Hmm. I haven't been studying anything new in that line lately, and haven't changed my views on it recently. So I am not sure what you mean?
I think the liturgy has an internal logic and consistency - it is doing the same job since the beginning of the Church, it is the way it is for a reason, there are elements that you see from the beginning. I tend to be pretty conservative liturgically.
I don't think it is a good idea to tell people that it is has been the same throughout history, because that isn't true. What we see today developed over time, and at least theoretically, could continue to develop.
Yes, quite. My (congruent) approach is one of appreciation for the liturgy both despite, and because of, its diversity.
The liturgies in use today are not exactly the same as those practiced by the apostles, and yet they are theologically consistent in their approach to worship as a recapitulation of salvation history through the return to the scriptures, the celebration of God's triumph in the chants of the
ordo, and the continued epiphany of Christ in the Eucharist. The liturgical diversity among early Christian cultures- Cappadocian, Asian, Antiochene, East Syriac, West Syriac, Roman, Cyrenaican, Alexandrian, Coptic- probably represents the very earliest developments of liturgy among the various missionaries sent out from the Jerusalem community and changes year to year in the liturgy of that community, but the diversity in form nevertheless testifies to a remarkable unity in content (and with it, theology). Whether one uses the Sanctus or the Trisagion, the western focus on the Verbum or the eastern focus on the Epiclesis, the tendency is toward a common drama expressed through chant, song, and text.
More basically, the diversity not only attests to a common content and theology, but to a common impulse: the perceived need to gather communities principally in the act of worship expressed through liturgical regularity. Whatever the diversity, that common worship, on a weekly, daily, and even trice (eventually sevenfold) daily basis formed the central spine of the community, and that worship was formed by a central spine of liturgical regularity. And, that liturgical regularity was a rich mixture of readings, common song, ordinary chant, Psalmody, and Eucharistic celebration. History attests
no other reality for orthodox Christian communities. The commonality of liturgy across cultural and political barriers- with Armenian, East Syriac, and Egyptian liturgies independent of Byzantine-Constantinian standardization attesting to a very early development, as well as continued diversity also among Celtic, Ionan, Columban, Assyrian, and Coptic communities- makes clear that today's "liturgical" churches stand in clear continuity with the ancient global church of the first generations of Christians.
