Although the twentieth century witnessed a thorough liturgical revival and renewal, the last ten years exploded in diverse and conflicting styles, settings, and even media of corporate worship: traditional “high-church” liturgies, alternative worship for small communities, “women church” services, seeker services at megachurches, and more. Does this innovation portend a brave new liturgical world, or is it just “dumbing down?” For example, do megachurch services simply revive the old frontier revival and, in an effort to “reach out,” accommodate Christianity to the reigning consumer culture?
One of today’s most knowledgeable liturgical theologians and historians contemplates the future shape of liturgy. He believes that ritual systems–liturgy—express and inculcate a worldview, an implicit theology; and, he fears “lest the community of faith gain the whole world and lose its soul.” New Creation proposes the lines of a “Christian culture” or worldview, or way of life, that can inform liturgical renewal. Twelve erudite and earnest chapters further specify this counter-cultural matrix as it pertains to God, Christ, church, creation, world, worship, hospitality, culture, evangelism, prayer, and life itself.
