GAWIE CILLIÉ GEDENKLESING / MEMORIAL LECTURE : Liturgical renewal as a catalyst for worship wars in traditional Afrikaans Protestant churches / Liturgiese vernuwing as ’n katalisator vir aanbiddingsoorloë in tradisionele Afrikaanse Protestantse kerke

Abstract

Afrikaans Protestant churches have a long and deep church music tradition. History has also shown that various individuals have done much over the years to stimulate development in our church music, church music culture, and a reformed singing tradition. Reformers like Luther and Calvin had an enormous impact on the development of our theology of song and music as well as the development of the Psalms and hymns as we know them today. The aim of this paper is firstly to reflect on the liturgical renewal prevalent in traditional Afrikaans Protestant churches in South Africa and, secondly, to analyse and recount congregants’ experience of liturgical renewal in traditional Afrikaans churches as articulated in popular Afrikaans media publications over the past century using document and discourse analysis. Research has shown that worship wars revolve around the bi-polar idea of ‘traditional worship’ versus ‘contemporary worship’. From the analysis it is noted that congregants are experiencing liturgical renewal in a very negative manner and see it as the diminishing of the traditional church music treasure.