A more Orthodox Christianity?

Continuing my series of posts on Winner's Girl Meets God, the next subject I would like to broach (and probably the last, unless I think of anything else) would be that of Orthodox Christianity. This is not so much in the sense of the principles contained in the Apostle's Creed or the Nicene Creed, but in the sense of the rituals and practices the Christian Orthodoxy has promoted over the centuries. Winner is herself Episcopalian, and her book is structured through a year of her life, each section of the book being a new season of Christianity. She does this largely because her former life as an Orthodox Jew was structured around the festivals and calendars of Judaism.

In the denominations in which I grew up, there was something of a fear about celebrating anything other than Thanksgiving, Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter. For example, we never observed lent, I never attended an Ash Wednesday service, and I only now know what the Maundy in Maundy Thursday means because she explained it in her book (it has to do with the Last Supper). I am now wondering why we didn't.

Before reading this book, I would have given a pat answer that would be something like, "Rituals can take the place of a relationship with God. Remember, Christianity is the only world "religion" that is not about man's trying to get to God (religion), but is about God's attempt to get to man (relationship)." As I read this book, though, I wondered if my Christian life (which is largely a routine of when I get up to read the Bible to pray, when I go to church, when I meet with other believers to fellowship, etc...). Furthermore, how different really is each service I attend from the last one--there is a very "ritualistic" pattern of worship, announcements, more worship with perhaps a special program on some ministry or other, a sermon, and a little worship to top the whole thing off. What's more is that I take comfort from this pattern of the service. I need the ritual of the worship and the teaching to be reminded of who God is and to be taught what God wants from me every week. Is that a bad thing? If not, then what about more rituals, as long as they are designed to continually remind me about the nature of God and the nature of His commandments?

Of course, there is a point where ritual takes over, but are we anywhere close to that dividing line? Furthermore, is it a bad thing to be prepared for Easter by the Lenten season? I have always been skeptical of what people were giving up for Lent, because (a) I knew a lot of people who quickly broke their fasts; and (b) even if they could stave off temptation for that time period, they were always back at whatever they had given off--so what was the point? Now, though, as I am giving up politics for forty days, I realize that the purpose is not so much on giving something up (if you should give something up--for example, a specific sin--that surrender should probably be permanent), but it is more about replacing what you are temporarily giving up for time in the Word, in prayer, and doing other things that perhaps don't have quite such a hold on your life.

Winner also talks about the "icons" (posters) of Jesus she has around her room. She writes several times about the conversations she has with different depictions of Jesus (for different moods she is going through--one Jesus may look encouraging, another may look forgiving, and another may look powerful). To me, this raised a few more warning bells than the stuff about Christian holidays and church service rituals, because this seems to teeter on the brink of breaking God's commandment against idols. Still, because we know pretty much everything we know about relationships from what we've learned with flesh-and-blood people, it seems like it would be comforting to at least have an artist's rendering of Jesus to talk to. As I said, I am quite a bit less sold on this idea as I am on the idea of rituals in Christianity, but it was certainly something to think about.

So that this post doesn't get too long (and so I can get back to my homework), I'm just going to post the rest of the ideas I gleaned from Winner's book about this subject in bullet-point fashion:

• Using a Book of Common Prayer--the book of Psalms also, in a way teaches us to pray, and we certainly pick up ways to pray from some of the good Christian music we listen to (like Derek Webb's "I Repent"), so why not have an organized book of topical prayers? Might they be good guidance for our prayer life, or should we try to "rough it" and be taught by the Holy Spirit?
• Confession--the Bible tells us to confess our sins to one another, so why not make a regular practice of it to a pastor? This, of course, is not for actual forgiveness (we as Christians have the authority to go straight to the throne of grace because our High Priest is Christ Himself), but it seems like it could be useful for accountability, support, and prayer in the areas of our struggles.

Finally, I want to point out that it is possible that all these things are externals, and if one denomination practices one of these sorts of things, we should praise God for how He is working there without feeling the need to adapt our denomination to do the same thing. As long as we are following Christ, perhaps the how's and the when's and the what's aren't so important.