Æsthetic Ritualism?

“Æsthetic Ritualism”

This term was coined by the former pupils of the Rev. Dr. William Augustus Muhlenberg to describe the form of ritualism utilized in their chapel worship. Fr. Muhlenberg was the greatest Churchman of his generation and the father of parish schools in the United States. He may also be credited as the father of American ritual or ecclesiastical arts. “Æsthetic” in this sense means “perceivable” or “external.” For Fr. Muhlenberg, ritual was a means of beautifying doctrine; of externally adorning the Gospel. One of his former pupil – The Rev. Libertus Van Bokkelen, D.D. – wrote many years later:

Men of mature years and old men have told me that the memory of these chapel services held them through life firm to the Gospel of Jesus; that sweet ritual observance, genuine Christian ritualism, with incense and lights, with pictures and flowers, kept them loyal to the Church.

For Fr. Muhlenberg, material beauty was a natural outworking of Gospel truth and a necessary means of conveying that same truth.