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Colin you asked how do you know the experience is of God. The answer is you just do. It is difficult to explain and it can easily be mixed up with other feelings and experiences, but when it is God you just know.
But I can't help feeling that if I lived in a Hebrew society or an Islamic society or a place like Glastonbury where new-age beliefs are prevalent that I would "just know" it was the God of that society.
Though one could argue that all perceptions of God refer back to the same entity.
Well, I raised the issue of music not so much because I wanted to talk about music (and the fact that the thread is now largely about music might be telling ....), but because I see the oversimplistic, mainstream music one tends to encounter in church as symptomatic of the oversimplistic, mainstream character of a lot of UK religious life generally. And it's my belief that this oversimplistic, mainstream character puts people off the church, or makes them see it as a bit redundant.
Arguably, it's also a failure to live up to the message of the Gospel and Christian life as well. But maybe that's a separate topic.
Mate, you might be going to the wrong churches for you. While I understand that there are happy clappy churches with solid intellectual content, I personally haven't discovered one, and I found what theological underpinnings there were to be mostly offensive. They were very keen on recruitment, very very keen on it, but mostly they were focused on the youf. That said, I have found evangelical initiatives around personal improvement, such as 12-step stuff, to be very effective. They were also good concerning the taming of the one-eyed trouser snake, although that is still a work in progress here.
The Organist is right, and in case you didn't get it, the music has more content at the more traditional churches in my experience. It's mostly about the liturgy and the lyrics for me though. One of the benefits of the fractured state of Western Christianity is that there is a variety of worship styles around. The finer points of theology concerning who can eat where can go and get fucked according to this little black duck.
In the post-mountaintop experience period for me, I found a reformed church in the Presbyterian and Methodist traditions (Uniting Church in Australia) to be the most supportive and willing to actually talk through stuff.
snip
Colin you asked how do you know the experience is of God. The answer is you just do. It is difficult to explain and it can easily be mixed up with other feelings and experiences, but when it is God you just know.
But I can't help feeling that if I lived in a Hebrew society or an Islamic society or a place like Glastonbury where new-age beliefs are prevalent that I would "just know" it was the God of that society.
Though one could argue that all perceptions of God refer back to the same entity.
When I had a vivid experience of the presence of Love, I consciously chose to interpret it within the Christian tradition because that was the culture I lived in. I found echoes of my experience in the Bible, particularly a passage in Romans. I am pretty sure if I went to other sacred texts, I might well find similar resonances. To me, that in no way invalidates our experiences of the Holy, but rather reinforces their universality.
snip
Colin you asked how do you know the experience is of God. The answer is you just do. It is difficult to explain and it can easily be mixed up with other feelings and experiences, but when it is God you just know.
But I can't help feeling that if I lived in a Hebrew society or an Islamic society or a place like Glastonbury where new-age beliefs are prevalent that I would "just know" it was the God of that society.
Though one could argue that all perceptions of God refer back to the same entity.
Yes, my Sufi friends talk of an immediate perception of the divine. But maybe it is the same one, or One. But I'm not sure how we would know that.
When Bonhoeffer was in prison he wrote that he took great comfort in saying the liturgy because he knew that when came to the Lord's Prayer, he knew that millions of people around the world would be saying the prayer with him. Not only that, but it has been an act that has been repeated by Christians for two thousand years and will be continued to be used by Christians for the next two thousand years plus, God willing.
Liturgy can be a dirge or it can be a celebration or it can be somewhere in between. Depends on the people, the occasion, and/or the leadership. No congregation does it the same as another congregation, though if I as a Lutheran could visit an Anglican congregation in Africa and would know the basic outline of the service. BTW do visit an African church, the tempo and movement of the service is very lively often.
Simple-minded music? You mean like Bach? Yes, there is a lot of contemporary Christian Music that should be canned. But, again, I would not paint Christian music with such a broad brush. I think U2 would be offended.
I will take 8 and 9 together. Christians love to argue about seeming molehills because they are passionate about their faith. There is no such thing as settled theology. I once took a course in the philosophy of science which looked at how science changed over the years as new information challenged previously accepted notions. The same with theology. What seemed to fit for Augustine does not fit today. An example is an Original Sin. It is not found in Judaism. Jesus did not know of it. Paul never spoke about it. It is not found in the Orthodox Church. If you take away that theorem you have to really re-examine the last 1500 years of Western Theology.
I used to say Lutheran theology stopped 500 years ago. Now I am discovering that about every 500 years the church goes through a Reformation. 500 AD saw the formation of the Ecumenical Creeds. 1000 AD saw the division of the Eastern Church from the Western Church. 1500 AD saw the Protestant Reformation. 2000 AD is still being worked out, but I think re-examining old doctrines is part of it.
And it's my belief that this oversimplistic, mainstream character puts people off the church, or makes them see it as a bit redundant.
Arguably, it's also a failure to live up to the message of the Gospel and Christian life as well. But maybe that's a separate topic.
There's a strong sense that I get from my non-Christian friends that I'd rather have them on my side than many Christians. Maybe it's because they're mates, but I'll take an ordinary decent pagan over a hanky-wringing milquetoast God-botherer any day.
but because I see the oversimplistic, mainstream music one tends to encounter in church as symptomatic of the oversimplistic, mainstream character of a lot of UK religious life generally. And it's my belief that this oversimplistic, mainstream character puts people off the church, or makes them see it as a bit redundant.
Are not most people, well, mainstream? Isn't that rather the definition of mainstream?
Something I've said elsewhere occasionally--at least consider trying a very poor congregation. You won't find awesome music, I'm afraid, unless you're very very lucky. But you might find some of the other issues you're concerned about handled. It's difficult to be milquetoast when you're on the edge of survival.
On the other hand, you will certainly find equally annoying but different issues going on in such a congregation. Ours, for instance, over the years has featured shenanigans that make you think we're going for the book of Corinthians part III--or maybe a Mexican soap opera. People with wives in two countries, anybody?
So it's maybe a choice of annoyances. Or just possibly a question of where God wants to put you. Because it's not always about what you get out of it, though that matters, but sometimes you end up somewhere because you're meant to be putting something into that group. (Hey, got any musical skills of your own?)
TheOrganist: "Another major offender is I, the Lord of sea and sky (Here I am Lord) which is known by many musicians as the split personality song because we lurch from the voice of God (I, the Lord of sea and sky) to the voice of ??? (Here I am Lord) without pause or break. Who is speaking - God, someone else, the singer, both? "
Moving from God to the believer? Like many of the Psalms, you mean?
Not sure if this is the right forum to be posting this in. I'm not trying to be offensive, but I can imagine how a lot of this will be, so I'm sticking it in Hell.
The reason I'm writing it at all is that it's no secret that Christian churches have had a hard time attracting people for the last few decades, so I thought it might be useful to throw down some thoughts about how the Christianity and the Church looked to me until my unexpected religious experience a few weeks back, in case it yields any insight into what to do about that.
I have listened right through that interesting post, but see that I must read more to hear what the religious experience was!
TheOrganist: "Another major offender is I, the Lord of sea and sky (Here I am Lord) which is known by many musicians as the split personality song because we lurch from the voice of God (I, the Lord of sea and sky) to the voice of ??? (Here I am Lord) without pause or break. Who is speaking - God, someone else, the singer, both? "
Moving from God to the believer? Like many of the Psalms, you mean?
Yeah, I can understand some criticisms of ITLOS&S, but I never found that particular criticism persuasive. As you say, some of the psalms do the same thing, and in the case of the hymn, the music clearly delineates between the two speakers.
My memory of it (and an illustration of the reality of music in many churches) is being required to sing a rather dull Bass line in a choir. It mostly consisted of bottom Gs.
My natural range is tenor. You can probably imagine just how much volume I have on a bottom G.
None at all.
In a rousing loud hymn like this it was entirely pointless. But as the only adult male in the choir that's what I ended up with. Tenor duties were naturally performed by a contralto.
Not all modern worship music, but a disturbingly high percentage is terrible just as music, and frequently the musically trite is the setting for words with either little liturgical or biblical merit or just plain wrong...
Absolutely. For me, that sort of slop makes it hard to absorb the Christian message.
...Another major offender is I, the Lord of sea and sky (Here I am Lord)... And of course the tune is banal, which just adds to the pain.
The tune is not only banal; it bears a distinct resemblance to the "Brady Bunch" theme song.
As for amplified worship bands... there is scant regard given by people who promote such pap that for every person who finds it attractive there is another who finds it repellent - in other words its a 50-50 thing: I doubt whether the same proportions could be found for the works of, say, Mozart or Isaac Watts.
My parish is thriving, with a lot of young families as well as older folk. We do a wide variety of music in a wide variety of styles, from plainchant to Tallis to Stanford to spirituals to brand-new compositions, but it is all of high quality. I haven't heard a single "worship song" that I would include in that category. Admittedly, I don't seek out that genre, so perhaps I've missed something.
I can never keep a straight face when I hear it; I can't sing it without breaking into giggles. And I have sung all sorts of ridiculous crap in my time while stifling my feelings.
I haven't heard a single "worship song" that I would include in that category. Admittedly, I don't seek out that genre, so perhaps I've missed something.
I'm in the 'worship band' - a newcomer, who deliberately learned a musical instrument to fill a gap in the line up (obviously, I'm still very much learning).
I can't disagree with you, and the band leader is aware (possibly too aware...) of my thoughts on the matter. The hymnody is terrible, and the songwriting is simply sub-par. There are perhaps half a dozen songs we play out of a whole folder-full that actually sound like they were written by musician who knows their way around an ABAB rhyming scheme and a four-chord progression, like virtually every popular song that's charted in the last 50 years.
The best music we play is when we're warming up, and slide into a few bars of RnB or rock classics.
but because I see the oversimplistic, mainstream music one tends to encounter in church as symptomatic of the oversimplistic, mainstream character of a lot of UK religious life generally. And it's my belief that this oversimplistic, mainstream character puts people off the church, or makes them see it as a bit redundant.
Are not most people, well, mainstream? Isn't that rather the definition of mainstream?
Well, I don't really think there is such a thing as a 'mainstream' church in the UK, simply because Christianity demands of its followers an approach to belief, epistemology, and ontology that's widely at variance with contemporary common-sense notions of what exists, what we know, and how we know it. When it comes to understanding the universe and our place in it, I suspect most people fall back on a vaguely-formulated scientific worldview with little or no reference made to religious notions. Christian belief is, in this sense, just plain weird and out-of-place in contemporary British life.
Yet despite this radically different perspective - of a Creator God, of a world redeemed from sin by His son, of a divine order revealed by revelation - it seems to me that most expressions of Christian faith express broadly 'mainstream' values. The ethics are rarely anything that would surprise a secular centrist, the manner of expression is vaguely pleasant, the music is highly marketable. And I find this strange, given how incredibly far outside the mainstream Christianity is in the most fundamental and important senses. I can't see why anyone would suspend or question their normal intellectual commitments for the sake of exploring Christianity, because in its most obvious public-facing roles, it seems to do nothing more than affirm what everyone was already doing anyway. It's shipping coals to Newcastle (or communion wafers to Canterbury, or whatever the appropriate image is).
Yet despite this radically different perspective - of a Creator God, of a world redeemed from sin by His son, of a divine order revealed by revelation - it seems to me that most expressions of Christian faith express broadly 'mainstream' values.
Well, yes. That would be because those 'mainstream values' have developed over a long period of time within a context that has been broadly christian (the small c is intentional, in this case). I do realise that it is absolutely possible to take issue with both the direction of causality, and the extent to which the vast majority of 'western' values are indeed consonant with Christianity, as it is meant to be practised, but it can nonetheless be seen that the 'mainstream values' of societies which have had little to no discourse with, or exposure to, all things christian, are different.
Following on from the various things that have been said about 'worship bands' upthread - well, like Gamaliel, I've kind of slid along the spectrum in terms of churchmanship,* but during my teens, my family attended a small, independent, very pentie, very happy-clappy congregation, of, I would guess, about sixty enthused and engaged individuals, and no paid staff whatsoever, and, looking back, the only thing I feel any nostalgia for is the music, this despite the fact that no doubt most of my compatriots onboard would likely stigmatise it as 'trite' and 'overly simplistic'.
I mean, at the bottom of it all, these were people of the faith healing/victim blaming, shunning, end-times-obsessed, anti-gay, staunchly complementarian stripe, so dispproving of divorce that domestic violence, though deplored, was nonetheless something to be put up with. Phaauugh! [shakes dust off feet].
And yeah, they had a worship band. And we sang 'worship songs' and 'choruses'. And it was bloody fantastic, I have to say. They had two pianists, who went week about, one of whom was a high school maths teacher, who sat straight-backed and played competently and sedately, the other was a tax accountant, who favoured a honky-tonk style, and got so involved with his playing that his stuck-down side-parted hair would come loose and fall in sticky chunks down onto his forehead 'cos he was basically head-banging along. And two drummers, both teenaged boys, and more guitarists than you could shake a stick at - and about a third of the congregation were Māori, so the singing was superlative. But all very infra dig, of course.
In case you can't tell, I have a slight problem with this apparent perspective that music which isn't complex, or refined, or preferably both, is somehow to be sniffed at. That anything that's written in, and for, the vernacular, that's accessible, singable, by an average Joe, is unlikely in the extreme to induce any sort of beatific vision, provide any sort of window to the divine - that worship is about absorbing culture and tat, rather than participating with your small corner of the great cloud of witnesses. That there is some kind of inverse relationship between how 'popular' or how 'mainstream' a thing is, and its worth. And in particular with the notion that that which is simple is necessarily simplistic, and/or trite. If we start drawing lines through things on the basis that they're 'simple', well, there goes most of the world's folk music, at the stroke of a pen. And a fair chunk of Hymns Ancient and Modern, I'd argue. And Christmas Carols - and I think the world would be the poorer for not having these things. But, obviously, YMMV.
but because I see the oversimplistic, mainstream music one tends to encounter in church as symptomatic of the oversimplistic, mainstream character of a lot of UK religious life generally. And it's my belief that this oversimplistic, mainstream character puts people off the church, or makes them see it as a bit redundant.
Are not most people, well, mainstream? Isn't that rather the definition of mainstream?
Well, I don't really think there is such a thing as a 'mainstream' church in the UK, simply because Christianity demands of its followers an approach to belief, epistemology, and ontology that's widely at variance with contemporary common-sense notions of what exists, what we know, and how we know it. When it comes to understanding the universe and our place in it, I suspect most people fall back on a vaguely-formulated scientific worldview with little or no reference made to religious notions. Christian belief is, in this sense, just plain weird and out-of-place in contemporary British life.
Yet despite this radically different perspective - of a Creator God, of a world redeemed from sin by His son, of a divine order revealed by revelation - it seems to me that most expressions of Christian faith express broadly 'mainstream' values. The ethics are rarely anything that would surprise a secular centrist, the manner of expression is vaguely pleasant, the music is highly marketable. And I find this strange, given how incredibly far outside the mainstream Christianity is in the most fundamental and important senses. I can't see why anyone would suspend or question their normal intellectual commitments for the sake of exploring Christianity, because in its most obvious public-facing roles, it seems to do nothing more than affirm what everyone was already doing anyway. It's shipping coals to Newcastle (or communion wafers to Canterbury, or whatever the appropriate image is).
I think that second paragraph skewers us. We are wiggling on that tree of pain in that sci fi book that Mousethief recommended a few years ago.
It is amazing to me that @Timo Pax has written this as a new Christian. Maybe I got the back story wrong:
And I find this strange, given how incredibly far outside the mainstream Christianity is in the most fundamental and important senses.
I mean, this is spot on, isn't it? I could argue it out, but it's obvious right?
But should this be reflected in worship? It leads me to ask, what's worship for? Is it recruitment, is it teaching, is it community building, is it to replenish the faithful, is it some sort of combination?
When I go to church, I go for me. I like having a time when I try to open my mind, to quiet myself, and to experience holiness. The celebration of the Mass is 40 minutes that allow me to do that. I can do it outside of a church, but that's why I do it. I'm not particularly interested in the other people, the quality of the music or the sermon, although those things can block my capacity to experience holiness because they might piss me off, or draw my attention in other ways. I can play music I like on my phone, anywhere I want.
When I say experience holiness, I believe I am opening myself to God. I am saying to God, as I say to God outside of formal worship quite often, "OK, I'm ready for you."
I'm not sure that worship is the place for anything other than tokens of the fundamental otherness of Christianity in the world. So you might have a sermon on justice, or exploring self giving service, or you might devote the offerings of the congregation to a worthy cause to God. But otherwise, worship for me is about the otherness, which is going on in my body as I worship, at a church service or elsewhere. The other stuff, the people around me and the stuff extraneous to the core liturgy, that can only be a block to the otherness.
The expression of Christian otherness in the world is multifaceted. But the world is loud, and the otherness that attracts me is almost silent. It is an otherness that is quiet devotion to a service that is simple, that is intentional and that is aimed at the outsiders. I can give examples, but will be long-winded and gushing. There is probably a time and place for yelling by Christians, but I'm not sure that yelling is our important work. It is certainly not counter-cultural to yell.
Yeah. I always get caught by that Lewis quote from God in the Dock:
I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music. But as I went on I saw the great merit of it. I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and different education, and then gradually my conceit just began peeling off. I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren’t fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit.
Some of my congregation's music (both Vietnamese AND American) is frankly horrible, and good music is certainly something to strive for, just as we strive for excellence in everything; but if Grandma Nguyen just has to have [insert song horror here] for her Sunday worship to be complete, well, we grit our teeth and carry on. Because Grandma Nguyen and her relationship with and within the church, the body of Christ, is ultimately more important than whether my eardrums get fractured. Grrrrrrr.
[snip]
But should this be reflected in worship? It leads me to ask, what's worship for? Is it recruitment, is it teaching, is it community building, is it to replenish the faithful, is it some sort of combination?
When I go to church, I go for me. I like having a time when I try to open my mind, to quiet myself, and to experience holiness. The celebration of the Mass is 40 minutes that allow me to do that. I can do it outside of a church, but that's why I do it. I'm not particularly interested in the other people, the quality of the music or the sermon, although those things can block my capacity to experience holiness because they might piss me off, or draw my attention in other ways. I can play music I like on my phone, anywhere I want.
When I say experience holiness, I believe I am opening myself to God. I am saying to God, as I say to God outside of formal worship quite often, "OK, I'm ready for you."
I'm not sure that worship is the place for anything other than tokens of the fundamental otherness of Christianity in the world. So you might have a sermon on justice, or exploring self giving service, or you might devote the offerings of the congregation to a worthy cause to God. But otherwise, worship for me is about the otherness, which is going on in my body as I worship, at a church service or elsewhere. The other stuff, the people around me and the stuff extraneous to the core liturgy, that can only be a block to the otherness.
The expression of Christian otherness in the world is multifaceted. But the world is loud, and the otherness that attracts me is almost silent. It is an otherness that is quiet devotion to a service that is simple, that is intentional and that is aimed at the outsiders. I can give examples, but will be long-winded and gushing. There is probably a time and place for yelling by Christians, but I'm not sure that yelling is our important work. It is certainly not counter-cultural to yell.
You know, I can totally see the value of this, because it's my default setting too, and it's taken 30 years of sitting-among-the-screamers to get partly over it--
and yet, I do believe there is good reason for God to throw us into close community every freaking week with people who annoy us by their noise/habits/existence (!). He evidently thought it important enough to set up the corporate embodiment of the mystical body of Christ, even though he knew full well we were going to produce badly designed and executed felt banners and hymns-o-horror and children's sermons that people ought to be shot for--he knew all this and still gave us corporate worship. And it makes me think that what he's doing (among many other things) is rasping the rough edges off us--like rocks in a rock tumbler do to one another. He's putting us in a spot where we have to love our neighbors or go freaking nuts as they snap their gum and cough during the Words of Institution. He's forcing us to slowly begin to embody Christ to one another, even when that means putting up with X's unwashed hair and Y's verbal tics and Z's children who kick the pews in front of them.
I don't enjoy this process at all. But looking back over 40 years of Christian faith, I have to admit it's very effective.
Fixed quoting code, I hope. BroJames Purgatory Host
Yeah. I always get caught by that Lewis quote from God in the Dock:
I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music. But as I went on I saw the great merit of it. I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and different education, and then gradually my conceit just began peeling off. I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren’t fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit.
Some of my congregation's music (both Vietnamese AND American) is frankly horrible, and good music is certainly something to strive for, just as we strive for excellence in everything; but if Grandma Nguyen just has to have [insert song horror here] for her Sunday worship to be complete, well, we grit our teeth and carry on. Because Grandma Nguyen and her relationship with and within the church, the body of Christ, is ultimately more important than whether my eardrums get fractured. Grrrrrrr.
Indeed. When we sing a hymn that’s nowhere near my favorites list or that I think is dreck, but that I know or suspect carries great meaning for some others in the congregation, I try to take it as a reminder that worship isn’t about me.
I know that worship isn't about me - but if I were forced to listen to 'praise songs' week in and week out, I'd have to stay at home and listen to Choral Evensong (in the morning) on the radio, because it would drive me mad. I can acknowledge the sincerity of the participants without being able to take part in it.
There's a reason I turn up for Vietnamese worship in preference to English on 2nd Sundays. I'd rather listen to sixth rate Baptist hymns in Viet than praise songs of the sort we get from the band in the other service.
Yeah. I always get caught by that Lewis quote from God in the Dock:
I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music. But as I went on I saw the great merit of it. I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and different education, and then gradually my conceit just began peeling off. I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren’t fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit.
Yebbut. If he had come a little further out of his solitary conceit, he might have got to the point where he no longer unselfconsciouly assumed that he, and not the man in the elastic-sided boots, was the proper arbiter of what was, and wasn't, fifth and sixth-rate. Let's be realistic, here - Lewis is describing something that is not to his taste, and labelling it fifth/sixth-rate because he has an implicit understanding that those things which he prefers are objectively superior to the sort of things enjoyed by a man wearing elastic-sided boots. And it is that kind of attitude which I'm taking issue with.
(Or, even, 'with which I am taking issue' - given I'm quite sure Lewis and his ilk had a set of ideas regarding the worth of those who finish their sentences with prepositions.)
Pedant aroused (and sleepless --shouldn't have had that Vietnamese ice coffee) --
I'm fairly sure Lewis despised that ridiculous preposition rule on historical grounds. I know a bit about that, though not enough about music, so will shut up now.
Or, even, 'with which I am taking issue' - given I'm quite sure Lewis and his ilk had a set of ideas regarding the worth of those who finish their sentences with prepositions.
He described the rule against ending sentences with propositions as a superstition that he despised.
...Yet despite this radically different perspective - of a Creator God, of a world redeemed from sin by His son, of a divine order revealed by revelation - it seems to me that most expressions of Christian faith express broadly 'mainstream' values. The ethics are rarely anything that would surprise a secular centrist, the manner of expression is vaguely pleasant, the music is highly marketable. And I find this strange, given how incredibly far outside the mainstream Christianity is in the most fundamental and important senses.
Hey Timo, I think you put this very well - but aren't you used to listening to odd radio stations / going to small cinemas at odd times of the day / looking for clothes in charity shops? (if I may project myself into your posts and guess at what kind of person you are). Then as others have said, finding yourself in amongst Radio 1/Multiplex/Arndale Christians oddly takes you drastically more deeply into the un-mainstream...if you stay and try to love them.
There are places to go looking for personal sustenance in the meantime, just like when we are keeping our heads poking up above the waves in the rest of life. I recommend books by monks (by PM if you like) and weird music like this. But I'm not the brightest guy - from time to time you'll be sent others who will help you keep going.
I’m quite fascinated with the dislike of earnestness, and wondering to what extent that sentiment is a middle class English thing. The idea that one should never show much enthusiasm, always be a bit cynical and detached, etc. Same with dislike of happiness. I’m remembering a sort of precursor to reality TV thing years ago, where they were trying to get working class northern people to pass as upper middle class Londoners, and one thing they said was to never show enthusiasm or emotion, to always seem a little bored.
I suppose this would be about people who are detached and cynical in other areas of life, but develop an unseemly earnestness and happiness when it comes to their faith? Rather than people who simply throw themselves into everything with earnest enthusiasm?
Pedant aroused (and sleepless --shouldn't have had that Vietnamese ice coffee) --
I'm fairly sure Lewis despised that ridiculous preposition rule on historical grounds. I know a bit about that, though not enough about music, so will shut up now.
(Pedant-idiot reattempts sleep)
He described the rule against ending sentences with propositions as a superstition that he despised.
Yes, well. On reflection, that little aside of mine added nothing whatsover of value to the discourse, and I would withdraw it if that was(were) possible, at this stage...
I’m quite fascinated with the dislike of earnestness, and wondering to what extent that sentiment is a middle class English thing. The idea that one should never show much enthusiasm, always be a bit cynical and detached, etc. Same with dislike of happiness. I’m remembering a sort of precursor to reality TV thing years ago, where they were trying to get working class northern people to pass as upper middle class Londoners, and one thing they said was to never show enthusiasm or emotion, to always seem a little bored.
I suppose this would be about people who are detached and cynical in other areas of life, but develop an unseemly earnestness and happiness when it comes to their faith? Rather than people who simply throw themselves into everything with earnest enthusiasm?
Hey, fineline! I would be really interested in exploring these ideas further - perhaps on a separate thread? I think you could be onto something - the word that sprang to mind, reading your descriptions above, was ennui - and I think that in itself is telling - it's a fashionable, educated, sort of performative boredom that you're pointing at, a kind of boredom that's either unavailable to, or at the very least, not regularly channelled by, people who would have to look up ennui in a dictionary. Or am I projecting on you, somewhat, here?
Hi anoesis - yes, ennui. Not sure what you are projecting onto me, but I am familiar with the term ennui, if you were thinking I had to look it up in a dictionary. Or if you mean projecting onto what I meant, you are correct, I do mean a sort of deliberate boredom, which is supposed to indicate sophistication, though I think when people are in that environment, they pick it up automatically, so it is perhaps not always fully conscious and self-aware.
I can’t do it myself though - I’ve been to churches where people are like this (with no earnestness at all, and sometimes making fun of my earnestness), and I went to a posh uni years ago where this ennui was the norm, and I just don’t pick it up.
...Yet despite this radically different perspective - of a Creator God, of a world redeemed from sin by His son, of a divine order revealed by revelation - it seems to me that most expressions of Christian faith express broadly 'mainstream' values. The ethics are rarely anything that would surprise a secular centrist, the manner of expression is vaguely pleasant, the music is highly marketable. And I find this strange, given how incredibly far outside the mainstream Christianity is in the most fundamental and important senses.
Hey Timo, I think you put this very well - but aren't you used to listening to odd radio stations / going to small cinemas at odd times of the day / looking for clothes in charity shops? (if I may project myself into your posts and guess at what kind of person you are). Then as others have said, finding yourself in amongst Radio 1/Multiplex/Arndale Christians oddly takes you drastically more deeply into the un-mainstream...if you stay and try to love them.
There are places to go looking for personal sustenance in the meantime, just like when we are keeping our heads poking up above the waves in the rest of life. I recommend books by monks (by PM if you like) and weird music like this. But I'm not the brightest guy - from time to time you'll be sent others who will help you keep going.
It's fascinating how an exotic set of beliefs (Christian), become wedded to a kind of comfortable Englishness, although maybe this latter is disappearing. On the exoticism, the anthropologist Scott Atran argues somewhere that those religions thrive which are counter-intuitive and counterfactual. I can't remember all his arguments, but it's partly that the cognitive dissonance is costly and therefore of great value. It's not just any boring old truism, (love wins), but a fabulous set of stories, but then it's grounded by cardigans and hassocks, so to speak.
Yet despite this radically different perspective - of a Creator God, of a world redeemed from sin by His son, of a divine order revealed by revelation - it seems to me that most expressions of Christian faith express broadly 'mainstream' values.
Well, yes. That would be because those 'mainstream values' have developed over a long period of time within a context that has been broadly christian (the small c is intentional, in this case). I do realise that it is absolutely possible to take issue with both the direction of causality, and the extent to which the vast majority of 'western' values are indeed consonant with Christianity, as it is meant to be practised, but it can nonetheless be seen that the 'mainstream values' of societies which have had little to no discourse with, or exposure to, all things christian, are different.
Causality is both ways. Christianity played a large part in forming western societies AND Christianity as we in western societies know it has been formed by the particularities of European culture.
I think what Timo Pax is pointing to is that one would think that the difference between theism (belief in a person-like God) and atheism should be huge. Life-changing. But somehow culturally it isn't.
Mainstream western society may have slid over the line into atheism over the last 125 years. But it has been gradual. An evolution not a revolution.
Comments
Aha! Thank you @Bishops Finger
But I can't help feeling that if I lived in a Hebrew society or an Islamic society or a place like Glastonbury where new-age beliefs are prevalent that I would "just know" it was the God of that society.
Though one could argue that all perceptions of God refer back to the same entity.
Mate, you might be going to the wrong churches for you. While I understand that there are happy clappy churches with solid intellectual content, I personally haven't discovered one, and I found what theological underpinnings there were to be mostly offensive. They were very keen on recruitment, very very keen on it, but mostly they were focused on the youf. That said, I have found evangelical initiatives around personal improvement, such as 12-step stuff, to be very effective. They were also good concerning the taming of the one-eyed trouser snake, although that is still a work in progress here.
The Organist is right, and in case you didn't get it, the music has more content at the more traditional churches in my experience. It's mostly about the liturgy and the lyrics for me though. One of the benefits of the fractured state of Western Christianity is that there is a variety of worship styles around. The finer points of theology concerning who can eat where can go and get fucked according to this little black duck.
In the post-mountaintop experience period for me, I found a reformed church in the Presbyterian and Methodist traditions (Uniting Church in Australia) to be the most supportive and willing to actually talk through stuff.
Good luck on your travels, comrade.
When I had a vivid experience of the presence of Love, I consciously chose to interpret it within the Christian tradition because that was the culture I lived in. I found echoes of my experience in the Bible, particularly a passage in Romans. I am pretty sure if I went to other sacred texts, I might well find similar resonances. To me, that in no way invalidates our experiences of the Holy, but rather reinforces their universality.
Yes, my Sufi friends talk of an immediate perception of the divine. But maybe it is the same one, or One. But I'm not sure how we would know that.
Liturgy can be a dirge or it can be a celebration or it can be somewhere in between. Depends on the people, the occasion, and/or the leadership. No congregation does it the same as another congregation, though if I as a Lutheran could visit an Anglican congregation in Africa and would know the basic outline of the service. BTW do visit an African church, the tempo and movement of the service is very lively often.
Simple-minded music? You mean like Bach? Yes, there is a lot of contemporary Christian Music that should be canned. But, again, I would not paint Christian music with such a broad brush. I think U2 would be offended.
I will take 8 and 9 together. Christians love to argue about seeming molehills because they are passionate about their faith. There is no such thing as settled theology. I once took a course in the philosophy of science which looked at how science changed over the years as new information challenged previously accepted notions. The same with theology. What seemed to fit for Augustine does not fit today. An example is an Original Sin. It is not found in Judaism. Jesus did not know of it. Paul never spoke about it. It is not found in the Orthodox Church. If you take away that theorem you have to really re-examine the last 1500 years of Western Theology.
I used to say Lutheran theology stopped 500 years ago. Now I am discovering that about every 500 years the church goes through a Reformation. 500 AD saw the formation of the Ecumenical Creeds. 1000 AD saw the division of the Eastern Church from the Western Church. 1500 AD saw the Protestant Reformation. 2000 AD is still being worked out, but I think re-examining old doctrines is part of it.
Enough for now.
"If you are doing business with a religious..."
(at about 1:10 on the video; possibly NSFW)
Are not most people, well, mainstream? Isn't that rather the definition of mainstream?
On the other hand, you will certainly find equally annoying but different issues going on in such a congregation. Ours, for instance, over the years has featured shenanigans that make you think we're going for the book of Corinthians part III--or maybe a Mexican soap opera. People with wives in two countries, anybody?
So it's maybe a choice of annoyances. Or just possibly a question of where God wants to put you. Because it's not always about what you get out of it, though that matters, but sometimes you end up somewhere because you're meant to be putting something into that group. (Hey, got any musical skills of your own?)
Moving from God to the believer? Like many of the Psalms, you mean?
My
I have listened to every word, but have not worked out what the religious experience was, unless you specifically left it very vague.
My natural range is tenor. You can probably imagine just how much volume I have on a bottom G.
None at all.
In a rousing loud hymn like this it was entirely pointless. But as the only adult male in the choir that's what I ended up with. Tenor duties were naturally performed by a contralto.
The tune is not only banal; it bears a distinct resemblance to the "Brady Bunch" theme song.
My parish is thriving, with a lot of young families as well as older folk. We do a wide variety of music in a wide variety of styles, from plainchant to Tallis to Stanford to spirituals to brand-new compositions, but it is all of high quality. I haven't heard a single "worship song" that I would include in that category. Admittedly, I don't seek out that genre, so perhaps I've missed something.
Thank you for your excellent post, @TheOrganist.
I'm in the 'worship band' - a newcomer, who deliberately learned a musical instrument to fill a gap in the line up (obviously, I'm still very much learning).
I can't disagree with you, and the band leader is aware (possibly too aware...) of my thoughts on the matter. The hymnody is terrible, and the songwriting is simply sub-par. There are perhaps half a dozen songs we play out of a whole folder-full that actually sound like they were written by musician who knows their way around an ABAB rhyming scheme and a four-chord progression, like virtually every popular song that's charted in the last 50 years.
The best music we play is when we're warming up, and slide into a few bars of RnB or rock classics.
We will all pay the price in the longer term.
Well, I don't really think there is such a thing as a 'mainstream' church in the UK, simply because Christianity demands of its followers an approach to belief, epistemology, and ontology that's widely at variance with contemporary common-sense notions of what exists, what we know, and how we know it. When it comes to understanding the universe and our place in it, I suspect most people fall back on a vaguely-formulated scientific worldview with little or no reference made to religious notions. Christian belief is, in this sense, just plain weird and out-of-place in contemporary British life.
Yet despite this radically different perspective - of a Creator God, of a world redeemed from sin by His son, of a divine order revealed by revelation - it seems to me that most expressions of Christian faith express broadly 'mainstream' values. The ethics are rarely anything that would surprise a secular centrist, the manner of expression is vaguely pleasant, the music is highly marketable. And I find this strange, given how incredibly far outside the mainstream Christianity is in the most fundamental and important senses. I can't see why anyone would suspend or question their normal intellectual commitments for the sake of exploring Christianity, because in its most obvious public-facing roles, it seems to do nothing more than affirm what everyone was already doing anyway. It's shipping coals to Newcastle (or communion wafers to Canterbury, or whatever the appropriate image is).
All too common in these parts.
Well, yes. That would be because those 'mainstream values' have developed over a long period of time within a context that has been broadly christian (the small c is intentional, in this case). I do realise that it is absolutely possible to take issue with both the direction of causality, and the extent to which the vast majority of 'western' values are indeed consonant with Christianity, as it is meant to be practised, but it can nonetheless be seen that the 'mainstream values' of societies which have had little to no discourse with, or exposure to, all things christian, are different.
Didn't work in 1453. The Italians might have helped but we wouldn't kiss the pope's ass.
I mean, at the bottom of it all, these were people of the faith healing/victim blaming, shunning, end-times-obsessed, anti-gay, staunchly complementarian stripe, so dispproving of divorce that domestic violence, though deplored, was nonetheless something to be put up with. Phaauugh! [shakes dust off feet].
And yeah, they had a worship band. And we sang 'worship songs' and 'choruses'. And it was bloody fantastic, I have to say. They had two pianists, who went week about, one of whom was a high school maths teacher, who sat straight-backed and played competently and sedately, the other was a tax accountant, who favoured a honky-tonk style, and got so involved with his playing that his stuck-down side-parted hair would come loose and fall in sticky chunks down onto his forehead 'cos he was basically head-banging along. And two drummers, both teenaged boys, and more guitarists than you could shake a stick at - and about a third of the congregation were Māori, so the singing was superlative. But all very infra dig, of course.
In case you can't tell, I have a slight problem with this apparent perspective that music which isn't complex, or refined, or preferably both, is somehow to be sniffed at. That anything that's written in, and for, the vernacular, that's accessible, singable, by an average Joe, is unlikely in the extreme to induce any sort of beatific vision, provide any sort of window to the divine - that worship is about absorbing culture and tat, rather than participating with your small corner of the great cloud of witnesses. That there is some kind of inverse relationship between how 'popular' or how 'mainstream' a thing is, and its worth. And in particular with the notion that that which is simple is necessarily simplistic, and/or trite. If we start drawing lines through things on the basis that they're 'simple', well, there goes most of the world's folk music, at the stroke of a pen. And a fair chunk of Hymns Ancient and Modern, I'd argue. And Christmas Carols - and I think the world would be the poorer for not having these things. But, obviously, YMMV.
*and all the way off the end, into 'nothing'.
I think that second paragraph skewers us. We are wiggling on that tree of pain in that sci fi book that Mousethief recommended a few years ago.
It is amazing to me that @Timo Pax has written this as a new Christian. Maybe I got the back story wrong:
I mean, this is spot on, isn't it? I could argue it out, but it's obvious right?
But should this be reflected in worship? It leads me to ask, what's worship for? Is it recruitment, is it teaching, is it community building, is it to replenish the faithful, is it some sort of combination?
When I go to church, I go for me. I like having a time when I try to open my mind, to quiet myself, and to experience holiness. The celebration of the Mass is 40 minutes that allow me to do that. I can do it outside of a church, but that's why I do it. I'm not particularly interested in the other people, the quality of the music or the sermon, although those things can block my capacity to experience holiness because they might piss me off, or draw my attention in other ways. I can play music I like on my phone, anywhere I want.
When I say experience holiness, I believe I am opening myself to God. I am saying to God, as I say to God outside of formal worship quite often, "OK, I'm ready for you."
I'm not sure that worship is the place for anything other than tokens of the fundamental otherness of Christianity in the world. So you might have a sermon on justice, or exploring self giving service, or you might devote the offerings of the congregation to a worthy cause to God. But otherwise, worship for me is about the otherness, which is going on in my body as I worship, at a church service or elsewhere. The other stuff, the people around me and the stuff extraneous to the core liturgy, that can only be a block to the otherness.
The expression of Christian otherness in the world is multifaceted. But the world is loud, and the otherness that attracts me is almost silent. It is an otherness that is quiet devotion to a service that is simple, that is intentional and that is aimed at the outsiders. I can give examples, but will be long-winded and gushing. There is probably a time and place for yelling by Christians, but I'm not sure that yelling is our important work. It is certainly not counter-cultural to yell.
Some of my congregation's music (both Vietnamese AND American) is frankly horrible, and good music is certainly something to strive for, just as we strive for excellence in everything; but if Grandma Nguyen just has to have [insert song horror here] for her Sunday worship to be complete, well, we grit our teeth and carry on. Because Grandma Nguyen and her relationship with and within the church, the body of Christ, is ultimately more important than whether my eardrums get fractured. Grrrrrrr.
You know, I can totally see the value of this, because it's my default setting too, and it's taken 30 years of sitting-among-the-screamers to get partly over it--
and yet, I do believe there is good reason for God to throw us into close community every freaking week with people who annoy us by their noise/habits/existence (!). He evidently thought it important enough to set up the corporate embodiment of the mystical body of Christ, even though he knew full well we were going to produce badly designed and executed felt banners and hymns-o-horror and children's sermons that people ought to be shot for--he knew all this and still gave us corporate worship. And it makes me think that what he's doing (among many other things) is rasping the rough edges off us--like rocks in a rock tumbler do to one another. He's putting us in a spot where we have to love our neighbors or go freaking nuts as they snap their gum and cough during the Words of Institution. He's forcing us to slowly begin to embody Christ to one another, even when that means putting up with X's unwashed hair and Y's verbal tics and Z's children who kick the pews in front of them.
I don't enjoy this process at all. But looking back over 40 years of Christian faith, I have to admit it's very effective.
Fixed quoting code, I hope. BroJames Purgatory Host
Yebbut. If he had come a little further out of his solitary conceit, he might have got to the point where he no longer unselfconsciouly assumed that he, and not the man in the elastic-sided boots, was the proper arbiter of what was, and wasn't, fifth and sixth-rate. Let's be realistic, here - Lewis is describing something that is not to his taste, and labelling it fifth/sixth-rate because he has an implicit understanding that those things which he prefers are objectively superior to the sort of things enjoyed by a man wearing elastic-sided boots. And it is that kind of attitude which I'm taking issue with.
(Or, even, 'with which I am taking issue' - given I'm quite sure Lewis and his ilk had a set of ideas regarding the worth of those who finish their sentences with prepositions.)
I'm fairly sure Lewis despised that ridiculous preposition rule on historical grounds. I know a bit about that, though not enough about music, so will shut up now.
(Pedant-idiot reattempts sleep)
Hey Timo, I think you put this very well - but aren't you used to listening to odd radio stations / going to small cinemas at odd times of the day / looking for clothes in charity shops? (if I may project myself into your posts and guess at what kind of person you are). Then as others have said, finding yourself in amongst Radio 1/Multiplex/Arndale Christians oddly takes you drastically more deeply into the un-mainstream...if you stay and try to love them.
There are places to go looking for personal sustenance in the meantime, just like when we are keeping our heads poking up above the waves in the rest of life. I recommend books by monks (by PM if you like) and weird music like this. But I'm not the brightest guy - from time to time you'll be sent others who will help you keep going.
I suppose this would be about people who are detached and cynical in other areas of life, but develop an unseemly earnestness and happiness when it comes to their faith? Rather than people who simply throw themselves into everything with earnest enthusiasm?
Yes, well. On reflection, that little aside of mine added nothing whatsover of value to the discourse, and I would withdraw it if that was(were) possible, at this stage...
Hey, fineline! I would be really interested in exploring these ideas further - perhaps on a separate thread? I think you could be onto something - the word that sprang to mind, reading your descriptions above, was ennui - and I think that in itself is telling - it's a fashionable, educated, sort of performative boredom that you're pointing at, a kind of boredom that's either unavailable to, or at the very least, not regularly channelled by, people who would have to look up ennui in a dictionary. Or am I projecting on you, somewhat, here?
I can’t do it myself though - I’ve been to churches where people are like this (with no earnestness at all, and sometimes making fun of my earnestness), and I went to a posh uni years ago where this ennui was the norm, and I just don’t pick it up.
It's fascinating how an exotic set of beliefs (Christian), become wedded to a kind of comfortable Englishness, although maybe this latter is disappearing. On the exoticism, the anthropologist Scott Atran argues somewhere that those religions thrive which are counter-intuitive and counterfactual. I can't remember all his arguments, but it's partly that the cognitive dissonance is costly and therefore of great value. It's not just any boring old truism, (love wins), but a fabulous set of stories, but then it's grounded by cardigans and hassocks, so to speak.
Causality is both ways. Christianity played a large part in forming western societies AND Christianity as we in western societies know it has been formed by the particularities of European culture.
I think what Timo Pax is pointing to is that one would think that the difference between theism (belief in a person-like God) and atheism should be huge. Life-changing. But somehow culturally it isn't.
Mainstream western society may have slid over the line into atheism over the last 125 years. But it has been gradual. An evolution not a revolution.
That's a bigger issue than tastes in music...