Author: Liesch, Barry
Genre: Theology - Ecclesiology
Tags: Church, Progressivism / Conservatism, Worship / Music
Series:
Rick Shrader‘s Review:
This has been the next “contemporary church” book on my list to read. Liesch is a popular writer who promotes the converging of various worship styles to meet the desires of a new generation. His main thesis is that worship must include an equal amount of music (and alternative worship techniques i.e. drama, video, etc.) in order to be Biblical. Preaching, he says, has become too central in our worship over the last 100 years. He even praises Soren Kierkegaard’s neo-orthodox advice of making God the audience, the congregation the “players” and the ministers the “prompters.” He believes that Christians in the first century “probably” brought their pagan background into the church worship and (since, according to Liesch, all music is morally neutral) therefore, we should bring all types of secular music styles into our worship as well. The Old Testament form of worship is made central to the New Testament church; a “pick-and-choose” method of Biblical word definitions is used; and (as usual) he advocates changing the traditional churches slowly “until people become accustomed to the change” and many other such stealth tactics.