Context is everything. Discuss.
Gamma Gamaliel
Shipmate
I once heard a fascinating talk by an RC priest about the criteria his particular tradition might apply wheen introducing hymns from other Christian traditions, particularly Protestant ones.
These days, of course, it's not unusual to hear Protestant hymns at Catholic mass.
This, and the discussions about Taize, made me think about 'cross-over' liturgical material and cross-fertilisation between traditions.
To what extent can this take place organically? Is it a good thing? If so, why? If not, why not?
Back in the day I always felt that some of the more 'kingdom' themed worship songs worked better in the restorationist 'new church' contexts in which they emerged than in Anglican or Baptist settings, say.
lex orandi, lex credendi and so on.
I recently visited a very high Anglican parish in South Wales where the priest seemed to have concocted a liturgy which combined RC, Orthodox and Anglican elements in a way that I found fascinating and frustrating at one and the same time.
I'm not sure why.
These things often reach us on a gut level rather than a purely rational or cerebral one.
I don't know why a Protestant hymn at an RC Mass might sound appropriate in one context but sound rather forced or artificial in another.
I'm puzzling this one through.
Anyone else have similar thoughts?
These days, of course, it's not unusual to hear Protestant hymns at Catholic mass.
This, and the discussions about Taize, made me think about 'cross-over' liturgical material and cross-fertilisation between traditions.
To what extent can this take place organically? Is it a good thing? If so, why? If not, why not?
Back in the day I always felt that some of the more 'kingdom' themed worship songs worked better in the restorationist 'new church' contexts in which they emerged than in Anglican or Baptist settings, say.
lex orandi, lex credendi and so on.
I recently visited a very high Anglican parish in South Wales where the priest seemed to have concocted a liturgy which combined RC, Orthodox and Anglican elements in a way that I found fascinating and frustrating at one and the same time.
I'm not sure why.
These things often reach us on a gut level rather than a purely rational or cerebral one.
I don't know why a Protestant hymn at an RC Mass might sound appropriate in one context but sound rather forced or artificial in another.
I'm puzzling this one through.
Anyone else have similar thoughts?
Comments
The ecclesiastical source is of no interest.
Musically, there are no boundaries. Some places are Trad plainsong, others are doing stuff where the ink is barely dry.
ETA: sorry, that's a tangent, but it grates on me every time I hear it quoted as if it should be standard and unexceptionable.
Also adding, that yes, context is everything, but only because the associated culture is everything. Take any music out of its culture, and it will always be somewhat denatured, or at least, reformed and renatured after the likeness of the culture into which it is being incorporated/sung/performed.
I do vividly recall attending Mass at a nearby Catholic church while I was in college. It was the last Sunday in October, 1979. The recessional hymn was “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”
Now, for those who don’t know, Lutheran and Reformed/Presbyterian churches typically mark October 31—the day Martin Luther sent his Ninety-five Theses to the Archbishop of Mainz and posted them on the door of All Saints Church, Wittenberg—as “Reformation Day.” In practice, that typically means the last Sunday of October is observed as “Reformation Sunday,” and it would be a pretty safe bet that “A Mighty Fortress” will be sung.
So I, a Presbyterian, chuckled to myself, thinking of that hymn being sung in a Catholic Church on Reformation Sunday, and I wondered whether whoever chose the hymns just happened to pick that one or whether they understood the significance, in other contexts, of that hymn on that day.
I pointed out that the Pope attended the centenary celebrations of the Reformation on a Lutheran cathedral in Sweden.
No response.
Interestingly, none of the Protestant hymns the RC priest cited in his talk as being eminently suitable for Catholic worship were of the 'Jesus and Me' variety.
They were all solid traditional hymns of the kind I'd have no problem singing.
That said, I've heard that RC charismatics sing the same worship songs as their Protestant counterparts - some of which I'd sing, others of which I wouldn't feel comfortable doing so.
@ThunderBunk - I don't want to further your tangent but if you're going to single the RCs out as being 'barely Trinitarian' I could marshal a lot more nit-pickerty Orthodox than me who could level that accusation at 'Western' Christianity in general ... 😉
I didn't understand @Alan29's comment in the way you appeared to take it, but perhaps I'm missing something. 😉
Meanwhile, I think @chrisstiles is right that there are often differences in intonation, emphasis and so on than can make things that cross from one tradition to another sound forced or odd. But as he says, it's not just about that.
Just to take one example, just as there’s a very good chance that “A Mighty Fortress” will be sung during a Reformation Sunday service, there’s also a good chance that Presbyterian churches will sing “I Greet Thee, Who My Sure Redeemer Art,” which has traditionally been ascribed to Calvin. (We’ve established on the Ship before that this hymn isn’t well-known outside Reformed and Presbyterian circles, which is a shame. For those interested, the text and tune can be found here.)
The hymn is addressed to Jesus, and the first verse, at least, is primarily in first person singular, so is it “Jesus and Me”? How about “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”? Or Wesley’s “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing”? Or Watt’s “My Shepherd Will Supply My Need”? All “solid traditional hymns” that can also be described as “Jesus and Me.”
Yeah, I lean towards the parsimony of this kind of explanation (the alternative seems to be a mass outbreak of the numinous)
At other services.... fine.
To explain..... "Jesus and me" is not meant to be perjorative, just a shorthand for hymns that are focused on me rather than us.
Heh! Well, I meet some from time to time ...
I also use terms like 'bells and smells'. Is that pejorative?
I do think we’ve definitely seen on the Ship, though, that when it comes to musical styles, comments that aren’t meant as pejorative can still come across as pejorative.
I hold my hands up, I can be disparaging about certain forms of charismatic evangelical hymnody, but by no means all of it.
I s'pose one of the reasons for creating this thread was to acknowledge that and do a 'mea culpa' on it by asserting that these forms of worship 'make sense' and are appropriate within their own particular context.
I certainly wouldn't expect charismatic evangelicals to abandon their particular style in favour of something else, nor am I saying that everyone should use the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom.
But in setting out to do this, I must admit that my terminology and tone isn't always appropriate and can cause offence.
I apologise for that.
"Jesus and me" songs can be incredibly self-indulgent and sentimental or a healthy corrective to austere impersonal overly formal worship services.
@Gamma Gamaliel would have "read" the restorationist worship songs differently to the anglican/baptist folk adopting them as he was more aware of the shibboleths and "distinctives" implied or alluded to in them.
Yep. I've mentioned before my loathing of "Be still for the presence of the Lord".
It's often used in mainstream churches in communion services. But the reason I loathe it is that I first came across it in Charismatic settings where it was used in "ministry times", which (as I experienced them) were hyper-emotional parts of services where we were invited to expect the Holy Spirit to 'do stuff" that would "heal us" - generally mentally or spiritually rather than physically. There was a lot of crying and falling over and people speaking in tongues and ordering evil spirits of this, that or the other to depart.
It's all stuff I've moved away from and don't have good memories of.
So yes, context. To me the words have nothing to do with the Eucharist and everything to do with people praying spirits of lust out of people with quivering hands and terrifying earnestness.
I imagine for some folk the contextual change enables a healthy reframing... the closeness of God you were seeking in the context you've have "outgrown" is to found in the sacrament kind of thing.
A friend was asking whether we Orthodox pray for one another individually or in small groups during our services, something they very much value in their own charismatic-lite tradition.
I explained that we didn't and by and large would take such prayer requests home and pray privately for whatever need had been expressed.
My friend felt that was a 'pity'. As if we were losing out in some way.
I responded that if we believe we are receiving the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist and that the Liturgy takes us to Heaven itself then we are hardly losing out.
There may well be a place for small group prayer but from our perspective it could be open to manipulation and head in the kind of dangerous direction that @KarlLB describes and, in my view, has rightly eschewed.
Of course, not all informal prayer groups head that way and far be it from me to proscribe anything that is done in traditions other than my own.
Again, it's all down to context.
I can understand how someone would derive a sense of community, of love and mutual respect and service in a context where prayer is offered individually or in small groups.
If that's your thing, then fine.
There are other ways of expressing that. Shared meals are a thing in Orthodoxy at feasts and festivals and I find them invaluable as a way to engage with people from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds to my own. We discuss the ingredients, how these things are used back in their home countries, what customs accompany them etc.
Again, context, context, context.
@Twangist is on the money when he says that I'd have been in a position to pick up on the shibboleth and vibes embedded in restorationist worship songs. The same would apply to the Hillsongs folk or the Bethel brigade whose songs have caught on across a wider constituency.
The same with elements of more sacramental or contemplative practice when these filter into other contexts.
There is greater fluidity these days and overall, I welcome that.
But we can't bolt things on from other traditions and pretend we are doing the same thing as they ate doing at source, as it were.
Just adding that personal pronoun texts may or may not have been intended for corporate musical worship. Personal, devotional poetry may only have been intended as just that. If someone else translates it and/or sets it or adapts it to a tune, that's a much different consideration, ISTM.
My congregation likes to combine different cultural songs together. We may sing a song coming from Latin America as the Introit and finish up with a Swahili song as the recessional--in English, of course
If we say we are a catholic, that is, a universal church, what is to prevent us from combining various practices, as long as it is to the glory of God.
The RC priest whose talk I referred to upthread outlined the kind of criteria his Church might use when borrowing or appropriating material from other Christian traditions.
I think it's appropriate to think these things through and establish criteria rather than simply borrowing things willy-nilly on the assumption that they ate up-for-grabs.
How many Swahili speakers are there in your congregation?
If there aren't any then this could lay you open to the charge of 'cultural appropriation.'
Of course, as an Orthodox Christian I wouldn't object in the least if you were to use the Trisagion prayers or the Jesus Prayer and hang a few icons on your walls but I might ask you to consider the overall context from which these things derive.
I'm not trying to pour cold water on your attempts to reference the wider Christian tradition as a whole but must admit I do baulk at borrowings of the kind you describe unless there are good reasons for doing so ie if you have Swahili speaking families in your church.
Otherwise I'm afraid I see it as something of a pose.
Sorry, but there we are.
Ok. Fair do's.
But I still find the incorporation of Latin-American Gloria's and African songs into largely white and middle-class congregations something of a problem.
In the same way that I have a problem with those converts to Orthodoxy who try to out-Greek the Greeks or out-Slav the Russians or Romanians.
*Sorry, I forget where. It's been 15 years
I do note that one of the hymns I mentioned above was Isaac Watt’s “My Shepherd Will Supply My Need,” a paraphrase of the 23rd Psalm. (I could similarly have mentioned “The Lord’s My Shepherd, I’ll Not Want”/CRIMOND instead.)
Under a strict enforcement of the “Jesus and Me” rubric as described above, the 23rd Psalm—which if not pure “Jesus and Me” is unquestionably “the Lord and Me”—would be off-limits in corporate, Eucharistic worship, as would quite a few other psalms. But I think I’m safe in guessing that there’s no Christian tradition in which that would actually be the case, and that Psalm 23 is actually prayed/sung in those services, whether as a response to the OT reading, a Communion hymn, or in some other way.
Which means, I think, that discomfort with “Jesus and Me” hymns in corporate worship is about more than just the focus on personal relationship vs. communal prayer. I suspect there are actually other factors at play that determine appropriateness and inappropriateness.
But as a professor's brat at churches that sang those songs I heard a lot of people express a preference for simple because they thought that thinking too much was ungodly. Some of them made it clear that they didn't think people like my mother should do the work they do.
Similarly, I don't want to think about other people, it's just me and Jesus that matters can be because one doesn't want to actually go out and do God's will in the world. It's more fun to sing feel good hymns. Again, I am not implying that all or even most people who enjoy such music feel this way. But there is a real strain of that in some traditions where this music comes from. I think it (validly) influences how people think about the songs.
And you can have songs about our personal relationship with Jesus that express a much more service-oriented tradition. But I don't think that "Lord, You Have Come to the Lakeshore"is what people mean when they object to Jesus-and-me songs. Still I would suggest it as an example of a simple, touching hymn about personal relationship with God.
I hope this does not offend anyone. If it does I apologise in advance.
Yes, that’s one specific example of what I was thinking of with my references to “provenance” and “tone.”
But then, there are lots of hymns and songs that fit the description that’s been given of “Jesus and Me” that aren’t at all related to a theology or personal instant salvation. Perhaps assumptions may also be at play?
But as well as the Church being the community of the faithful it reaches out to each one of us as individuals, particularly in the sacraments of baptism, confirmation and eucharist,in whatever way we understand these sacraments or ordinances to be effective.
To me the singing of any type of music can enhance the worship and raise us up to praise the Lord. I say 'can', because not everyone likes all types of music. and not everyone is ready to praise the Lord even if they like and appreciate the music.
There are a lot of 'we' worship songs as well as 'I' ones.
The point I've been trying to make us that they 'work' and are appropriate within their own context but don't necessarily translate that well for use elsewhere.
There are exceptions of course and some worship songs have caught on and been incorporated into the worship of other traditions without doing violence to either.