SOURCE: “Friedrich Schleiermacher on the Central Place of Worship in Theology,” in Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 91, No. 1, January, 1998, pp. 59-73.

In the following essay, Vial proposes that worship is a fundamental tenet of Schleiermacher's theology.

Suspicion raised by the Neo-orthodox movement concerning Schleiermacher's theological enterprise continues to cast its shadow. Karl Barth framed this suspicion perspicaciously in terms of an “either/or” in his “Concluding Unscientific Postscript on Schleiermacher”:

Is Schleiermacher's enterprise concerned (a) necessarily, intrinsically, and authentically with a Christian theology oriented toward worship, preaching, instruction, and pastoral care? Does it only accidentally, extrinsically, and inauthentically wear the dress of a philosophy accommodated to the person of his time … ? Or is his enterprise concerned (b) primarily, intrinsically, and authentically with a philosophy … indifferent as to Christianity and which would have wrapped itself only accidentally, extrinsically, and inauthentically in the garments of a particular theology, which here happens...