Our fathers
had a world view and a philosophy which made such preaching easy. But
their power did not lie in that world view; it lay in this vision of
Jesus which produced the view. Is not this the vision which we need?
CHAPTER SEVEN
WORSHIP AS THE CHIEF APPROACH TO TRANSCENDENCE
Whatever becomes the inward and the invisible grace of the Christian
community such will be its outward and visible form. Those regulative
ideas and characteristic emotions which determine in any age the
quality of its religious experience will be certain to shape the
nature and conduct of its ecclesiastical assemblies. Their influence
will show, both in the liturgical and homiletical portions of public
worship. If anything further were needed, therefore, to indicate
the secularity of this age, its substitutes for worship and its
characteristic type of preaching would, in themselves, reveal the
situation. So we venture to devote these closing discussions to some
observations on the present state of Protestant public worship and the
prevailing type of Protestant preaching. For we may thus ascertain
how far those ideas and perceptions which an age like ours needs
are beginning to find an expression and what means may be taken to
increase their influence through church services in the community.
We begin, then, in this chapter, not with preaching, but with worship.
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