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Theology - Liturgical: Judaizing and the church calendar

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Some Reformed charge that celebration of the seasons of the church calendar is Judaizing, a reversion to the slavery of the Old Covenant.

More the opposite: The Reformed anti-calendar view says that we keep appointments with God only when He strictly and explicitly commands it. They do not think human beings have authority over time, but are still children whose parents have to schedule everything. But we’re grown ups, and we can shape our own schedules.

Besides, in the Old Covenant, there was a sharp division between sacred and profane time, as there was between sacred and profane space. That no longer exists in the new. Since Jesus, though, all space is sacred (or common), and all time is common (or sacred). Slaughtering a lamb at noon on the day before Passover was disobedient; but we can celebrate our Passover at 8, 9, 10, 11 AM, or afternoon, or evening. The Reformed who don’t celebrate the church feasts tend to think of the Sabbath as sacred time, and thus revert to childhood.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, December 14, 2008 at 8:23 am

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Theology - Liturgical: Judaizing and the church calendar

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