Lutheran Book of Worship vs. Lutheran Service Book: What are the differences?

Just out of curiosity, what specifically did the LCMS find objectionable in the Lutheran Book of Worship?

I have been really liking the Lutheran Service Book; it seems to me though like a larger version of the Lutheran Book of Worship with more communion services and hymns (like Hosanna, Loud Hosanna, one of my favorites).

I read about an LCMS objection to the LBW having an option for a Eucharistic prayer, but couldn't find it.

@MarkRohfrietsch , if you or another LCMS member could help me out I would really appreciate it. I'd like to know specifically what the objectionable differences were between the Lutheran Hymnal and the LBW, and what additions or omissions in the LBW caused the LCMS to pull out, and how specifically from a theological and liturgical perspective the Lutheran Service Book is regarded as an improvement.

Also, happily, my copy of the Lutheran Service Book and Hymnal arrived, so I can now read the prayers said by my godfather Eugene of blessed memory, who was a Lutheran pastor. I have a 1940 Lutheran Hymnal on order, and a PDF of the 1917 Common Hymnal, and PDFs of various Moravian hymnals, so I think my Lutheran library is shaping up to be about as good as it gets in terms of English language material. The main things I dont have right now are the ELCA's replacement for the Lutheran Book of Worship, and the WELS hymnal/service book.

I hope you all had a blessed Low Sunday!

AncientTruth said:

The Lutheran Service Book was first published in 2006? The Lutheran Worship Hymnal of 1982? was published after the LCMS pulled out of the join ELCA / LCMS Lutheran Book of Worship project. There really is not extensive difference between Lutheran Worship and Lutheran Book of Worship, although the later tended to have a more diverse collection of hymns and a few less of traditional Lutheran origin. Lutheran Worship was a bit more theologically sound in the eyes of Missouri, but still disliked by most conservatives in the synod.

The Lutheran Service Book of 2006 is a conservative revision of Lutheran Worship which includes the Common Service (or Western Rite) in a more traditional form - very similar to the 1941 Lutheran Hymnal in that regard. The translation of the hymns in LSB is also more traditional. The music in the Lutheran Service Book is also deemed more "singable" than that which was published in Lutheran Worship. Generally, Missouri's new LSB is a much more conservative hymnal than Lutheran Worship, which was only a bit more Lutheran than Lutheran Book of Worship.

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Can you provide or point me to a list of the specific differences between the three books?

MarkRohfrietsch said:

The most glaring one for me was the bastardization of the Common Service in LW with modernized language and screwed up, harsh sounding and unsingable setting for that service.

Weird harmonies, and hymns that were difficult for average organists to play, and unfamiliar wording revisions; again to reflect modern language.

LSB is more of a restoration than a revision.

Thank God.

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There is a really nice album of the Lutheran divine office celebrated according to the LSB, published by Concordia, on Apple Music. The chanting style sounds like a mix of plainsong and Anglican chant (I've read "Anglican chant" was used historically by German Lutherans as well, whereas the Scandinavian Lutherans used a different style one will find in the 1917 Common Hymnal and in the 1959/1964 Lutheran Hymnal and Service Book).

Now, for me the really thrilling thing was the shared content with Orthodoxy. Your evening prayer service features practicaly the entire Great Litany, not just the abriged version from the start of Holy Communion Services 1 and 2.

Apparently, these Orthodox hymns got into Lutheranism organically: the Czech Brethren, whose survivors later became among the progenitors of the Moravians (and the modern day Hussites in the Czech Republic, and the extinct Utraquists), were Orthodox, from the church we now call the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia, which is related but not ethnically the same as the Carpathians and Rusyns, who are mostly Greek Catholic.

Now, the Rusyns got to keep the Byzantine Rite, the vernacular liturgy and communion in both species because of the Union of Brest-Litovsk. The Czechs on the other hand were forcibly Latinized by the Holy Roman Empire, causing great resentment. Czech Protestantism was an attempt to restore those things that the Czechs had as Orthodox, like vernacular liturgy and communiom in both kinds. Apparently the Czech Brethren also reintroduced parts of the Byzantine Liturgy, like the Litanies.

These were then introduced into the 1959-1963 Lutheran Hymnal and Service Book by being translated our of the 1942 Massbok of the Church of Sweden. Your church then picked them up with the failed Lutheran Book of Worship, but has now set them to a very nice Anglican sounding chant in the Anglican Service Book.

I believe in lex orandi, lex credendi, so since we are already saying the same prayers in the divine office and to a large extent the divine liturgy, I think we are actually really close to ecumenical reconciliation. Surprisingly close, and perhaps closer than most of us realize.

MarkRohfrietsch said:

Such would be my sentiments exactly.

The Great Litany is also found within TLH on page 110; other forms of formal prayer also with the suffrages beginning on 113.

i think the epitome of Anglican Chant in Lutheranism is the setting of the Te Deum from Matins. Here is a link to videos of the daily Chapel services from Concordia Sem. Ft. Wayne Indianna; for the setting of the Te Deum check out Friday April 1, it begins at about 25:30: http://www.ctsfw.edu/DailyChapel

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Since the Lutheran Hymnal predates the Swedish Massbok of 1942, this points to an even older organic continuity of thenuse of the Great Litany, assuming we are talking about the same Litany and not the litany used by the Anglicans, which prays for the same things but is much longer and more verbose.

Korah said:

I have a discarded ELCA Service Book and Hymnal of the Lutheran Church in America, 1958. I have compared satisfactorily the readings in it with the traditional readings in the (Tridentine) Roman Catholic Church. New Testament readings follow long traditions, obviously, but Old Testament readings are paradoxically new-fangled.

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Well, historically the Anglicans and Roman Catholics used essentially a very similiar lectionary, the lectionary of the Gallico-Roman or Western Rite (very different from the Western Rite lectionaries of the Ambrosian Rite in Milan or the Mozarabic Rite in Toledo, which are radically different lituegies, but very similiar to the Dominican Rite, the use of Sarum, the use of York, the Carthusian Rite, the Carmelite Rite, and the other variations on the Roman and Gallican Rite that formed the basis for the Tridentine and early Lutheran and Anglican liturgics).

This lectionary usually featured an epistle and gospel reading, but no Old Testament reading; on a few Sundays, an Old Testament lesson replaced the Epistle. This is in contrast with the Byzantine Rite, the West Syriac Rite, the Armenian Rite and the Coptic Rite, where the Old Testament was never, ever read in the Eucharistic liturgy, only in the divine office, usually in Vespers the night before, or Matins the day of, the liturgical service.

In the Byzantine Rite for example, the Old Testament is read only at Vespers from a book called the Prophetologion (because the Old Testament lessons are invariably prophecies relating to the feast to be commemorated the next morning); there are however "Vesperal Divine Liturgies" which combine Vespers with the Holy Communion service and which despite their name, are usually served in the morning (for example, on Maundy Thursday and Holy Saturday; the Old Testament lessons on Holy Saturday were almost identical to those read in the Roman Catholic Church at the Paschal Vigils service on Holy Saturday until the ill-advised liturgical changes made by Pope Pius XII in 1955).

The one exception to this is the East Syriac Rite, historically used by the Assyrian Church of the East and various Roman Catholic derivatives, and formerly used by all of the St. Thomas Christians in India. In this rite, most Holy Communion liturgies have two Old Testament lessons, one from the Torah and one from the other books, preceeding the reading of the Epistle and the Gospel. I particularly like this, because the Old Testament readings in some cases align on chapter and verse boundaries with the weekly Torah portions and corresponding haftarah from the Jewish lectionary (which is largely defined in the Babylonian Talmud, which was written in Seleucia-Cstesiphon, which perhaps not coincidentally was also the residence of the Catholicos or Patriarch of the Church of the East).

I believe the Christian custom of having an Epistle lesson followed by the Gospel was inspired by the Jewish practice of a pair of lessons first from the Torah and then the Prophets (Haftarah), with the Gospel Book accorded in the ancient churches a veneration similiar to that shown by Jews to their Torah Scrolls. I believe several noted Lutheran liturgical historians and theologians have written about this similiarity as well.

What the Lutherans, Methodists and most other mainline Protestant churches were doing by the mid 20th century (with the exception of the Episcopalians, who held to the older Anglican style until 1979) was reading the Old Testsment prophecy first, followed by the corresponding Epistle and Gospel lesson, in the same Divine Service. If you compare the 1958/59 Service Book and Hymnal of the Lutheran Church with the 1964 Methodist Book of Worship, you will find that the lectionaries contained in each are basically identical. I think this was a very good idea because it allowed people to hear the Old Teatament prophecies and how they were fulfilled by the incarnation and passion of our Lord in the New Teatament, even if theynonly attended one service. In an ideal world, piety would be sufficient so that everyone could be counted on to go to Vespers on Sarurday night or show up early for Matins, but we do not live in such a world, and the idea the mainline churches had of modifying the traditional lectionary of the Western Rite to add a third lesson, so there would be a separate Old Testament, Epistle and Gospel lesson in every service, was brilliant.

The Roman Catholics thought so too and incorporated this idea into their new lectionary in 1969, which became the basis for the Revised Common Lectionary which most churches now use. I am not a huge fan of the RCL however; I believe that it represents unacceptable innovation, as never in the entire history of the Christian church, so far as we know, a three year cycle of lessons, and whereas the old Anglican lectionary, for example, ensured the entire Old and New Testaments were read annually, the RCL, despite taking three years, only includes 68% of the New Testament and even less of the old. And many of the lessons were innovative and a departure from ehat had traditionally been read on those dates in the Western Church.

One thing I really admire about the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod is that they continue to allow the use of the old lectiomary and publish it in their Lutheran Service Book, while also allowimg the RCL. Would any of you happen to know what the stance of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod is on this issue?

I have a factual correction I need to make. Lookimg at the old Ambrosian and Mozarabic lectionaries on Bombaxo.org, those appear to have had one and two Old Testament lections preceding the Epistle and Gospel respectively, assuming I am reading it correctly. Certainly in the case of the Ambrosian mass, it definitely looks like an Old Testament lesson always preceded the Epistle and Gospel, because you can see it preceded by an Introit and followed by something akin to a Graduale.

In the case of the Mozarabic Rite, I am not 100% sure whether those Old Testament lessons were from the Eucharist proper or from the Divine Office.

Either way, based on this, we can say that the decision of the Lutherans and Methodists to add an Old Testament lesson in the 1950s (or earlier; I have no idea when the Lutherans started doing this), was more than just good pastoral care; it was the expansion of an under-utilized tradition.

I think we probably need to do something like that in the Orthodox Church due to the lack of attendance at Vespers, and even the lack of Vespers altogether in many parishes. If you don't hear the Old Testament, you don't hear the prophecy or get the chance to appreciate its fulfillment.