The Second Pillar is Broken

The main sanctuary was dark, other than the dozen or so large candles that flickered in the breeze of the large space. A familiar classical piece was being played by a small orchestral ensemble under a large corinthian column near the radiating rose window.

The sound of the sanctus bell struck--all fell silent--and the procession of a raised bronze cross proceeded down the nave. Men and women in red and white cassocks and surplices followed the raised cross and took their place in the choir under the large stained glass windows. The choir poured forth with songs celebrating Pentecost Sunday as the paraments proclaimed in color the descent of the Holy Spirit on the church.

Motion after motion, the liturgy followed the well-worn paths of high medieval worship with a few important exceptions: the gospel was proclaimed, the worship was in English, and the ministers were not priests. The first pillar of the Reformation was well cared for--the gospel was present. This was, after all, not a Roman cathedral, but a well-known--even world famous--reformed and presbyterian church.

Discouragement set in as the "historic and classical" liturgy, self-stylized as confessionally-reformed, meandered between early-modern Canterbury and late-medieval Rome. My eyes wandered around the modern cathedral as I was frequently struck by the two main columns between the reading lectern and the 4100-pipe organ:

The Reformation had two pillars. One is broken.

One is broken.

During the Protestant Reformation it was well-known that there were two pillars of the Reformation that were the support of the whole biblical movement. According to John Calvin, the two primary pillars of the Reformation were the recovery of the true gospel and the pure worship of God. In his treatise The Necessity of Reforming the Church (1544), Calvin argued that the worship of God had been corrupted by man's innovations; idolatry even. He contended that true worship must be regulated by Scripture alone.

Reformed churches--including the one in which I was sitting--get the gospel right. The gospel is an essential pillar of the Reformation and a well-cared for and preserved truth of many.

For that we give God the glory.
But one is broken.

Calvin said in Necessity, "There is nothing on which men ought to insist more than on the true worship of God, and nothing on which God insists more strongly (p.126)."

The second chapter of Calvin's Necessity of Reforming the Church argues that worship had become utterly corrupted in the medieval church. Idolatry, at the core, was worshiping God according to the inventions of men rather than according to the revealed will of God. Calvin said, "Every image devised by man is a corruption of the true knowledge of God (p.128)."

Ceremonies, rites, vestments, and instrumentation had replaced the simplicity of biblical worship which was marked by simplicity, reverence, and truth. Calvin said, "The whole external show of devotion was a theatrical display, void of spiritual reality (pp.127-128)." Rites, ceremonies, and rituals that are assigned meaning by man, but are not found in the Word of God--are merely displays of devotion. It is theatre, spiritually meaningless theatre.

A renewal of worship in the reformed tradition is not reliant on a liturgical calendar, choirs and orchestras, bells and processions of an elevated cross--renewal of worship in the reformed tradition will require a Bible open with the simplicity of the means of grace laid out in our confessional standards: Scripture reading, faithful preaching, singing of Psalms, public prayer, and faithfulness to the sacraments.

I thought I was going to be encouraged this Lord's Day visiting one of the best known houses of worship in the American reformed tradition.

I was not.
My heart was heavy.
It still is.
One of the pillars is broken.
One of our pillars is broken.

Calvin, who also preached in a cathedral, but also removed the smells and bells; the organ and choir; the man-made hymns; and other inventions of men said of that reformation of worship:

"What we have attempted is nothing but a renewal of that ancient form of the church, which Christ and his apostles left to us (p.125)."

Let us renew our minds--and then renew our worship.

One pillar is broken.