PUTTING AN END TO WORSHIP WARS - Elmer Towns

Whether people disagree because of doctrine, lifestyle or even differences in church
government, usually they did not make worship practice a point of heated controversy.
However, today we live in a day of doctrinal toleration, so Calvinistic Presbyterians are
much more tolerant of Arminians than they were in the good "old days." The same can be said
for a Wesleyan Methodist being tolerant of a Lutheran.
Also, we live in a day of tolerance toward church polity and practice. Everyone knows
that the Presbyterian sprinkles small babies in a christening service, but seldom do we hear
Baptists attacking Presbyterians for their mode of baptism. We do not hear of theological
debates over the mode of baptism between Baptists and Presbyterians that were common a
hundred years ago.
Dr. Charles Ryrie, former professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, observed that when
people have fought their theological wars, they know the differences that separate them and
realize that they are not going to change one another; so they live at peace with those with a
different persuasion. What Ryrie said about differences seems to be true today, except in one
area. We seem to live in an era of worship wars.
The area of controversy or tension in today's church deals with the disagreement over the
way people worship. While some of the disagreement may have its roots in theology, probably
most of the disagreement flows out of methodology. To understand this difference, the following
concentric circles explain the flow from theology to methodology.
Methods.doc
First, theology is the core or substance of truth. The theological beliefs concerning God
and His world are our reflections of the true nature of God and how He relates to this world. The
truth found in the first circle is called the substance of theology. The second circle contains
principles which are an expression of the way God relates to His world or the laws by which He
operates His plan and purpose in the world. As such we speak about the principles of prayer,
evangelism, holiness, and training people for a life of godliness. Because principles are an
expression of truth and the way things operate, principles are trans-cultural and trans-temporal.
When we discover a principle, it will always be true in every generation for all people of all time.
A principle will be true for the natives in the jungles of the Amazon or the high rise dwellers in
Hong Kong. A principle is always true.
But methods change. The third circle contains methods. They evolve over a period of
time and vary from one culture to another. A method is defined as the application of a principle
to culture. The Sunday School is the application of the principle of Bible teaching to the
contemporary church. Obviously the Sunday School Movement which begun in 1780 does not
trace its roots all the way back to the New Testament church. This does not say that there has not
been Bible teaching since the New Testament church. Since principles are eternal, there has been
Bible teaching in every generation. But Bible teaching was not organized as we see it taught, i.e.
age graded, gender graded and covering the whole Bible for all the church. Simply stated the