Growing up in the Christadelphian sect, one word that I almost never heard was 'liturgy.' In fact, the only time I recall encountering this word in Christadelphian usage was in the title of a lecture delivered at my ecclesia (local congregation), entitled something like, 'How a Priesthood and Liturgy Arose in the Christian Religion.' While I cannot recall the content of the lecture, since the lectures were invariably polemical in nature, the premise of the lecture was that priesthood and liturgy represented corruptions or aberrations of the original Christianity practiced by the apostles. The Wikipedia article on Christadelphians, as it currently stands, describes Christadelphians as a 'non-liturgical denomination.' (The Christadelphians are actually a sect, not a denomination, but that is a separate issue.)
The Oxford English Dictionary (via Google) defines 'liturgy' as 'a form or formulary according to which public religious worship, especially Christian worship, is conducted.' It would seem to follow that a 'non-liturgical denomination' is one that conducts public religious worship without a form or formulary. Now, clearly there are degrees of how formulaic Christian public worship is. Roman Catholic worship would be at the more formulaic end of the spectrum. However, allow me to make a simple observation: there is no such thing as Christian public worship that is 'non-liturgical,' that is, completely non-formulaic. Certainly Christadelphian public worship is not devoid of liturgy, and even were one to make a concerted effort to be non-liturgical, liturgical forms would inevitably develop. In what follows I will delve into different aspects of Christadelphian 'liturgy'.
Order of Service in Public Worship
Order of Service in Public Worship
First of all, there is the order of service. Every Christadelphian ecclesia that I have ever visited had an order of events that was followed more or less rigidly at the Sunday meeting. In the ecclesia I grew up in in Canada, if memory serves, the order was Hymn, Psalm, Hymn, Prayer, Old Testament Reading, New Testament Reading, Memorial Service Remarks and Readings, Prayer for Bread, Distribution of Bread, Prayer for Wine, Distribution of Wine, Hymn, Exhortation, Hymn, Prayer. Every Sunday. The pattern may vary from one ecclesia to the next, but every ecclesia has one. How very, well, liturgical!
Scripture Readings in Public Worship
'Ah,' you might say, 'but the readings do not follow a lectionary.' That was only partly correct, in this case. The exhorting brother typically chose one of the readings to match his topic; at least one of the readings was ordinarily taken from a Christadelphian Daily Readings plan—in other words, a lectionary.
Prayer in Public Worship
'Ah, but the prayers are not scripted.' Again, only partly true. For one thing, our ecclesia had a long-standing convention—dare I say tradition—that the Sunday evening service would be closed with the Lord's Prayer, following the KJV of Matthew 6:9-13. A scripted prayer! For another, the public prayers were offered by the presiding brother and by men in the congregation. The presiding brother would make prior arrangements with these men, precisely so they would be prepared for their prayer. In other words, spontaneity was not seen as the ideal. And you didn't have to attend the ecclesial meetings for long before you would learn that each man in the congregation had certain 'favourite lines'—that is, forms—that he liked to use in his public prayers. In certain instances one could literally finish the brother's sentence for him. The younger baptized men, when they first began offering public prayers, would often borrow from these tried-and-true forms used by their elders. I am sure that every family has observed in prayers before meals this same tendency for forms of prayer to develop. All of this is liturgical, and no one seems to find it objectionable.
Sensory and Physical Public Worship
Prayer in Public Worship
'Ah, but the prayers are not scripted.' Again, only partly true. For one thing, our ecclesia had a long-standing convention—dare I say tradition—that the Sunday evening service would be closed with the Lord's Prayer, following the KJV of Matthew 6:9-13. A scripted prayer! For another, the public prayers were offered by the presiding brother and by men in the congregation. The presiding brother would make prior arrangements with these men, precisely so they would be prepared for their prayer. In other words, spontaneity was not seen as the ideal. And you didn't have to attend the ecclesial meetings for long before you would learn that each man in the congregation had certain 'favourite lines'—that is, forms—that he liked to use in his public prayers. In certain instances one could literally finish the brother's sentence for him. The younger baptized men, when they first began offering public prayers, would often borrow from these tried-and-true forms used by their elders. I am sure that every family has observed in prayers before meals this same tendency for forms of prayer to develop. All of this is liturgical, and no one seems to find it objectionable.
Sensory and Physical Public Worship
'Ah, but we don't have sensory or physical forms of worship, like candles and incense and kneeling.' Partaking ritually of bread and wine—regardless of one's doctrinal understanding about it—is clearly a sensory form of worship. The breaking of bread service in the Canadian ecclesia I grew up in always involved a ritual uncovering and covering of the bread and wine with a piece of white linen. Visual forms of worship! Liturgy! Moreover, although there was no kneeling, the ecclesia had very specific customs about standing and sitting. Everyone stood for hymns and prayers after hymns. However, only baptized persons stood for the prayers for bread and wine. As for the hymns themselves, they were invariably selected from a Christadelphian hymnbook, a collection of hymns deemed musically and theologically appropriate. The hymns were categorized in the hymnbook according to liturgical occasion, e.g., morning, breaking of bread, dismissal.
The Liturgical Calendar
The Liturgical Calendar
The aspect of Christadelphian worship that is probably the least liturgical is the calendar. Christadelphians do not formally observe any major festivals of the Christian liturgical calendar (or the Jewish), such as Easter, Christmas, Pentecost, etc. Christadelphians also attach no liturgical significance to Sunday: their Statement of Faith explicitly rejects the doctrine 'that the observance of Sunday is a matter of duty.' I have heard Christadelphians remark that their memorial service is held on Sunday only out of convenience and could arbitrarily be held on any other day.1 Yet Christadelphians do inevitably have liturgical seasonality. The convention of Sunday worship punctuates a weekly cycle that Christadelphians would surely acknowledge is historically rooted in a divinely instituted Sabbatarian framework. Similarly, while Christadelphians do not have an annual liturgical cycle per se, and do not celebrate any religious festivals, they do have a de facto annual cycle of events, such as 'fraternal gatherings,' 'Bible schools' and 'youth conferences'. Many Christadelphians would describe these occasions as highlights of their religious life, something they look forward to every year. They undoubtedly fulfill the same spiritual needs that an annual liturgical cycle fulfills for traditional Christians (as well as Jews, Muslims, etc.)
Conclusion
It should be clear from the foregoing that, notwithstanding considerable diversity between ecclesias in forms, the Christadelphian religion is indeed 'liturgical' in its worship; very much so. Even though Christadelphian liturgy is in numerous respects less rigid and less regulated than the liturgy of other Christian traditions, Christadelphians are not accurately described as 'non-liturgical'. Indeed, I do not think it is possible to practice a religion for any length of time without liturgical forms developing, even where the adherents of this religion express an antipathy for anything formal or traditional.
My hope in writing this article is that Christadelphians who consider themselves 'non-liturgical' might realise that their worship is actually quite 'liturgical,' and that this realisation might give rise to further reflection on the value of liturgical traditions as practiced by most other professing Christians past and present. Also, maybe someone should update that Wikipedia page.
Footnotes
- 1 On the other hand, I have also heard presiders at Christadelphian Sunday meetings refer solemnly to the meeting being held on 'this first day of the week,' implicitly linking their practice to certain New Testament texts (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2).
