All things to all people?

All things to all people

I was reviewing some of my notes regarding the nineteenth century Church situation today. With hindsight, I can see where controversies popular at the time led to misunderstanding, confusion, and conflict which is a perpetual situation since the first Council of Jerusalem, where Paul won out over the highly fallible (and vacillating) Peter over the mission to Gentile Christians. (Most of us would consider Paul's 'victory' to be highly providential...) Just a cursory glance at the 19th century condition shows an odd potpourri! Tractarians were favouring 14th century liturgical practises and patristic theology. (I second the motion.) Modernists, such as the French Alfred Loisy, had a high Christology and great focus on the sacraments, but were trying not to undermine the magisterium but to refute Adolf von Harnack - whose image of Christianity had far too personal a focus. (Loisy wanted the pope to determine how doctrines evolve - the pope declined, but one in the near future would not only condemn Modernism but require all Roman clergy to take an oath against its ideas.) Evangelical Anglicans, who tended to focus on family but also to be what today might be termed fundamentalist in regard to scripture, saw emphasis on apostolic succession, as with the Tractarians, and Modernism as undermining the revelation in the bible.

I think it is important, when we read the works of theologians of any era, to recall that, more often than not, they were actively seeking to refute contrary ideas. As the simplest example, though Augustine's "evil is the absence of good" makes me shudder today (it must have been a small comfort for those thinking of Auschwitz...), Augustine was refuting dualism and defending omnipotence. Philosophical arguments are indeed valuable and essential, but they can be pastoral disasters.

I cannot recall the source now (I had quite a library of books from the earlier 20th century once upon a time), but one Roman Catholic work spoke about how Pius XI's condoning of 'natural regulation of births' was a dilemma for many Catholics - and in a way which would be unlikely to strike a mind today. Where we would be more likely to think of Catholic couples as either opposing the Church's position against artificial contraception, or a minority as promoting "natural family planning" as "marriage enrichment" (devout Catholics burn with no less passion than anyone else, but there is one variety which never speaks of physical desire, only of overwhelming need to express love in imitation of the Trinity.) The very devout, as this work indicated, were troubled in a totally different fashion. Previously, they had seen their vocation as including bringing new lives into this world to honour God (not that this is not a great blessing!) With Pius' allowing 'natural regulation,' and this including consideration for reasons to space or avoid births, they were faced with puzzlement - in their previous thinking, the more souls for heaven, the better, regardless of either hardship or advantages for their families. Those with such an approach well may have had an admirable sense of vocation, self sacrifice, and poverty according to state of life - but they now had to ponder whether their practise, previously lauded, might involve new ideas of what is right and wrong.

Obviously, I am no authority on married life, so let me move into the realm of liturgy - a more comfortable domain. I spent enough years in parish and archdiocesan ministries to know that, even in worship and sacrament, it is impossible to be 'all things to all people.' Westminster Cathedral, where the music and liturgy are impeccable, everyone does not sing everything, certain parts are in Latin, and the preaching tends to be quite rich in content, is packed even at weekday Vespers and Eucharist - but many a Catholic would insist that their approach didn't 'get the people involved' or was not 'relevant.' It might be considered too highbrow, though the congregation hardly consists entirely (or mainly!) of the wealthy or highly educated. I have personally known of parishes who did not want good musicians - it would make the people unlikely to sing (not that they were much ones for doing that in the first place), and 'getting the people to sing' is the highest of goals since talk of salvation went out of style.

In the Church of England, it was long a common custom for children to leave the Eucharist after the gospel for Sunday school (and for them not to receive communion until after Confirmation.) If a church established a creche for the little ones (even though there is no obligation to attend, and many of the children look forward to it all week), there will be those who think it marvellous, others who resent having the children not worship with their families. Some priests aim everything at children, hoping this will bring families into the congregation - some of us, myself at the top of the list, deplore what we find to be an aesthetic and intellectual wasteland.) Liturgists would see barring children from Communion as deplorable excommunication. Others might believe that admitting them to communion would mean insufficient respect and understanding. (The Council of Trent barred the little ones because they had not reached "the age of reason," and didn't need the forgiveness of sin of which the Eucharist was a source. That's rather a dismal opinion in my book.) Some of us cherish Evensong - others see it as not really being prayer because the choir sings the psalms.

Those of you who, like myself, survived the "youth liturgies" of the 1960s-70s, will verify that anyone who doubts there was penance in those days never sat through endless choruses of "Kumbaya." Yet they were popular, because of an entire youth culture of which they were a part. Those in attendance often made the mistake, ten or fifteen years later, of both thinking that what our generation found appealing at that age would still be popular and, worse, urging the kids to bring and sit with parents! None of us would have been there in 1970 had parents been necessary baggage.

I have no deep insights for any of you today. :) I'm only writing this (and, believe me, I could write reams were I to go beyond liturgy to social events, workshops, discussion groups, welcoming committees and the like) to reassure those new to churchgoing that liturgy is our greatest treasure and our eternal headache. But I comfort myself, having that idealism which only those who sat on liturgical committees thirty years ago can have, that, in the patristic era I so admire (and which supposedly was to be revived in the New Order of Mass, chopping out all the Carolingian and Gregorian additions), one was not likely to have Basil, Gregory, or Irenaeus in the next pew.