Emotional worship

Found an interesting article by an Evangelical who was formerly a worship leader. Joel Wentz is concerned about crossing the fine line between worship that arouses our emotions — and thus our commitment — and worship planned to manipulate our emotions. His exploration of the Biblical narrative of Nehemiah 8 also touches on the importance of a liturgical calendar in establishing our worship patterns (and the emotions associated).

What do you think is the role of the emotions in the worship of your tradition? Can (and should) they be cultivated?

Hat tip to Jonathan Sullivan (@sullijo on twitter).

Kimberly Hope Belcher

Kimberly Belcher received her Ph.D. in Liturgical Studies at Notre Dame in 2009. After teaching at St John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota, she returned to Notre Dame as a faculty member in 2013. Her research interests include sacramental theology (historical and contemporary), trinitarian theology, and ritual studies. Her interest in the church tradition is challenged, deepened, and inspired by her three children.

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14 responses to “Emotional worship”

  1. Tom Poelker

    I am inclined to say that the emotions should be engaged but not cultivated, but I am not sure that I can explain what I mean by that.

    Can anyone help?

    Reply
    1. Christian McConnell

      I think you’re right, Tom. The difference is one of instrumentality.

      Of course emotion should be aroused by worship as a natural, even inevitable, result of its engagement with presence of the living God. That’s very different from worship practices which are designed to do so as a goal. Liturgical worship is play, which means it needs to be above instrumental rationality. As soon as we start thinking of liturgy as a means to an end — no matter how important or laudable the end — we’ve gone down the wrong path.

      This may seem counter-intuitive, but I think it’s important. It’s not that liturgical worship has no purpose; it’s that the purpose is to mediate the Kingdom of God, a liberating reality in which human beings get a taste of the freedom in which, and for which, we were created. Paradoxically, as soon as our actions fall into a technocratic logic of means and ends, that purpose is thwarted.

      To put it more simply, liturgy does what it does because of grace. And by definition, grace isn’t something we can make happen.

      This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t put all of our efforts into doing it well, or striving for it to be beautiful. But beauty, art, symbol, ritual, narrative … these things are only done “well” when they escape being reduced to “goals.”

      Reply
      1. Tom Poelker

        CM,
        I think your response contains a self-contradiction.
        “As soon as we start thinking of liturgy as a means to an end — no matter how important or laudable the end — we’ve gone down the wrong path.”
        is in conflict with
        “liturgy does what it does because of grace. And by definition, grace isn’t something we can make happen.”
        because this seems to reduce liturgy to dispensation of invisible grace which by definition is already something “freely given” by God.

        Liturgy gives a lot more than grace. Liturgy is the means God uses through the church to nourish the people of God for the purpose living the way shown by Jesus. The affective elements of liturgy are important in providing content and reassurance for the living of Christian life.

        When you say, further,
        “liturgical worship has … the purpose is to mediate the Kingdom of God, ”
        you are eliminating many of the other ends of liturgical prayer by restricting it to adoration.

        Liturgical prayer includes thanksgiving [eucharistia] and petition, and repentance. Liturgical adoration even is not limited to providing some weak human foretaste of heaven. This assignment of purpose is a limited view of worship based on a narrow view of God as king without taking into account any other divine attributes. It is a view based on the existence and purposes of human royal courts and the logical point that one ought to give to God at least as much honor as one gives to a king. However, it remains a very restricted, incomplete purpose of liturgy.

      2. Christian McConnell

        Thanks for this response, Tom. It shows me that a lot of what I said requires tremendous clarification of terms.

        I’d disagree with “Liturgy gives a lot more than grace.” Note taht I would never accept some cheap, minimized, reified notion of grace in the first place. So when you follow with “Liturgy is the means God uses through the church to nourish the people of God for the purpose living the way shown by Jesus,” ALL of that would fall within the purview of grace. There’s no other way possible for us to live the way shown by Jesus, nor for us to be nourished, unless by grace.

        And when you say that my emphasis on the Kingdom of God somehow restricts it to “adoration,” I simply have no idea what that even means. I made no mention of adoration, nor was I thinking of it. Here, from your following comments, I suspect that when I said “Kingdom of God,” you were thinking I was referring simply to heaven, but that’s NOT what I mean by the term, nor what the gospel means by it. Similarly, I just don’t know what you mean by a “narrow view of God as king,” since, again, I was thinking of no such thing.

        In short, you’re absolutely right to critique, and ultimately reject, the narrow “purpose” of liturgy you thought I was talking about. In fact, however, little to none of it is what I had really meant.

  2. Tomas Diaz

    Emotions are “part” of who we are and thus, since Christ and the liturgy calls the whole of us to communion, must be engaged. However, to make them core to the liturgical experience, perhaps covering other “parts” such as the rational, then there is a problem – temperance in all things so that all things may be handed over.

    It’s much like dealing with any passion, like the sex drive, the hunger drive, the anger drive. They all have there proper place, but in order to have this proper place, they must be well directed, often limited but sometimes stirred up – prudence and temperance in all things.

    Thus my beef with certain ways of doing LifeTeen or attitudes about only the “necessities” in the Low Mass. One extreme is all about emotions and the other is all about some kind of puritanical frigidity. Man, who is emotional just as he is rational, must be engaged, but not only a “part” of him to the exclusion of other “‘parts.”

    Reply
  3. Karl Liam Saur

    Emotions are just a form of information. They are not an end to themselves.

    The deeper issue may be the extreme discomfort in our broader culture with spiritual dryness as a normal and typical part of a mature spiritual life, something that We Don’t Like To Talk About. If we cannot learn to deal with a certain affective dryness in our corporate worship, how on earth can we learn to deal better with it outside of that context?

    Reply
  4. Claire Mathieu

    It’s like making love. Sex is a natural component of engaging in the presence of the other. The intimate connection with one’s spouse is the cause of the physical reactions that are usually aroused. But those physical reactions, although pleasant, should not be THE goal. Fortunately for a couple it is easy to distinguish between a mere physical arousal and an engagement in each other’s presence in love… whereas in worship, God’s presence tends to be elusive, isn’t it?

    Reply
  5. Tom Poelker

    I think emotions are more than a form of information.
    They are a form of the affective nature of humans.
    Beyond that, I need someone with more expertise to explain.

    Reply
  6. crystal watson

    Emotions are interesting. The feelings of consolation and desolation were how Ignatius of Loyola thought we could tell if we were moving closer to or farther from God.

    I’d wonder about the difference between providing a situation where emotions could be encouraged or instead working to manipulate them.

    Reply
  7. Jack Rakosky

    Ignatius had a very sophisticated approach to emotion.

    He looked at how long it lasted. Was temporary consolation followed by desolation? Did an emotional experience seem to be permanently satisfying? Something he could come back to it again and again?

    He looked at where he was in his own spiritual journey. He recognized that as he advanced he was more likely to be deceived by evil appearing under the guise of “good”, even the choice of a lesser good, rather than by outright temptations.

    He looked at what were the consequences in his own behavior. When he found that great consolation in prayer was distracting him from his studies, he decided that consolation might not be coming from God.

    He looked at what were the consequences to other people. Were they noticing changes in him? Were they benefiting spiritually from those changes that they saw in him?

    Reply
  8. Tom Poelker

    .

    Christian McConnell :

    In short, you’re absolutely right to critique, and ultimately reject, the narrow “purpose” of liturgy you thought I was talking about. In fact, however, little to none of it is what I had really meant.

    I know I just hate it when that happens. Thanks for clarifying.

    Reply
  9. Adam Fitzpatrick

    I think emotions are inevitably cultivated in worship as humans are emotional beings and ritual cultivates emotions. This being said, every tradition manipulates emotion in some way so as to lead people to a certain view of God in the midst of ritual. Organ music and guitar music can both have the same unhealthy effect of reducing one’s image of God and manipulating emotions to make people assent to a certain ethic which most often doesn’t build up the life of the Church.
    The more important question I think when engaging emotions in worship is listening to people’s existential experience that contributes to the feelings people have in worship. Worship should inspire us to love others, listen to what they need, and respond as we are able by making the choices which heal the individual and common good. Worship should have a social dimension as we are beings who interact and love like God loves. When worship is not doing this, it causes great harm to the common good.

    Reply
  10. BRIGID M RAUCH

    I don’t know if liturgy should raise emotions, but certainly the proposed changes to liturgy have raised them!

    Reply
  11. Mary Coogan

    I’m wary of ‘the religion of the heart’ vs the religion of the mind and spirit, so I balk at this topic. Still, I’d like to pose a somewhat crass analogy with politics to frame a question that I think is about emotion in worship: what is the experience of the we in communal prayer?

    Political activity is collective effort. As individuals, we can do little besides signing an on-line petition, blogging, or casting a single vote. Strength lies in unity–in sharing a common purpose. We need the group, where we can sense its spirit and draw on its strength. I remember campus protests of the 70s, for example. Such groups generated a feeling of worthy cause, with an empowered, committed “we” that transcended specific accomplishments and might continue as a bond for years. (Of course, like any powerful group emotion, it has salient dangers too. ) I won’t push the analogy any further than this felt “we,” although as I’ve experienced it in an Episcopalian congregation, it includes broadly political (progressive) goals.

    Likewise, the mass is communal. Like Wentz, I think Old Testament: Davidic psalms in which the speaker seems to bring his entire community to God: “Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face, O God of Jacob” (24:6). People who share a sense of what this world needs from Christians can hear in the “Ite, missa est” (in its “Go, you are sent [forth]” translation) re-invigoration for that work. Probably this “we” is less native to Catholics than to Jews and Protestants, and some sects do manipulate to ‘make it happen.’ Pew 2009 found 32% of those who leave Catholicism for Protestantism give as one reason “dissatisfied with atmosphere at worship services,” and 80% of converts selected churches where they “Enjoy the religious services & style of worship” (pewforum.org/Faith-in-Flux%283%29.aspx). Could they be seeking this “we”-feeling–a sense of shared purpose and strength?

    Reply

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