A History Of Cultural Adaptation In Christian Worship

Although the challenge of swiftly changing cultures is especially characteristic of recent years, the cultural adaptation of Christian worship has a long and fascinating history. This article identifies many of the most important adaptations of worship through the early history of the church. As the expression implies, liturgical adaptation refers to the process by which the liturgy is modified in such a way as to render it "more suitable," "more appropriate," "more meaningful" to a given group of worshipers in a given context. While the term adaptation has been criticized as connoting an overly timid and even paternalistic attitude toward this process, the documents of the Second Vatican Council and the revised liturgical books use this word in a variety of contexts to express a range of nuanced ideas: from the most superficial kinds of rubrical changes to the creation of new liturgical forms springing from the genius of a particular culture. A careful reading of these documents, es…