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Scripture and Liturgy
For protestants, the bible is an ultimate authority: its exists primarily is as a book of law. Defining the boundaries and meaning of the text are tasks essential to the religion, of which this one book is supposedly the foundation, and within which it has the status of a deity.
For catholics, holy scripture (‘that which is written’) exists primarily as a part of the liturgy. The concept of a formally compiled bible emerged after, not before, the idea of deciding which texts could appropriately be read as holy scripture at mass. Those texts were not drawn from a pre-defined bible: that hypothetical bible existed only as the compilation of those texts. In the catholic model the holy scriptures are naturally interwoven into the life of the community, rather than standing apart from it as an overlord. The catholic model is also more true to the history: Jesus did not write a book, but founded a community; the community wrote the book.
The various forms of scripture have different roles within the mass. A reading from the gospels is so central to the mass that everybody stands, as Christ is made present once again in the recounting of these words and deeds. Matthew, Mark and Luke are read sequentially, Sunday by Sunday, each with its own year in a three year cycle. Extracts from Saint John fit in around the edges, taking dates in Lent and Eastertide, and in the year of Mark.153 Another New Testament scripture is read each Sunday in addition to the gospel, also reading in sequence from week to week for most of the year. The Old Testament is treated differently: Old Testament texts are not read in sequence from Sunday to Sunday; instead, each Sunday has a first reading selected from anywhere in the Old Testament – law, history, wisdom, prophecy, or apocrypha – to complement and illustrate the Gospel reading for the day. This method for selecting the Old Testament reading is the practical expression of a theological principle: that the primary texts of the Christian faith are the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament, with the Old Testament serving to illustrate, not to dictate. Psalms are also used, either read or sung, also chosen to complement or illustrate the Gospel and Old Testament theme for the day.154
This supposed demotion of the Old Testament is shocking to some protestants, who are used to regarding the bible as a clearly defined seamless whole from one leather cover to the other. As a consequence, the protestant adaptation of the Roman Catholic system, now in widespread use in protestant denominations worldwide, also reads extracts from Old Testament sagas sequentially, Sunday by Sunday, for at least half the year. This includes material that we have previously described as morally ambiguous or morally repugnant.155
153 Much the same applies to the daily mass, which reads through Matthew, Mark and Luke every year in sequence from day to day, with extracts from John in Lent and Eastertide.
154 The order of readings at Sunday Mass is Old Testament, Psalm, New Testament, Gospel. Readings from the Acts of the Apostles replace readings from the Old Testament during Eastertide. There is a separate schedule of readings for the daily mass, where the order is First Reading, Psalm, Gospel: once again the gospels are read in sequence, the full cycle completed each year; the first reading then runs on a two year cycle, following a New Testament book in sequence from day to day for most of the year, with just occasional sections of Old Testament read in daily sequence, and almost as many sections of Old Testament Apocrypha.
155 The present Roman Catholic lectionary (arrangement of readings at the mass) was adopted in 1969 as Ordo Lectionum Missae. There was significant interest from mainstream protestant denominations in north America even during its preparation in the mid-1960s, with catholic and protestant scholars meeting together as the North American Consultation on Common Texts (CCT). Many North American churches adopted their own versions of the Roman model during the 1970s, and CCT produced its official Common Lectionary, a harmonisation and revision of these modified versions, in 1983. The Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) followed in 1992. Many protestant denominations worldwide have adopted RCL, with either the Roman Catholic or RCL approach to the Old Testament, or the option to use either, or three years with one followed by three years with the other on a six year cycle. Many RCL readings are longer than the equivalent Roman Catholic readings (fewer verses are taken out for brevity) with the presumably unintended consequence that fewer of the readings are actually used (the Church of England insists on only two out of the four). It is nevertheless heralded as a major piece of spontaneous ecumenism that so many churches of diverse backgrounds are using many of the same readings Sunday by Sunday.