Oncers, Noncers, and Evening Worship
A friend of mine grew up in farm-country Indiana, and their family faithfully attended church twice on Sundays. She likes to tell us that the only times as kids they were allowed to skip the Sunday evening service was when Elvis and then the Beatles performed on the ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’. The evening service was once a regular feature of American Protestant worship, but for a variety of reasons has slowly disappeared. I believe that an evening service is incredibly valuable for Christian spiritual formation; for that reason we instituted an evening service in my congregation two years ago.
But I couldn’t help but think of my friend’s story when I was recently introduced to a phrase from the Dutch Reformed tradition: “Oncers become noncers…”
Roman and Reformed Right-Worship
“I’ve been very vocal in my love and devotion to the [Traditional Latin Mass] and its necessity for our lives. But what I think gets misunderstood is that people who attend the TLM do so out of pride or preference. I can speak to my own experience, but for most people I have come across within these communities this simply is not true. I do not attend the TLM because I think I am better than others, or for the smells and bells, or even for the love of Latin. I attend the TLM because I believe, just as the God of the Old Testament was pretty particular in how he wanted to be worshipped, the same holds true for us today. It is through the TLM that I encountered order, and began to pursue it in my own life.”
This was NFL kicker Harrison Butker’s explanation in a recent commencement address at a Catholic college for why he attends the Latin Mass. Michael Brendan Dougherty agrees, saying, “One reason to attend the Traditional Latin Mass is that the God of the Bible is revealed to be especially interested in right-worship.”
Absolutely God is interested in right worship, and both Butker and Dougherty go on to have good insights about the good ordering of worship that comes with a structured, rooted, reverent liturgy. However, they both make a logical leap that is characteristic of Roman Catholics on this point. Yes, God is interested in right worship and is very particular about how he is worshiped. But God nowhere reveals or commands that particularity be expressed in the Traditional Latin Mass.
This is where the Roman and the Reformed catholics differ: we both believe God is particular about worship, but we Reformed think he’s actually revealed what right worship looks like in the Bible, whereas the Romanists think the church’s traditions capture God’s design. In Matthew 15:9, Jesus makes the point that well intentioned, well designed worship of God is vain if the commandments and traditions of people are held to be divine in nature.
Why A Sunday Evening Worship Service?
From time-to-time I write an extended theological essay for my church. These are intended to help guide conversation among the elders and then equip and edify the congregation. My church is beginning a weekly, Sunday evening worship service, and this essay was written to explain why we would want to do that. Our elders also read Harrison Perkins’ “A Rationale For Evening Services” in Modern Reformation, “The Forgotten Gift of Evening Worship” by Jim McCarthy in reformation21, and listened to Alistair Begg preach on the subject. These other pieces are either aimed at pastors or are explaining a current practice to a church; I wrote this essay to explain why we would want to start an evening service and emphasized a biblical vision of delight, joy, and wisdom…
