A letter from Theopolis President Peter Leithart as our fiscal year draws to an end.
Dear Friend of Theopolis:
It was one of those moments when you realize that other people understand you better than you understand yourself.
I was having lunch with a pastor friend at a BJ’s near Sea-Tac airport. Our conversation turned, as so many of my conversations do these days, to Theopolis.
What, he asked me, do you say to people who think we already have plenty of Reformed seminaries? What makes Theopolis unique? Why do we need it?
I gave a typically convoluted, overly detailed answer. Just as typically, he honed in on the one coherent thing I said.
The liturgy, he said, is the one thing that the church does together every week. It’s the only thing that we do together on a regular basis. Worship is the driving engine of discipleship and the source of the church’s life.
Yet, he continued, there has never been a professor of liturgical theology in any orthodox Reformed or Presbyterian seminary in America. The liturgists come in only after the seminaries have gone liberal, when no one believes in anything anymore except the liturgy.
Truth be told, his point applies more widely. Lutheran and Anglican churches excepted, evangelical Protestants pay scant attention to liturgical theology or practice.
I’ve heard him say this before, many times. I have said it before myself, having learned it from him. But at that moment it seemed like a revelation, as the uniqueness of Theopolis came home to me.
We are doing something new in the history of Reformed Protestantism: We are putting the study of Christian worship at the center of theological training, and making the liturgy central to the formation of ministers.
It’s never been done, and we are doing it.
I can hear the skeptics: Is liturgy really that important? Shouldn’t we be focused on missions and apologetics, especially in an age of rampaging secularism? Is this such a big deal?
Yes, it’s a big deal, and questions like that are symptoms of the uphill battle we face.
We cannot resist secularism unless we revive the liturgical life of the church. Liturgical theology and practice aren’t appendixes to theology or Christian living. Without liturgical renewal, the church will flounder into the future.
In his recent You Are What You Love, James K.A. Smith argues that human beings are liturgical creatures. We’re all driven by desires and loves, and these loves become habits as we participate in liturgies.
The world is full of secular liturgies, recurring patterns of action that instill a vision of the good life. We have liturgies of national pride, liturgies of greed, liturgies of self-regard. Every day, we’re trained to be good little consumers and compliant Americans.
Smith calls Christian liturgy a “technology of recalibration.” It reorients our habits and reorders our desires and loves. It gives us a taste of another kingdom, God’s kingdom, and fosters a hunger and thirst for that kingdom and its righteousness.
Nothing is more important to the future of the church, or the future of our culture, than rightly ordered, vibrant, biblically-grounded liturgy.
At Theopolis, we’ve been living and teaching this vision for three years. During our intensive courses, every day is organized by worship – by Matins, Sext, and Vespers.
Our year-long Junior Fellows Program is inspired by the same vision. Junior Fellows will learn the Scriptures in the context of worship and liturgical study, as they actively seek to transform culture by serving in a local ministry.
For the first time in American Reformed history, we’re trying to bring it together: A training program that integrates Bible, Liturgy, and Culture.
We can’t realize our vision for the renewal of the church without your help.
Our ministry year ends June 30. We are hoping to finish the year in the black and with some momentum for the exciting year ahead.
We’re grateful that you’re already part of a unique effort to enhance the church and the culture, but we’re asking you to help even more. Please be generous. It would be a great help if you signed up to be a monthly donor or made a bold, sacrificial gift.
Sincerely in Christ,
Peter Leithart
P.S. Please take time now to generously support the integration of Bible, Liturgy, and Culture in our churches through Theopolis. Thank you and God bless you!