A Case For The Plurality Of Worship Styles

Christian worship from the beginning has been characterized by a variety of styles. Contemporary scholarship suggests that there was no single original style of worship, but rather that worship patterns varied from place to place in the early church. Knowing this fact, we can see the current range of worship practices as a positive characteristic that enriches the church. When the serious scientific study of liturgy began to be pursued in the nineteenth century, it was primarily as a historical discipline: scholars wanted to know how we had reached the forms of worship practiced in the present, how liturgy had changed and developed throughout the history of the church. Although more recently the scope of liturgical studies has expanded to include other methods of analysis, the historical approach still tends to occupy the position of primary importance in scholarship. More importantly still, those engaged in liturgical revision and renewal in many Christian churches in the present ha…