Talk:Divine Service

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Divine Service is part of WikiProject Lutheranism, an effort to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Lutheranism on Wikipedia. This includes but is not limited to Lutheran churches, Lutheran theology and worship, and biographies of notable Lutherans. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
B	This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale.
Mid	This article has been rated as mid-importance on the importance scale.

This is a well written article. Still, it was written from the standpoint of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. I chose to use the Common Service Book of 1917 as the source because it was the first widely used, English Language service book. As far as I can determine, all modern Lutheran hymnals are in some way related to or derived from the Common Service Book of 1917. (See Frank Senn's book, Christian Liturgy: Catholic and Evangelical, pp 588-591.)

The author states the following regarding confession and absolution: "Within the last 200 years it has been the practice in every Divine Service to observe it [the absolution] at this point [immediately after the invocation]. By comparing hymnals produced since 1917, it is easy to see that this statement is in error. As an example, I have before me the Service Book and Hymnal of 1958. Each setting of the Communion Service contains the Declaration of Grace rather then the Absolution. The absolution, with its performative word, is found in the separate rites of public confession and absolution, but not in the common service. (A long form of the performative word in the absolution is "I therefore declare unto you who do truly repent and believe in him, the entire forgiveness of all your sins'; a shorter form of the performative word is "I forgive you all your sins.")

An examination of the Communion Service in the hymnals of the last hundred years clearly shows that the Confession and the Declaration of Grace to be the liturgical standard, with the Confession and Absolution as the recent innovation. Historically, the Confession, the Declaration of Grace, and the Absolution were not part of the Divine Service. Luther's German Mass contained none of them, and needed none of them, for everyone who desired to partake of the sacrament had announced their intention to commune, and had been prepared through private confession with the pastor. Our abandonment of private confession has led to an incorporation of the rite into the common service, yet this practice is outside the historic practice of the one, holy, and apostolic church.