History of Contemporary Praise & Worship

Lester Ruth

Description

New forms of worship have transformed the face of the American church over the past fifty years. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources, including interviews with dozens of important stakeholders and key players, this volume by two worship experts offers the first comprehensive history of Contemporary Praise & Worship. The authors provide insight into where this phenomenon began and how it reshaped the Protestant church. They also emphasize the span of denominational, regional, and ethnic expressions of contemporary worship.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Christian worship

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 16 novembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781493432547
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

Title Page
Copyright Page
© 2021 by Lester Ruth and Lim Swee Hong
Published by Baker Academic
a division of Baker Publishing Group
PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakeracademic.com
Ebook edition created 2021
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-3254-7
Scripture quotations labeled KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.
Scripture quotations labeled GNT are from the Good News Translation in Today’s English Version-Second Edition. Copyright © 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by permission.
Baker Publishing Group publications use paper produced from sustainable forestry practices and post-consumer waste whenever possible.
Dedication
In memory of four great pioneers
in Contemporary Praise & Worship
who taught and led countless others:
Chuck Fromm
Dick Iverson
James F. White
Charles Green
Epigraph
But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.
Psalm 22:3 KJV
The voice of joy has returned to the church. The sacrifice of praise is again being offered like the sound of the birds on an early spring day.
Reg Layzell, Pentecostal preacher, Canada, February 28, 1952

So I become all things to all people, that I may save some of them by whatever means are possible.
1 Corinthians 9:22b GNT
The only excuse for using anything is if it’s going to be effective.
Ralph Carmichael, composer, United States, December 1967
Contents
cover
title page i
copyright page ii
dedication iii
epigraphs v
acknowledgments ix
preface xiii
introduction: a historical overview 1
part 1 the history of praise & worship 5
1 the headwater of praise & worship, 1946–65 7
2 deepening the channel for praise & worship, 1965–85 43
3 increasing currents in praise & worship, 1965–85 83
4 a swollen river, surging and sweeping, 1985–95 120
part 2 the history of contemporary worship 163
5 subterranean stirrings, pre-1965 165
6 the first wave of contemporary worship, 1965–85 199
7 the second wave of contemporary worship, 1985–mid-1990s 244
part 3 the confluence of praise & worship and contemporary worship 289
8 the new liturgical normal, late 1990s 291
appendix: the two histories summarized in parallel columns 311
bibliography 315
name index 335
subject index 343
back cover 351
Acknowledgments
It is with fear and trembling that we approach this portion of our book. The trepidation does not come from the thought of having to express gratitude. Indeed, as Christians who are scholars, we are quite happy to have an attitude of thanks and appreciation. Thanksgiving is intrinsic to our faith. The worry arises for different reasons: the dread that a limited amount of space does not allow us to thank adequately the innumerable people who have made this work possible and, even if we had limitless pages upon which to gush in gratitude, the anxiety that we would inevitably leave someone out because there have been so many. When this project was first hatched in a hotel room we were sharing at a conference in Toronto ten years ago, we had no idea of all the wonderful people who would speak to us, assist us, and encourage us along the way. To each and every one, thank you.
Notwithstanding the danger of starting to name specific individuals, given the number who have assisted in this project, we will do so because some were especially instrumental. At the top of this list would be our own wives, Carmen Ruth and Maria Ling, who have been untiring in their support and contributions to this book.
We also thank those who have read and offered feedback on various drafts: Matthew Lilley, Fran Huebert, Judith Heyhoe, Adam Perez, Glenn Stallsmith, Jonathan Ottaway, Drew Eastes, and Debbie Wong. Your feedback challenged us, encouraged us, and made the final version much stronger.
Along the way there have been some conversation partners with whom our ability to talk from time to time has proved invaluable. Many of you lived this history and thus are able to make it come alive and be personal in a way that researching it only through published sources would not have allowed. In this category of assistance, we especially wish to thank Steve Griffing, Barry Griffing, Jon Rising, Fred Heumann, Bob Johnson, Sallie Horner, Jim Hart, Howard Rachinski, Stephen (Steve) Phifer, the Reg Layzell family, and Holly Yaryan Hall (who helped us understand fluvial dynamics).
Many also supplied us with materials to supplement our research. In the midst of a pandemic that limited access to libraries and curtailed travel, your graciousness truly and literally made this book possible. For this type of help, we thank those named immediately above as well as the following: Romina Cain and her extended family for background information on and photographs of her grandfather, Judson Cornwall; Eddie Espinosa for photographs and other materials; Tom Kraeuter for access to a complete collection of Psalmist magazine; William (Will) Bishop for sharing materials from his own dissertation research on youth musicals and for helping us to make contacts among evangelical musicians; Tom Bergler for sharing his own research and, especially, the elusive Horner thesis on Youth for Christ music; David S. Luecke and Mike Coppersmith for background materials on Missouri Synod Lutherans; Chuck, Stephanie, and Lexi Fromm for materials on Worship Leader magazine and Chuck’s earlier work; Andrea Hunter for a copy of the George Warnock book, The Feast of Tabernacles ; Steve Vredenburgh for providing access to Rick Warren’s Doctor of Ministry thesis; and numerous university librarians who did yeoman’s work in providing creative solutions to accessing key materials. Several other individuals contributed images that the reader will see in this book. Note the names of these contributors—there is a prayer of thanks behind each photograph’s source attribution.
We also thank all those we have interviewed for our research on this liturgical topic over the years. Since we conducted our first interviews in 2013, more than 180 people have sat down with us, sharing their time and recollections. From this large wealth of conversations, we used specific information from ninety-seven interviewees for this book and so those persons are named in the bibliography. But all our interviewees have contributed to this project, even if the contribution was more indirect. Each conversation helped orient us to large developments and trends. If we speak with confidence about specifics, it is because all our interviewees collectively have given us a broad picture of the whole.
We also thank John Witvliet, the director of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, whose support and encouragement along the way has proved invaluable in helping us deepen our research.
Finally, we thank our contacts at Baker Academic who have shepherded this project. In this regard we extend our gratitude to Robert Hosack, Sarah Gombis, Brandy Scritchfield, Kara Day, and Melisa Blok.
Lester Ruth, Duke Divinity School
Lim Swee Hong, Emmanuel College of Victoria University in the University of Toronto
Preface
This book is a history of how two liturgical theologies—two ideas—reshaped Protestant worship in the second half of the twentieth century. Specifically, it is the story of how these two theologies motivated and guided people to develop the way of worship we will call Contemporary Praise & Worship. In the telling of this history we will emphasize three foci: the theologies, the people captivated by these theologies, and the worship practices these theologies produced and undergirded.
The critical theological ideas can be summarized by two words: “presence” and “purpose.” “Presence” highlights how one theology prioritized praise as fulfilling biblical promises about how God’s people could expect to experience God’s presence in worship. The people who adhered to this theology of worship saw praise-filled worship as a gift from God. “Purpose” underscores how the other theology prioritized using interesting, relevant, and accessible worship practices to attract people to Christian faith and retain them as worshipers. The people who adhered to this theology saw the need for new ways of worship in order to bridge the gap between worship practices and the rapidly shifting tides of culture and society (and the people swept along by those tides). Our book is an attempt to describe these two theologies and the history of their impact on Protestant worship in the latter part of the twentieth century. A look at the theologies allows us to see not only how Contemporary Praise & Worship came about but also why it did.
Though parts of the history of Contemporary Praise & Worship have been told—and sometimes quite well—we believe the theological and liturgical history has remained in large part a hidden history. It is not as if the two theologies have been totally unrecognized. But until now, no study has explored them either in depth or in conjunction with the liturgical changes of the late twentieth century.
How can the hidden aspects of this history be revealed? 1 We have pursued those aspects through a rich, broad collection of primary materials. We have sought out publications written for popular audiences, teaching resources, recordings, and especially interviews with those who lived through and in many cases shaped the history. For these interviews, we have not limited ourselves to names with obvious recognition. Our research has led to the realization that those who worked behind the scenes or who now have been forgotten were often the most instrumental in past times.
A few additional e