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This article was downloaded by: [University of Glasgow] On: 04 October 2014, At: 06:36 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Religious Education: The official journal of the Religious Education Association Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/urea20 Some Second Thoughts on Worship Willard L. Sperry a a Dean of the Theological School , Harvard University Published online: 28 Jul 2006. To cite this article: Willard L. Sperry (1930) Some Second Thoughts on Worship, Religious Education: The official journal of the Religious Education Association, 25:4, 315-316, DOI: 10.1080/0034408300250406 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0034408300250406 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.

Some Second Thoughts on Worship

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This article was downloaded by: [University of Glasgow]On: 04 October 2014, At: 06:36Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Religious Education: The officialjournal of the Religious EducationAssociationPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/urea20

Some Second Thoughts on WorshipWillard L. Sperry aa Dean of the Theological School , Harvard UniversityPublished online: 28 Jul 2006.

To cite this article: Willard L. Sperry (1930) Some Second Thoughts on Worship, ReligiousEducation: The official journal of the Religious Education Association, 25:4, 315-316, DOI:10.1080/0034408300250406

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0034408300250406

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information(the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor& Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warrantieswhatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of theContent. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions andviews of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. Theaccuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independentlyverified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liablefor any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages,and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly inconnection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.

Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

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Some Second Thoughts on WorshipWILLARD L. SPERRY

Dean of the Theological School, Harvard University

S OME four or five years ago I wrotea little book called Reality in Wor-

ship, which found a generous welcomeamong ministers and others concernedwith the public life and work of thechurch. Apparently the book wastimely. Certainly, in the intervening fiveyears, there has been a great increase inthe number of books on this subject, andthe field, old and always new, has beenonce more fairly thoroughly re-explored.

I have been invited often, in the lastfew years, to give lectures developingthe theses tentatively proposed in the bookand to publish a further and second vol-ume along the same lines. I have refusedthese invitations, partly because I havebeen busied with other things, and partlybecause I do not know that I have any-thing important to add to what was theresaid.

The invitation of the Editorial Staffof this journal offers me, however, anopportunity to reaffirm three or four con-victions upon which I have already goneon record. The meditations of the lastfour or five years have confirmed me inideas which, in the book on worship,were tentatively proposed.

I am persuaded that the act of worshipimplies the celebration and adoration ofan objective reality—and this reality thenoblest, most adequate, most importantthing for us in our whole universe. Thatreality is what we mean by the divine.

In worship that reality is set before themind, the feelings and the will, for theircontemplation and consent. The act ofworship is our "Yea-saying" to what is

for us the truest, the most beautiful, thebest (ethically) in our world. This actis our attempt to identify ourselves withthis reality and to draw from our com-munion, or identification with it, thestrength that comes from a "power-not-ourselves."

I do not propose, for the moment, anyone doctrine of. the nature of God, toexclude other doctrines, but simply statethat worship goes on wherever words,rites, symbols, music, architecture, inti-mate and perhaps even try to define thenature of this reality as present beforeus and with us. In worship we affirmwhat we believe to be most fully andtruly "so." Without this mood and move-ment there is no worship.

Now Protestant worship seems to meto have got too far off on the other tack.It is too often and too much concernedwith analyzing our own states of soul, asworshipers. We are like those personswho are said not be in love with anyone,but to "be in love with being in love."In so far as this temper has a rationale,with an apparatus to develop and to de-fend it, we owe its spread to the popu-larity of the science of psychology, uponwhich the burden of religious apologeticso largely falls today.

I should say that we should revive andpurify the whole spirit and practice ofworship, if we could make up our mindswhat is "most truly so" in our whole uni-verse, and then address ourselves to theserious business of trying to find wordsand ways of celebrating this, for us,divine reality. We need much honest,unconventional experimenting in this area,

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316 RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

which has the courage of its convictions.We need, further, to face the possibil-

ity that this temper may be finding betterexpression outside churches than insidethem. For myself, I have often said, andstill believe, that in many concert hallsand research laboratories the spirit of re-ligious worship is today getting a moreaccurate and adequate statement—thoughin untheological terms—than in many ofour Protestant churches, where we in-vestigate and elaborate the states of ourown soul.

We have to remember that most of thegreat .religious reformations in the pastwere initiated by laymen and have firstbeen elaborated among laymen. Thechurch in the past has made the mistakeof counting these persons heretics andpersecuting or excommunicating them.Persecution and excommunication are notcommon facts in our church life today.But there remains, nevertheless, a certainlack of insight into and sympathy withthe vague, yet none the less real, lay re-ligion of our time, as it is expressed inscience, art and social reform.

Too many of us are merely trying tokeep churches going. The importantthing is to be certain that religion livesand is being communicated to men.When it comes to worship, churches havenot much more, for the moment, to learnfrom psychology; but they have a greatdeal to learn from the astronomer's ob-servatory, the research laboratory inphysics, the symphony hall, the great med-ical center and the like. Churches gothere, at present and in their extremity,hoping to find the elusive "new theology."

They will not find any such theologythere, but they will find religious attitudesand dispositions, which will throw muchlight on the act of worship and the re-ligious way of meeting the world.

The problem of church architecturestill troubles me. I omitted it from mybook deliberately because I did not knowthe answer. I do not know it now. Thebuilding ought to intimate the nature ofthe transaction which takes place withinit. The problem is simple for thesewho still hold to the sacramental prin-ciple. It was simple for our Protes-tant forefathers who held to a BiblicalChristianity. The high altar and thehigh pulpit, with the whole buildingfocused on them, explain themselves andare their own sufficient justification. Butfor those of us who cannot conscientiouslyhold either of these positions, the archi-tectural problem is very difficult. A lec-ture hall is a sorry substitute for a cathe-dral or a colonial meeting house. It inti-mates nothing but endless "talk."

Yet most modern modifications of thesetwo orthodox types of church architectureare like the chrysalis from which the liv-ing thing has flown. I feel increasinglya grave discrepancy between the lovely,and often lifeless, imitations of Gothicand Georgian architecture with which thiscountry is being filled, and the twentiethcentury words and rites which ought tobe used to express our contemporaryspiritual life. The building and the wordsdo not fit. Any who can do anythingto solve this problem will be renderingAmerican religion a great service, as thebuilding itself is already half the battle.

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