John Muether, Closed for Christmas

[Editor's Note:  John Muether was one of my teachers at Reformed Theological Seminary, and one who has challenged me a great deal over the years about my thoughtless subscription to many commonplace assumptions in evangelicalism. We have not always agreed, but he has had a significant impact on my thinking about the Church, and especially about the Church vis-à-vis culture. I asked him to write about the Lord's Day aspect of the current controversy about churches not meeting on the Lord's Day, December 25, 2005.]

 

The proverbial twice-yearly church-goer (you know, the one who darkens the door only on Christmas and Easter) has been replaced by a new kind of Christian this season, the fifty-one-times-a-year pew-sitter. The Associated Press recently reported on the plans for many megachurches (including the granddaddy of them all, Willow Creek) to close their doors on Christmas day, which falls this year on Sunday.

Different rationales have been offered, and all of them are lame. One defender of closed doors claims that his church employs over 500 staff and volunteers who deserve a day off from their diligent labors to enjoy with their families. A 500-volunteer army may indicate that you are doing church wrong, but that is another conversation. Another church offered that it was not so much canceling church as distributing it, so that worship will still take place, only around the living rooms of the congregants. Holy XBox 360!

Equally disappointing are some of the criticisms of the proposed practice. Theologian David Wells (quoted by AP) misses the point when he locates the problem as consumerism. The real culprit is the liturgical bankruptcy of American evangelicalism. John Armstrong blogged a gentle critique of the planned closings without once mentioning the “Lord’s Day.” All he managed to suggest was that there were some traditions in the church worth preserving, and spending Christmas morning in church may be one of them.

The problem, however, is not the lost meaning of Christmas but the lost meaning of Sunday. It is, in the archaic-sounding formulation of the Westminster divines, the Christian Sabbath. We gather with the Lord’s people on the Lord’s Day because the Lord commands it (see Hebrews 10:25). And more than that, we need it. It is our oasis in the wilderness of this present life, and we are no more capable of surviving without this divine provision than the Israelites were in jettisoning the manna from heaven and fending for themselves. Of course, Christmas morning may resemble the spoils of Egypt more than barrenness of Israel’s wilderness wandering. But our failure to appreciate the analogy owes more to our brazen self-confidence and presumption about the Christian life and our accompanying disregard for the precarious state of our souls.

D. G. Hart has keenly observed that the culture wars are curiously misaligned with the worship wars. Evangelicals are firmly entrenched on the right in the former. But in the latter, they are far to the left even of mainline Protestants, who have some remnant sensitivity to correct forms and worship propriety (and who will conduct worship on Christmas morning). In other words, conservative Protestants passionately battle relativism for six days of the week only after fervently practicing it on the first day.

This is the real story behind the Christmas closings of 2005.  Evangelicals are politically conscious and liturgically indifferent, and so it becomes far more important to protest loudly in the public square to preserve their rights than actually to exercise them quietly in the sanctuary, on the day that the Lord has prescribed in his Word.

We sure don’t want to miss the opportunity to remind every Jew or Muslim or secularist that Jesus is the reason for the season. But when the Lord’s Day dawns on December 25, 2005, we will become the unchurched.

© 2005, John Muether.

John Muether toils for Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, though he claims no credit for the effect it had on Glenn Lucke. He vents more regularly in the pages of the Nicotine Theological Journal, a sample issue of which is available by inquiring at jmuether@rts.edu.

Comments

[Shaun]

"politically conscious and liturgically indifferent"

So true. Thanks, John.

[Joyce Repp]

This will be my first Christmas in a mission-field culture. Having the opportunity to step out of my own culture's traditions I find myself seriously evaluating exactly what it is I am celebrating on Christmas morning. With less than 1% of the population in my host culture, Japan, protestant Christian, Christmas isn't a family holiday, it is a Church Family holiday. And why shouldn't it be? Christmas is the celebration of Jesus' giving up all of heaven to come to this sinful world to die for His people. Should we not step back from worshipping the god of materialism for a few short hours to worship the King of Kings for His sacrifice? My family will spend all day with our Japanese church family, as we would even if Christmas were not on Sunday this year - because Christmas is a celebration of our God and Saviour and we look forward to being with His family on that day.

[Jake Rothman]

Correct forms? Could it be that Mainliners follow forms while Evangelicals follow Christ? Just a thought.

When the Samaritan woman questioned the Lord about "correct forms" in John 4, Jesus missed an opportunity to lecture her on her "liturgical indifference" and instead said that the problem was "You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship." He went on to say, "The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." (John 4:21-24)

While the OT has much to say on procedure of worship, the NT is deafeningly silent on this issue, but has much to say about Who we worship and our relationship with Him. I haven't found an explicit command to worship on Sunday, or to wear certain colors or light certain color candles based on the time of year. Heb 10:25 only commands that we meet together for mutual exhortation. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with all the traditions man has piled on to the Gospel over the centuries, but we must not lose the Savior for the "forms."

I too am disappointed that some churches have canceled Christmas day services, but for reasons along the lines of what Joyce said, and not because we are changing a centuries old tradition.

[Jake Rothman]

I hope I did not come off too harsh. I just want to make sure that we do not minimize what is essential, namely Christ, because we are so caught up in what is relatively unimportant - man's traditions. I did not mean to suggest that people who follow forms can't also follow Christ.

[John Muether]

Jake,

You raise some important questions that cannot be answered thoroughly in a forum like this. At the risk of sounding self-promotional, I can recommend a book on Reformed worship that addresses your concerns: With Reverence and Awe, that I co-wrote with D.G. Hart.

Very briefly, I would urge you to consider that the desire follow Christ with indifference to forms may itself be part of a centuries-old tradition, called Gnosticism. The Protestants of the 16th century knew better, it seems to me, and so they focused on recovering the right forms of worship, even to the point of embedding that concern in the name of their movement -- it was a Reformation, not a Revival.

I am glad that you too are dismayed at what some churches are doing on 12/25. Have a blessed Lord's Day tomorrow and a week from tomorrow.

[Peaches]

I have a a couple of comments. First the churches that have gotten so much attention about not having services on Christmas really do have hundred of volunteers that are part of putting on services. Nursery workers, parking lot helpers, greaters, teachers, musicians are a reality for large churches. I am intrigued by your comment that they are "doing church wrong". I would love to hear more about where that is going. My thought is to understand where you are coming from. I see the problems and the glories of this kind of church from the inside.
Second, most of these same congregations are having many services on Christmas eve with tens of thousands of people in attendence. No one mentions this. While it may be a model of church that is different from yours, it is not irrelevant to the thoughts about Christmas Sunday services.
I go to one of those big churches who chose to do both the Chrstimas Eve services and the Christmas Sunday morning service. It was a hard decison. It means that we prevail on many, many people to help out on Saturday and then again on Sunday morning.

[John Muether]

Like I said, that's a different conversation, so Glenn will have to invite me back if we want to kick that around. But briefly, I believe that American Protestants have not given sufficient attention to the question of the appropriate scale for "doing church." If church means ambitious age-segregated programing, worship bands, drama teams, food courts after services, etc., then of course the bigger the better. But if church is the ministry of the Word and Sacrament, and pastoral oversight where ministers really get to know their flock, then it is hard to imagine doing that well when membership exceeds 250.

Re Christmas eve evangelistic services: they may have their place, but I don't think churches should program activities that encourage the absence of their members from the worship on the Lord's Day.

[Glenn]

John,

Consider yourself officially invited back to take this up in more depth. We can work out scheduling in January.

My worry about you writing such a piece is that you'll be arguing theologically. In my few short months in the blog world I've noticed that a number of bloggers only countenance an argument that has a specific Bible verse tied to it. If no verse, then no argument.

Theological reasoning, especially if the argument being advanced runs counter to the person who requires a verse, recieves some disdain. Perhaps if you labor to show the Scripture undergirding your theological reasoning you will overcome this sort of objection, but I'm not confident.

Even with my worry about this, I still think your perspective would be good to publish so that readers can consider it in depth.