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I love the movie Steel Magnolias for many reasons, including the fact that it feels like Iām at a family gathering listening to my aunts whenever the women gather at Truvyās salon to gossip and argue. But thereās a line āĀ an unimportant, throwaway joke of a like āĀ spoken by Truvy in that film that I sometimes wish were true:
āOh Annelle, God donāt care which church you go to, just so long as you show up.ā
Itās endearing and I completely get the spirit of her comment, and Iām also not pretending like this film is meant to be a theological treatise. But hereās the reality of life, which has been true since the foundations of the world were created: God indeed cares how we worship.
Iām not implying God cannot move beyond our mere human ideas and human-made constructs of things, such as denominations or buildings or even doctrines. God clearly speaks to people in all sorts of ways, well beyond churches and preachers. God uses things like nature, poetry and music and films, and even heretical or anti-or non-religious teachings to bring people to truth. All truth is Godās truth, wherever itās found.
But God āĀ because He is good āĀ cares about how we worship. And the reason is not that God demands to be worshiped in a certain way, like a hubristic mythological god threatening certain actions and sacrifices lest he smites or curses the humans out of pride and vanity. God desires us to worship in a āright and justā way least of all because itās good for us.
āLex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendiā is an old Latin saying that directly means, āThe law of prayer leads to the law of belief leads to the law of living,ā but the spirit of the phrase means, āHow we worship directly affects what we believe, which then affects how we live.ā Its watered-down modern second cousin, which I say all too frequently with my kids and students (more about habit formation than theology but still applies here) is, āItās easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting.ā
God has divinely created us with a need for our bodies and minds to connect with our hearts. We are body-soul composites, not one or the other. Whether we like it or not, whether we recognize it or not, what we do with our bodies affects what happens in our minds and in our souls. (This is why itās not good for weak mortals like myself to wait until I feel like working out in order to work out, because itāll absolutely positively never happen otherwise.)
We actually live out this reality all day long. Exercise is an obvious example, but we also go to work even when we donāt feel like it, we cook dinner and fold laundry because it needs to be done and not because it sounds like the most pleasant way to spend a late afternoon, and we pay our taxes not because the IRS is a well-oiled machine who always has our best interests at heart, but because we donāt want to go to jail. We stop at red lights even when weāre in a hurry. We adults take actions that are not led by feels-good desire all day, every day.
We All Worship Something
If our actions matter in the ordinary quotidian things like the above, then they matter tenfold in how we worship. Worship is not merely a matter of right-thinking that stays in our heads. Our worship affects how we view the purpose of life, how we interact with other people in the world, how we spend our money, what sort of art we value, what gives us peace and solace, and countless other things, including how we view God and the transcendentals of truth, goodness, and beauty. This is because āworshipā is not just bowing down to a deity, mind checked in at the front, or who we pray to, or what style of music we sing in praise to the divine.
Side note: In this ongoing series, definitions will matter in substantial ways. During my discernment period when I was in the Tiber swimming between one shore and the other, I kept bumping up against this idea of clear definitions āĀ when we use a word, sometimes we assume something is meant when it actually isnāt. It may feel clunky, but my storytelling will include a number of brief side trails (not full-on rabbit trails) where terms are defined.
The definition of āworshipā is āthe acknowledgment of another's worth, dignity, or superior position.ā
It is recognizing the reality of anotherās true nature. (This is why in old-school marriage rites, spouses would say, āWith my body I thee worshipā āĀ they werenāt pledging to bow down to each other as though they were deities, they were admitting a recognition of each otherās divinely-appointed dignity.) We moderns associate worship exclusively with the broad idea of religion, but worship is a humane act that engages our mind, soul, and body toward the right recognition of a thing. This is why itās actually a form of justice, because ājusticeā is "the constant and permanent determination to give everyone his or her rightful due.ā To worship is to give right acknowledgment.We canāt escape worship because we humans are worshipping beings. Itās hard-wired in our longing to give a right recognition of things āĀ this need to worship comes from the same place as our desire for legal justice when a crime has been committed, for an apologetic wave from a driver when weāve been cut off in traffic, and when weāre frustrated when a co-worker gets the credit for the hard work we did. To worship is to render justice. Even folks who claim no formal religion walk around worshipping because itās hard-wired in our very make-up. Itās just what the agnostic David Foster Wallace once said: āThere is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship,ā
and what the convert Bob Dylan once crooned, āIt may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but youāre gonna have to serve somebody.āAnd connected with the idea of āworship,ā āreligionā is āthe moral virtue by which a person is disposed to render to God the worship and service he deserves.ā This, too, āis sometimes identified with the virtue of justice toward God, whose rights are rooted in his complete dominion over all creation.ā
In other words, religion is rendering justice to God. Itās giving God his rightful due. And to worship in the context of religion, therefore, is to render to God the worship he deserves.
What sort of worship does God deserve? What an odd thing to say at first blush.
Itās as though this is saying that what or who we worship matters, of course, but how we worship matters too. What sort of worship should we be enacting? Is there such a thing as ārightā and āwrongā worship? And how is it not hubris for mere mortals to say they hold the corner on the right way to worship?
It was these initial questions that ultimately led to my conversion to Catholicism, but the answers were years in the making, and one answered question led to a million more to unpack. But if youāve subscribed to this column in The Commonplace, that means youāre at least a little curious as to how all that went down.
Please note that so far, in reference to the maxim of ālex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi,ā I havenāt really referred to Catholicism specifically. At this point, Iām not making any apologetical case for the particular means of worship offered by the Catholic Church. Thatās all in good time when it makes sense with the story Iām telling here. Right now, Iām simply stating the fact that how we worship matters. Whether weāre Catholics or Baptists or Lutherans or good olā non-denominational folks, like I was for all of my upbringing, or even Muslims or Buddhists or skeptics or atheists or deconstructionists or whatever new definition comes to our shores tomorrow ā how we worship matters. And it matters for us and for our humanity. Right worship in the context of religion āĀ giving our Maker his rightful due āĀ makes us more human. In fact, itās the most humane thing we could possibly do.
How We Worship Matters
We all have a liturgy, both to our religious services and to our ordinary days, even when we donāt recognize them as such. For the high-church types among us, the liturgy is obvious: the collects, the creeds, and the consecration. But low churches have them too: the greeting at the start of a church service, the order and rhythm of the type of praise-and-worship songs sung, the cadence in how the preacher prays, and so forth. So, too, do our days: our morning and evening routines, where we eat our meals and what we do before we partake of them, what we listen to while we make dinner, and the seasonal traditions throughout the year we canāt imagine the holidays without are all part of our unique liturgies. The word āliturgy,ā after all, means āthe work of the people;ā itās āa public service, duty, or work.ā
Itās how we work. Itās how we do our thing. Itās how we move about in the world.If how we worship āĀ how we give God his rightful due ā is tied to our liturgies ā our work of the people, then those liturgies should matter because how we worship matters. Would it be so bold and daring to venture out and whisper that, perhaps, there is a right and a wrong way to worship and enact our liturgies?
Perhaps. Perhaps especially if our liturgical worship forms are tied to truth, because by definition, truth is simply the āconformity of mind and reality,ā
itās āwhat is.ā Itād be an incongruent shame to our human nature if our liturgy didnāt reflect the truth āĀ the what is-ness of the reality of the world.This basic realization is part of the foundation that led me to ask certain questions which led me to answers I never saw coming. These initial, surface-skinned answers first pointed to Anglicanism, where I joyfully partook in the body of Christ for about five years before becoming Catholic. After all, its liturgical rites and view of religion felt so spot-on. It really did seem like the āright and justā way to worship God. But little did I know that those years were actually part of a longer on-ramp to a much bigger, much older tradition where so much was ultimately familiar to these Anglican rituals I loved. (Turned out, there was a historical reason for that familiarity. And itās the same reason why so many Catholic converts these days swim the Tiber by way of a pitstop at the Anglican Church.)

I havenāt made any sort of case for Catholicism yet, and for good reason. First, I was drawn to the larger, simpler idea that how I worship matters. Itās not just a matter of personal preference; itās a matter of my divinely-crafted nature. At the very beginning of my questioning of everything I knew, I had to ask myself: Is how I currently partake in the Body of Christ reflective of how Iām meant to truly worship? As much as I appreciated the Bible-soaked tradition of my evangelical childhood and adolescence, something about it felt⦠off. It felt like wearing a too-itchy, ill-fitting sweater. But thatās not quite the right analogy because it smacks a bit too much like personal preference. The whole cadence of the approach to worship felt way too new. Too American. Too unfamiliar with what I read in the Bible, later with what I experienced in visiting different cultures and their worship services around the world, and even later with what I read from the early Church Fathers and Mothers.
Much, much good has come out of modern approaches of worship, so Iām not saying God hasnāt used them. At all. But I did wonder if those approaches to ādoing churchā āĀ the gatherings, the musical praise-and-worship followed by a long sermon, nary a sacrament to be found āĀ was what Jesus originally meant by being the Church.
These questions first led me to look in Anglicanism for the answers, where I was happy to be for a while. But if Iām honest, hindsight tells me I parked there because it felt safer than being Catholic. There, no one would be concerned for my salvation or put me on a prayer list. Even with all the robes and the liturgical calendar, it was still Protestant and so it was okay.
Five years later, though, I had to wrestle (and whoo boy, wrestling I did) with the conviction that, yes, Annelle, God cares about us both showing up to church and about how we worship at said church. And I swam the Tiber not quite kicking and screaming, but more with a doleful yet resolute obedience, because I realized that my not submitting to the authority of the Catholic Church would ultimately be for me a sin (āa word, deed, or desire in opposition to eternal lawā ā again with the definitions).
Once I knew what I knew, I couldnāt un-know.Thereās a Texas-sized sweet yellow onion-worth of layers here, and I plan to slowly peel them each away with this series. All in due time.
Funnily enough, this video from Brian Holdsworth just released this week. Itās pretty spot-on to what Iām referencing in this essay:
Edited to add: Holy cow āĀ similar to how when you buy a new car, suddenly everyone else around you has that car, I feel like Iām suddenly seeing stuff all over the internet about this topic (hello, algorithm). The brilliant Joe Heschmeyer just released this episode āĀ I know the title feels click-baity, but the content is really good (here it is in audio form, if you prefer):
Coming up: why apostolic succession and authority ultimately mattered first and foremost above any questions I had about the weird Catholic stuff, like Mary and purgatory; why beauty and goodness mattered just as much as truth in my conversion (and why that made it hard to leave Anglicanism); how I reconciled with the whole women-not-being-priests thing; why confess your sins to a priest; how on earth I could come to agree that the bread and wine really did become the body and blood of Jesus and the whole thing not being only a memorial we should occasionally do; and more. Because I really did wrestle with all those things and a thousand things besides.
Thank you for reading. More is on its way.
Ora et Labora,
Tsh
p.s. A few years before I converted, my friend and podcast co-host (and fellow convert)
told me I should just read the Catechism of the Catholic Church, to hear directly from the horseās mouth what it is the Church teaches and not just assume the hearsay Iād been taught by drinking the Protestant waters in which I swam. That was really good advice, and thankfully, itās pretty easy for anybody to do that now: I highly, highly recommend Fr. Mike Schmitzās podcast The Catechism in a Year if youād like a short, daily play-by-play rundown of Catholic theology in a nutshell.p.p.s. Another really good, friendly, easy-to-read book is Brandon Vogtās Why I Am Catholic (and You Should Be, Too). Back in my discernment process, I got to chatting with him online, and he graciously sent my family several copies of this book. It was quite helpful āĀ another resource I highly recommend, if youāre truly curious.
p.p.s. For more on the specifics mentioned in this essay about true worship, religion, and justice, It Is Right and Just: Why the Future of Civilization Depends on True Religion, by Scott Hahn and Brandon McKinley is a great read.
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=37215
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=34423
http://bulletin-archive.kenyon.edu/x4280.html
https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/gotta-serve-somebody/
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=36024
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=34628
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=36958
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=36494
Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi
It is Right and Just is on my TBR pile. I bought it for my 16 yo son, recommended to me as a part of his vocation discernment. As soon as he finished, he put it on my TBR pile.
Thank you for taking the time and effort to write this series, Tsh. I have commented this once before, but my family and I became Anglican just this summer after many months of wrestling with God over leaving the only church weāve ever known as a family. (Iām sure youāve heard of our former pastor, Andy Stanley š.) It was a big jump from a nondenominational mega-church to a small Anglican parish after decades of being steeped in evangelicalism, but we adore it. Communion every week! The collects and daily office! God bless Andy, but a pastor we can actually KNOW! It feels so rooted. So embodied. Your posts and podcasts have been a wonderful light on this path, and I canāt wait to read more.