3 comments

1. Brad – the roots of this type of “worship” probably originated in the late 60’s when rock groups such as Iron Butterfly with it’s Eastern religion work over of Buddhism with their hit song, “In-a-gadda-da-vida,” and the Electric Prune’s liturgical “Kyrie Eleison.” The former was, of course, a take-off of a non-Christian religion and the latter was a weird version of the catholic mass set to the genre of rock music. In either case, they inspired a great number of young students. I still recall hi-fi’s blasting loudly through dorm hallways to the Kyrie song.

   That was just the start. Following that entered the entire “Jesus Freak” movement and a dramatic shift in worship styles. Kim Riddlebarger has done a great job of documenting all of these movements that have come and gone in Southern California over the years, many of which have simply come and gone. Who’s to blame for all of this variant in worship services? Many would point a finger at the Boomers who melded their preference for rock music into church services. Perhaps. But I would say that it was the previous generation, Tom Brokaw’s “Greatest Generation”, for abandoning traditional, confessional, liturgical worship styles as a nod to their offspring who always wanted (and usually got) something new and different for allowing these kinds things into the churches.

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   • Don’t forget Vatican II and the guitar masses.

     Revivalism was a major influence.

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     • Dr. Clark, you are spot on about the guitar masses. As I think I’ve told you, my father left the Roman Catholic Church after Vatican II on the grounds that the Catholics had rejected the faith and become Protestant. He didn’t go into sedevacantism or SSPX or the other traditionalist Catholic movements but rejected the faith entirely. Many others of his generation, including quite a few leading conservatives in today’s Republican Party, moved into Catholic traditionalism as a reaction against an approach to worship that seeks to replace reverence with “relevance.”

       Not an unknown problem in Reformed circles, sadly.

       However, this influence of revivalism outside Protestant circles goes beyond Roman Catholicism into places where we would not expect it.

       Take a look at Patriarch Kirill’s use of stadium events in the Russian Orthodox world. During the period that the KGB controlled the Russian Orthodox Church and used it for Russian government purposes, Kirill had the opportunity, which was very unusual in his era, to spend significant time in the West observing the church world.

       Much of the animosity of both Kirill and Putin toward the West is based on Kirill’s experience with mainline Protestantism, which he believed — with good reason — was destroying the most basic foundations of Christian faith. Kirill came to the conclusion that, unlike the Russian Orthodox priests who were being forced at literal gunpoint to submit to the state, the Western church was jackhammering its own foundations by their own choice. He was probably right.

       It’s too bad someone didn’t give a young Russian Orthodox monk named Kirill a copy of Machen’s “Christianity and Liberalism,” or something by Schaeffer, when he was visiting America and Europe and upset with what he saw. But to be fair, who could have known that Kirill wasn’t just another paid KGB spy for the Russian government — which he may have been, but history has shown he had his own agenda no matter who paid his bills.

       It’s clear that Kirill has no respect for evangelical Protestantism, which he believes has no sense of history and because it does not value doctrine, risks veering into all sorts of heresies.

       What someone should be doing is paying attention to just how much the Russian Orthodox understand of American evangelical Protestantism and what it means that Kirill is adopting some external manifestations of it without going the route of Roman Catholic folk masses, rock masses, etc.

       We’re going to have to deal with Russia, particularly in Europe where Russia is expanding its influence, and in parts of the Middle East that still have a viable Eastern Orthodox community and where Russia sees itself as returning to its historic pre-1900s role of being the protector of Orthodoxy in the Muslim world.

       Kirill’s views of evangelicalism are not yet fully clear but what is clear is that he sees evangelical Protestantism as a dangerous and corrosive influence. He seems to have realized the Roman Catholic approach to co-opting some parts of evangelicalism won’t work, but it’s not yet clear what approach he will take.

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