Paul Ramsey on inventing new liturgies
"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
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