Appropriate diversity. . .

In our pursuit of unity, liturgical unity has been both an aid and an exception.  On the one hand, the common ordo or pattern of the liturgy has generally been set and in place almost universally since early Christianity.  The actual words and nuances of difference in order and ceremony were present without dispute or real complaint until the time of the Reformation.  In the West, the Church had no one set form or words for the liturgy but had a variety of rites, differing more in detail than in substance.  These included the Roman, the Ambrosian, the Dominican, the Sarum, and also some other lesser known rites.  Across Western Europe, these were practiced concurrently.  They were clearly interrelated but exhibited some differences that had developed according to region or jurisdiction or time.

In the backdrop of a crisis and in the wake of the chaos of the Reformation, Pope Pius V (on the throne 1566 to 1572) led the Council of Trent and what is commonly known as the Counter-Reformation.  One of the most important goals and achievements was the standardization of the Roman Rite within the Latin Church.   What is called today the Latin Mass became the primary liturgy of the Roman Church and throughout the West other rites began to decline in usage. Though Pius V allowed for the continued use of liturgies over 200 years old, the practical result of Trent was that the Roman Rite became the exclusive and sole rite of the Roman Church -- lasting until the aftermath of Vatican II and the liturgical changes put in place by Paul VI in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  Although there are some today who would insist that the Latin Mass and the Novus Ordo or reformed rite after Vatican II bear little in common, it is impossible not to see how they are interrelated.  It was not quite organic development that produced the New Mass but its kinship to the Latin Mass is unmistakable.   

Among Lutherans the diversity has actually been more profound.  It is not quite by desire but by the structure of Lutheranism that such diversity of rites ended up around locale and jurisdiction in Germany and throughout the Lutheran lands in the Reformation and post-Reformation era.  While many of these rites are also clearly interrelated, there were also distinct differences created not really by preference but by circumstance, by doctrinal issue, and by cultural and political pressures upon the Lutherans.  The Lutherans maintained that this did not destroy unity but admitted that it did not aid in the unity of the Church and that uniformity was still the shape of our doctrinal unity and a goal to be prized for our practice and piety.  As time went on, it became easier to speak of a Lutheran liturgical identity in contrast to the catholic liturgical identity of Augustana.  It also became readily apparent that while innovations might come later, the loss of liturgical forms and ceremonies would create a constant need for a reform that was primarily a recovery.  The Common Service of 1888 was such a reform that marked the restoration of what had been lost, at least here in America.

The reality remains that for Lutherans the forms are not quite distinct and different as much as they are interrelated and connected.  That is, until the borrowing of evangelical forms created a seeming legitimacy for the abandonment of what hymnals had preserved at least in a minimal sense as our liturgical identity.  Adiaphora was never meant to be the rule but the exception and our Synod's constitution listed as one of the reasons for its founding to preserve this liturgical unity.  But now we find ourselves with many liturgical expressions on Sunday mornings in the LCMS and with many non-liturgical expressions and it has become not only legitimate but normative.  On one hand, those who follow the ordo (no matter which setting of the Divine Service they follow) may argue over ceremonies and vestments and chanting but they have always had more in common than those who do their own thing on Sunday morning.  Rome has gone through its own struggle with appropriate diversity and we in the LCMS and among Lutherans in general struggle even to get a common ordo or form, much less words for all our congregations.  

How much diversity is appropriate?  You will no doubt get different opinions in answer to that question.  Rome has the mechanism to enforce liturgical uniformity but that has not quite worked.  Like the Lutherans who cannot convince those on the evangelical fringes of Lutheran practice to rein in their improvisation and order their freedom, Rome seems more willing to tolerate the sins of the left than the right.  How much diversity remains an unanswered question for both -- sort of like the proverbial court definition of pornography.  I know it when I see it.  For me, I would be happy if we were all in the hymnal even though I believe this is a minimal expectation and not a fuller one.  I would be ecstatic if we were all in the hymnal and were willing to support the fuller ceremonial as clearly and strongly as many support the lesser ceremonial.  But I find that some continue to insist that those who depart from the book and those who add back in ceremonies once deemed Lutheran liturgical practice are guilty of the same sin.  Perhaps that is also a reason why we cannot agree upon what constitutes appropriate liturgical diversity.