Ritualism in the Church of England facts for kids

Ritualism, in the history of Christianity, refers to an emphasis on the rituals and liturgical ceremonies of the Church, specifically the Christian practice of Holy Communion.

Image of a thurible in a stained glass window, St. Ignatius Church, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts

In the Anglican church in the 19th century, the role of ritual became a contentious matter. The debate over this topic was also associated with struggles between the High Church and Low Church movements.

Definition

In Anglicanism, the term 'ritualist' is often used to describe the revival of the second generation Oxford Movement/Anglo-Catholic/High Church, which sought to reintroduce a range of Roman Catholic liturgical practices to the Church of England. Ritualism is also seen as a controversial term (i.e., rejected by some of those to whom ritualism is applied to).

Common arguments

Arguments about ritualism in the Church of England were often shaped by opposing (and often unannounced) attitudes towards the concept of sola scriptura and the nature of the authority of the Bible for Christians.

For

Those who support the ritualist outlook in the Church of England have often argued that the adoption of key elements of Roman Catholic ritual would:

• Give liturgical expression to the ecclesiological belief that the Church of England is more Catholic than Protestant;
• Give liturgical expression to a belief in the Real Presence and concomitantly that the Eucharist is the most important act of church worship and should be the norm;
• Be the most effective vehicle for giving expression to the worship of heaven as described in the Book of Revelation in which the use of white robes and incense in a setting of considerable beauty is described;
• Be a liturgical expression of the story in the book of Gospel of Matthew of the response of the Magi to the birth of Jesus who brought the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh as an act of adoration;
• Enable worshippers to use all of their senses in order to worship––worship with the whole person and not just the mind;
• Be "incarnational"––by placing emphasis on liturgical action and physical objects, ritualism draws attention to the importance that Christians should attach to the fact that they believe that, in Jesus, "the Word became flesh" (John 1): those things are part of what God makes and saves and is not repudiated by Him;
• Be the most effective form of worship for cultures that are either highly visual or in which literacy rates are low;
• Be an expression of the human response to God that calls on humans to offer their best in worship––a way of expressing the value ("worth") that they place on God: worship is, etymologically, "worth-ship".

Against

Bishop Ryle of Liverpool – a leading critic of ritualism – by Carlo Pellegrini, 1881

Those who oppose ritualism in the Church of England have generally argued that it:

• Encourages idolatry in that it encourages worshippers to focus on ritual objects and actions rather than the things they are meant to symbolize;
• Constitutes an attempt to wrest the Church of England from its Protestant identity;
• Constitutes a downgrading of the significance of preaching and biblical exposition in regular Christian worship;
• Encourages an idolatrous attitude to the Eucharist because ritualism is predicated on a belief in the Real Presence;
• Uses excessive elaborations in worship that cannot be justified on the basis of the descriptions of worship in the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, or the Epistles in the New Testament––the robes used in the worship of heaven described in the Book of Revelation are plain white;
• Undermines a key Protestant belief that no human actions, even worship precisely and carefully offered, can be of any value when it comes to being justified in the eyes of God: worship should be an unfussy, obedient, penitent, grateful, and spontaneously joyful response to the experience of being saved by faith alone in Jesus––ritual and tradition are merely human inventions;
• Has often impeded the understanding of the gospel by wrapping up Christian worship in indecipherable symbolic acts;
• Is not beautiful as proponents claim but rather gaudy and distracting from contemplative worship.

See also