Definition: Liturgical Nazi
I hear this pejorative, derogatory, denigratory, deprecatory, defamatory, slanderous, libelous, abusive, insulting, slighting, informal bitchy term “Liturgical Nazi” bandied about on campus often. I’m not sure I have an adequate definition of it. How would you define it?
From the Webster’s Dictionary: “a person who holds and acts brutally in accordance with extreme racist or authoritarian view.” So by this definition, it is someone who holds an authoritarian view with regards to liturgical adiaphora. Historically then it was someone who would teach and urge in an authoritarian way in regards to the liturgy.
The most descriptive recent definition I have heard is “someone who does anything liturgical.” Perhaps that is too broad. I think we might say “someone who bows, kneels, genuflects, or practices some other liturgical adiaphora above and beyond the minimal Scriptural institution.” How would you define “liturgical nazi”?
I admit there is a bit of cynicism in this post but I think a proper definition needs to be made for this derogatory term.
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What is there to be said about the Nazi part? Nazis were about their Third Reich…they wanted everyone to be under their rule. Wouldn’t a Liturgical Nazi be very stuck on the liturgy (not so much ceremony, but maybe) and how everyone should be just like them?
Indeed, that would seem to be the historical definition. The nazi part would suggest anyone who forcibly try to create liturgical uniformity.
Unfortunately the definition seems to have broadened to include anyone who would prefer liturgical uniformity, even by God’s grace.
It seems to be a fundamentally anti-institutional and perhaps even anti-community term. It is often used to promote a radical individualistic perspective on worship theology and practice. For example, I’ve been called a liturgical nazi when suggesting a particular practice not part of the explicit institution as efficacious in communicating the Gospel.
I know superfluous practice can actually distract from the truth. I just don’t think Luther ever suggested throwing out everything except the minimal insitution. He would suggest our focus must be on the insitution (hence the condemnation of the sacrifice of the Mass.)
I think your definition is accurate. Stuck in his ways (of liturgy or ceremony) and practices heavy-handed enforcement of said liturgy or ceremony.
I remember hearing (and, sadly, using) this term while at seminary in St. Louis. There was a clutch of those guys (also called “ultraconservative”) who some of us just didn’t seem to understand.
The irony is that if I was back at sem now, I would probably want to hang around with those guys, much more so than some of the neo-evangelical methobapticostal types I identified with back then.
I don’t think there was a lot of thought put into the term, “liturgical nazi”. It just meant, “those guys aren’t like us, and we don’t really like (or, more honestly, understand) it”.
Rev. Chryst,
Ah, you caught the sarcasm that drives the whole post. Little thought is put into these derogatory phrases. If people thought about what they were really saying, they might not use such terms.
Nazi really has a pretty foul association with it… to use such a term to describe a fellow, well-intentioned believer is offensive, IMO.
I am really tired of the ignorant or deliberate classification of NAZI as either “right wing” or “fascist.” They were (are) niether. NAZI is an acronym for National SOCIALIST (Worker’s Party). Hitler and company were SOCIALIST, period. By definition a SOCIALIST is a LEFT WINGER not a “right winger.” Liberals, not conservatives by popular American definition, are closer to NAZIs than a so called “right winger.” This is a popular attempt by the left to demonize the conservative right by deliberate misassocciation.
NAZIs, SOCIALIST and COMMUNIST share a common collectivist philosophy and despise religion (because it provides an authority greater than the State), Free Enterprise and Individualism as they threaten the authority of the State. Religion provides absolutes that must be changeable under the fluctuating needs of the collectivist state.
This isn’t my opinion, it is emperical FACT!