Y’know, whatever sort of church service floats your boat (if you’re in the boat-floating church serving frame of mind), go for it. I, former Catholic and current Episcopalian, obviously am into traditional liturgy and “bells & smells” and all that jazz. But I realize some folks like something a bit more … contemporary.
“Sunday’s Coming” Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.
Now I need to figure out who I can send this to at my parish who won’t be horribly offended …
via George
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MrsDoF sent it to the music director here at the Mennonite church where she attends. It is now making the rounds there to great hilarity, though it might be regarded as less funny by music directors of our local megachurches.
There’s a lot of debate and discussion within our parish about alternative service styles, and, as such things go, there’s some passionate feelings about the matter. Some folks would probably take this as much more of a criticism than it would be intended.
In her recent book, Brightsided, Barbara Ehrenreich talks about the change of church from a place ‘apart’ from everyday life where the tough questions are asked in an environment of concern to a relentlessly cheery place were all things are made ‘happy’ by god. The most telling feature she mentioned is the disappearance of the cross, not to mention an actual crucifix, from these new churches because members perceive them as ‘downers.’
If church is really like a visit to a concert and motivational speech mixed together, what makes it much of a duty to attend? Maybe I’m the wrong person to ask the question, however. 😉
Well, full-blow crucifixes aren’t very common outside the Catholic (and Orthodox) Church (since they smack of Papist Idolatry), but, yeah, that’s interesting that even the basic symbol of the cross is seen as a potential negative.
Certainly folks have actually criticized Christianity for adopting as it symbol a sign of torture and execution (imagine, if you will, a religion whose symbol was the noose). It would be interesting to read something about the icongraphy of Christianity — certainly the ichthys (fish) was a long-time contender as a parallel symbol (today relegated to car decor), and the lamb as well. Was it the ubiquitous simplicity of the cruciform that made it the key icon, exclusive of its actual roots?
Church — as a weekly reminder and reacquaintance with one’s relationship to God — ought to be a place of a joy, a place of challenge, a place of solace, a place of seeking. Total emphasis on the happy-happy-joy-joy is as facile as total emphasis on fire and brimstone.
Too many churches have as their primary mission, it seems, getting folks in the door (and keeping them there), in an increasingly busy, distracting, and alternately entertaining world. The question of why they should be there becomes secondary to just keeping the attendance numbers (and, one hopes, the collection plate haul) high.
To my mind, the value (and self-imposed duty) of church attendance is as that regular reminder of something I value, the sacrifice of at least a couple of hours to participate in all those aspects I included above — and to do so, most importantly, in fellowship with others on a similar journey. Doing it publicly not only helps make sure I do it, but it also provides me a network of people to enjoy (or share) those elements as well.
I don’t, myself, consider it a sin to miss Sunday Mass. I see it as akin to working out at the metaphysical gym; the cost of skipping is that it’s a bit harder to go the next time, etc., and, next thing you know, you’ve lost spirit tone and gotten all religiously flabby.
Well not to be a downer but the awful 19th century revival hymns that many think of as “old time” were once modern music. I suppose at one time the Gregorian chant I listened to in college was newfangled. So the horrid thought I just had is that the homogenized pablum that passes for Christian music today may one day be considered traditional.
This video is only applying the point that “presentation is emotional manipulation” to the ContemporaVent church, but it’s always been that way. When a medieval peasant walked into a cathedral, everything from the physical solidity of the place and the smell of incense to the cathedral’s statuary, unique acoustics and brilliant stained glass windows were a multimedia presentation calculated to blow their minds. How could they not think it was the house of God?
Not that there’s anything wrong with enjoying presentation. It’s just part of enjoying life, enjoying art. I wish there were some way to preserve liturgy without theology, but I can’t figure out how to translate the combination of art and reverence into atheistic terms.
Why is some music considered great? Certainly part of it is some value that speaks to multiple generations, but longevity itself is valued. Sturgeon’s Law pertains, but we only see the 10% of hymns that avoided getting cut from the hymnal over the decades …
So, yes, some songs today — not necessarily the most popular ones — will get passed on to future generations, just as some pop/rock classics will pass down through the ages (I’d give a shiny nickel to time travel forward 100-200 years to see just what tunes, sacred and profane, have survived).
I’ll say that one problem I see with much of contemporary “praise band” music (at least as we’ve incorporated it into our own services) is that it’s essentially designed for a solo singer, not for a congregation. Those are the tunes that (a) have only a single, or at most two, verses, and rely on repetition to pad out the 3-5 minute time slot, and (b) have music made up of lots of slurred and dotted eighth and quarter notes, as the original recording artist’s rendition is faithfully transcribed, never mind whether 50-100 people in the pews can follow it along.
(This assumes the congregation in question actually sings the hymns, vs listening to someone else sing them and swaying along with the bass line …)
Bottom line: there is a difference between a popular Christian pop/rock hit and a song that’s suitable for congregational singing. Unfortunately, too many music leaders don’t recognize that …
The question of presentation is something I struggle with in my own churchly activities. There’s a slippery slope between (a) presenting something in a polished and professional fashion that inspires and uplifts and (b) being in the entertainment biz. That also gets into the Cult of Personality problem that too many churches have (usually exemplified by marquees out front that highlight the pastor’s name, or how he’s speaking this week on Topic X).
As far as “preserving liturgy without theology,” I think the issue is less intellectual than ideological — i.e., you can get (or some do get) the same buzz through, say, patriotic exercises … the National Anthem, or the swearing in of a public official, or some other emotion-laden formal ceremony. Heck, even explicitly secular or non-religious ceremonies (graduations, civil marriages) can carry some of those overtones in their use of ritualistic phrases and actions.