fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

Bad ritual = bad religion

In the thread below about ugly churches, commentator Stef makes what strikes me as a profound point, related to the Catholic Church’s disastrous postconciliar attack on traditional church design: It’s a typical mid-20th century mistake, and a mid-century obsession with theology (Ha, I blame German theologians, who cared more than anybody. Just half-kidding.) What they […]

In the thread below about ugly churches, commentator Stef makes what strikes me as a profound point, related to the Catholic Church’s disastrous postconciliar attack on traditional church design:

It’s a typical mid-20th century mistake, and a mid-century obsession with theology (Ha, I blame German theologians, who cared more than anybody. Just half-kidding.)

What they forgot is the crucial point – bad theology does not make bad religion. Bad *ritual* makes bad religion. Then, when bad ritual rules the day, everybody gets obsessed with theology because there’s nothing else left.

It is easy to make an idol of the liturgy (and for this discussion, when I say “liturgy,” I mean not only the liturgy, but the things that go along with ritualized worship — church art, church music, church architecture. But as Stef alludes, it’s a lot more important than one may think. Many years ago, Doug LeBlanc gave me a book that I cherish: “Once A Catholic,” a collection of 1980s-era interview with fairly well known people (e.g., George Carlin, Martin Scorsese, Jimmy Breslin, Christopher Durang, Mary Gordon) who once were, and in some cases still are, Roman Catholics. It’s a wonderful book. The thing you notice about nearly everyone, liberals and conservatives, is how much they miss the preconciliar church. It’s not that they long for the strict formalism. It’s that they miss the poetry of the rituals, especially the Latin. As you know, I was a Catholic for 13 years, an adult convert. I think it’s impossible, truly impossible, for people who were born into or came into the postconciliar church to imagine the shattering that Vatican II’s reform of the liturgy and stripping of churches wrought on individual believers, and communities.

As a practicing Orthodox Christian, and as someone who is older now, and who has a deeper appreciation for the way aesthetics and ritual prepare one for encountering God, I am so, so grateful for the beauty of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, which is the standard Orthodox liturgy, as well as for the icons, the candles, the deep bows. You step into an Orthodox church, and you really do feel you are at a mid-place between heaven and earth. Emphasis on “feel.” There is something enchanting, in the literal sense of the word, about having the reality of the Divine encompass one through one’s senses. It is possible, of course, to be present in such a place and to shut oneself off from the presence of the Holy Spirit. But for me, I find it much more difficult to resist entering into a state of openness when there are so many sensual reminders — the incense, the vivid icons, the ritual motions — of the unseen reality around us, and within us.

If you read Bellah’s book, “Religion in Human Evolution,” you understand why ritual is more important than theology. No doubt that ritual completely disconnected from theology is empty. But humans never outgrow the deep need for ritual. It’s built into the biological fabric of our being. You mess with that, you’re messing with things you ought not touch.

This is true, I think, even for churches and religious traditions that aren’t highly ritualized. In my hometown, the Methodist pastor who replaced the longtime pastor upon his retirement came in and upended most of the traditions of the congregation. He changed their hymn-singing, bringing in “praise choruses” and the like. These were small things, I guess, but they had an enormous effect. Most astonishingly, at least to me, he tossed out the Apostles Creed and substituted something he wrote. I never attended services under his leadership, but every time I would go home, all the Methodists I knew were up in arms about it. This went on for years, and many left that church. I’m quite sure that new pastor meant no harm. He really thought that his “updating” the rituals and practices of that congregation would bring people closer to God. In fact, it alienated a lot of folks (though to be fair, he did have his supporters).

My late sister was faithful to that congregation (in which she was raised) until, in the last year of her life decided she couldn’t take it anymore. Living with terminal illness, she concluded that she needed a strong spiritual home, and could no longer remain in a church where she felt alien. She moved to a Methodist congregation in Baton Rouge, and wrote her bishop about it, saying why she was abandoning the parish church where her family had been members for several generations. She also copied the then-pastor, with whom she had tried to discuss these things, to no avail. As infinitely patient as Ruthie was, I can only imagine the sense of brokenness and anger that compelled her to take that move. I well remember her telling me how much it meant to her and her children to be able to say the Apostles Creed again during services. You don’t think of Methodists as being highly liturgical, but that one prayer — a prayer that Ruthie and I were raised saying in the Methodist Church — meant the world to her and her kids.

Eventually that pastor was moved out, and now the Methodist church in St. Francisville has a pastor that, from what I hear from several sources, everybody seems to like. From what I’m told, the first thing she did that won people over — and won former congregants like my parents back — was to go to the people and ask them what they wanted, and needed. When I heard that that church was getting a female pastor, I wondered how people there would react. It’s a small town, and a tradition-minded church. Turns out they love her, because they feel that she respects them, and their traditions. It’s such a seemingly minor thing, especially in a low-church form of Christianity, which doesn’t emphasize ritual, but boy, is it ever important.

Advertisement

Comments

Want to join the conversation?

Subscribe for as little as $5/mo to start commenting on Rod’s blog.

Join Now