The Liturgy as Interpreter Par Excellence

[Benjamin Burch]

I am a little bit confused as to why

1) What I am saying is confusing
2) I am being asked questions high have nothing to do with what I am saying

What I am saying is this:

In the sixteenth century Protestantism proposed to take the Bible away from the Church and put it above/outside of the Church. This was a product of the intellectual and cultural climate of the sixteenth century. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Bible was placed in the hands of the modern university who would, as a third party, ensure that the real meaning would be found apart from what the Church had always said. This way the "true" meaning of the Bible could be found and the Modern European States and the Protestant Churches that belonged to them could follow what the Bible really said and break with that yucky tradition stuff.

The result was that the Bible became - in the university - a "text" which was ancient and dead. It was no longer Scripture, which was living and present. As the title of Michael Legaspi's book says so well, we experienced "the death of scripture and the rise of Biblical Studies.

The Bible - particularly the Old Testament - was an ancient Hebrew document which needed interpreted and then it's meaning applied to today in order to make it speak for Christianity. It required the Biblical Scholar.

The response was two-fold and churches have struggled to resist the extremes.
1) Isaiah 7:14 has nothing to do with Jesus, the Church or tradition make than leap
2) Isaiah 7:14 is about Jesus becaus the Bible (Matthew) tells me so and the Bible must be the reliable source against tradition

These manifest themselves in very liberal Protestantism on the one hand and fundamentalism (even inerrant evangelicalism) on the other.

This is a problem. The Bible no longer belongs to the Church, it belongs to the modern university. It is no linter present, it is ancient. It is no longer alive, it is dead. The Old Testament no longer reveals Christ.

So, I am attempting to, based on postmodern literary methods - most specifically ethnographic reading - offer a practical solution to this problem by proposing that Christian Liturgies (which predate the modern university) offer themselves to the Church as interpreters of the Scriptures. Thus I am arguing thatthis is accomplished by the specific use and placement of an order of actions, word, respnoses, and other texts which are placed intentionally in specific places within the chronology of the Liturgies. I am arguing that these words, actions, and texts offer a new literary context for the OT scriptures where they read fundamentally different.

I am using the Roman Rite Mass as a case study to make this argument.

Thus, the Liturgies (and in this case the RRM) take the Scriptures back from the unIversity and interprets it, giving it to God's people to be known with Christ as their meaning.

I am not saying this is the only solution or the exclusive true meanIng of the Scriptures, especially considering there are at least 3 formal liturgies in Christianity that predate the modern university and at least 2 which arise around the same time.

I am simply offering this as a practical solution to the problem I have identified.

[Todd Erickson]

Ben, I think that what was being stated earlier is that when much of the mass was developed, the catholic church, with it's priests, monks, etc. was the sole seat of learning within the Western World, i.e., the church was both the church and the academy. So the mass that was developed, the Liturgy set forth, the worship allowed (Harmony could result in execution for a number of centuries) all came from this common role, which is why all of our oldest Universities are, in fact, initially religious institutions.

Who taught what the church had decided was appropriate.

My observation from talking to Catholics is that there is just as much instance of folk theology among them as there is among Protestants who lack all liturgy. Thus in practical example, I have not seen a difference caused by Liturgy... it's just a different way of teaching things.

[Benjamin Burch]

It is finished! It probably needed another eye on proof-reading.... I apologize.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B6Q...FBVdW1BQm1obFU

[Hans Deventer]

It is finished! It probably needed another eye on proof-reading.... I apologize.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B6Q...FBVdW1BQm1obFU

Might not make it today, have a wedding to attend, but I'll certainly read it tomorrow!