Which Liturgy?

Every church has a liturgy of some sort, and that point has been well made elsewhere. And in liturgical churches the idea is to go ahead and own up to the fact that human beings inevitably settle into set patterns, and intentionally work with rather than against that fact.

The down side of planned liturgy is the possibly of hijack. If the people manning the controls of the liturgical texts decide, on the one hand, to hack away at orthodoxy or, on the other hand, to try to enforce a "pet" theology, then everyone suffers. This is especially true when the ecclesiastical authorities are working hand in hand with the liturgists for the purpose of hijack rather than godly devotion.

That's why its important to develop a theology and practice of liturgics within any worshiping church tradition. This theology and practice should take into account Scripture, the development of the creeds and early Christian worship, and the history of Christian worship. It should also address the bipolar impulses that create rivalries between simplistic primitivism and radical innovation. A helpful liturgical theology that envisions way forward that respects the past while recognizing the present aspect of worship. And that doesn't become a vehicle for people on various sides of issues to try to control the liturgy in order to control the conversation about their theological argument.

I think a "conflation" approach may be helpful here. In New Testament manuscript production, conflation was the phenomenon of copyists deciding to include all the readings of a particular text, simply because they were afraid they might leave out the original. In liturgics, borrowing from this tendancy, we might envision not so much a constant innovation, but a rearrangement and restatement of what is already there, with a constant eye toward not losing anything. Even that which is considered a "medieval imposition" may have something to commend it. At least that's how Cranmer seemed to operate.

Also I wonder if we can "conflate" the worship of the early church, medieval, reformed, and post-liturgical-movement together as a whole, rather than choosing one as our template. Primitivism leads toward over glorifying the early church's worship. Radical innovation leads toward "present tense" superiority complexes. Why not reject both in favor of a conflation theory that values all of the periods, while recognizing the particular weakness of each.