What’s Wrong with Sacramental Worship?

By Robin G. Jordan

In my article, “Morningand Evening Prayer – Public Worship or Private Devotions,” I examined a number of problems associated with sacramental worship. The problems affect the Anglican Church in North America as well as the Episcopal Church. Indeed, they affect all denomination in which the predominant form of worship is sacramental.

Sacramental worship may be defined as worship in which the consecration and reception of the Holy Communion are the primary focus. The consecration may include the offering of the consecrated bread and wine to God as a representation or reiteration of Christ’s sacrifice or as a form of participation in Christ’s hypothesized ongoing sacrificial activity. The showing of the consecrated bread and wine to the congregation for adoration may precede the communion. A portion of the consecrated elements may also be reserved for subsequent adoration.

In the Anglican Church in North America the priest in charge of the parish or mission determines what meaning is assigned to the consecration and reception of the Holy Communion in a particular church. He does this in two ways. One way is the practices that he follows—the ceremonial, the gestures, and the postures he uses. The other is how he explains the consecration and reception from the pulpit, in the classroom, in the newsletter, and on the internet. What he believes or wants the congregation to believe can be gleaned from these sources.

In its Fundamental Declaration the Anglican Church in North America recognizes the 1662 Book of Common Prayer as “a standard of Anglican doctrine and discipline” with the inference that the 1662 Prayer Book is one of a number of doctrinal and disciplinary standards for Anglicans. The Fundamental Declarations do not identify these standards.

Historically the Thirty-Nine Articles, the two Books of Homilies, and the 1661 Ordinal, together with the 1662 Prayer Book, form the doctrinal standard of Anglicanism. The Fundamental Declarations, however, leaves to the individual what other standards he accepts.

The particular choice of wording also leaves him free to disregard the 1662 Prayer Book as a standard. He may choose the decrees of the Council of Trent to be his standard.

The Fundamental Declarations take the position that the Thirty-Nine Articles represent the views of Anglicans at a particular time in history. They are not binding upon our consciences today. We can disregard them. This is similar to the position liberals take on the passages in the Bible that condemn homosexual practice. They are the views of a particular culture at a particular time in history.

The Fundamental Declarations also take the position that the Thirty-Nine Articles contain only some principles of authentic Anglican belief and other such principles exist elsewhere. They do not identify where. The individual is left to decide for himself what these principles are and where they may be found.

The end result is that the priest in charge of the parish or mission may assign whatever meaning he likes to the consecration and reception of the Holy Communion as long as he does not run afoul of his bishop. If he and his bishop share similar views, he does not even have this restraint. Like the priest, the bishop is free to assign whatever meaning he likes to the consecration and reception. He is not conscience-bound to accept the doctrine of the Anglican formularies any more than the priest.

As far as what meaning may be assigned to the consecration and reception of the Holy Communion is concerned, the situation in the Anglican Church in North America is like that in the Episcopal Church where church doctrine in general is concerned. In the Episcopal Church a bishop cannot be tried for espousing views contrary to church doctrine until all the bishops of the church have been polled to determine what is church doctrine and whether views the bishop espoused were contrary to that doctrine. In the Episcopal Church church doctrine is whatever the preponderance of bishops believe is church doctrine. What is church doctrine one week may not be church doctrine the next.  The consciences of Episcopal bishops are not bound by the Anglican formularies or any other fixed standard, including the Scriptures. They are the ultimate authority. Even a patently heretical bishop is not likely to face trial for the views he espouses unless he offends his fellow bishops in some other way.

Due to the particular interpretations of Scripture that are prevalent in Anglican Church in North America even the Scriptures are not a restraining influence. Clergy influenced by Anglo-Catholic movement or the Ancient Future worship renewal movement give substantially more weight to church tradition than to Scripture, using tradition to interpret Scripture. They are not critical in reading the Patristic writers, submitting Patristic thought to Scripture.

The Anglo-Catholic movement is a movement with the restoration of traditional doctrines and practices from the Church’s past as its objective. The Ancient Future worship renewal movement is a movement with the revival of traditional doctrines and practices from the Church’s past as its objective. The focus of the Anglo-Catholic movement is the Anglican Church. The focus of the Ancient Future worship renewal movement was initially evangelical and charismatic churches.

The apostle Paul tells us that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17). The reading and preaching of the word are a critical part of the process by which an individual comes to faith. Through the proclamation of the gospel God plants the seed of faith, germinates it, and waters and nourishes it.

The Thirty-Nine Articles stress faith as a necessary pre-condition to the receipt of the sacrament of the Holy Communion. Article 25  tell us that through the sacrament of Holy Communion God works invisibly in us and quickens, strengthens, and confirms our faith in Him. Article 29 tells us that only those who have a vital faith can receive any benefit from the sacrament of the Holy Communion. Only they are partakers of Christ.

 Faith must be present in order for God to make it more active, stronger, and more certain. It does not have to be a strong faith but does need to be present.  Likewise faith must be present in order for us to participate in the benefits of Christ’s passion and death, his body broken for us, his blood shed for us.

When too much emphasis is placed upon sacramental worship and the traditional doctrines and practices wed to that worship, the proclamation of the gospel is not just neglected. The traditional doctrines and practices that are so much a part of sacramental worship proclaim “a different gospel.” Rather than offering the gift of eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ , they offer something else. Instead of offering the Bread of Life, they offer a stone.

If we are committed to fulfilling the great commission, this knowledge should make us think twice. Jesus commanded the Church to go and proclaim the gospel to the farthest reaches of the earth. He did not command the Church to take a particular form of worship to ends of the earth.

Much of what is touted as sacramental worship is human invention—the ornaments, the ceremonies, and the unscriptural doctrines. A gospel-centered celebration of the Holy Communion is simple and unadorned. It focuses upon what is most important. It follows the reading and preaching of the word and the proclamation of the gospel. Only what is essential to the celebration is present—a minister of the gospel, bread and wine, a gathering of believing Christians, and the intention to do what Christ himself ordained.

A gospel-centered celebration of the Holy Communion is not the representation or reiteration of a sacrifice. It is not a pleading of a sacrifice. It is the proclamation of a sacrifice. “…every time you eat this bread and drink from this cup you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes (1 Corinthians 11:26).

When believers drink from the cup, they share in the blood of Christ. When they eat the bread, they share in the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 10:16). To those who “rightly, worthily, and with faith,” receive the cup and bread, the Holy Spirit applies the benefits of Christ’s passion and death (Article 28).

This is entirely a spiritual operation. The substance of the bread and wine is not changed when bread and wine are consecrated—set apart for sacramental use. Nothing is added to their substance. The bread is bread and the wine is wine.

If we are committed to fulfilling the great commission, we recognize the need for non-sacramental forms of worship as well as balanced services of the word and sacrament. We do not tie ourselves to a particular form of worship. We also recognize that whatever form worship does take, it must be centered on the gospel. It must not draw attention away from the gospel, obscure the gospel, or proclaim “a different gospel.”

In the forms of service that the Anglican Church in North America’s Liturgy and Common Worship Task Force has produced to date, sacramental ministry of the priest and sacramental worship are emphasized. This is not a positive development.

In a denomination that accepts the authority of the Bible and is committed to fulfilling the great commission, the emphasis would be upon the gospel ministry of the pastor and gospel-centered worship. The task force would be preparing for the use of the local church forms of service that conform to the teaching of Scripture in doctrine and practice and provide a wide variety of gospel-centered worship options from which the local church could choose.

The role of the task force, like that of the province and the diocese, would be to support the gospel ministry of the local church, not undermine it. The task force would be producing forms of service that included alternative forms of morning and evening worship as well as services of Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Holy Communion. All of the forms of service would be designed for use as regular services of public worship.

All kinds of churches and all kinds of worship are needed to reach North America with the gospel. For a denomination to limit its local churches to one particular form of worship is poor stewardship of what God has given that denomination. It is unwise to say the least.  

A denomination that imposes such a limitation on its local churches is like the servant who was given one talent. Instead of investing it and making a profit for his master, he buried it. A denomination that limits its local churches to a single form of worship should remember the master’s reaction when he learned that the servant to whom he had given one talent had not employed it to his master’s advantage. In imposing this kind of limitation on its local churches the denomination is not being faithful. It is placing the dictates of tradition before the imperative of the gospel. It risks God taking from it all that he given it and giving it to another.