ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 4, 1996 TAG: 9602020048
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: the back pew
SOURCE: CODY LOWE
It was a simple little question.
"Why do most Christians worship at 11 a.m.?" A few of you took up the challenge to offer explanations - some silly, some serious.
Bruce Eicher of Christiansburg concludes the time was set "so we all can socialize after service and still make it home for the 1 o'clock football game. The time remains constant throughout the year so as not to confuse us in the off season."
The sports explanation was the most popular among folks who stopped me on the street or in the hall, as well.
But not everybody feels the pressure to watch oversized men crunch each other's bones on Sunday afternoons.
Tommy McCulloch of Eagle Rock thinks the 11 o'clock service is a Protestant thing: "The early church used to have its services at sunrise. Then a man by the name of Martin Luther, who liked to stay up late on Saturday nights down at the local tavern discussing religion and stuff, decided it was too hard to get up that early. So he moved the services back an hour, then another hour, finally to 11 a.m. This was the latest time he could have a morning service."
The explanation is poetry to M. Lou House of Boones Mill:
"Perhaps the gates of Heaven
open at eleven,
Perhaps on Sabbath day,
to help the sinners pray."
Grace Leary of Radford says a "preacher's kid" she knew did not understand the Beatitudes from Jesus' "Sermon on the Mount" except "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be fed." The boy "knew that a big Sunday dinner always came after church."
Cindy May of Buena Vista also figures food is a prominent factor in the timing: "I can't think of anything that will bring a Baptist to his knees faster than knowing he's missing out on a good meal!...Of course, it's also good insurance in case you ever get a really long-winded preacher. He will eventually get hungry himself and end the service."
Several of you offered what is apparently the most widespread serious answer to the question.
Besides letting families get a little extra sleep on Sundays, said James Terry of Covington, the 11 o'clock hour "gave farmers and their families time to get the early morning chores (such as milking) completed before heading off to church."
Terry reminds me that many churches are now using different starting times - early services at 8:30, for instance, or mid-morning services at 10.
"Another alternative, which has not gained popularity in Southwest Virginia, is to have a Saturday night service. This is not popular because of the debate over what day has been set aside to worship the Lord. But some churches are using the Saturday services quite effectively," Terry wrote.
Roanoke College English professor Tom Carter reminds us that "Western Christianity borrowed much of its ritual from its strongest European competitor: Mithraism. As a variant of Sun worship, Mithraism gave us Christmas (a celebration of the Sun's return) and probably, as some scholars suspect, the Church's shift from the Jewish Sabbath to the Lord's Day (Sun-day). Our 11 a.m. worship time probably derives from the Sun worshipers' practice of offering prayers during the time the Sun's strength culminates - the hour leading up to noon.
"Either that, or country folk needed time to milk the cows and clean up the breakfast dishes."
The Rev. Steve Dye, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church, agreed with the farmers' chores explanation and added this note about evening services:
"By the way, the evening service came about due to gas lights and bars. An English preacher noticed that the bars were filled at night due to the advent of the gas light. This preacher, whose name I do not recall, added the gas lamps to his church to provide a place for people to go other than a bar. "
Finally, one anonymous writer got in a dig at what Christians think is important.
"I was struck by your picking the whys of the common 11 a.m. service hour in most churches as an important matter, and juxtaposed this against the greatness of the revelations of the Hubble space telescope that life (based on water and carbon as it is on Earth) is indeed very possible on other planets in other solar systems, many times over. What forms it takes, of course, are yet to be determined.
"Yet how little our geocentric theologists take note of these wonders, these mysteries, with their hubris. How really different is it from the days when discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo had to drag, with extreme reluctance, grudging admittance of these theologists, that our humble planet is not the center of the universe, or that there is even any center of the universe at all. And how much the present theologists cling to the comfy familiar parameters, cordoned off by faith (a good word in this case) from the discomfort of mental exploration.
"Alas, what time people go to church on Sundays is indeed very important."
That criticism is overstated, I think, but reminds me that while this little exercise in explaining church tradition was meant to be lighthearted, it is the kind of issue that can touch a nerve in a congregation.
Suggesting that the worship service start an hour earlier, or - heaven forbid - be held on a different day of the week, has led to splintered congregations and the creation of entirely new denominations.
Maybe we don't need to start another one this week.
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