He asked ...

iMonk posted an addendum to his good post on Stupid Evangelical Tricks, and he asked "how do you like me now?"

Yeah, well, let's not go there. Let's deal with the opinions he has passed out.

To wit: he said evangelicals don't read enough Scripture in worship. Amen. The problem which might be worked out is whether he means "recite from the missal (or whatever cyclical coverage of Scripture one may use)" or "read and therefore exhort with teaching". If he means the latter, there's no questions to ask. If he means the former, how is that better than singing songs excessively? Just because it's Scripture and the words are passing over someone's eyes or ears or mouth doesn't mean it's being handled reverently and in the useful ways Scripture says it ought to be used. So maybe that needs some more fleshing out than his linked piece gives us.

And the other thing, of course, is where we start checking our wallets and such. The buzzword "liturgy" is supposed to get us back to a place where it's entiurely not about me and entirely about God Almighty -- but it seems to me that there is a catch here which the liturgists always overlook. There is no liturgy prescribed by Scripture. In that, all liturgy is man-made. So escaping the tyrrany of (and Michael Horton quaintly said in the last few weeks on WHI) "the discotheque" is fine, but escaping it for the tyrrany of another (dead) culture to prove we are not inflicting ourselves on God's space seems somewhat theologically luddite.

We aren't suppose to be the centerpieces of worship by any means, but we ought to be involved in some way, no? Otherwise we should just stick to the Latin mass with the offending bits about transubstantiation somehow toned down (as if we could understand the Latin invocations anyway), and tell outelves that we do this for God's sake entirely and we are nothing.

Or perhaps we could do what Paul says to do, for example, in 1 Corinthians and see to it that we do all things in proper order and worship God in a way which builds up the body -- meaning man gets something spiritual out of the practice while giving God all the real honor and glory He deserves.

Yes, I'm sure you disagree. Take it to the meta ...