The Christian year was among the practices that the Restoration movement from the Churches of Christ repudiated due to lack of a specific New Testament warrant. Today, most members of the Churches of Christ are unfamiliar with it. Recently, however, there has been a movement toward partial observance of the year, both for evangelistic purposes and for renewal in the church.
For decades the Christian year was ignored or deemed ritualistic by many pastors in the Church of the Nazarene. Christmas, Palm Sunday, Easter, and Pentecost were often given recognition in worship, but the view that the use of the Christian year symbolized formality and destroyed the freedom of the Spirit was widespread. If one subscribed to the use of the Christian calendar, it was done quietly within one’s own parish.
It was a protest against the liturgical formalism of the official church which in part gave rise to the Church of the Brethren in the eighteenth century. However, the Brethren always sought to be an authentic worshiping community, and in the twentieth century, that historic commitment has resulted in the widespread appropriation of the Christian year. The extent and style of such observance, however, varies greatly from congregation to congregation.
Resistance to the observance of the Christian year is deeply entrenched in the Church of God, Cleveland, tradition. Such formal worship practices have long been considered a hindrance to the believer’s freedom and spontaneity in responding to the power of the Holy Spirit. Little movement toward full adoption of the Christian year exists, but the use of modified portions of the yearly calendar is becoming more frequent.
Prior to the 1960s, the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) practiced a form of worship drawn from its Reformation heritage, which entailed a calendar of observances distinct from the traditional Christian year. In the 1960s, liturgical renewal in the CRC coincided with the worship reforms of Vatican II, leading to the widespread recovery of the Christian year in the CRC. However, many congregations still worship in accordance with the traditional Reformed pattern. Other congregations that have adopted a praise-and-worship style recognize major Christian holidays but do not adhere to the church calendar.
Christian and Missionary Alliance churches have not typically celebrated the Christian year. As an evangelical denomination born in the nineteenth-century Holiness revival, it has often taken the middle ground between the more liturgical churches and the Pentecostal/charismatic movement. This attempt to avoid excess has often robbed Alliance congregations of powerful worship experiences. In recent years a growing hunger for renewal in worship has developed. This hunger has led to a greater openness to other worship forms and traditions. In particular, there is evidence of a recapturing of the power of the Christian year.
The Christian Churches and Churches of Christ have historically avoided the Christian year as one of the unscriptural practices creating division between denominations—a division which their movement sought to overcome. Most now celebrate Christmas and Easter in worship, but these are among yearly observances based on the civil calendar, not the Christian year. Scattered evidence for increased interest in using visual symbols to deepen worship can be seen, but there is little movement toward following the Christian year.
Worship in the Disciples of Christ denomination was shaped by the conditions of the American frontier during the early nineteenth century. Only in the second half of the twentieth century has the widespread use of the Christian year appeared. A worship calendar that became popular in the 1950s helped prepare the way, combining some historic Christian festivals with national and denominational observances. Since the 1960s, Disciples’ participation in ecumenical worship renewal has encouraged the full embrace of the Christian year.
Observance of the traditional Christian year has been all but ignored by the churches in the charismatic tradition, with the exception of the special celebration of the Christmas and Easter seasons. As Christians from various traditions encountered the work of the Holy Spirit in a charismatic way, many clustered themselves into new fellowships and left the Christian year behind. They preferred an open, informal format with little or no structure so that the Spirit would move in whichever direction he wished, regardless of the liturgical season. Many new charismatics who had exited denominations that observed the traditional liturgical calendar rejected it as part of their former church’s “dead form.”
The (Plymouth) Brethren, in the tradition of free-church Protestantism, have historically been adverse to practices such as the Christian year that they cannot justify with a direct appeal to Scripture. They have given minimal recognition to Christmas and Easter as Christian holidays and have observed these days more for their evangelistic potential than as a celebration of the lordship of Christ over time. The reason that since many unbelieving persons in North America still have some consciousness of the importance of going to church on these holidays, Christmas and Easter are opportune times to preach the gospel themes of Incarnation and Crucifixion/Resurrection to a larger-than-normal audience. But, for the most part, the Christian year is completely ignored by the Brethren.