The Emerging Informality: Christianity's Dire Need, Part II

[This series (Part I is here) is named The Emerging Informality because of the rather trendy and informal emerging church movement. It is a hard movement to define, but at its heart is informalism. Yesterday, during Fat Tuesday, I discussed the dire need for an informed formality in Christian worship, even in churches in general. I hurled out a few heavy-handed statements about Christian art and culture, with my comments pointed particularly at evangelicalism (in its many forms).]

Today, Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent, penance and self-restraint, I begin with a question asked by Mike at Ocular Fusion. He asked in a recent post entitled "Hanging out in American Babylon":

"[W]hy is it that for the past 25 years, the writings which have nourished me the most and been the most critical in my ongoing spiritual formation have been almost exclusively the product of those hailing from the Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican traditions?"

I can't answer that question for Mike, nor can I answer that question for you if your experience is at all like his. I can only answer the question for myself. And my answer is two-fold: first, the reason the traditions have spoken to me is not simply that they are all liturgical, it is that they are all sacramental; and second, these traditions speak to me because they are hierarchical. As a result of that hierarchy, there is authority.

What I am saying is that Christians who write, perform, create, sculpt, or paint from these traditions already have an advantage, for these traditions honor the senses; they affirm the sacramentality of all of life, that there is dynamic meaning in symbol and that life is chock-full of meaning (and symbols); that there is grace to be known and acquired through the senses; that God honors hands that create in honor of Him, and He delights in the celebration of physicality.

Furthermore, as hierarchical faiths, full of creeds and catechisms, believers are in a sense set free from the demands of becoming their own individual authorities on all matters of the faith. Surely you have seen this in many "lower" (which does not mean "bad") Christian churches. For in such places one nearly always finds people struggling for supremacy, from the choir loft to the sexton's closet, from pulpit to pew, from steeple to baptismal font. Everyone is a potential pope in egalitarian and democratic churches; every one can be a minister or deacon or elder or prophet, with each vying for God's favor guaranteeing them a place of authority.

Not that hierarchical churches are free of politics. Far from it. But there is much to be commended in the Catholic Church particularly for the strength (except in America) of the magisterium; of the authoritative repository of Church doctrine, dogma and discipline. Of course, it is the very hierarchy of such churches that many people dislike so much, if for no other reason than that the authority of the Church often prevents people from vying for power in the lower ranks. That guy who has somehow finagled his way into the praise team at your local church may run the music program; but there is no way he'd run the program in an Episcopal Church, designed as that is for people who have proven themselves professionally (and spiritually) worthy (theoretically) of those positions. So too, with ministers, who can just sprout up in many low churches but must pass through serious tests in "higher churches" before being granted access to the pulpit.

My broader point is that informality has run rough-shod through all of America (and Europe, perhaps), and right through our churches. It is interesting that perhaps the most formal sport in America is now NASCAR, which begins each race with such rituals as the national anthem, a Christian prayer and invocation, and some sort of military tribute and fly-over. Such formality strikes one as almost old-fashioned and quaint, and surely not progressive or even "relevant." But America's resistance to formality everywhere else but at the racetrack is due to its love of egalitarianism: many Americans see formality not as something glorious, but as something baneful, dividing people, suggestive of discrimination and elitism, with hierarchies and lofty ceremonies separating class from class. America is about the "level playing field" and "equal opportunity," neither of which are necessarily commended in that hierarchical church wherein a man is the Vicar of God.

But many of the great artists of the Church that have spoken to me (and Mike) have in part been great artists because the very sacramental structure of the Church -- one that reflects the cosmos and the heavens (after all, there is a God at the "top" of everything) -- has provided them with the freedom not to have to be their own popes. Most of us who are more Catholic-minded are thrilled to find that the Church has struggled with doubts for two thousand years; and that the Church has a long and vital history of answering those doubts. I need not sit in existential despair; I need not guard my every thought to ensure that it conforms with the systematic theology I have to erect for myself. No, there is liberty in the faith that is Catholic, that is universal, ancient and mature. And I don't need to strain to keep reconciling everything to the Protestant's sola scriptura, scripture alone; for the Church and Scripture are two-sides of the same coin: Scripture is not alone at all.

I am not suggesting that great Christian experiences, even experiences in the arts, do not or cannot come from non-liturgical churches. Great things do come from such churches. But my guess is that many of the churches which become more informal and casual will also become more liberal (I see this in my Episcopal Church, as informalists gain more influence). Hence, I am confident that many liberal churches will of course produce great art and many great and popular ideas. It is just that neither the art nor the ideas will be particularly Christian.

Is creation hierarchical? Is there a God atop the scale of Being? If so, does that not suggest that equality is not the essence of creation? If so, should the Church not image the scale of Being in its form and structure? Or is God not atop creation, rendering all this superfluous and irrelevant?

If we accept the grand design, a design that suggests King and Queen in a Kingdom, then we are likely to find that our work and our worship ultimately begets life. But if we embrace equality, particularly if we embrace equality in spite of the overwhelming evidence that the scale of being is anything but egalitarian, we may indeed change the world. But death will be the result of that change.

An informed formality. Not an uninformed formality, but one learnéd and intentional. That is the path to a more dynamic Christian life and ministry. But dressing down, and dumbing down, is surely not how a Bride attracts her Groom.

Have a blessed Lent.

[Part III begins here.]

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.