Note: This essay is adapted from a talk delivered at the Howell E. Jackson Committee conference on “Foundations of Baptist Education,” held at Union University, Oct. 4-5, 2024.

It’s no secret that evangelicals are converting to High Church traditions, a term I will use to refer to Anglo-Catholicism, Roman Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy. Although specific data is hard to find, it seems that Baptists are no exception to this trend. Can Baptists address the concerns of those drawn toward High Church traditions while remaining authentically Baptist?¹

As an undergraduate student at a Baptist institution, I was tempted by the “High Church exodus.” Perhaps the most potent form of this temptation was a tutorial three other students and I took during my freshman year with prominent Christian philosopher James K.A. Smith. In his book Desiring the Kingdom, Smith argues that humans are not primarily thinkers but lovers. Therefore, holiness consists not primarily in having a Christian worldview but in having rightly ordered desires. Our desires, Smith argues, are shaped primarily by what he calls “liturgies”: repeated, formative practices that engage our bodies. Thus, the way to be sanctified is to practice the right liturgies.

One of Smith’s primary applications of his argument is a critique of Low Church worship. Low Church Protestants, Smith argues, overemphasize the more cognitive elements of worship (such as the sermon) and underemphasize the more embodied ones (such as the Lord’s Supper). They also tend to perform the elements of worship in a way that fails to engage the body, neglecting to kneel in prayer, for example. In short, Smith calls for a more embodied worship that engages our affections.

I found Smith’s argument compelling, and not simply because of its intellectual appeal. That same semester, I was immersed in the sort of embodied practices that Smith describes. I participated in a men’s student group that would pray, fast, and feast together. In an honors course called “Beauty,” we recited the Lord’s Prayer in different bodily postures: kneeling, sitting, standing, and lying prostrate. We read Dante’s Divine Comedy and worshiped in the basilica of St. Louis, each activity linking “beauty” with “High Church.” The appeal was not simply intellectual; it was also aesthetic.

Although the details of my story are unique, I suspect the basic outlines are fairly common. I can name more than one friend who converted to each of the three traditions in question (Anglo-Catholicism, Roman Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy). I suspect many, if not all, of these conversions were driven at least in part by the concern I’ve just described: a visceral sense of the poverty of Low Church worship.

How should Baptists respond to this High Church exodus? We cannot simply ignore it. Although the number of converts may be small, these converts are often the best, brightest, and most pious. Neither can we simply affirm these converts in their decisions. As Baptists, we cannot affirm unbiblical practices like the veneration of Mary or the use of images in worship. Nor can we affirm unbiblical beliefs: that Christ is present bodily at the Lord’s Table or that justification is infused righteousness. Yet we should not simply reject this movement either. Rather than assuming the worst about these converts, we should examine their concerns like good Baptists—evaluating them in light of God’s Word to discern the good from the bad.

For this task, James K.A. Smith’s work is, unfortunately, not especially helpful. It does help correct the Enlightenment overemphasis on the mind, as opposed to the heart and the body. But it doesn’t specify which bodily practices are appropriate in Christian worship. Is looking at an icon an appropriate way of engaging one’s body in worship? What about genuflecting before the Eucharistic host? Smith’s argument, in other words, implies that we should engage our bodies in worship but doesn’t tell us how.

When we turn to the Scriptures, it seems clear that God is concerned not only with how we should use our bodies in worship but also with how we shouldn’t use them. Consider the second commandment: You shall not bow down to graven images. If our only standard for worship is engaging the body, we cannot distinguish between right worship and idolatry.

To be fair, Smith’s work may not be intended to help make such distinctions. But if we are to respond well to the High Church exodus, these are precisely the sort of distinctions we need to make. And in order to make these distinctions, we must understand what the Bible says, not simply about anthropology, but about worship. There is no substitute for careful attention to biblical precepts and examples. Of course, offering a fully developed biblical theology of worship is well beyond the scope of this essay. My goal is simply to provide the outlines of one example of what such a biblically textured approach might look like.

As a foil or counterpart to James K.A. Smith’s Desiring the Kingdom, I will summarize the argument of The Lord’s Service by Presbyterian pastor Jeffrey Meyers.² Some may think I should be turning to a Baptist author. I have two reasons for not doing so. First, the Baptist tradition has unfortunately been characterized by overreactions against some of the High Church practices I’ve just been describing. Second, I simply think that Meyers does a better job than anyone else I know in providing a biblical rationale for Lord’s Day worship. If we Baptists are committed to sola scriptura, and if we are willing to learn from our brothers in the Reformed tradition (a tradition Baptists arguably share), we should give careful attention to Meyers’ arguments.

Meyers argues that the rationale for a traditional order of service can be found in the structure of the biblical covenants. These covenants, Meyers claims, follow a fivefold pattern: “1) God takes hold, 2) God separates and makes something new, 3) God speaks, 4) God grants ritual signs and seals, and 5) God arranges for the future” (40).

Consider, for example, God’s covenant with Abraham. God takes hold of Abram, separating him from his country and kindred, and bestowing on him a new name: Abraham. God calls Abraham to walk before him in righteousness, promising that through his offspring all the nations will be blessed. God then confirms this covenant through the sign of circumcision and provides Abraham and Sarah with a child who will continue the covenant.

What does this have to do with worship? Meyers argues that this fivefold structure parallels a similar threefold structure in Levitical worship: cleansing, consecration, and communion. When a worshipper brings an animal for sacrifice, that animal is killed and its blood is sprinkled on the altar. The animal is then cut up and arranged before it ascends in smoke to the presence of God. In placing his hand on the head of the animal, the worshipper indicates that he himself must follow this “sacrificial pathway,” as Meyers calls it, into the presence of God, and that the animal is his vicarious substitute (77).

This same pattern of cleansing, consecration, and communion is also evident in the order in which the three major sacrifices are offered: guilt offering, then burnt (ascension) offering, then peace (fellowship) offering. Meyers argues that the threefold Levitical pattern maps onto the three middle stages of the covenantal pattern: God’s separation of a person from his old life, his delivering the terms of the covenant, and his confirmation of the covenant through signs and seals. On this basis, Meyers claims that worship is a sort of replay or dramatization of God’s initial covenanting with his people. In Meyers’ words, “worship is covenant renewal” (34).

This definition of Lord’s Day worship makes sense of the fivefold pattern of a traditional Christian service: call to worship, confession of sin and assurance of pardon, sermon, Lord’s Supper, benediction. In addition to this central argument, Meyers provides biblical warrant for two other features of a liturgical service: responsive readings and coordinated bodily movements. In defense of both of these features, Meyers appeals to Revelation 5, where various groups offer praise in succession, and where the four living creatures and twenty-four elders fall down and worship. In sum, Meyers offers a biblical defense of an order of worship and a way of worship that sounds much like a liturgical service. Yet because he is grounded in Scripture and not mere anthropology, he also rejects unbiblical practices, such as icon veneration and Eucharistic adoration, that characterize certain High Church traditions. In other words, rather than offering general encouragement to engage in embodied practices, Meyers exercises specific, biblical discernment.

What might such discernment look like for Baptists? A good starting place might be areas where there is the most overlap between the concerns of those attracted to High Church traditions and the typical concerns of Baptists. For example, it’s ironic that Baptist churches, which claim to be deeply committed to Scripture, often read so little of it in their services, whereas the reverse is true in High Church traditions. In other words, there is a surprising overlap between High Church practice and Baptist theology. There are at least two ways Baptists can make their practices more consistent with their theology. First, we can simply read more Scripture in church. Second, we can sing more Scripture in church—especially the Psalms. It seems to me that one cause of the High Church exodus is frustration with vapid evangelical music. What better way to address this concern than with God’s own hymnal: the Psalter!

The rest of the suggestions I’ll make may be more controversial, but I don’t think they’re inherently unbaptist. In fact, some of them have been practiced by Baptist churches I’ve been a part of. First, we should confess sin corporately and hear God’s assurance of pardon. It seems that many Christians are leaving evangelicalism because of its lack of gravitas. Confessing sin and hearing God’s assurance of pardon could help restore this gravitas while also giving hope. Second, we should celebrate the Lord’s Supper every week. Even on a memorialist account, the Supper can be seen as a formative, embodied practice, a tangible sign of the gospel. Third, our worship should include responsive readings and coordinated bodily movements (like kneeling). Many Baptist services today share an odd feature with those of medieval Catholicism: they are largely spectator sports in which the congregation is passive. Responsive readings and coordinated movements help restore the active, embodied participation the Reformers valued so highly. Fourth, we should build beautiful church buildings. I noted earlier that my attraction to High Church traditions was driven not only by reason but also by aesthetics. Addressing this attraction involves considering not only how we worship but also where. God does not need a beautiful building, but he certainly deserves one.

In sum, the best way for us Baptists to respond to the “High Church Exodus” is to conform our worship practices to the Word of God. To borrow Paul’s idiom, theological anthropology is of some value, but Scripture is of value in every way.

Dr. Ryan Sinni is Assistant Professor of English at LeTourneau University.

Footnotes

1. Sympathetic Baptist responses to the “High Church Exodus” are often referred to under the rubric of “Baptist Catholicity.” Broadly speaking, these projects fall into two categories: “postliberal” and “evangelical.” This piece could be considered an “evangelical” essay in Baptist Catholicity. “Postliberal” Baptist Catholicity projects include Steven R. Harmon, Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future: Story, Tradition, and the Recovery of Community (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2016), and Curtis Freeman, Contesting Catholicity: Theology for Other Baptists (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2014). “Evangelical” Baptist Catholicity projects include Baptists and the Christian Tradition: Toward an Evangelical Baptist Catholicity, ed. Matthew Y. Emerson, Christopher W. Morgan, and R. Lucas Stamps (Nashville: Broadman and Holman Academic, 2020), and, more germane to this essay, R. Lucas Stamps and Matthew Y. Emerson, “Liturgy for Low-Church Baptists,” Criswell Theological Review,vol. 14, no. 2 (Spring 2017): 71–88. For a longer list of works on Baptist Catholicity, see the “Recommended Reading” page on the Center for Baptist Renewal website. ↩︎
2. I would like to thank J. Caleb Little for drawing my attention to this contrast between Smith and Meyers. ↩︎