Renewing Worship or Replacing It?

Scott Grorud

   The ELCA is in the midst of Renewing Worship, a multi-year project to design new worship resources to replace the Lutheran Book of Worship (LBW).  The publicity surrounding Renewing Worship (RW) suggests that it is merely an effort to incorporate a wider variety of material and foster dialogue about worship.

    However, a close look at RW suggests that careful theological examination of the proposals is critically important.  For example, the May 2004 issue of Procession, the RW newsletter, includes a column by Dennis Bushkofsky, a member of the editorial team for Holy Baptism and Related Rites.  In a list of issues that “needed testing,” he wrote “will a Renewal of Baptism rite (‘sprinkling rite’) be a satisfactory alternative to Confession and Forgiveness?”

    The very suggestion that any rite might be a “satisfactory alternative” to confession and forgiveness of sin is suspicious, because Lutherans have always seen the declaration that God justifies the ungodly as absolutely central to the Gospel and to worship.  But that confession and absolution should be replaced by a “Renewal of Baptism” rite is just as troubling.

    This language of baptismal renewal is not what Martin Luther meant when he urged us to return daily to the promise of our baptism.  Instead, it reflects the Roman Catholic understanding that baptism removes original sin as people are initiated into the Church.  As original sin is removed, they are given a “moral habit,” the ability to strive for good by following the rites of the Church.

    In this understanding, confession and forgiveness are no longer central to worship, but only spiritual preparation which allows us to join in the real center of worship, the Eucharist (a name for the sacrament which focuses on our giving thanks to God, rather than Christ coming to us by his word and promise).  This is also why the Brief Order for Confession and Forgiveness was moved outside of and before the main liturgy in the LBW.

    This theology differs greatly from the confessional Lutheran understanding of baptism as dying and rising with Christ, because we are, by nature, sinful and unclean.  It removes justification as the center and purpose of worship, allowing confession and forgiveness to be casually replaced by a “satisfactory alternative.”  In suggesting changes like this, the ELCA is not simply renewing worship, but utterly changing it in ways that contradict core Lutheran convictions about the essence of the Gospel.