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Introduction to Evelyn Underhill, “Church Congress Syllabus No. 3: the Christian Doctrine of Sin and Salvation, Part III: Worship”

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Introduction to Evelyn Underhill, “Church Congress Syllabus No. 3: the Christian Doctrine of Sin and Salvation, Part III: Worship” ATR/100.3 Introduction to Evelyn Underhill, “Church Congress Syllabus No. 3: The Christian Doctrine of Sin and Salvation, Part III: Worship” Kathleen Henderson Staudt* This short piece by Evelyn Underhill (1875–1941) appeared in a publication from the US Church Congress movement in the 1930s. It presents a remarkably concise summary of her major thought from this period.1 By this time, she was a well-known voice among Angli- cans. Indeed, Archbishop Michael Ramsey wrote that “in the twenties and thirties there were few, if indeed, any, in the Church of England who did more to help people to grasp the priority of prayer in the Christian life and the place of the contemplative element within it.”2 Underhill’s major work, Mysticism, continuously in print since its first publication in 1911, reflects at once Underhill’s broad scholarship on the mystics of the church, her engagement with such contemporaries as William James and Henri Bergson, and, perhaps most important, her curiosity and insight into the ways that the mystics’ experiences might inform the spiritual lives of ordinary people.3 The title of a later book, Practical Mysticism: A Little Book for Normal People (1914) summarizes what became most distinctive in Underhill’s voice: her ability to fuse the mystical tradition with the homely and the * Kathleen Henderson Staudt works as a teacher, poet, and spiritual director at Virginia Theological Seminary and Wesley Theological Seminary. Her poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared in Weavings, Christianity and Literature, Sewanee Theo- logical Review, Ruminate, and Spiritus. She is an officer of the Evelyn Underhill As- sociation, and facilitates the annual day of quiet held in honor of Underhill in Wash- ington, DC each June. She has also published widely on the poet and writer David Jones, and is the author of three volumes of poetry, most recently Good Places (2017). 1 On the Church Congress movement, see Robert Prichard, A History of the Episcopal Church, 3rd ed. (New York: Morehouse, 2014), 268–269. 2 Preface to Christopher Armstrong, Evelyn Underhill 1875–1941: An Introduc- tion to Her Life and Writings (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1975). 3 Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness, 12th ed. (Minneola, N.Y.: Image Books, 1990 [1930]). 465 466 Anglican Theological Review everyday.4 The 1920s and 30s mark the high point of Underhill’s repu- tation as a scholar, spiritual director, and retreat leader.5 She was the first woman to give the Upton Lectures in Religion at Manchester College, Oxford, published as The Life of the Spirit and the Life of Today.6 Nearly every year from the mid-1920s until the late 1930s, she published a little book or two reflecting the retreats given that year. My own favorites among these are The School of Charity: A Meditation on the Christian Creeds (1934),7 and The Mystery of Sac- rifice: A Meditation on the Liturgy (1938).8 The following essay dates from the late 1930s, apparently part of a late attempt by the Church Congress movement to provide re- sources for Christian formation in the church. This is the period of Underhill’s second major work, Worship.9 The topic assigned for this publication was apparently “Sin and Salvation,” and it is instructive to see how Underhill filters this theological question through the lens of worship. She connects the practice of worship to the theme of salva- tion by pointing out that worship is itself “the total response of man to the Creator.” Because worship brings us into real relationship with God, it bears the experience of eternal life. Underhill was ahead of her time in advocating for eucharistic worship as the proper focus of parish worship. She commends the ministry of word and sacra- ment, and the participation of the laity as practiced in the typical par- ish church, but insists that people also need the engagement of all the senses in the experience of divine presence that the eucharist offers. Her liturgical theology is grounded in the mystery of incarnation that is at the heart of our faith. Also characteristic is Underhill’s insistence here that the quality of the ministry of the word, necessary for the people’s formation, relies principally on the quality of the priest’s own life of prayer. This short piece is valuable as a compact exposition of most of the themes for which Underhill is best known in her retreat work and in her scholarship on liturgical theology and practice.10 4 London: E.P. Dutton, 1914. 5 See Dana Greene, Evelyn Underhill: Artist of the Infinite Life (New York: Crossroad, 1990), 98–119. 6 London: Methuen, 1922. 7 London: Longmans, Green, 1934. 8 London: Longmans, Green, 1938. 9 London: Longmans, Green, 1936. 10 More information on Underhill, including current scholarship, can be found at the website of the Evelyn Underhill Association: www.evelynunderhill.org. ATR/100.3 Church Congress Syllabus No. 3 The Christian Doctrine of Sin and Salvation, Part III: Worship Evelyn Underhill* Definition of Terms. Worship is that total response of the creature to the Creator, for which man was made: the only true relation in which he can stand to God. It is the complete fulfilment of the First Commandment, and, understood in its full significance, expresses the whole meaning of life. Thus, in so far as we can teach men, in this genuine sense, to worship, to dwell with awestruck delight on the holy Reality of God, and offer themselves to Him, we place them in the most favourable situation of all for the receiving of the saving power of Christianity. The essence of this saving power abides in the applica- tion of the creative love of God to the needs and sins of man; redeem- ing, quickening and transforming his enfeebled will and selfish desires by the action of grace, organizing him, and evoking from him a return current of active and disinterested love. On natural and supernatural levels, life only achieves reality in so far as it is centered on God and harmonizes with the character of God. And since it is through— though not always in—His worship, that this character is revealed to man, because here he acknowledges the supremacy of God, and is opened to and preoccupied with Him—so here forces operate which make for the purifying and harmonizing of his life, and here he is ac- cessible to the divine attracting and transforming power. If then we regard Sin as primarily a wrong relation with God, a deformation of the will, an evasion of His call, and Salvation as the restoring of a right relation with God, a reformation of the will, a response to the call, we * Evelyn Underhill (1875–1941) was an English writer, pacifist, and mystic who has influenced and inspired many generations of theologians, church leaders, and spiritual directors. Educated at King’s College for Women, London, she was the first woman to lecture to clergy in the Church of England, where she was also a much sought-after retreat leader. She was the author of over thirty books, including The Mystics of the Church (1925) and The House of the Soul (1929). Her feast day is cel- ebrated in the Episcopal Church on June 15. This article was originally published in the Anglican Theological Review 21, no. 2 (April 1939): 119–131. 467 468 Anglican Theological Review have in Worship a capital means of establishing that right relation, and subduing man to that reforming and enabling power. Having said this, we must at once add that worship which is en- tered upon for this or any other self-interested reason defeats its own end. It is true that corporate worship, rightly orientated and balanced, can become a powerful instrument for awakening, teaching and trans- forming men; and also true that every act of worship, public or secret, is both expressive and impressive, and leaves the self other than it was before. But this subjective benefit of the worshipper must never be an aim; even where the benefit is sought for the loftiest reasons, and is of the most spiritual kind. The single aim of worship is God’s Glory; the consecration of all life by dedicating it to His service and surrendering it to the operation of His Will. “Here we offer and present to thee our- selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy and living sacri- fice.” It is upon this humble and costly self-offering and not upon the improvement of his own position, the stimulation of his own religious feelings, or the saving of his own Soul that the will and intention of the true worshipper is bent; because his animating motive is not self interest but awestruck and admiring love. At its height, such worship means the creature’s adoring response to God’s total demand, and its utmost contribution to His Glory. It is incompatible with the man- centred utilitarian religion which is often mistaken for Christianity. This is the attitude which unselfs man, neutralizes egotism, re- stores his sense of proportion, and tunes him in to the supernatural: and the aim of that discipline which trains him to worship should be the nurturing of such a state of soul. Though penitence must be, for sinful creatures, an essential character of all true worship, its domi- nant theme is not Miserere but Alleluia. The humility it requires is the humility of self-forgetfulness, which unites us to the worship of heaven. So the ancient Cherubic hymn: Let us, who mystically represent the Cherubim and sing the thrice holy hymn to the life-giving Trinity, now lay aside all earthly cares; That we may receive the King of all things, who comes escorted by unseen armies of angels: Alleluia! alleluia! alleluia! How deeply refreshing and purifying to the soul is this self-mergence in the universal stream of worshipping love, where the values of The Christian Doctrine of Sin and Salvation 469 purity, abnegation and discipline are associated with adoration and joy.
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