Taize - A Community and Worship:
Ecumenical Reconciliation or an Interfaith Delusion?
by Chris Lawson
During World War II in France, a Swiss Reformed Protestant named Roger Louis Schutz-Marsauche began reaching out to suffering people, in particular refugees from the war. Through his efforts, Taize Community, located in the village of Taize, Burgundy, France, was birthed. The community website describes Taize's founder:
Everything began in 1940 when, at the age of twenty-five, Brother Roger left Switzerland, the country where he was born, to go and live in France, the country his mother came from. For years he had been ill with tuberculosis, and during that long convalescence he had matured within him the call to create a community.
The community that “Brother Roger” began has since become an internationally recognized ecumenical monastic brotherhood receiving a hundred thousand visitors each year. (Excerpt from Chris Lawson's book, Taize - A Community and Worship: Ecumenical reconciliation or an interfaith delusion?
Taize Worshipers
Practicing the silence with icons, candles,
incense and prayer stations, this very contemplative community is
attracting young people from around the world.
Faithworks
Magazine and Taize
"Short chants, repeated again and again, give it a meditative character,"
the brothers explain in a brief introduction printed in the paperback
songbook. "Using just a few words, [the chants] express a basic
reality of faith, quickly grasped by the mind. As the words are
sung over many times, this reality gradually penetrates the whole
being."
Reformed
Worship, a publication of Faith
Alive Christian Resources CRC
(Christian Reformed Church) Publications, carries an article
on their website that promotes the practice of Taize' worship. The article, "How
to ... Plan in the Style of Taize," says that the students,
faculty, and staff of Calvin Theological Seminary spend time together
once a week in "contemplative services" in "the manner of the
Community of Taize'."
Taize
is a form of contemplative worship that incorporates mystical
practices and interspiritual beliefs as this article describes:
"Short
chants, repeated again and again, give it a meditative character,"
the brothers explain in a brief introduction printed in the
paperback songbook. "Using just a few words, [the chants] express
a basic reality of faith, quickly grasped by the mind. As the
words are sung over many times, this reality gradually penetrates
the whole being."
For
those who may wonder if Calvin Theological Seminary's Taize' is
the same as the Taize' in France, the article provides a link(to
learn more) to Taize'
community in France.
This article in Reformed Worship is just another indication
that contemplative spirituality is no respecter of denominations.
Nearly all are affected and influenced.
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