“Baptist Worship in the Charleston Tradition”

“Baptist Worship in the Charleston Tradition”
Knollwood Baptist Church
September 8, 15, 22 2004
Dr. Christopher C. F. Chapman

Historical Roots and Biblical Ties

I want to begin by giving you a bit of background on these lectures. Last year I was invited to present the N. C. Denson Biblical Lectures at the Dermott Baptist Church in Dermott, Arkansas. It is a small town church that I did know before in a part of Arkansas where I had never been. I didn’t even know the pastor and, to be honest, to this day I am still not entirely clear as to why they invited me to present these lectures. But in the final analysis, the only thing that matters is that, largely due to the pastor’s leadership, they have come to embrace a more liturgical, Charleston-like approach to worship, they wanted to deepen their understanding of its roots, and for some reason they ended up inviting me to present the lectures.

I won’t speak for the good folks of Dermott, Arkansas, but for me it was a wonderful experience. They were warm and loving people, they even allowed a stray Wildcat comment or two there in Razorback country, but my greatest joy was in preparing for the lectures, doing the study, taking time to reflect upon why we do worship the way we do and how we might strengthen our approach. After the experience, and after reflecting upon some conversations among our folks about our approach to worship, it seemed appropriate to present these lectures here, slightly adjusted for our needs. I have made every effort to be as objective as possible as I have approached this subject matter, to bring some sense of academic discipline to the task at hand, but I must confess that this has been a challenge. I am not objective, I am in no way a disinterested third party. Rather, I am an advocate of and believer in not only worship but a certain approach to worship that I have found to be meaningful time and again. Yet I must also confess that how important worship has become for me and that a particular approach to worship matters are both surprises.

When I started out in ministry twenty-two years ago, it never occurred to me that worship would become the central driving force in my life it has become nor did I anticipate how significant a certain approach would become. I cared deeply about worship and was nurtured in my first setting by inspired music, challenging preaching (which I did not do there), and meaningful liturgy. I was simply more focused upon pastoral care issues and social concerns. Understanding people and helping them understand themselves, confronting injustice in the name and Spirit of Jesus, these were the things that energized me then! They still do, but over time, worship has become more and more central to my faith.

I have done a good bit of reflection upon this shift of focus and I do not claim to understand it fully. It has something to do with planning and leading worship week after week, and much to my dismay, I must acknowledge that getting older is a factor as well. But the more I think about it, the more I am convinced that the primary explanation is tied to my need to ground everything I say and do in something or Someone beyond myself. Understanding people and pursuing justice are worthy callings, but they are too large to be approached from a human perspective alone. These tasks require a broader perspective, they need to be grounded in a larger purpose. This is what all genuine worship of any style does, and for me the kind of worship we characterize as being in the Charleston tradition does it best of all.

This having been said, I must say that leading worship in this tradition in this day often leaves one feeling a bit like a fish headed upstream… The majority of literature one reads, the majority of conferences on worship trends, the majority of church conversation centers around what is most commonly called contemporary worship as opposed to traditional worship, or casual worship as opposed to formal worship. I don’t want to spend much time talking about other approaches because they are not my concern here and because I believe that different approaches are valid, but I cannot pass by this subject matter without noting that the term casual worship seems to me the ultimate oxymoron.

One liturgical scholar has said that much contemporary worship simply replaces the ossified with the trivial. Or to quote a retired minister in Winston-Salem, “It seems (to me) that when people come as they are to worship, they tend to leave as they are.” Again, I don’t want to linger here too long, and I want to say very clearly that what people wear to worship is not the most important thing in the world. It’s simply the language of being casual before God that troubles me. Our faith proclaims belief in a God who is both transcendent and imminent, Holy Other and present friend. If we are not careful, in our modern desire to make worship more “user-friendly” we may attend only to our Buddy Jesus and never to the Almighty God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, the Spirit who moves over the face of the deep and comes to comfort and guide us into a greater appreciation of Truth.

Enough of this aside, my point is that the trend has been toward contemporary forms, though this is starting to shift in larger urban areas, I will speak more about this in the last two lectures. But the trend has been toward the contemporary and there are many who genuinely believe that it is not possible to reach out to and connect with younger generations without moving in this direction. Again, there is much evidence to the contrary, and our experience at Knollwood confirms that a more formal, liturgical approach is an inspiring and challenging approach for many younger people, but this approach is not for everyone.
A co-worker of Dana’s in another setting, a woman who belonged to a charismatic church in that city, when she found out I was a Baptist minister, said with much displeasure, “Oh, you are the people who just sit there in worship!” She was speaking about her perception of all Baptists, though she clearly had not attended any of the African-American Baptist services I have been a part of! Others, when they visit our very formal, quite liturgical Baptist service with ministers in robes, much scripture and liturgy read, sins confessed and forgiveness proclaimed, communion shared at the rail with members kneeling, offer a much more focused word of critique. They say something like this, “You call yourselves Baptist?!”

Of course, we have a well-rehearsed comeback to this sort of critique, “At Knollwood we like to think of ourselves as being Episcobapterian.” It is a bit smug, I know, and I both love the comeback and struggle with it. The part I love about it is that it says that we unapologetically borrow from other Christian traditions, and this is a good thing. I hope and pray the majority of Baptists have moved past the place of believing that we are the only folks on this planet moved by God’s Spirit. There is a world full of folks from whom we can learn and are learning. And the truth is that our church, like most churches today, is made up of folks from many different traditions. So, we are Episcobapterian in make-up as well as in our worship form.
So, what do I not like about this comeback? It seems to indicate that maybe we agree with the attack behind the question, “You call yourselves Baptist?!” In other words, “You are not really Baptist!” This I do not like. For you see, as ecumenically minded as I am, I do not want us to lose our Baptist heritage, and I strongly believe that the way we do worship, in the Charleston tradition, borrowing from other, more liturgical traditions, is very Baptist. Can I back this statement up? Sure I can and that is the task to which I will now turn.

I want to begin with an examination of the very early forms of Baptist worship because the Charleston tradition must be understood in the context of these early forms and their evolution over the first century or two of Baptist experience. In some settings I might find a debate about our beginnings as Baptists, but I trust not here. The groundwork was laid by people like by the so-called “Ana-Baptists” of the sixteenth century and English Separatists just after that time, but most scholars agree that the first clearly identifiable Baptist communities started in England in the early seventeenth century. I’m going to talk just a bit about what we know of their worship, which is not that much, but I will hasten to say that, while these first Baptists might not recognize our worship in the Charleston tradition, nor would they recognize any other Baptist worship today. Add a good bit of emotion to a Quaker meeting and you might have a chance at recognition!
Anyway, here is what we know. To set the stage I quote church historian, Tom McKibbens (who was by the way one of my ministers when I was a youth):

Imagine a small group of people gathered around a central
log fire in a large, half-timbered room. They are early
seventeenth-century Separatists, and they have gathered in
the manor house of Sir William Hickman of Gainsboro,
Nottingamshire, to participate in an illegal worship service.
To assist them in worship they have no printed order of
worship, no hymn books, not even a copy of the Bible.
What they have is themselves – ‘ye Lords free people,
joined… (by a covenant of the Lord) into a church estate,
in ye fellowship of ye gospell, to walk in all his wayes,
made known, or to be made known unto them, according to
their best endeavors, whatsoever it should cost them, the
Lord assisting them.’ (Review and Expositor, vol. LXX,
No. 1, Winter, 1983; Thomas R. McKibbens, Jr. p. 53;
The Works of John Smyth, ed. By W.T. Whitley,
Cambridge University Press, 1915)

As McKibbens notes, this little band of dissenters, not yet Baptists, would migrate to Amsterdam and then return to England to found the first Baptist congregation. John Smyth, a Cambridge graduate, would lead this congregation dedicated to what he will called “spiritual worship” and their worship became the most recognizable distinctively Baptist form. Again, our knowledge is limited here, but in essence, this worship was very informal, very non-structured, and very Spirit-led. Two church members, Hugh and Anne Bromhead, described a service with these words in a letter discovered in 1912. The letter contains at least one bit of information that conflicts with what John Smyth said about the service, namely that no written materials were used, but otherwise is believed to be fairly accurate:

We begynne with a prayer, after reade some one or two
chapters of the bible, gyve the sence thereof, and coferr
upon the same, that done wee lay aside oure bookes, and
after a solemne prayer made by the .1. speaker, he
propoundeth some text out of the scripture and
prophesieth out of the same by the space of one hower, or
the Quarters of a hower. After him standeth up A .2. speaker
and prophesieth out of the same text the like tyme and place
sometyme more sometyme lesse. After him the .3. the
.4. the .5. &c as the tyme will geve leave. Then the.1.
speaker cocludeth wth wth [sic] prayer as he began with
prayer, wth an exhortation to cotribution to the pore, wch
collection being made is also cocluded wth prayer. This
morning exercise begynes at eight of the clock, and
cocludeth until twelve of the clock, the like course and
exercise is observed in the afternoone from .2. of the
clock unto .5. or .6. on the clocke. Last of all the
execution of the govermet of the church is handled.
(Whitley, Works of John Smyth, p.268).

I know it is difficult to follow some of this language but the basics are clear. The service was very informal and free from structure. As a result, it was also very long! I read this passage last fall and noted the time frame for Ian and he gained a new appreciation for the brevity of our services! But, kidding aside, the key here is the freedom from all forms and traditions, indeed all readings entirely.
Yet this freedom must be seen in the context of Anglican worship of the time which was very rigid, indeed, locked into cement by the Book of Common Prayer which prescribed everything up front. Scripture, prayers, sermons, benedictions – everything was read word by word from a book. In fact, anyone who dared to depart from the script was subject to punishment as prescribed in The Book of Discipline of 1584. Hence the language noted previously of “illegal worship.”
Early Baptists were responding to the rigidity of their context and therefore, it should come as no surprise that their response seems like a bit of an overreaction at times. For example, John Smyth actually goes so far as to say that the mark of the beast referenced in Revelation 13:16 is nothing other than the baptism applied to infants in false churches such as England and Rome. However we view infant baptism, I hope we all agree that this language is a bit extreme. What it expresses is outrage at the overemphasis of the communal aspect of faith to the neglect of the individual’s need to respond to God for him/herself. Over time, not that much time, in fact, many English Baptists would moderate their view on Baptism. In similar fashion, they would moderate their views on worship but not at the beginning. What was wrong was all wrong, dead wrong. “Go ahead and throw out the baby with the bath water and burn down the bathroom while we’re at it!” was the philosophy (borrowed from Robert Fulghum).

To illustrate this reality I would underscore two basic facts I have named already – no printed scripture was to be read and no hymnals were allowed. In fact, one of the earliest Baptist controversies, of which there would be many to follow, was the controversy over hymns. The controversy was started by troublemaker Benjamin Keach, pastor of the Horsley Down Baptist Church in Southwork, who published a hymnbook in 1691 entitled Spiritual Melody which actually contained hymns that people had written in devotion to God (as opposed to musical settings of psalms). In the year the hymnal was published, Keach wrote a defense of hymn singing entitled “The Breach Repaired in God’s Worship” which provided a response to “A Discourse Against Singing” written by a Mr. Isaac Marlow. Yet the controversy raged, and in 1693 twenty-three members of the Horsley Down Baptist Church were so offended that they left the church and joined the Bagnio Church led by Robert Steed. In the end Keach agreed to lead hymn singing only after the sermon, so that the early non-hymn-singers could leave without being offended!

Hearing all of this, you may be wondering how in the world we ever got to the Charleston tradition! I’m getting there soon. Hold on just a bit longer. Change happened rather quickly but, before noting this change, I want to point to three principles that guided early Baptist worship as summarized by McKibbens, principles that formed the groundwork for what would follow. These three principles were – openness to change, openness to the leadership of the Spirit, and freedom of conscience. Smyth once wrote, “We will never be satisfied in endeavoring to reduce the worship and ministry of the Church, to the primitive Apostolique institution from which as yet it is so far distant (Whitley, 271).” In other words, these early Baptists did not want to move away from one kind of rigidity only to lock themselves into another kind of rigidity. They did not want to move out of one box into another. Rather, they wanted to remain open to change and responsive to the Spirit, and they were willing to die (in fact some did) for their freedom to respond to God in their own way and order worship as they felt led, even if this meant very little order at all.

A part of the message here before we go any further, therefore, is that any way a local congregation freely orders its worship in the manner it feels led by the Spirit honors these earliest Baptist principles, and it was the general principles and not the specific forms that they were willing to fight for, even die for when necessary.

So, this much noted, how long did it take for these early rebels reacting to too much structure and order to swing back toward the center and seek some order again? Not very long! Many factors influenced various congregations but a key turning point was when George Fox began what would become the Quaker movement in 1647. His focus on an inward light, even less structure, and even more freedom, seemed to cross a line over into chaos. And some Baptists joined this movement while others not only did not but returned to their Baptist folds with a desire to restore some order and structure to worship. In particular, reading scripture at the very least seemed like a good idea. Some eventually came to tolerate hymns. Not everyone left the Horsley Down Church led by the radical heretic hymn singer Keach! And before long much Baptist worship included some liturgy and structure as designed by the local leaders. Preaching remained a key emphasis in even the more ordered British Baptist worship. The reading of scripture became a centerpiece as well. And the principles of freedom and responsiveness to the Spirit remained.

So, what does all of this have to down with Charleston? Well, that it is a long story, and a not so long one really. The bottom line is that British customs in general found their way over to the colonies. This was true of the most mundane matters of life as a Winston-Salem chef recently wrote these words in a club newsletter article about Low Country food (you know what low country food is…?), “At the center is Charleston, a place where culture and fine dining came of age early. In the 1700’s it was natural for residents of Charleston, not far removed from the British monarchy, to imitate genteel customs of their homeland. And when the confluence of cultures and exotic spices and foods that flowed into Charleston were combined with the region’s bounty, its yield was a strikingly earthy and original Southern cuisine named Low Country (Forsyth Country Club Foresights, October, 2003; Chef Mike Mort).”

What was true of mundane matters was true of religious experience. These early colonists borrowed from British tradition and the dominant British form of Baptist worship had a good bit of order and structure to it. As food customs were blended with local influences (And thank goodness for that! Even my English father complains about English food…), worship traditions were shaped differently here as well, but the British forms significantly shaped early Baptist worship in the colonies.

One center of this tradition was in Charleston, South Carolina. Oliver Hart, who preceded Richard Furman at First Baptist Church, Charleston, preached a sermon in which he spoke of the dignity and order Baptist worship ought to have. Worship was to be “carefully set, and maintained in order; for it is of so much importance, that there cannot be an orderly gospel without it (Oliver Hart, “A Gospel Church Portrayed, and Her Orderly Service Pointed Out, Trenton: Printed by Isaac Collins, 1791, p. 28).” Church historian Walter Shurden says that the worship of this church and area encouraged the adopting of a confession of faith, the education of ministers, and cooperation in associational life. Specifically about Charleston worship, Shurden says this.

It represented a style in public worship that was ordered
and stately, though pulsating with evangelical warmth.
The ordinances were more important to these eighteenth-
century Baptists than to many of their successors. Worship
appeared to be neither spontaneously charismatic nor
primarily revivalistic. It was directed toward heaven, not
earth. The object was to praise God, not entertain people.
(Walter Shurden, “The Southern Baptist Synthesis: Is It
Cracking?” Baptist History and Heritage, April, 1981, pp
2-10)

What exactly did these services involve? We don’t have a great deal of detail but our best guess is that they generally followed an order somewhat like that suggested by Morgan Edwards, a former pastor of First Baptist Church, Philadelphia who traveled through the south, namely:

A short prayer, suitably prefaced
Reading of Scripture
A longer prayer
Singing (congregational)
Preaching
A third prayer
Singing
The Lord’s Prayer (on appointed Sundays)
Collecting for the necessities of the saints
Benediction
(Morgan Edwards, The Customs of Primitive Churches,
Philadelphia, 1768, p. 100)

It is also possible that some services leaned on the older Geneva Order developed by Calvin which followed the pattern of Isaiah 6 with a gathering for worship, a confession of sin and assurance of pardon, the reading of scripture, prayer, singing, and proclamation, followed by a collection, prayer, communion, and a benediction. The specifics varied but the general forms sought order and dignity. Robes were worn as a sign of reverence and, to be honest, to point to the educational level of the clergy, and liturgy was used in some form, if only the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer.

Clearly there were other forms of Baptist worship. Something very different emerged on the frontier as the revival movement began. Sandy Creek, as in Sandy Creek, North Carolina is noted as a center for this basic approach as Charleston is considered the center or a center for a more formal, liturgical approach. And both traditions have merit and validity, both have strengths and weaknesses. But, contrary to the assumptions of many, the Charleston approach is older. It does have links with British Baptist worship both in its expression of the general principles of that worship and the specific forms of the late seventeenth/early eighteen century. Thus, it is very much a Baptist tradition in every sense of the word. That it is viewed by some to be simply a new accommodation to the contemporary ecumenical movement is further evidence of how little awareness of our longer history many Baptists in this culture have.

The remaining question is, “Is it Biblical?” and the answer is, “As Biblical as any other approach to worship.” Scripture does not give us a specific template for how to structure worship services, and even if it did, we would have to adapt the basic principles. The Christian Testament does give us a few hints of the kinds of elements we might include in worship. Acts 2 describes the early church as a community where worship in some form is the center of community life. All we know that is that these early believers in Jerusalem are devoted to teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread (communion) and prayer. Though I would add that their concept of fellowship included taking care of each other financially. Fellowship was not just about tea and cookies (though as the son of an Englishman, I love tea and cookies!). In 1 Timothy 4:13, Paul urges Timothy to devote himself to the public reading of scripture. Preaching and teaching are also strongly suggested. Singing is later described in numerous places including Colossians 3:16.

A congregational amen is referenced in 1 Corinthians 14:16 (Thank-you Lee Hill for helping us recover this!). A collection is noted in 1 Corinthians 16:1,2. Numerous references are made to a holy kiss (Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 16:20, 1 Thessalonians 5:26). And the celebration of Lord’s Supper was clearly a frequent focus of worship.

So, we know a bit about what happened in the early church, though I would hasten to note that there was not one early church nor would we want to copy everything any of these churches did. But we can catch a glimpse of the elements and our forms echo these. There is no specific push to worship in a formal, liturgical way or any other way, but there is certainly nothing to suggest that the Charleston style is out of synch with the biblical witness.

Perhaps the strongest tie we can find is found in the Hebrew Bible. The narrative of Isaiah 6 presents a wonderful model of worship and I will explore this model in more depth next week, but the basic movement of awareness of the holy, confession of sin and assurance, listening for God’s voice and responding with a willingness to serve is well embodied in the Charleston approach to worship. The frontier model, the Sandy Creek Model, the more revivalistic model, is a much more anthropomorphic model. That is to say, its primary focus is upon humanity, our need for conversion. The Charleston approach is more focused upon God, and I would contend much more analogous to the experience of the Isaiah. Again it is not a matter of right and wrong. Human beings need conversion; the goals, expressed or not, of the Sandy Creek tradition are valid and significant goals; but so are the goals of the Charleston tradition. We have a need, a calling, to honor God, to do something that is first and foremost about God, and not about us, and worship in Charleston style can help us to do so.

I am reminded of an old episode of E. R. in which Dr. Carter has held back information about the prognosis for an elderly lady. She dies and her husband is taken by surprise and thus is angry with Carter. Realizing his error, Carter goes to the lady’s funeral but arrives late. Yet, still feeling badly and having a need to do something, he approaches the disgruntled widower after the service and begins an apology, but the widower stops him midstream. He does not look comforted, but rather seems even more disgruntled. Dr. Carter, he says, this day is not about you!
How much God must feel like this about many of our conversations about and efforts at worship! Worship is not first about us. It is about God, it is for God, and it is shaped first not by our tastes and perceived needs but by the character of God.

The irony is that we find our deepest needs met when we shift the focus away from ourselves to God. Because underneath all of our needs and wants is a deeper longing to know the One who made us, to receive the acceptance and hear the calling of our Creator, and then to respond in service. Augustine said that our hearts are restless until they rest in God. So they are. Genuine worship, an authentic recognition of and response to the Holy, enables us to rest.

No one style moves us in the direction, but as I said at the beginning of this lecture, I have had this experience time and again in worship in the Charleston style. Thus, my passion and bias for it. Is it Baptist? Yes, absolutely, in principle and form, though I am still comfortable with the term Episcobapterian. It is it Biblical? Yes! As biblical as any other form or style. But does it work for people in this day and does it have a future? These are questions for future lectures.