Your Liturgy Sucks

Felt like going to the archive today. This originally ran in 2024, back when the jokes were even worse. Back with new stuff next week. -M

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My friends, the Church has a crisis of liturgy.

It is getting harder and harder for thought leaders like me to make money writing books about the liturgy of things. Only a few years ago, all it took was a pitch that contained the phrase “the liturgy of _____” and then you just put a random word in the blank and boom, book deal. The liturgy of culture? Brazos just bought it. The liturgy of persecution? Ugh, downer. Maybe not Zondervan, but you would still get a sniff from Wipf & Stock. Tsh Harrison Weiseth wrote a book about how liturgy is peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and it sold one hundred million copies.

But now, the Christian publishing landscape is full of these books:

• These horrible dead guys were actually Christians, and here’s why

• I am a beautiful woman in a wide-brimmed hat

• What if Bible true

• 200 pages of word salad platitudes

• I used to write good books, here are some ideas from them that my team repackaged

Make no mistake: more than ever before, we need books about liturgy. But to do that, we must understand what liturgy is, and why your liturgy sucks so bad.

What is liturgy, exactly?

Liturgy is kind of like theology, or eucharist, or the Bible or something. It is Christian.

Let’s go to the Greek: if you look at the word liturgy, it comes from the Greek words for “hot” and “orgy,” and if you know what a hot orgy is, it means that you don’t have enough liturgy, this is called a Pavlov Test, and you failed it, just like those dogs they showed the ink blots to.

Liturgy is what keeps famous Christians from having a scandal and damaging their brand. Whenever I am invited on a podcast to talk about the latest Christian scandal, I get real serious and say something like “what we have here is a failure of liturgy” and the host is super impressed, and they’re like “mmm, talk some more about that,” and then I make up a quote from C.S. Lewis or tell an anecdote about an imaginary person who got caught in the same sin and they came to me and I was the only one who could help them, because liturgy.

Your liturgy sucks

Probably the worst kind of liturgy is the kind that other people have. It’s like I’m always telling the restoration committee: if you don’t let me talk about other people’s faults, then OF COURSE I’m going to look like the bad guy here.

The reason that other people’s liturgy is bad is because of woke, or maybe privilege. One of those things.

If you are more liberal than me, then your liturgy is woke, and you probably believe that only divorced people should be allowed to be pastors or whatever. Your liturgy is like one of those Magic 8 Balls, except every time you shake it up, the answer that comes up is FEEL MORE GUILTY.

If you are more conservative than me, then your liturgy is privileged. You probably believe that Jesus was a white Republican, which is incredibly dumb, because everyone knows that Jesus IS a white Republican, our Savior is alive, He rose from the dead, and if you spent more Sundays in church instead of taking your twins Braxton and Brayden to travel baseball tournaments, you might have better liturgy.

In either case, please understand that your liturgy is dangerously incorrect. I would love to tell you how to fix it, if you would invite me on your podcast. I have an interesting story about when C.S. Lewis came to me for help and I gave him 200 pages of platitudes.

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