# Reformed Worship neither white, Genevan, nor Northern European



## Pilgrim (May 7, 2006)

Interesting blog post  on Reformed worship. 



> As liturgical scholar Hughes Old has ably demonstrated in his Patristic Roots of Reformed Worship, the services in all the sixteenth-century Reformed churches were every bit as ancient to those people as they seem to us today. Reformed worship, therefore, is not white, Genevan, or Northern European.


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## Contra_Mundum (May 7, 2006)

He's correct. "Reformed" worship is simply worship according to Scripture's rule. It is basic, unencumbered, geared toward common human characteristics and capacities, transcultural. That's why, except for the "tongues" issue, you should be able to worship God in a recognizable way, the world over. I had the most unforgettable experience among some Pakistani Christians, half a world away. We truly are one body.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (May 7, 2006)

Christian worship is modeled upon synagogue worship {1}. Christians sing psalms penned by Moses, David and Asaph. It is in fact Middle-Eastern worship, suitable for Jews and Greeks, and with its simplicity, design and scope (Col. 3.11), trans-cultural in its application. We have the Northern Europeans to thank by God's grace for rescuing Biblical worship from the ruins of Rome, but the elements of worship found in God's Word are meant to be applied by every nation, tribe and tongue, and so let it be:

Ps. 22: 27 
All ends of th' earth remember shall,
and turn the Lord unto;
All kindreds of the nations
to him shall homage do:

{1} "œAs to the influence of the Synagogue on the Church, there can be no doubt that the earliest Christian meetings and meeting-places were modeled on the pattern of the synagogues." (W. K. Lowther Clarke, ed., _Liturgy and Worship_ (New York: Macmillan, 1932), p. 75.) "œThe influence of the synagogue on Christian worship was more permanent and deep [than OT temple worship]" and [Bible-reading and exposition is] "œthe centre of gravity of the synagogue´s service, with the blessings and prayers gathered around it." (R. P. Martin, _Worship in the Early Church_ (London: Marshall, Morgan, and Scott, 1964), p. 66-67.).

[Edited on 5-7-2006 by VirginiaHuguenot]


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## rmwilliamsjr (May 8, 2006)

> _Originally posted by VirginiaHuguenot_
> Christian worship is modeled upon synagogue worship {1}. Christians sing psalms penned by Moses, David and Asaph. It is in fact Middle-Eastern worship, suitable for Jews and Greeks, and with its simplicity, design and scope (Col. 3.11), trans-cultural in its application. We have the Northern Europeans to thank by God's grace for rescuing Biblical worship from the ruins of Rome, but the elements of worship found in God's Word are meant to be applied by every nation, tribe and tongue, and so let it be:
> 
> Ps. 22: 27
> ...



i went searching for more references on this idea. i found:
Unity and Diversity in the New Testament: An Inquiry into the Character of Earliest Christianity
by James D. G. Dunn

has anyone read it?

thanks for the pointer to:
Worship in the Early Church


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## turmeric (Feb 8, 2007)

Augustine wasn't white, by all accounts...


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## SRoper (Feb 8, 2007)

turmeric said:


> Augustine wasn't white, by all accounts...



That's news to me.


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## LadyFlynt (Feb 8, 2007)

Thank you for this information.


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## Kevin (Feb 8, 2007)

turmeric said:


> Augustine wasn't white, by all accounts...



By what accounts?


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## Contra_Mundum (Feb 8, 2007)

I believe the ancient Carthagenians were tall and thinish and bore some of what we tend to think of as ethnically negroid physical characteristics.


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## Kevin (Feb 8, 2007)

Contra_Mundum said:


> I believe the ancient Carthagenians were tall and thinish and bore some of what we tend to think of as ethnically negroid physical characteristics.



Do you have a citation?

The only ones I have seen making such claims in the past were "Afro-centrists" who claim all who ever lived in Africa were Negriod. Egyptians, Carthagians, whoever all were Black acording to this theory.

Most people consider that theory to be (more-or-less) BS. The theory on the surface seems to lack much (any?) primary source support.

So does anyone here know more about this?


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## Contra_Mundum (Feb 8, 2007)

From the Magazine _Christian History,_ Issue 67 (Vol. XIX, No. 3) CR 2000, p. 10


> Augustine was a Numidain, one of those strange people who inhabited the Northern coastal plains of Africa, neither black nor European, but descended like the Basques from some earlier race of settlers. He was tall and long limbed, thin chested, with sloping shoulders. He had a long nose, a high forehead, thick lips, and tremendous eyes, and did not walk so much as take long, loping strides. His skin was a kind of dark bronze; his eyes were black.



This is excerpted from Robert Payne, "Augustine the Sensualist," in _The Fathers of the Western Church_.

The article adds "Though recent scholarship might nuance some of Payne's interpretations, his overall portrait of Augustine as a man stands." I doubt that the physical portrait (which has to be 'typical') requires much adjustment.


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## LadyFlynt (Feb 8, 2007)

The best I've been able to find of earlier paintings and explainations of cultures has him as middle eastern looking (ie., arabic).


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## Kevin (Feb 8, 2007)

Thanks Bruce. I saw that issue when it came out. I didn't find it very convincing then and Payne is not in my opinion a great source. He makes far to many assumptions about things we can not know i.e. how he walked etc.


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## Kevin (Feb 8, 2007)

LadyFlynt said:


> The best I've been able to find of earlier paintings and explainations of cultures has him as middle eastern looking (ie., arabic).



North Africa was invaded by the Arabs several hundred years after the time of Augustine.


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## Contra_Mundum (Feb 8, 2007)

Kevin said:


> Thanks Bruce. I saw that issue when it came out. I didn't find it very convincing then and Payne is not in my opinion a great source. He makes far to many assumptions about things we can not know i.e. how he walked etc.



Well,
Until someone else offers some better scholarship about what *typical* Numidians looked like, I don't really know that they _didn't_ look pretty much the way Payne described them. What reason do we have to believe Mr. Payne did not do his homework? A typical description of a "white guy" might bear me little other than a superficial resemblance either.

This whole issue came up when someone said "Augustine wasn't 'white'." Someone else said, "wow, I never thought about that." Which isn't surprising, because Medievalists drew and sketched things anachronistically. So Augustine ends up looking often like a European. Ends up living and working in Florentine architechture. Ends up dressed like an Irish monk.


So far, everything we have actually come up with agrees with the observation that yea, he wasn't white, from pointing out his North African place of birth, his ethnic extraction, some "anciently-based" description. He probably wasn't "black" either. You don't need to be an "afro-centrist" to state such things.


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## elnwood (Feb 8, 2007)

> The first is that churches with "traditional worship" (a phrase I hate) are simply replacing worship that would be relevant in this culture with worship that was relevant in the culture of Calvin's Geneva 500 years ago.
> 
> This is simply false.



Unfortunately, the Rev. Jason Stellman goes about showing this not by looking at how the churches today are implementing traditional worship, but how Calvin, etc. implemented worship. He's addressing the wrong question.

If you look at the "traditional worship" of non-EP Presbyterian churches, you'll find using pianos, organs, and singing 18th and 19th century hymns that have very little to do with Jewish synagogues, Genevan Reformation churches, or today's culture.

What he is saying is interesting historically, though.



> In fact, the early church in the book of Acts worshiped according to the pattern of the Jewish synagogues, which was characterized by set patterns, liturgy, readings, and prayers. This means that the worship of Reformed churches in North America today is not only similar to that of Geneva, but to that of the early church fathers, the apostles, and the people of God during Old Testament times.



How do we know that the early church in Acts patterned their worship according to the Jewish synagogues? How do we know they had set patterns, liturgy, readings, and prayers? Where in Acts does it say this?


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## Semper Fidelis (Feb 8, 2007)

Contra_Mundum said:


> Well,
> Until someone else offers some better scholarship about what *typical* Numidians looked like, I don't really know that they _didn't_ look pretty much the way Payne described them. What reason do we have to believe Mr. Payne did not do his homework? A typical description of a "white guy" might bear me little other than a superficial resemblance either.
> 
> This whole issue came up when someone said "Augustine wasn't 'white'." Someone else said, "wow, I never thought about that." Which isn't surprising, because Medievalists drew and sketched things anachronistically. So Augustine ends up looking often like a European. Ends up living and working in Florentine architechture. Ends up dressed like an Irish monk.
> ...


I wish I had a map handy. When I was in Command and Staff College we were doing an exercise based on a scenario involving Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya. I wish I knew the island just North of Tunisia and what is was called. One of the men, Chris, in my Seminar was an Intelligence Analyst from the DIA and a history buff. He pointed out that, to this day, there is a small pocket of fair skinned people that live in that region. He also pointed out that Carthage, and that region, were fair skinned. This did not mean they were European - simply that they were fair skinned and I have no reason to doubt what Bruce has written.

I think the argument is pointless. If one means by white that Augustine was European then that is impossible to sustain. The argument that he was probably dark-skinned (like an Ethiopian) is very unlikely historically.

Incidentally, that island is still mostly Christian unlike the Muslim state it belongs to.


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## Semper Fidelis (Feb 8, 2007)

Contra_Mundum said:


> He's correct. "Reformed" worship is simply worship according to Scripture's rule. It is basic, unencumbered, geared toward common human characteristics and capacities, transcultural. That's why, except for the "tongues" issue, you should be able to worship God in a recognizable way, the world over. I had the most unforgettable experience among some Pakistani Christians, half a world away. We truly are one body.



The cultural segragation in worship forms becomes more apparent when you're in a foreign country.

Ironically, it was underlined for me today. I went to an Officer Association prayer breakfast that one of my Marines invited me to. The Association is predominantly a minority association and the religious expression this AM was predominated by "Black Gospel". One of my Chief Warrant Officers, a black man, actually sat down and joked to me: "I hope you white guys like this...." He was actually disturbed because he didn't want the event to turn into a "minority" showcase.

I don't bring that up because it bugged me. I actually like listening to Black Gospel music but it saddens me that Church is the most segragated place on Sunday mornings - even here in a foreign land. The Chapels even have "Gospel services" for those that want to worship that way. There are whole Churches here, given the size of the military community here, that mainly reflect the worship music preferences of the attendees.

In my own Church, the congregation is about 40% military and the rest are Filipinos, Chinese, Japanese, and Canadian. We really are an international Church as Okinawa is a bit more cosmopolitan and less xenophobic than mainland Japan. What's our worship style: suburban white american praise music.

Here we are, smack dab in the middle of a reserved society and people are expected to "change their stripes" with respect to music preference not because the Gospel demands it but because Americans export their rubbish across the globe. Americans can't even tell that they're doing it. I think they believe it is normative. What it does is infringe upon liberty. Why should a Japanese man whose never heard the Gospel have to get over goofy behavior in order to hear the Word preached? I think many of them really think that, in order to be a Christian, you have to become like an American first. 

It disgusts me.


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## Contra_Mundum (Feb 8, 2007)

I went to wikipedia and found these:





From left to right: Masinissa, Augustine of Hippo, Krim Belkacem, Zinedine Zidane

helpful link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berber_people . Includes genetics.


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## Semper Fidelis (Feb 8, 2007)

Contra_Mundum said:


> I went to wikipedia and found these:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That's it! The Berbers! There's still an island north of Tunisia that's predominantly Berber. I didn't realize they inhabited so much of Morrocco and other nations around there.


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## Semper Fidelis (Feb 8, 2007)

Another good look:


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