Setting the Lutheran Eucharist

The liturgy took place. To say that is to set the liturgy in specific architectural structures, spatial arrangements, configurations of visual images, as well as in specific human communities with unique traditions of devotional practices. In this essay, the Lutheran liturgy is "set" in two towns, Nuremberg and Rothenburg ob der Tauber, which were geographically and linguistically close. These two towns, however, had different devotional practices, different visual settings for the liturgy, different preachers and differing paces of reform. The article explores the implications of those differences for the meaning of the liturgy within each town. In so doing, it posits possible reconstructions of the liturgy as it might have been experienced, the liturgy not simply as text, but as a ritual, in which image, gesture, and spoken or sung word all participated in the performance and the meaning it conveyed.

The Church Service and Music

Reflection on Divine Service from the ecumenical point of view has brought us to the realisation that the question of reform of the Order of Service is not a matter of what is effective, or beautiful or reverend within that Service. These traditional standards originating from psychology, aesthetics and history may be considered as outdated. It is rather a question of what is right and fitting as to the details pertaining to the Service. The standard for the ritual ordering of Church Service is the testimony in the Holy Scriptures to the truth of Christ and to His reality. Hence we shall examine, firstly, the essence of the Service as we find it in the Scriptures, and above all in the New Testament. Then, secondly, we shall inquire into the nature of music as we encounter it in the performance of its own special function. And finally, in a third section, we shall clarify the task which faces music in its performance in the Services of the Church. By these means we shall attempt to define the contents of the Lutheran liturgy, and the responsibilities which present themselves to the choir, the organ and the ensemble of brass instruments.