Divine Worship and Cultures and Organizations
Divine Worship seeks to contrast the worship styles of African American and Hispanics in America to the Caucasian churches that predominate in this country. Both of these cultures are presented as having a "holistic" approach to worship, involving the intellect, the emotions, and the soul all at the same time, whereas Caucasian churches focus predominantly on the intellect. The author hopes that by understanding the differences between the styles of worship, and realizing that all worship the same God, the styles can enrich each other rather than cause infighting, as is the present case.
There is in this text a tendency to look at the Catholic Church as being unbending and overly traditionalist. It is my feeling, as a Catholic reviewer, that some of the comments lack the academic respect that the author asserts he is showing. At the same time, there is no account taken for the differences in theology between the different "churches", many of which greatly influence their practices.
The first part of the book traces the early developments of Christian tradition, and asks which part of the celebration are the most important.
It seems fair to deduce that the ageless, universal, common, and core factors in worship are (1) and assembling or gather in g of people to experience the numinous (or divine presence) in encounter with their neighbors, (2) a celebration of festivals and sacraments, (3) the presentation of the word in Scripture readings, study and sermon, and (4)prayer. (Divine, 43)
This historical study goes on to explain how, as the population of Christians grew and the hierarchy became more powerful, a distance was created between the worshiper and the service. People became spectators coming to church to receive salvation, rather than being a group coming to celebrate together. To a certain extent this perspective remains today.
The protestant reformati...