Transcript
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It's my privilege to introduce Dr. Elsie Ann McKee, Archibald Alexander Professor of the History of Worship, who will give her inaugural address this afternoon entitled Context Contours Contents Toward a Description of Classical Calvinist Reformed Worship. Dr. McKee was born to second-generation missionary parents in Zaire. She received her education, her BA from Hendricks College in Conway, Arkansas, and her Ph.D. Summa Cum Laude from Princeton Theological Seminary. She has also studied at
the University of Cambridge in England, from which she received a diploma in theology, and at the University of Geneva. Prior to her appointment to the Princeton faculty, she served on the faculty of Andover Newton Theological School, first as assistant and then as associate professor of church history. She joined the Princeton Seminary faculty in 1992. Her publications include John Calvin on the Deaconate and Liturgical Almsgiving, Elders and the Plural Ministry, subtitled The Role of Exegetical History in
Illuminating John Calvin's Theology, and Deaconia in the Classical Reformed Tradition and Today. She is also the editor with Dr. Armstrong of Probing the Reformed Tradition Essays in honor of her Dr. Father Edward A. Dowie. Dr. McKee's memberships in academic societies includes the American Society of Church History, the Historians of Early Modern Europe, the North American Academy of Liturgy, the Calvin Studies Society, and the Society of Reformation Research. She is an elder in the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.
I'm pleased to present Dr. Elsie Ann McKee, her lecture again, Context, Contours, and Contents, toward a description of classical Calvinist Reformed worship. Please join me in welcoming Dr. McKee. Thank you for that kind introduction, President Gillespie, and thank you to you, faculty and student colleagues and friends for your presence here today. It is customary to explain something about one's perspective on the discipline one is teaching in inaugural lecture. I've decided to do that in an appendix
to the written form of the text and devote our discussion this afternoon to the theological issue of Calvinist Reformed worship. I'd like to thank Professor Dowie for reading a copy of the text and making suggestions which helped me to sharpen the presentation of several points. And finally, I would like to dedicate this lecture to the Church of Christ in Zaire, in which I was baptized and grew up. Let us turn now, if you will, to the
topic of our afternoon's presentation, Context, Contours, Contents, toward a description of classical Calvinist Reformed worship. It is common knowledge that Calvin and worship are incongruous concepts, and that whatever the strengths of those who are predestined to the glory of God, they're hopeless failures when it comes to liturgy. Thus, it may seem like a case of special pleading to establish a chair in the history of worship at a Reformed seminary, an instance of ecumenical borrowing that really
does not fit in Reformed theological education. In fact, however, the common view of Calvin and liturgy is based on a myopic misreading of the classical Reformed tradition, along with a rather narrow and inadequate definition of exactly what worship is. The purpose of this presentation, therefore, is to begin to form an adequate definition of Calvinist Reformed worship by re-examining the classical historical teaching. The title, Context, Contours, Contents, suggests the three dimensions of the subject, beginning with
the significance, moving to the theological structure, and then concentrating on specific forms of corporate and individual practice. The context of Calvinist teaching on the worship of God is the wider scope of 16th century Protestant and Reformed theology. The contours of that teaching are the major outlines and characteristics of the doctrine. The contents are the more concrete expressions which fill out the picture. The description of worship, which emerges from this exploration, may helpfully illuminate both what the
Reformed tradition has to contribute to the contemporary ecumenical renewal of and how the teaching of worship may fit into and enrich theological education in a Reformed seminary. Part one, the context of Calvinist Reformed worship, worship in the Protestant Reformation. The reform of worship was central to the 16th century Protestant Reformation, although that fact has often been obscured because the concept of worship has been narrowed to written liturgies alone. For Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and many others, the
heart of the problem in the late medieval church was that God was not worshipped rightly, and the consequence of this was that human beings were headed for destruction. As Luther and others saw it, people were being wrongly allowed or even encouraged to believe that they could contribute to their own salvation. Even worse, they were dishonoring God. Trust in salvation through sacred rituals, especially the sacrifice of the mass, or the intercession of living priests or dead saints,
was a human attempt to replace God's mercy in Christ with their own works. Indeed, hope for salvation by any means except the sheer gracious gift of justifying faith was, for these reformers, a denial of who God is, a refusal to acknowledge God as God, a form of idolatry. Far from being a peripheral issue of iconoclasm and ceremonies, the question of the right worship of God was intrinsically related to the key theological concerns of Protestants – Christ
alone, faith alone, grace alone, scripture alone. In his 1520 treatises, Martin Luther sounded the theme clearly. Quote, To neglect or extinguish faith in them. For God does not deal, nor has he ever dealt, with man otherwise than through a word of promise. But he has need of this, that we regard him as true to his promises, wait patiently for him, and thus worship him with faith, hope, and love. The heart of Protestant worship might be described
as faith, trust in God's promises alone, through Christ's grace, waiting on the Lord. Calvin's understanding of worship and its place in the Protestant reform. The central importance of worship in Calvin's theology is clear throughout his life as a teacher and preacher of the gospel. The Institutes of the Christian Religion is a logical place to establish Calvin's orientation to worship. The long subtitle of the first edition of the Institutes sets the stage. Calvin claims, somewhat grandly, that
his book, quote, encompasses almost the whole sum of piety and whatever is necessary to know about the doctrine of salvation, a work most worthy to be read by all who are zealous for piety, end quote. Here piety is a kind of summary of the whole of worship. In the definitive edition of the Institutes, the central role of worship is obvious in the structure. The first two chapters of Book One comprise a brief discussion of piety, which
in effect serves as a kind of prolegomenon to the whole of the reformer's theology, demonstrating Calvin's conviction that there can be no speech about God, theology, without actual reverent acknowledgement of God, worship. All people are born with a numinous awareness of God, which Calvin calls piety, which leads them to revere the source of the good which they experience. But although all people must worship, they worship idols if they do not know the true God, who was
rightly known only by faith. For Calvin, the faith which defines true worship and directs piety to the true God is an existential acquaintance with God's self-revelation and promises, a reverent knowing which should be expressed in action taught by the Holy Spirit in the scriptures. Although the Institutes establishes the basic orientation for Calvin's understanding of worship, it is his apologetic writings which give the best summary of his view of the importance of worship and the breadth
of meaning that this concept held for him. Perhaps the fullest and most impressive statement is found in the treatise on the necessity of reforming the church. Calvin begins by stating firmly the fundamental importance of the question. The two things by which the Christian religion exists and maintains its truth are, quote, a knowledge first of the mode in which God is truly worshiped, and secondly of the source from which salvation is to be obtained. These two not
only occupy the principal place, but comprehend under them all the other parts and consequently the whole substance of Christianity, end quote. After these theological foundations come the sacraments and the government of the church, which were instituted to preserve these doctrines as the body serves the soul. Calvin then proceeds to a definition of right worship. The foundation is the reverent acknowledgement of who God is and the glory and trust that are therefore due to God. Prayer, praise,
and thanksgiving follow with adoration and the attendant ceremonies or acts which give bodily expression to the heart's worship. Then there are self-renunciation and obedience so that all human life may belong to God. This knowledge is taught by the Holy Spirit through the scriptures and should be known by the inborn sense of piety. The second part of Calvin's treatise indicates how Protestants were putting this definition of worship into effect, and the language here closed the definition
with existential warmth. Quote, we exhort people to worship God neither in a frigid nor a careless manner. We proclaim the glory of God in terms far loftier than it was want to be proclaimed before, and we earnestly labor to make the perfections in which his glory shines better and better known. His benefits towards ourselves we extol as eloquently as we can while we call upon others to reverence his majesty, render due homage to his greatness, feel
due gratitude for his mercies, and unite in showing forth his praise. In this way, there is infused into their hearts that solid confidence which afterwards gives birth to prayer, and in this way too, each one is trained to genuine self-denial so that his will being brought into obedience to God, he bids farewell to his own desires, end quote. Note the intensity and the attention which must be given to worship. The focal point is the wonder
and glory of God as God, and the mercy and generosity of God as our God. The human response is reverence, homage, gratitude, and praise, and the confidence to call on God, worship which teaches Christians to give their whole lives over to God's will. Note also the light this passage sheds on some traditional views of Calvin's thought. The famous emphasis on the glory of God, which has often been read as the equivalent of the sovereignty of God,
and the often despised Calvinist emphasis on discipline, are seen in new ways when understood in their proper context of worship, the doxology that is the purpose and delight of human existence. In the next paragraph, Calvin fills out the picture of the human response, the divine grace in Christ from which it flows, and the love of the neighbor which should result. Quote, we exhort people to expect the good which they desire from none but God, to confide
in his power, trust in his goodness, depend on his truth, and turn to him with the whole heart, to recline on him with full hope, and resort to him in necessity, that is, at every moment, to ascribe to him every good thing enjoyed, and to show we do so by open expressions of praise, and that none may be deterred by difficulty of access, we proclaim a complete fountain of all blessings is offered to us in Christ,
out of which we may draw everything we need. We also commend true repentance, that people should live no longer to themselves but to God, nor do we overlook external duties and works of charity which follow on such renewal. This I say is the sure and unerring form of worship of God, which we know that he approves, because it is the form which his word prescribes, and these are the only sacrifices of the Christian church which have
his sanction. What is striking here is the total and passionate trust and reliance on God, and the proclamation of Christ as the source of blessing. Christians are taught that worshipping God not only means giving over themselves and all their lives to God inwardly and outwardly, but it should also produce visible fruit in the love of the neighbor. Calvin's rhetorically rich definition of reformed worship may not be satisfying to a liturgist, but it sets the whole question
of Calvinists and liturgy in a broader theological framework. Sketching briefly the central locus of worship in Protestant thought and the links of worship with so many primary motifs such as faith alone, the glory of God, and Christian vocation provides a clear context for understanding the significance of worship for reformed theology. The next step is to draw more precisely the outlines or contours of Calvinist teaching. Part two, the contours of Calvinist reformed worship, first the widest scope.
Perhaps the most useful comprehensive structure for describing Calvin's doctrine of worship locates it in his understanding of the two great commandments and the third use of the law as the pattern for the lives of those redeemed by grace alone. Fundamentally, Calvin speaks of reverent faith, fides, as the response which the Holy Spirit enables Christians to make to God. The concrete manifestation of this faith, however, is expressed in the keeping of the two great commandments, love God
and love your neighbor. The summary of the two tables of the decalogue. Calvin usually refers to this two-fold pattern by pairs of words or phrases, especially pietas and caritas. Pietas, translated variously as piety, devotion, or godliness, and the officia pietatus, the duties or obligations of devotion, sum up the love of God, the first table of the law. This slightly more specific definition is Calvin's most common connotation for the sometimes ambiguous word piety. Caritas, love, and
its synonyms, especially justitia, righteousness, or justice, and the officia caritatis, the duties or obligations of love, denote the second table. The threads of these two primary expressions of faith are woven throughout Calvin's theology. They are particularly prominent in his exegetical works, evidence of the biblical source of the two-fold structure. The two great commandments, the two tables of the law, are not on the same level, but their relationship is complex, and some understanding of this complexity
is necessary in order to grasp Calvin's teaching on worship. The first commandment always takes precedence over the second in essential value. However, the worship which fulfills the first table of the law is not one and indivisible. It includes both the devout adoration of the heart and the expression of that adoration in outward forms. In theory, the order of precedence is inward faith, outward acts of worship, ceremonies, and then love. Unhappily, ceremonies are always susceptible of distortion
and hypocrisy, and so, in some instances, the love of the neighbor may be better evidence for the actual faithful worship of God than our liturgical or devotional practices. Thus, for Calvin, the worship of God, which is response of reverent faith produced by the Holy Spirit in the regenerate Christian, is expressed concretely in pietas and caritas, the obligations of devotion and the obligations of love. Pietas has precedence, but its authenticity is tested by caritas. Acts of devotion
and worship are held in dynamic tension with acts of justice or love for the neighbor. It is appropriate now to move from the widest contours of Calvin's understanding of worship in the structure of the two great commandments to focus on the first half of that pattern, pietas, the acts of worship or devotion. In simplest terms, the officia pietatus, the obligations of devotion, cover all the concrete acts of worship, both planned public corporate ones, which are commonly
called liturgies, and private or individual ones, which may be designated more narrowly as devotional acts. Liturgy and devotional acts are not Calvin's terms. He prefers to speak of the obligations of devotion generally with public prayers or common prayers for what is here called liturgy. Prayer, the continuum and matrix. Before describing separately liturgy and devotional acts, the two subcategories of Calvin's duties of devotion, it is useful to examine his doctrine of prayer, the matrix or continuum, which
underlies both, and to note some general characteristics of worship, which Calvin treats particularly in connection with prayer. The significance and centrality of prayer for Calvin's doctrine of worship should not be underestimated. In the institutes, he calls prayer, quote, the chief exercise of faith by which we daily receive God's benefits, end quote. And he later adds, quote, that among the duties of godliness or devotion, the scriptures commend none more frequently than prayer, end quote. In fact, prayer
can be used as a kind of shorthand for the whole of worship. Calvin emphasizes that God has commanded us to pray and promised to hear prayers, and he criticizes those who, out of false humility, refuse to call on God. Petition and thanksgiving are almost inseparable concepts, because fundamentally, to call on God in every circumstance is an acknowledgement of all God's prior and future mercies. Not to pray is, quote, to defraud God of the chief part of
his worship, end quote. Not to acknowledge God as the sole source of all good things is equivalent to setting up idols in God's place. The primary form of prayer is the heart's outpouring to God, but spoken prayer is also vital. It may be planned or spontaneous, public or private, said or sung. Prayer must be shaped by the Bible. The Lord's Prayer is the preeminent model, and it should normally be intelligible. Although Calvin provided guidelines for private
prayers, he was primarily interested in defining public prayers, the liturgy, because he understood all personal or individual devotional acts as an extension of the corporate worship of the body of Christ. The major factors which characterize prayer and other duties of devotion can be briefly summarized, although sadly, this cannot be done without a note of confessional polemic. Worship, as taught by scripture, must be directed to God alone through Christ. Idolatry and superstition alike are ruled out. Sacrifice
of the mass, veneration of images, prayers to saints, excessive ceremonies and external show, unintelligible worship, all are rejected. Worship, which is the work of the Holy Spirit, must come from the heart and be shaped by scripture to glorify God and edify the church and the neighbor. Worship is always communal in intent, if not in fact, and when it is corporate, it must be in a language which the whole body understands. Liturgy and devotional acts. The two
major parts of the duties of devotion are liturgies and individual devotional acts. One of the common concerns of Protestant reformers was the desire to renew and strengthen the links between these two forms of worship, links which had become increasingly attenuated in the Middle Ages. In some good measure, this reuniting was achieved through the introduction of the vernacular in worship. In addition, the use of many of the same texts, especially the Psalms, spoken or sung by all
in liturgy or private life, was also an important factor in uniting public and private worship. Calvin, like most clerical reformers, gives more attention to liturgy than to devotional acts. It is significant that the two marks by which he identifies the true church, the pure preaching and hearing of the word, and the right administration of the sacraments, are both central to the liturgy. On the other hand, many lay reformers, among them the remarkable Katharina Schütz Zell of Strasbourg,
seem to give particular stress to personal devotional life. A brief summary. Calvinist reformed worship is first reverent faith, which is manifested in two interrelated kinds of acts, service or love of God, service or love of the neighbor. Love of God always takes precedence in principle, but sometimes the best evidence of real adoration of God is found in the service of the neighbor rather than in cultic acts. For this reason, faith, acts of devotion and acts of
love are inextricably interrelated in Calvinist understanding of worship, forming a structure that is coherent without being rigid. Prayer, the chief exercise of faith, is the most important of these duties of devotion. Prayer also underlies and unites the two subcategories, liturgy and individual devotional acts. Although different members of the reformed community put greater emphasis on one part or another, public and private acts of worship form a kind of continuum, sharing a common language and many common texts.
Part three, the contents of Calvinist reformed worship. First, a word about public prayers and liturgies, especially the form of written liturgies. Although it has long been popular to assume that reformed Christians were fiercely opposed to written liturgies, this common notion is in fact false for the 16th century and even for many later reformed communities. To understand the 16th century situation, it is necessary to see Protestants in the context of their age. Protestants generally objected to the
rights they inherited, not because they opposed all liturgies, but for two kinds of reasons. The first was ethical. Like Christian humanists, Protestants thought that elaborate ceremonies were distracting and wasteful. More important, however, were the theological objections to sacramental liturgies as magical, unbiblical good works. All Protestants insisted that no right is sacred or grace-giving in itself, but when rightly understood as a means of edification, a prepared and stable order of worship is useful and good. Thus,
most of those who broke with Rome in fact prepared new or simplified liturgical forms in the languages of their peoples, giving particular emphasis to expository biblical preaching, communal participation in the sacraments, and congregational singing. Reformed theologians, led especially by Martin Bucer of Strasburg, gave considerable attention to the development of public liturgies. The first task had been to preach, to convert people to the new understanding of worship as a person's entire relationship to God based on faith
alone. After several years, support for the new Christocentric and biblical approach had grown strong, and the leaders proceeded to change the rites themselves, first translating, then altering forms and contents to bring the liturgy into accord with the theology. Over the 15 years before Calvin arrived in Strasburg in 1538, the city's liturgy went through a number of stages of deconstruction and reconstruction. The key criteria were fidelity to biblical teaching and theological appropriateness. This also meant considerable simplification
of structure. The new vernacular worship patterns were intended to be faithful to scripture and the practice of the early church, but they were also recognized as historical texts, which could and should be fitted to edify the particular community which used them. Acts 2:42, The Calvinist Paradigm for Sunday Worship Protestants generally regarded the Bible as the fundamental authority for the character of worship, but they applied this in varied ways to the details of practice. According to early
Reformed theologians, the Bible does not establish a rigid blueprint for liturgy, but it does provide guidelines for content. The key biblical paradigm for Calvinist Reformed worship was Acts 2:42, which was understood not as a strict order, but as a summary of the necessary components of a complete Lord's Day service. Calvin quotes Acts 2:42 in the first edition of the Institutes in the context of relating love to the Lord's Supper. Quote, Luke relates in the Acts of
the Apostles that this was the practice of the apostolic church when he says that believers continued in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in prayers. Thus, it became the unvarying rule that no meeting of the church should take place without the word, prayers, partaking of the supper, and almsgiving. End quote. Significantly, this passage remained unchanged through all later editions of the Institutes, and Acts 2:42 became for Calvinists a four-fold list
of the major components of worship. The first point in Acts 2:42, and the first mark of the church for Calvin, is the teaching of the apostles, the gospel. One of the primary Protestant reforms was an insistence on the pure preaching of the God and that alone. Sermons had not been as rare in the Middle Ages as later Protestants have sometimes thought, but these sermons were not a necessary part of the regular mass liturgy, and they were
not necessarily based on scripture. For Calvinists, as for Protestants generally, the exposition of the biblical text in the language of the people became a central and necessary part of all right worship of God. Proclaiming the gospel is a form of praising and honoring God. Preaching is also, of course, related to human salvation. Only the Bible reveals the way to salvation, and human preaching of scripture is the ordinary means by which God has ordained to bring women
and men to faith, and to teach them how to live according to God's will. The teaching of the apostles is the first, but certainly not the only mark of the church. The right administration of the sacraments is the second. Calvin understood the breaking of bread in Acts 2:42 as a reference to the Lord's Supper, the visible word by which the Holy Spirit offers to all and conveys to those with faith the spiritual reality of Christ's
body and all its benefits. The doctrine of the Lord's Supper is too complex for adequate treatment here, but it is important to note several factors regarding its role in public worship. Calvin's insistence that the sacraments are necessary for the visible public face of the church and Christian worship is noteworthy for three reasons. First, the sacraments are God's gifts for the church to be administered in the community in corporate worship, and the community as a whole is
to participate, not merely observe. Secondly, the claim that the sacraments are necessary to public worship is one of the key liturgical differences between Calvinists and their Zwinglian Reformed colleagues. Calvin has often been accused of reducing the Sunday liturgy to a word service, but this is theologically untrue, even though he was prevented from practicing frequent communion. For Calvin, the whole word and sacrament service is the ideal, regular Sunday worship. The sacraments are a means of grace, and
thus, if the communicants are properly prepared, the Supper should be celebrated weekly. The third significant point is related to this proper preparation and the fact that public participation in the sacraments is also a key point at which Christian vocation in the world is linked with the liturgy. The most obvious connection between the Lord's Supper, preparation, and the world is the often misunderstood Calvinist practice of discipline. Those who do not come to the Supper as repentant sinners,
trusting in Christ's mercy, who thus profane the body of Christ by irreverence and ingratitude, ignorance of the basics of the or failure to love their neighbors, are excluded from both sacraments until they manifest repentance. However, the Lord's Supper is also a key point for nourishing Christian life in the world. If reconciliation with God and neighbors is a condition for sharing in the Supper, the Supper is also the communion with Christ and fellow Christians, which supports Christian
vocation. In addition to the word and sacraments, there are two other important components of public worship named in Acts 2:42. The first of these is prayer, which for Calvinists includes sung praise. Early Calvinists left some liturgical prayers to the minister's discretion, but unlike some of their Puritan descendants, they had no objection to the use of set forms or written prayers. The popular part of congregational prayer was sung, and the joy and praise of Calvinist worship
cannot be rightly understood if this singing is forgotten. Although there were some exceptions, Calvinist reformed generally sang only biblical texts, particularly the Psalms. The latter were translated in metrical form and set to specially written music, which was intended to be seriously joyful. In church, Psalms were sung in unison, one word to a note, since praying the text with understanding was more important than making a wonderful sound. As sung prayer, the Psalms also formed an important link
between corporate liturgy and individual devotion. The fourth remaining component of Acts 2:42, koinonia, or fellowship, is in some ways the most interesting, or at least the most distinctive element in this Calvinist reformed paradigm for worship. Calvin defined koinonia as, quote, mutual association, alms, and other duties of brotherly fellowship, end quote, and emphasized the connection between the Lord's Supper and this fellowship. Because of the prescriptive character of Acts 2:42, koinonia, most often concretely expressed as
almsgiving, is regarded as a necessary part of formal worship. Calvin himself recognized that it might seem a slightly foreign element in the liturgy, but he affirmed the practice as biblical teaching and therefore normative. Koinonia and public worship provides a visible link between worship as the service of God in the liturgy and worship as the service of God in loving the neighbor. Other public liturgies. The Sunday word and sacrament service is central, but there are other liturgies
in Calvin's form of prayers. A brief list must suffice here. The sacrament of baptism and the celebration of marriage, not a sacrament for Protestants, are given special liturgies. Provisions are also made for corporate daily worship of various kinds. Most weekdays began with a rather bare sermon liturgy. However, on one day each week was held a special prayer service, particularly devoted to the needs of the church in the world, with a lengthy prayer of intercession and congregational
psalm singing as well as the scripture and sermon. This corporate daily worship of Calvinists provides an appropriate transition to a sketch of their individual daily devotional lives. Private devotional acts. For clergy, one of the most important concerns in devotional life was theological reform of popular piety. Although it may seem strange to modern ears to count religious education as a part of devotional life, the association of teaching and worshiping is traditional. For example, one of the most
common aspects of catechesis has always been teaching new Christians to pray, especially the Lord's Prayer. Calvinists have been accused, not without some justification, of promoting a very didactic piety, but this was in fact common to many early modern reformers. For laypeople, it was the emotional comfort of prayers and songs which probably mattered most in the devotional life. Following a brief sketch of common characteristics and contents of these extra liturgical duties of devotion, attention will be focused
on the example of a remarkable lay reformer, Katharina Schütz Zell. Some general comments. For reformed Christians, personal acts of devotion were part of a continuum with liturgy and followed similar theological standards. Many forms of medieval practice, such as pilgrimages, celebrations of saints' days, and so forth, were therefore discouraged or eliminated. Devotional life was oriented towards the word of God and a print culture, and thus written text gained a new importance. The knowledge of the Bible and various
forms of family or individual scripture study were strongly encouraged. Prayers, psalms, and hymns were central to the devotional activities of most Protestants. The Lord's Prayer had pride of place in the teaching of prayer, but psalters and hymn books provided the essential content of reformed lay piety. In addition to sung texts, prayers for special occasions were sometimes attached to catechisms or liturgies. For example, Calvin's catechism includes prayers for use on a rising in the morning, before and
after meals, before work or school, and on retiring at night. A special prayer of intercession for captives is found at the end of the form of prayers, liturgy, and various kinds of prayers sometimes appeared in psalters. The work of Schütz Zell, a Strasbourg contemporary of Bucer and Calvin, provides a glimpse of the duties of devotion as practiced and taught by a lay person. Two publications in particular illustrate key facets of lay reformed piety. The first of these
is Schütz Zell's edition of a hymn book of the Bohemian Brethren, to which she added a distinctive preface and annotations. Schütz Zell's work is strongly Protestant, although she did not require that Christians sing only biblical texts. She clearly recognized and celebrated the principle of sola scriptura, and firmly insisted on a Christocentric understanding of faith, excluding any appeal to the saints or work's righteousness. Schütz Zell called her hymn books a teaching, prayer, and praise book. Her annotations on the hymns
were intended to guide the singers in understanding their faith, and her preface suggests that she wanted the book to function as a kind of teach yourself and teach your household catechism. Although her first concern was right theology, Schütz Zell also delighted in music which would attract people to the sung gospel, and singing formed a vital part of reformed piety. The preface to Schütz Zell's hymn book also indicates her special sensitivity to lay concerns. Early liturgical reformers concentrated on
the text necessary for public worship, giving lay people relatively little to replace the old private prayers and songs to the saints, which had been rejected. Schütz Zell promoted the replacement of what she considered old bad songs with good theology by supplying prayer and praise texts for many more occasions in Christian life than were covered by the official liturgies or hymn books. Her book included not only hymns for various hours and tasks of daily life, but also for
times of trial and sorrow, for favorite Christological holy days, for special groups of people, and many other situations. Schütz Zell's hymn book is directed to lay people, especially families, and gives particular attention to women. Perhaps the most important feature of the book is the evidence Schütz Zell provides for locating Protestant and reformed devotional acts right in the midst of mundane life. And teach your children and relatives to know that they do not serve human beings, but God, when
they faithfully, in the faith, keep house, obey, cook, wash dishes, wipe up and tend children, and such like work which serves human life. And that while doing this very work, they can also turn to God with the voice of song. Schütz Zell says this is much more pleasing than the work of priests, monks, and nuns. The artisan at his work, the maid servant at her dishwashing, the farmer and the vine dresser on the farm, and the mother
with the wailing child in the cradle. They use such prayer, praise, and teaching songs, psalms, and other such like things, provided it is all done in the faith and knowledge of Christ, and they devoutly order their whole lives with all faithfulness and patience towards everyone. Listen to the ringing exhortation to the priesthood of believers, which echoes through this passage, along with the clear insistence on the right conditions in the singer's heart and life, faith in Christ
and love for the neighbor. The second of Schütz Zell's writings, which illustrates reformed devotional life, is a book of meditations on biblical texts, Psalms 51 and 130, and the Lord's Prayer. The explanation of the Lord's Prayer originated as a response to the plight of some women who needed pastoral counsel, and Schütz Zell's reflections combine education with edification. The meditations on the Psalms, however, were the more personal fruit of Schütz Zell's private Bible study, though it is notable that her
purpose in publishing them was pastoral. In the preface to the book, Schütz Zell writes that she had gone through all the Psalms at a time of great personal anguish, writing out her thoughts. Now she chose to share selected texts with an elderly and afflicted friend and others whom she could not reach in person, in order to support them in their suffering by offering the comfort and admonition which God had given her in her troubles. I sought in
my meditations some helpful way to be present with you and to help to carry your cross aways, spiritually if not physically, or to lighten it with as much spiritual consolation as God gives me, as in my urgent necessities about my conduct, God also admonished and consoled me. I sought out some of my old booklets, which I wrote for myself some years ago, and from these, in which I went through the entire Holy Salter with lament, prayer,
and thanks, I have taken one, namely the Miserere, Psalm 51. As David did, so I once in great anxiety and despondency of my own before God, meditated, prayed, and paraphrased this, when my heart and conscience were deeply afflicted, together with the 130th Psalm, when I had a great struggle within me over the wrath and the grace of God, and yet the Lord consoled me in such a fatherly way. The combination of personal and pastoral, biblical and
existential is both striking and typical of Schütz Zell's piety. Singing and meditating on the Psalms were, in fact, at the heart of Reformed piety. Calvin considered the Psalms, quote, an anatomy of all the parts of the soul, for there is not an emotion of which anyone can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror, end quote. In the Psalms, we overhear the biblical leaders laying open all their inmost thoughts and affections, and we are
encouraged and guided in our corporate prayers and our personal praise and lament. For the Reformed tradition, the whole of life was to be permeated with the biblical consciousness of living in God's sight, and the duties of devotion were to punctuate a life of devotion. It is significant that one way Schütz Zell chose to help others was by sharing her own inner struggle expressed in meditation on Psalms. This, like her emphasis on Christians singing God's praise in the
midst of work which serves human life, points to some of the ways in which the duties of devotion were linked with the duties of love, the worship of God with the service of the neighbor. And that interweaving of acts of devotion with the larger picture of what worship is brings the story full circle. Conclusion. What then are the major features of the classical Calvinist Reformed understanding of worship? The first, and perhaps the most significant, is a
new appreciation of the place of worship at the heart of Calvinist theology, closely interwoven with all other key doctrines. This context also serves to enlarge and subtly reshape the definition of worship. Worship is not simply cultic acts, but the reverent faith which acknowledges and delights in God as God. The inward response to God's grace which flows from that grace itself, a doxology which is then lived out in acts of worship and acts of love. Secondly, seeing
the major contours of Calvinist worship as the concrete embodied expression of the two great commandments gives a clear overarching structure to the service of God. Worship is offered directly to God in acts of devotion and indirectly in acts of vocation. This structure also provides a way of coherently relating and holding together both corporate and personal devotional acts. Prayer is the chief exercise of faith which links together both public liturgy and private piety, but the common language
and texts, the common theological standards, also promote a sense of the oneness of all acts of worship. Thirdly, an examination of the contents of Calvinist worship demonstrates the importance of reverently planned acts of worship, the value of teaching and learning how to worship rightly according to God's revealed will and the necessity for living that worship in the world. The central act of the Christian body is the Lord's Day liturgy with the preaching and hearing of the
word, the administration of the sacraments, the prayers, and the fellowship. This liturgy expresses the purpose of human Christian life, but it also leads outward into the world of vocational piety where ordinary people in their ordinary daily tasks turn to God with psalms of praise and lament, where Christians offer each other the admonition and comfort which God has given them, and where the character of the God who is worshiped demands and empowers the transformation of the world.
Context contours contents, but so what? The picture of worship which emerges from classical Calvinist history is not binding on all its heirs. It does not exhaust all that can or be said about worship. It does, however, leave no doubt about the central significance of worship for Reformed theology. It also offers some important insights for defining worship more adequately and for structuring the relationship of liturgy and justice more coherently, which Reformed Christians can contribute to the larger
ecumenical discussion. The implications of the Calvinist understanding of worship for Reformed theological education may be worked out in various ways. One of the most elusive and yet most vital ways may be a recognition of the concept of worship as a comprehensive coherent vision of how all of the disciplines are related to each other, a matrix in which exegesis and ethics, biblical, historical, and theological wisdom can come together in the practical life of the church mediated through
preaching and prayer, Christian education and pastoral presence, song and soup kitchens, and unpopular stands for justice in God's world. The question of how this comprehensive vision can be made concrete practice remains a challenge to the ways that we structure theological education, but the first step is thinking together. Thank you for joining me in this exploration of new ways to think about the Calvinist Reformed understanding of worship. Thank you. Dr. McKee, you have spoken eloquently of a
comprehensive coherent vision of worship in the Calvinist tradition and we thank you for giving us such a comprehensive and coherent interpretation of that vision. Thank you very much and thank you for being here.