From the ear to the eye. . .

In several previous posts I referenced Marshall McLuhan who famously coined the phrases the medium is the message and global village.  In his own estimations the two most profound revolutions for all of civilization were both means of communication: the printing press and the microphone (public address system).  According to McLuhan, these rather ordinary innovations (at least by today's standards) radically changed the world in which we live -- ways that only now, long after their introduction, have had consequences well beyond their own application.  Both of them made language more important than ever before and communication the premier industrial innovation.

With the printing press, language was no longer acoustical.  It was visual.  We hear so much about people being visual learners today but with the advent of this medium of communication.  Although it sounds rather complicated, the reality is revealed in a shift of senses from ear to eye.  As true as this is for everything else, it is equally true for the Church and, in particular, for the liturgy.  

Just like you cannot "see" the tone on a text message or email or printed page but must imagine it, the ear pays great attention to all the contours of the sound -- the inflection in the voice, the tone that is heard, and the volume.  All of these interpret what is heard along with the actual words.  Thanks to the invention of print technology and its evolution to the present day, we more narrowly focus on language itself than the fuller experience of hearing.  The microphone or public address system has amplified the power of words in a strange way.  Though the emphasis is on hearing, the print more often accompanies what is heard.  In the liturgy, for example, the worship folder or mass leaflet or printed readings accompany what is heard and, indeed, the importance of the ear is minimized by the printing of all of the words that are also heard.

This has had profound impact on the liturgy.  Is it no secret that, as McLuhan posited, “the demand for a vernacular liturgy arose spontaneously in the sixteenth century, but it isn’t so. In fact, that demand was linked to the invention of print, an invention that accentuated people’s need to push towards individualism and nationalism. Add to that the fact that printed texts gave rise to textual exegesis from the pulpit. And finally, the new accent on the visual favored placing the celebrant face to face with the congregation: we needed to see him and he wanted to be seen.”  No one but a fool would suggest that Luther and even Rome did not exploit the new technology of the printing press in their respective causes.  It is obvious that the printed pamphlets of the 16th century actors advanced their positions or that the sermon took on a greater power than ever before.  But the need for worship to be understood appealed to the visual influence of the printed word well beyond the acoustical.  Prior to the Reformation, people watched what they could and heard the sound track of the chant but in a language that was not their own.  After the Reformation, people heard the sound of the liturgy in their own language and the focus was more on the printed word than it had ever been before.  

Now we have a microphone on the altar as well in the pulpit.  It would seem that this contradicts the move to visual from oral and yet by making clearly heard and even explained in print, the shape of the liturgy changed from an encounter with the mystery of God's presence to an appeal to the mind proving rational propositions of truth designed to gain acceptance or even a decision.  It is no secret that this is true of the churches of the radical reformation but it could be said that it is also a true of Lutheranism, decidedly not a radical reformation church, or even Rome itself (especially after Vatican II).

This is part one of a look at this topic.  More to come.