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The Nature of Christian Worship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2024

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Men of all ages and of every civilization have felt the need to offer worship to the being or beings on whom they acknowledge dependence. Their worship usually takes the form of animal sacrifices, the offering of food and drink and sacred meals, all of which are accompanied by dances, hymns and prayers, and regulated by the observance of sacred seasons and holidays. This is the pattern of what we call religion. It is the way in which man responds to the idea of the ‘sacred’, to the terrifying appeal of that aweful otherness of the being he believes to govern his existence. From the anthropologist's point of view Christian worship, in spite of all its distinctive traits, is one more manifestation of general religious behaviour. There is no need for believing Christians to run away from such a point of view. In spite of divine revelation and in spite of the institution of Christ, our habits of worship remain very human phenomena. In an age where the reasonableness of religious behaviour is widely challenged and rejected, it would be very foolish for Christians to forget this fact.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1964 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers