Why did Protestants abandon Liturgy of the Hours?

score:12

Accepted answer

Protestantism is so broad that you can't avoid getting a broad answer. As the protestant church has no official head there is no official answer and there was never an official LOTH rejection meeting. Furthermore, some Protestant denominations still do practice LOTH. The best you can do in this case is summarize the most common Protestant beliefs and come up with the most probable yet not all-encompassing conclusions.

Here's a list with (I think) the most probable reasons to the least probable.

Protestants are more than likely not going to follow Liturgy of The Hours because...

  • ...there are prayers to the saints/dead, which Protestants believe isn't good, so they'll throw whole Liturgy out--baby and bath water.

  • ...it makes the prayer seem insincere, as opposed to a sincere, unscripted, heart-felt prayer conversation with God. The Protestant would cite this verse as their reasoning:

    Psalm 62:8 ESV Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.

  • ...setting a required time to pray gives the impression that that is the only or best time one needs to pray, when prayers should be constant. The Protestant would cite these verses as their reasoning:

    1 Thessalonians 5:17 ESV ...pray without ceasing.

    1 Thessalonians 1:2 ESV We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers,

    2 Timothy 1:3 ESV I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day.

  • ...it's Catholic, and Protestants tend to buck against anything that Catholics promote.

  • ...it's not in the Bible. Protestants are all about accepting no doctrine except that which is explicitly stated in the scriptures.
  • ...it's unnecessary. While more open-minded Protestants may consider the Liturgy of the Hours helpful in its structure (ignoring prayers to the saints/dead), many would categorize it as just another reading/prayer plan similar to ones you could buy at a Christian bookstore. They give it no added spiritual significance.

Upvote:1

Each Protestant body does different things. Remember, "Protestant" is not a denomination. Various bodies actually do practice it, including Lutherans. As a Lutheran, we have it in our Divine Service book. There is also the Book of Common Prayer available. We don't see it as "vain repetition", but rather a solid structure - just as many recite the Lord's Prayer from time to time. It all depends on the denomination's interpretation of scripture.

Upvote:1

My reply is generic because not all Protestants believe the same things, there is a great variance with that wide-ranging, generic term which historically refers to protesting against the Catholic Church or what it believes.

For the first replier, it certainly has nothing to do with vain repetitions, otherwise Protestants would only pray the Our Father once in their lives, yet when Jesus was teaching his disciples to pray, that is what he told them to say. The Liturgy of the Hours is not nearly as repetitious overall.

It seems to me it was probably a combination of the knee-jerk reaction and being repulsed by anything Catholic, based upon my own experiences in leaving and returning to the Catholic Church (for completely different reasons: I left because I was uncatechized and I could not answer the criticisms & returned as I became convinced the Catholic Church was correct). It seems more a emotional reaction, not a premeditated plan to reject something bad in Catholicism. Surely no believing Protestant who loves God would ever reject the recitation of the Psalms, Scripture readings, etc. which are mostly directly from Scripture. They may raise an objection to the so-called "Catholic" books of Scripture, but this is a smaller subset of the readings and is in the minority because percentage-wise, there are only 7 books and a couple chapters that are objected to compared with a 66 books on which we all agree.

Upvote:3

The Anglican church has not entirely done away with this, and has the Book of Common Prayer which has prayers and Psalms as well as bible readings, confessions, and creeds for each day of the week, as well as for group meetings, communion, weddings, funerals and so on.

The structure of Prayer in Protestant churches is often taught based on prayers and Psalms in the bible. I don't know of any Protestant teaching that would discourage someone from praying from any bible passage.

In fact, at our church on Sunday (an Anglican church in Sydney, Australia) we prayed Psalm 51 as a prayer of confession.

Upvote:7

The key issue is not what is in the prayers, but that the prayers are repetitive. It seems to follow from this that prayers would not arise from a person's heart. Protestants generally believe pretty strongly that prayer should be spontaneous from a person's heart--not words that someone else wrote for them to read or recite.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught us not to use "vain repetitions":

But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Matthew 6:7 KJV

The Psalmist also entreats us to pour out our hearts to God. In order to do this, rote prayers seems counterproductive.

Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. Psalm 68:8 ESV

In fact, the Psalms are full of people pouring out their hearts to God. So, the model appears to be to pray from the heart rather than to repeat what others have written for us to pray. Of course, Protestants typically believe pretty strongly that we should read the Scriptures pretty regularly.

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