Our church met for a service on Maundy Thursday last week. It was essentially a Good Friday service, given the absence of the observance of Good Friday itself in the United States. In addition to the usual elements of worship, they incorporated a variation of the “Stations of the Cross” at the end of the service. It is on that part of worship that I had a few thoughts in reflection.

The Stations of the Cross was something new to me. I’d only heard of it before, but had never experienced or taken part in it. I knew that it had its origins in the Roman Catholic tradition and had been appropriated to a degree by more liturgical bodies like the Anglican and Lutheran traditions as well. When I arrived at the church and looked at the setup they had in the sanctuary, I could immediately tell, without prior knowledge of the practice, that this was a thoroughly de-Catholicized version of the Stations of the Cross. Beyond the name, it would likely not have been recognizable to a Roman Catholic. It tended toward the individualizing view of salvation characteristic of evangelicalism and placed more emphasis on the benefits procured by us in Christ's death, than on Christ and His passion itself.

I am not altogether opposed to the church doing that sort of thing, as I believe there is room for some diversity in how we express our worship to God. However, I do wonder why we appropriate a mish-mash of liturgical practices without appropriating the tradition those practices properly belong to. Evangelicalism’s non-committal nature has tended towards this sort of thing. Churches pick and choose the elements they like from various traditions, but do so without aligning themselves with that tradition. A prime example of this was the Emergent movement, which wanted to recover some of the flavor of the ancient Church, but in some cases rejected or shied away from the orthodox theology that belonged to the ancient tradition.

Perhaps this is even more of a problem in a Presbyterian church, such as I belong to. This church already belongs to a specific, historical tradition. Are we questioning the value of our Presbyterianism by adopting these different practices, and in doing so implying that our tradition is not quite good enough and needs to be supplemented with these other elements? R. Scott Clark, in his recent book, Recovering the Reformed Confession, argues that the Reformed tradition not only has its own doctrine and piety, but a specific practice as well. There are points at which I disagree with him on the details, but his overall point stands. Being a part of such a tradition, can we properly adopt a variety of practices from differing traditions without compromising our own? My gut reaction is to say we can’t.

Additionally, it seems to me that we adopt a posture of arrogance when we do this. In the case of the Stations of the Cross, we have taken a Roman Catholic tradition, removed many of the Roman Catholic distinctives, and infused it with characteristics that would cater more to our evangelical sensibilities while attempting to retain the mystic nature of the practice. In effect, we are saying that we can appreciate a centuries-old Roman Catholic tradition so long as we alter it to fit into our own mold. Granted, there are not many Roman Catholic practices that would fit in a Presbyterian church given the discrepancy in the theology and practice of these two traditions. But does that make our adoption and remodeling of it right? Again, my gut reaction is to say it isn’t.

These are just musings. My biggest concern is with the way we are so quick to jump at the chance to use certain elements of worship without fully understanding them or where they come from. In effect, we treat them as a sort of novelty. Whether our appropriation of these various elements without their accompanying traditions is done of out an innocent sort of ignorance, or worse, a brazen rejection of the original intention of the practice, on either level we demonstrate a great deal of disrespect to that tradition.

Perhaps more significant, though, is that we then devalue our own tradition. In modern evangelical churches, especially those linked to a specific denomination and tradition, I think it is fair to say that most of the members of such churches do not have a healthy awareness and appreciation of their tradition. In this case, I would tend to think that appropriating different aspects of other traditions has the potential to be injurious to cultivating a posture of respect for one's own historical tradition.

All that being said, I'm not really sure what to think about it. I would appreciate any thoughts you might have on this.