As I took up Louis Bouyer’s Rite and Man my leading questions concerned the nature of a liturgical anthropology. Assuming for a moment that Christian worship is not embroidery tacked onto theology, what does it mean for man to be, in the words of Schmemann, homo adorans? The book itself is an attempt by Bouyer of discerning the natural roots of Christian worship. His assumption is that if grace does not destroy nature, we should expect to find fundamentally human aspects within Christian worship. In other words, the Israelites and Canaanites may not disagree on every point. In no way does this thesis weaken the supernatural basis of Christianity. On the contrary, Bouyer conducts his research on the basis of an incarnational analogy. He iterates, “Indeed, the more perfectly we know the human aspects of Christianity, the more perfectly we shall understand that part of it which is the result of divine intervention” (3). God’s making wine for mirth in no way denies His ability subsequently to take up a Jewish cup and declare the new covenant.
With regard to the incarnational analogy, Bouyer warns of twin dangers of monophysite and Nestorian ‘sacrality’. On the one hand, a monophysite vision emphasizes the supernatural character of Christianity to the extent that nature becomes inconsequential. Thus creation and humanity are reciprocally devalued. On the other, a Nestorian view asserts both divine and human aspects, but fails to coordinate the two. Against both of these exaggerations a truly Christian understanding of the sacred allows for supernatural revelation to occur in nature: “But the signs of what is sacred, those spontaneous signs which are consequent to man’s primitive and basic experience of his utter dependence upon a God who is both distinct and transcendent become charged with new significance” (11). Bread is bread. Wine is wine. And both are Christ.
Bouyer spends his first few chapters tracing the history of comparative religions. He notes how 17th century skepticism concluded with relativism, that all religions were basically the same. This, however, quickly gave way in the 18th century to the thesis that religion was a priestly construct. A tendency arose for historians and early anthropologists was to deride religion as a product of primitive humanity, a mere stage preceding enlightenment (Compte). Therefore, Bouyer recognizes some good in thinkers like Freud and Jung who at least pried room for discussion concerning the role of religion in man’s consciousness. Writing in the mid 20th century, Bouyer rejoices, “One cannot properly speak about a genesis of the idea of God. This idea is found in the most elementary manifestation of a religion consciousness” (25). Elsewhere he says, “Religion is the spontaneous response which man’s existential situation elicits as soon as this latter is fully accepted in its reality” (31). Again, these remarks do not locate Bouyer on the silty ground of pluralism. His point is one shared by Calvin, Turretin, and reformed theologians today. Man is religious.
One of the most interesting discussions in Bouyer’s book concerns the nature of a religious rite. It’s easy to assume a Christian context for this discussion, but one must recognize that Bouyer’s project is to speak first at the level of what reformed theologians call common grace. On this turf he says, “In other words, a rite is not simply one type of action among many others. It is the typical human action, inasmuch as it is connected with the word as the expression and realization of man in the world, and to the degree that this expression and realization are immediately and fundamentally religious” (57). Several aspects of the quotation are worth considering. First, a rite is “the typical human action.” Human behavior is symbolically mediated and infused with meaning that transcends mundane tasks. We are liturgical beings. Moreover, rite and word are inextricably linked. Words here do not signify abstract concepts, but rather are creative and dense (c.f. 61); they profess what is occurring. Thus the Israelites repeat the story of the Exodus as they perform the Passover meal not only because they are already redeemed but also because God continues to enact His covenant in their midst. Another salient point Bouyer repeats is that the actions involved in rites are neither extrinsic nor arbitrary. He confesses, “The symbolism always exists prior to the meaning placed upon it. When this meaning is further defined, the symbol becomes a sign” (63). Again, “In no way were the words thought to infuse a wholly accidental, unprepared meaning into actions that were not prepared to receive it” (64). Anyone who knows the development of Christology takes this point. As Jaroslav Pelikan has masterfully articulated, only in the context of worshiping Christ did theologians realize what they were doing.
Now these descriptions of religious rites may scare evangelicals. Snippets make Bouyer sound like a devotee of religious syncretism. But this is to take a fish for a snake. Bouyer’s sole purpose is to use a phenomenological approach to religion so as to see the full meaning of the Christian rite and in the end to assert its uniqueness. In doing so I believe he clarifies some of the questions we should and shouldn’t bring to the Scriptures. For example, on the grounds that man is by nature liturgical, Bouyer is able to avoid the scholastic distinctions commentators make in trying to define the functions and purposes of Levitical regulations. Bouyer reminds us: “Sacrifice is not originally a subtle notion; it is a fact, a fact whose material reality should be taken into account before hasty attempts are made to give it spiritual explanation” (84). This material aspect of Israelite worship is not something we should dismiss as naïve and pre-critical; it’s something we share. If nothing else, the reader walks away from Bouyer convinced that liturgy is not a game theologians play to educate the simple: it’s not theological dress-up. On the contrary, “The liturgical drama does nothing more than make the divine story, which is to remain the soul of the rite, evoked as it may be, concrete and perfectly explicit” (100).
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