Church Matters: Retrieving the Great Tradition

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Calendars Discarded, continued

Recovering a Christian Calendar As a denomination, American Baptists are not classed as “liturgical,” yet many of their churches and clergy use worship orders and materials which are indistinguishable from those of their liturgical sisters and brothers. Each American Baptist congregation exercises the right to determine its own and use and practice in worship. This right includes the freedom to use, or to abstain from using, any particular form or style of Christian worship – or any particular book, calendar, or lectionary. As have other denominations since Vatican II, American Baptists are developing a new understanding of Christian worship and of liturgies ancient and modern. Unlike those denominations that have official national offices or commissions on worship, American Baptist involvement in this renewal has had to rise from the grass roots – from individual congregations and individual laity and clergy. Several unsuccessful attempts were made to form a denomination wide interest group in liturgy from the 1950s to the 1970s. Finally, in 1989, “Liturgy & Life: the American Baptist Fellowship for Liturgical Renewal,” was organized and has begun to emerge as a responsible forum for addressing worship-related issues among American Baptists. Since 1965, various American Baptist churches began to move away from the civil calendar. Usually, without dropping civil observances, they added some distinctly Christian holy days and times, such as Advent or Lent. Pentecost and Epiphany also began to receive attention, though it is still common for Pentecost to be overshadowed, or excluded altogether, when it occurs at the same time as Mother’s Day or Memorial Day. Similarly, many parishioners, exhausted long before noon of Christmas day, have little energy or interest in extending the Nativity festival into the New Year, to Epiphany. Though there have been positive developments in liturgy for American Baptists, those pastors and congregations who desire to stay attuned to developments in liturgy have had to borrow and adapt resources, calendars, and lectionaries from their brothers and sisters in other denominations and will likely continue to have to do so for some time. Yet, those American Baptists most involved in liturgical renewal are also those in dialogue with their counterparts