In the Current Issue: “Introduction: Schooled for and by Liturgical Prayer"

The issue of Liturgy entitled “Worship and Formation,” guest-edited by E. Byron Anderson, explores how the liturgy “schools” the assembly through language, ritual, music, shaping of time, and distortion of its intention. This excerpt is from his Introduction to the issue, briefly describing the thrust of each writer’s approach to liturgical faith formation. The full essay is accessible through institutional and individual subscriptions.–– Melinda Quivik

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In a chapter entitled “The Church as Context for Christian Spirituality,” David Lonsdale writes “Christian liturgy means returning to the Christian story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, remembering that story, retelling it. . . The heart of the church’s pedagogy, the means by which the church and its members are schooled in the beliefs, attitudes, and practices which constitute Christian identity and discipleship—in a word, Christian ‘spirituality’—lies here.” Lonsdale goes on to describe the ways liturgy serves as a pedagogical context in which we are schooled in Christian affections and desires, for discernment, and for an ethical life. . .

Corporate worship may no longer be the primary sustaining discipline or practice of many individuals, yet it remains the most public practice of our various faith communities. It is also the one practice that distinguishes the church and other faith communities from all other service agencies. As such, it is a significant place and practice through which we are “apprenticed” in and formed for the life of faith. . .

. . . As we think about the connection between liturgy and spiritual formation—the focus of this issue of Liturgy—we are not only cultivating or attempting to cultivate a liturgical spirituality but also a liturgical habitus and a liturgical wisdom, a sense of who and what we are as a people in relation to God and to our world. While such a habitus and wisdom may be shared across different denominations within a tradition such as Christianity, they are also particular to the people, places, and contexts in which liturgies are practiced. The formation of a habitus may not seem difficult in religious traditions with relatively fixed and normative liturgical patterns and practices, but such formation cannot be taken for granted. Moreover, such formation has become increasingly difficult in a North American religious context characterized by a bifurcation between liturgy and spirituality, a bifurcation especially represented by persons claiming to be “spiritual but not religious.” Liturgical spiritual formation has been made even more difficult in these post-Covid times because active bodily participation in common worship has come to be seen as optional and because we can increasingly watch worship from the comfort of our living rooms and on our own schedules.

As we consider the varying relationships between liturgy and spiritual formation, we are confronted by other challenges. In some communities, liturgical practices seem to have become political rallies for Christian nationalism. In other communities, liturgical practices continue to reinforce different forms of discrimination and exclusion, whether by class, age, race, gender, sexual identity, and cognitive or physical ability. Several writers in recent years have noted and attended to such “spiritual malformation” that can result from our liturgical practices, whether intentional or not. . .

This issue of Liturgy is designed to attend to these questions of liturgical and spiritual formation. Its primary focus is not on the malformations I have just described, but they are hard to avoid and need to be addressed even as we consider the life-giving formative possibilities of Christian liturgy.

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E. Byron (Ron) Anderson is Styberg Professor of Worship and Associate Dean for Institutional and Educational Assessment at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Evanston, Illinois. He is a past president of The Liturgical Conference and of Societas Liturgica. His books include Worship and Christian Identity (Liturgical Press, 2003) and Common Worship: Tradition, Formation, Mission (Foundery Books, 2017).

Anderson, E.B. “Introduction: Schooled for and by Liturgical Prayer.” Liturgy 40, no. 2 (2025): 1–3.