Recovering Christian Rites and Rituals to Save the West

Exploring Microchronic and Microcosmic Insights from James B. Jordan's "From Bread to Wine."

I’ve recently been reading James B. Jordan’s From Bread to Wine: Creation, Worship, and Christian Maturity. Right off the top in the introduction, he makes a distinction between microcosm and microchronic that I found pretty helpful. He writes:

“The fundamental thesis that underlies these studies is that biblical rituals are not something strange or different from the pattern of human life, but that those rituals move through the same steps as human life and thus are designed to key us in to God’s ways, His paths in the world. Sin has distorted the rhythm of human life, but the rituals in the Bible help restore our rhythm by duplicating human life in a small, short, compact, and stylized way. Just as the Tabernacle is a small, or microcosmic, replica of the whole cosmos, so biblical rituals are short, or microchronic, replicas of (macrochronic) human history and of human biography. Comparing biblical rituals with biblical history and biblical biographies should provide us with a better vision of how we can live our lives under God’s guiding hand.”

In essence, Jordan is suggesting that we shouldn't see rituals as odd or disconnected from daily life. Instead, they are compact, stylized representations of a full human existence. Just as the Temple served as a microcosm of the entire universe, the rituals performed within it were microchronic reflections of a life lived under God's direction, mirroring the grand sweep of human history.

This leads to an important conclusion that I’ve been emphasizing more recently: the Sunday Gathering—the Lord’s Day liturgy—is the primary context for discipleship. However, when I shared this with our local church, it sparked discomfort. I understand why. Our modern church culture tends to emphasize informal, home-based gatherings as the heart of discipleship, focusing on personal relationships and organic connections. Many find this appealing because it feels authentic and accessible. But if Jordan’s insights are correct, this common view of discipleship may be incomplete. Discipleship rooted in the Lord’s Day liturgy offers something deeper: a chance to participate in a condensed, sacred reflection of the macrochronic sweep of human history, shaped by God’s hand. To miss the liturgy is to miss this vital formative experience.

Rituals and rites have been occupying my thoughts more and more, and I can’t help but wonder: Is it really a coincidence that the West is losing its direction at the same time we’ve dismantled these ancient practices? The absence of rites of passage has left men without initiation into manhood, leaving many aimless. Likewise, the church in the West seems to be drifting back and to the left, partly because we’ve lost sight of what life under God’s guidance truly looks like. We have replaced the depth and richness of rites and rituals with more casual, organic gatherings, believing them to be sufficient. Yet, these gatherings often lack the structure and formative power that rites provide, leaving many spiritually undernourished and disconnected from the greater narrative of God’s work.

Restoring the West will require more than just moral or political solutions—it demands a return to Christian maturity. This maturity involves reclaiming the rites, rituals, and liturgies that once shaped individuals and communities with a clear sense of purpose and identity. Fathers must initiate their sons into manhood. Churches must rediscover the formative power of corporate worship. Communities must realign themselves with the grand narrative of God’s redemptive work in the world. Only by reviving these practices, deeply rooted in the Christian tradition, can the West recover its sense of direction and move toward a future grounded in truth, beauty, and virtue. Without this return to maturity, the aimlessness and confusion of modernity will continue to prevail.