CONTRA FATUM

"Those who elect themselves to draw up modern creeds, devise new litur- gies and experiments or proposals for Christian living when there is no crisis of the church's struggle for its authentic witness in the world against invasion from the world turn out to be at best plunderers and looters or at worst petty pilferers of the Christian tradition. These efforts are often only exercises in translation, efforts to communicate better in contemporary idiom. This is not apt to prove generative." (Paul Ramsey, “Liturgy and Ethics” in The Journal of Religious Ethics, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Fall 1979), pp. 139-171, p. 140

"Liturgy (Greek: λειτουργία) is the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions." (Wikipedia) "“Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes." (Luke 12:35-37) What is the function of liturgy? Why do people in Church play music, sing songs? Why sometimes dress in certain ways, put up pictures, use certain symbols and so on? What is the right way of doing worship? Such questions are eagerly discussed nowadays.