Shape of Baptism: The Rite of Christian Initiation (Studies in the Reformed Rites of the Catholic Church, Volume 1), New York: Pueblo, 1978.Google Scholar
page 235 note 34 Ibid., pp. 142ff. The notion of ‘mystagogy’ is gaining attraction in the Churches at present, because it safeguards the primary focus of worship and religious experience, and avoids the didactic aspects and thematic tendencies of some areas of liturgical reform and experimentation. For a classic statement of this view, see Dalmais, I.-H., ‘Le “Mystérion”, contribution à une théologie de la liturgie’, La Maison-Dieu 158 (1984), pp. 14–50.Google Scholar
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page 236 note 36 See Kavanagh, Aidan, ‘Liturgy and Ecclesial Consciousness: A Dialectic of Change’, Studia Liturgica 15 (1982/1983), p. 14 (whole article, pp. 2–17).Google Scholar
page 236 note 37 Kavanagh, Aidan, On Liturgical Theology, New York: Pueblo, 1984Google Scholar, passim, where he elaborates the discussion in the previous paper (see above, n. 36) on the meaning and significance of ‘primary theology’, and the (often) destructive consequences of ‘secondary theology’ when it has taken over and dominated spirituality and worship.
page 237 note 38 See Kavanagh, Aidan, ‘Christian Initiation: Tactics and Strategy’, in Made, Not Born: New Perspectives on Christian Initiation and the Catechumenate (Murphy Center for Liturgical Research), South Bend: Notre Dame University Press, 1976, p. 4.Google ScholarPubMed
page 237 note 39 An aside during the delivery of the paper cited above, n. 36, during the Ninth International Meeting of the Societas Liturgica, Mödling, August 1983. But cf. ‘It was a presence, not faith, which drew Moses to the burning bush, and what happened there was a revelation, not a seminar’, On Liturgical Theology, p. 92.
page 237 note 40 See Mark 6.30–52.
page 238 note 41 Cf. what Kaufman, Gordon has to say about theology (in our sense, ‘secondary’!) as an activity of the imagination, in Theology for a Nuclear Age, Manchester: University Press, 1985, p. 19ff.Google Scholar
page 238 note 42 See On Liturgical Theology, p. 10, for example, for some observations on why many social anthropologists have to study terrain foreign to themselves, in order to be ‘objective’, and how a comparable desire for ‘objectivity’ has had a detrimental effect on much theological writing in recent years. Kavanagh would maintain that it is impossible to be ‘objective’ in the cool, uninvolved sense in which that attitude is frequently felt, simply because the Christian believes and worships.
page 238 note 43 See, for example, our forthcoming work on the development of sacrificial language in relation to the eucharist down the ages, in which we plead for much more variety in the early (formative) stages; Stevenson, Kenneth, Eucharist and Offering: A Liturgical Study, (with foreword by Mark Santer), New York: Pueblo, 1986.Google Scholar
page 239 note 44 See On Liturgical Theology, pp. 88ff, for some observations on how the proper interaction of primary and secondary theology could renew the way in which we approach things. Certainly, many of the polemical attitudes of Catholic versus Protestant in recent centuries might have been avoided.
page 239 note 45 See Houlden's, J. L. essay in Harvey, Anthony (ed.), Alternative Approaches to New Testament Study, London: SPCK, 1985, pp. 134ff.Google Scholar
page 239 note 46 See Stevenson, Kenneth, ‘A.S.B. — Five Years On’, in Dakers, Lionel (ed.), The World of Church Music, London: Royal School of Church Music, 1985, pp. 70ff.Google Scholar
page 240 note 47 See above, p. 237, for Kavanagh on ambiguity.
page 240 note 48 These are three areas of liturgical study which are receiving much attention in, for example, the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, U.S.A. One of the saddest features of contemporary British Theology/Divinity Faculties is that there are few places where liturgy is taught and studied in any one of these three fields.