Cartigny Statement On Worship And Culture: Biblical And Historical Foundations
The Cartigny Statement on Worship and Culture was prepared on October 1993 by the Lutheran World Federation's study team focused on this topic. In this first consultation, the team focused on the biblical and historical materials relating to the relationship between worship and culture in the church. The team's inquiry focused on what is cultural, countercultural, and transcultural in Christian worship.
Preface
This statement was prepared at the first consultation of the Lutheran World Federation's study on Worship and Culture, held in Cartigny, Switzerland, in October 1993. Those invited to participate comprised the LWF's ongoing international study team for the project; the participants represented all continents of the world. At this initial consultation, the study team focused on the biblical and historical (early church and Lutheran Reformation) foundations of the relationship between worship and culture. The study team will meet again in March 1994, in Hong Kong, to explore contemporary issues and questions of the relationship between culture and liturgy, church music, and church architecture. Following the Hong Kong consultation, it is envisioned that the study will move into a regional phase, in which regional study teams will encourage and assist in the identification and exploration of particular issues related to worship and culture as they exist in the LWF's regions, sub-regions, and member churches. This exploration is to be at the pastoral, as well as the theological level. Phase III of the study is to synthesize and reflect globally on the regional findings; phase IV is to conclude the study with a wide variety of seminars and workshops to implement the results of the study, as each region and LWF member church decides what is helpful.
The contents of this Cartigny Statement, therefore, are conclusions only of the study team's initial consultation, with its specific focus on biblical and historical foundations. It is not a final statement on the topic as a whole.
(1) Introduction
(1.1) With gratitude to God, the LWF study team on Worship and Culture acknowledges the efforts of the church throughout the ages to adapt to current and local situations. We ourselves are also particularly grateful that the Lutheran World Federation and its member churches have given us a mandate to begin a new study on this central aspect of our Christian life.
(1.2) We began our work with the conviction that even during our own times the Word of God must be interpreted within the context of a changing world. Through the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ is present in our own diverse cultural contexts today, just as his presence was incarnated in the life situation of the first century.
(1.3) We acknowledge the need in our time to make worship both authentic to the Word of God and relevant to given cultures. The church is called upon to continue the on-going task of reformation, so that the Gospel might faithfully be proclaimed among the various cultures of today's world. In the final analysis, the church is an assembly of believers in a given place and time where the Word of God is preached according to the Scriptures and the Sacraments administered following the letter and spirit of the Gospel (cf. Augsburg Confession 7). It has been our Lutheran tradition—indeed, it belongs to the Christian tradition as a whole—that the Word of God should be rendered understandable to all and that the Sacraments should be accessible to all believers. This is understood in the context of God's grace and what Christ does for us.
(1.4) In the incarnate Christ, the witness and service of congregations become meaningful to our societies. The church in its worship, which is the central expression of celebrating our life in Christ, should be seen as an ongoing incarnation of the Gospel.
(2) First Questions
(2.1) As member churches of the Lutheran World Federation from across the world begin to explore how the Gospel can be rooted in cultural patterns, it is clear that such an exploration is not a luxury, but an imperative. Further, it is clear that the process of localizing worship is not something new, but rather is an age-old ecclesial inclination attested by well-known examples from the past.
2.2) But the rich and complex record of the faith compels us to take more than a cursory look at the past. It seemed right, then, to engage ourselves in a more comprehensive search for the roots and methods which could provide directions and energy for present opportunities and challenges.
(2.3) The process for the first consultation grew from a profound recognition that Jesus Christ himself is God incarnate in human culture. This pre-eminent inculturation led us first to the New Testament where we could discover how the liberating Word for the world met culture. Then we were propelled into a study of the early church, where the Word continued to be incarnated in several different cultures; and finally the consultation focused on the Lutheran Reformation as a particular time when that creating Word was experienced anew, challenging and transforming culture. The ecumenical importance of this process led to the involvement in our deliberations of several non-Lutheran participants.
(2.4) A sense of the dynamic life-giving relationship between worship and culture derives from more than an examination of theological development. Therefore, this study by definition searches for illumination from the histories of liturgy (text and action), church architecture, and church music as well, giving the study that kind of breadth required by current cultural contexts.
(2.5) The deliberate intent to discover how the church in the past has sorted out the issues and processes attending the worship/culture dynamic has yielded considerable insight and prospects for future fruitful interaction. Examples: (A) The church, as a continuing incarnation of Christ in the world, is always taking root in culture as that place where Christ can be experienced anew. To recognize the cultural component of the church's worship, however, is to reckon the rich presence of God's diverse creation in the references and materials of Christian worship. A focus on the cultural leads the church toward a more responsible relationship with creation itself. (B) Asking inculturation questions of the church's history has made it clear that there are identifiable core elements of Baptism and Eucharist which perdure through nearly every time and place. (C) The church's liturgy is most authentic when it resists crystallization by permitting the Gospel to interpret and direct the contextualization process.
(2.6) The focus on history, therefore, quite naturally draws attention to contemporary issues, as Christian communities live the Gospel in worship in their various cultures. At the Hong Kong consultation in 1994, the study team will turn toward specific contemporary concerns, seeking to find common methods and mutual encouragement as the churches carefully attend to these issues.
(3) Models and Methods
(3.1) An examination of the history of the church, from its inception in the Hellenistic-Jewish milieu to the current modern contexts, reveals that it has struggled continually with how to relate Christian worship to the cultures in which it is located. The process of understanding and answering this question has been alternately called contextualization, indigenization, localization, and inculturation. Each of these terms has been used in different ways, in different places in the world; and it should be noted that no one single term adequately expresses the process.
(3.2) Nonetheless, it remains the case that the Christian assembly for worship, with its music and its spatial environment, stands at the intersection of Christian faith and cultural patterns. Out of this complex interplay of Christianity and culture, three areas for consideration readily become apparent—the cultural, the countercultural, and the transcultural. The task of relating worship and culture, then, involves asking the following three questions.
(3.3) First, what are the cultural elements in Christian worship (including liturgical texts, gestures, vestments, furnishings, art, music, and architecture) which give expression to the particularity of the gathered people? Cultural elements have been used in worship throughout the history of the church (for example, the adaptation of basilican architecture in the Constantinian church) to help engage Christian worship with a particular context, while yet remaining faithful to the Gospel. In the same way, the churches in every generation and in every context must ask what cultural elements can/should be used in their worship in order to help locate the worshiping community in its particular cultural context.
(3.4) Second, what are the countercultural elements in Christian worship which challenge the culture in which it is located? The church throughout its history, by its faithful proclamation of the gospel, has challenged the status quo and the social injustices of its day (for example, Christ and his disciples sharing meals with the socially unaccepted people of their day). In the same way, the churches in every generation and in every context must ask what in their worship can/should be countercultural, challenging the culture in which it exists and ultimately facilitating its transformation.
(3.5) Third, what are the transcultural elements in worship which place it clearly within the universality of the Christian liturgical tradition? The church throughout its history has consistently observed certain core elements within its worship as a way to identify itself with the universal tradition of the church which transcends time and place (for example, the use of water in Baptism). In the same way, churches in every generation and in every context must ask in what ways their worship practice can/should transcend their particular culture, placing them within the universal Christian tradition.
(3.6) Therefore, the task of relating worship and culture is ultimately concerned with finding the balance between relevance and authenticity, between particularity and universality, while avoiding eclecticism and/or syncretism. While it is clear that each church in its cultural context will need to ask these questions for itself and find answers appropriate to its own situation, it is also clear that this inquiry will require each church to attend to the experiences of the other churches and to the treasures of other cultures.
(3.7) An examination of the tradition, from the biblical witness, the early church, and the Lutheran Reformation, reveals the core of Christian worship to be Word, Baptism, and Eucharist. The pattern, or ordo, of entry into the community is teaching and the baptismal bath. The pattern of the weekly gathering of the community on the Lord's Day is the celebration centered around the Word and the eucharistic meal. These core elements are clearly evident in the historical witnesses of the Christian worship tradition. Further, it is evident that the purpose of this pattern of worship is faithfully to receive and faithfully to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ.
(3.8) One helpful model, then, which is evident throughout the history of the church, is found where the worshiping community is able to receive and use the important elements of the culture (and thus be localized in a particular context), while at the same time critically shaping these elements so that they may bear witness to the gospel of Christ, who transcends and transforms all cultures (and thus be rooted in the universal Christian tradition). "See, I am making all things new" (Rev. 21:5, NRSV).
(4) Prospects
(4.1) The consultation studied processes of interaction between worship and cultural settings in the New Testament, the early church, and the Lutheran Reformation. It identified the use of different models and methods and recognized in these patterns an on-going process.
(4.2) The study team wishes to invite the churches to join in this study of the common roots of Christian worship, believing that study offers important tools for the analysis of their worship (liturgy, music, architecture, art, and so on) within their various cultural settings.
(4.3) The study team will continue its work by examining contemporary relationships between worship and cultures. In specific topics for further consideration, the study will seek to clarify the interrelationship between form and content in liturgy; the use of language, gestures, symbols, and music in varying cultural contexts; and the shaping of worship space, with the goal of the inclusive participation of all people—exploring what is cultural, countercultural, and transcultural in these elements.
(4.4) The sacramental practices for baptism and the Eucharist need to be examined and adapted to recover their full meanings, within the churches' current diverse cultural contexts, in order that the gift of God's grace may be offered to all.
(4.5) The churches are challenged to be creative as they develop forms of worship which are both authentic and relevant, responding both to their cultures and to the gospel. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, the churches can find for themselves and offer to the many societies of the world an alternative model of life.