Talk:Presbyterian worship

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[edit] More work needed

At the moment this article is merely the history of Presbyterian worship. It also needs a discussion as to its theology and nature. But that raises the question - what makes worship "Presbyterian"? What are (a) its essential features, and (b) its distinctive features? And here we may have disagreements between different branches of Presbyterianism. Can we agree at least that it is Word-centred? StAnselm 03:38, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that there is considerable diversity in modern Presbyterianism: exclusive psalmody, "traditional" worship with hymns, high church worship, and "contemporary" worship that likely includes more recent songs (including redone hymns, ala Indelible Grace) and a more modern sound. The first two certainly emphasize the ministry of the word. The penultimate tends to give added emphasis to the sacraments (particularly the Lord's Supper), which diminishes the nigh unto exclusive focus on the word, and the last may also include drama, etc. and seek to establish more of an emotional connection through music and the sacraments as well as a rational connection through the word. Just my two cents. --Flex (talk|contribs) 15:51, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree it needs a lot more work. I created it because I wanted to refer to it in some of the other articles I was adding bits to (eg. Precentor). Naturally the problem we run into is that, as Presbyterianism continues to diversify, its collective worship practises become less and less distinctively Presbyterian. At the time of eg. the Second Reformation in Scotland, it made sense to talk about Presbyterian worship as a distinct entity. My impression is that if we were to include everyone who calls themselves "Presbyterian" today, there'd be little to distinguish general Presbyterian worship from general Evangelical worship.

Having said that, though, there's plenty of room for expansion. In fact, I'll create a few more sections with some links, and hopefully someone will fill them out someday (I'm busyish at the moment).

-- TimNelson 10:34, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A bit of background from Huldrych Zwingli

I've been going throught assessing a number of articles for WPCalvinism and I foudn that the article about Huldrych Zwingli has quite a bit of information about his views on music and worhsip in general. It could be worth looking at how much of it should be included here. Blarneytherinosaur ^gabby? 07:09, 13 July 2007 (UTC)