Liturgical Revival?
Gillis J. Harp on Two Evangelical Approaches with the Same Mistake
Attitudes toward worship among American evangelicals are undergoing some of the most significant changes in a century. How this liturgical revival actually manifests itself in Sunday morning services says some interesting things about the current evangelical scene and the role historical, theological and cultural factors are playing in this awakening. More importantly, the revised services suggest that the changes have failed to cut to the heart of the problem.
My own recent visits to evangelical churches in the Midwest suggest that there are at least two distinctive approaches to liturgical worship taken within the broad evangelical spectrum in America. The two representative congregations referred to here are in fact composite portraits drawn from several churches visited this summer.
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Gillis J. Harp is Professor of History at Grove City College in Pennsylvania and the author of Brahmin Prophet: Phillips Brooks & the Path of Liberal Protestantism (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003). He and his family worship at Grace Anglican Church in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania.
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