Child abuse. . .

I read a while back that a fairly prominent Roman Catholic recently argued in the Irish Times against a new label for an old abuse -- those baptized as infant baptisms.  She is not exactly the silent type and this former president of Ireland and canon lawyer, Mary McAleese, has chosen to use her bully pulpit to challenge the practice of infant baptism -- not on theological grounds but as an abuse against children.  She declared infant baptism to be “a long-standing, systemic and overlooked severe restriction on children’s rights with regard to religion.” Hmmm.  Amid all the things that threaten children today, infant baptism is one that needs to be called out.  Really? 

Who worries about infant baptism -- besides those who fear that the practice without the catechesis is dangerous?  Apparently those who can ignore all the other threats and abuses children suffer in our modern age but have infant baptism stuck in their craw.  Amazing how so-called Christians can invent more societal sin and guilt.  Would that infant baptism had such a profound meaning that those who were given new the new birth of water and the Spirit had to grapple with the meaning of it all the rest of their lives.  That is not the case.  Of all things that could be made forgettable, infant baptism must surely top the list.  Every day the numbers of those baptized as infant shrinks by the false assumption that religion is a matter of choice more than Godly act and declaration.  Every day the numbers of children shrink as declining birth rates and sky high rates of abortion diminish the potential for infant baptism even to be practiced.  Every day the world erupts in violence somewhere.  Every day new forms of perversion are invented to turn a gift of God into a curse and a bane.  Every day old diseases once thought eradicated come back and new diseases loom over the lives of the children who are born.  Every day a world that has little moral compass left finds new ways to exploit children for sexual purpose.  But apparently the worst of them all is infant baptism.

It won't be long before someone like her begins to challenge the idea of life itself, suggesting that the worst abuse of children is to allow them to be born at all.  That is how far our world has been shifted off its axis and how deeply skewed the values that once heralded children as a blessing form the Lord and those whom we cared for in the sacred trust given to us from God Himself.  But that is the outcome of where things are headed.  It seems like some think we should apologize to children for allowing them to be conceived and, having been conceived, allowing them to be born at all.  In the last month we observed Life Sunday with its solemn remembrance of the legalization of child murder.  It is clear that more than abortion, the whole value assigned to life and the character of the stewardship of life given to parents is under assault today.  

It would seem, according to Ms. McAleese and those of her opinion, that it is any kind of abuse to pass onto your children any of your ideas, morals, beliefs, etc.  For if baptism is under assault, then by what right does anyone teach their children anything at home or in church?  Indeed, it would seem that only those in the elite of education have any right to teach our children or promote anything to the mind and heart of the child.  If that is the case, that is much more dangerous than a cranky Irish lady complaining about her own baptism some 7 1/2 decades ago.  If this is where we are as a culture, then God save us from the almighties who inhabit the halls of academia because their ideas have proven more inherently dangerous than the promise of forgiveness and new life born of water and the Word could ever be.  How sad it is that someone can actually write about the abuse of infant baptism without even mentioning how routinely we put to death the infants in the womb -- making that seem normal while infant baptism the exception.  Really, you cannot make this stuff up.

The problem of music in the liturgy. . .

It is certainly not true that we were all of one mind when it came to music -- at least until contemporary Christian music came along.  The music in the liturgy has always been rather controversial and subject to debate.  Occasionally we remember this but most of the time we conveniently forget it.  Why this matters is that it is good to know the history as we approach new styles or forms of music that some want to include in what happens on Sunday morning.  This does not mean to say that there is no such distinction between sacred and secular but only that the line between the two has been redrawn over time.

The first issue was voice or instrument.  For the earliest period of Christianity, voice was the only instrument for the music of the Divine Service.  There was no question or doubt here.  Indeed, the witness of the early church fathers here is almost unanimous against the use of instruments in worship and it looks very different than what we typically expect today.  The voice was the only instrument of praise and voices were raised in chant.  

Instrumental music was associated with Judaism.  In the effort to maintain a clear distinction between Judaism and Christianity, instrumental music was omitted from the early liturgy without much discussion.  Indeed, the presence of instrumental music in the Temple was seen less as belonging than concession to the sensuality of the people -- at least according to the Christian view of things.  There was a firm conviction that what the Old Testament (particularly the Psalms) said about the use of instrumental music in worship had no bearing on Christian worship.  Also present in the early church fathers was an attention to unity which was best reflected in unified singing -- monophonic music better expressed this unity in the ancient Christian mind, it would seem.

Whether we like to admit or not, the early fathers were much more puritanical and Amish when it comes to the role of music in worship than Lutherans, Roman Catholics, and even Protestants in general.  I suspect they would be shocked to find polyphonic music, instruments, harmonies, hymns, and organs that have become par for the course for most Christians today.  Part of this was the constant association of instrumental music with sensuality, emotion, and secular (dare I say sinful) arenas.  They sought a higher and spiritual but also primarily word dominated idea of worship.  Augustine himself reflects the conflict within him over both associations with the secular part of his earlier life with its sensuality and the desire to serve God on a higher plane.  That expression finds it ultimate definition in Thomas Aquinas who insists that worship employ only voice for God's sake and for ours.  Obviously, something changed along the way.

What was largely absent in the early Church and tolerated only in limited ways in places later gave way to the embrace of music with any harmony was altogether excluded by the Late Middle Ages.  The mind of the Church began to change with the Edict of Constantine (321 AD) as the Church came out of hiding into a more public presence and into a more public space.  The very possibility of gathering together in large, cavernous spaces had an impact on the singing and the song.  Embellishment of the melody and the skill of the singer made the chant more elaborate and drew more attention to the music and to the text but in a different way.  Choirs or scholas were formed to enhance this musical form but also to keep it distinct from the congregational song.  Gregorian chant became more complicated and there was more movement in the melody and even a hint of harmony.  Along with this, music began to become more mathematical.  After harmony went from two-part, to three-part, and then to four and more parts, it was not a big step to introduce polyphony.  With this was a constant concern against the loss of the text due to the elaboration of the musical form.

There was even a move during the Council of Trent to ban polyphony altogether.  This was surely in sync with the Protestants who were suspicious of Luther and his embrace of music in service to the Word and his own personal advancement of congregational song.   Renaissance polyphony was controversial within Rome and Protestantism together.  By the time you get to the Baroque period and Bach, Vivaldi, Handel, Mozart, Gabrieli, Schubert, Scarlatti, and many others, the connection between math and music is much more obvious. You can see this most of all in the fugue -- the form mastered most of all by Bach but not unique to him.  Both Lutherans and Roman Catholics were not unconcerned about the principle use of music as a handmaiden  to the Word and sought to preserve the intelligibility of the text.  In this they had much in common with some Protestants who insisted that the words of the music must be directly from the Scriptures alone (though some allowed paraphrase).  

Although debate continues and will always continue over the suitability of newer forms of music and whether or not they are they can be employed within the sacred use of the Divine Service, these are not new.  The judgment against forms unsuitable to the sacred setting of the Mass or so tied to their secular identity that such a context cannot be erased in order for it to be rehabilitated for sacred use will also remain.  The key to that judgment will not simply be the sound or cultural popularity of such forms but the intelligibility of the text and whether such forms reverse the role and dominate the Word rather than serve that Word.  The problems with contemporary Christian music and usage within the setting of the Mass or Divine Service cannot be argued simply on the basis of association or origin but must be dealt with on the level of the Word and its proclamation.  That said, it is not being unfair or narrow minded to suggest that some forms have such association with the sensual or with pagan contexts that their usage within the sacred setting of worship cannot and will not overcome to provide for their inclusion the way harmony and polyphony have been incorporated into orthodox Christian worship.  

Obviously, everything I have written is true in the West but may not be reflective of the developments within the East and Orthodoxy there.  I have not even written of the fact that the Tridentine Mass has little place or appreciation for congregational hymns of any kind while the post-Vatican II Mass of Rome seems much more friendly to the form.

Misconceptions. . .

While I am not a fan of the Roman Catholic practice of naming the Sundays after Epiphany and Pentecost Ordinary Time, they have certainly gained a bad rap for this by the misconceptions that accompany this nomenclature.  Ordinary has come to mean simple, common, usual, and, inevitably, unimportant.  It seems we are captive to one view of that term and in our poverty of language have forgotten other nuanced meanings of it.  When the word “ordinary” is applied to Sundays in the Church Year, it does not refer to its typical meaning illustrated above but refers to another root of the words that has come to mean simple, common, usual, unremarkable, plain, or unimportant.  It hearkens back to the the English term “ordinal” -- a word that refers to the position of one thing in a series of things.  It is when we call something the first or second among a whole series of things.  It can refer to importance but it can also refer simply to time.  One comes before another and one comes after another.  The term Ordinary Time refers to those Sundays which are distinguished only or primarily by their sequence following one or another major Sundays.  These Sundays have a common color -- green.  It is the color of these ordinal Sundays even though the feast day which they follow has another color (white for Epiphany and red for Pentecost).  Even when we called them after Trinity, we observed the color green instead of the Trinity color of white.  After Trinity or Pentecost is a small change, indeed, for a practice which is the same.

Of course, someone will insist but what about the Sundays of a Season -- the First Sunday of Advent or in Lent or of Easter?  They also follow an ordinal pattern in their naming.  Yes, they do.  But they are Sundays in or of a season and not the ordinal Sundays after an event: The First Sunday after Epiphany or after Pentecost.  So there is no slight meant toward Sundays in Ordinary Time nor is this meant in any way to indicate that they are, well, ordinary.  Indeed, any Sunday is never ordinary and every Sunday, as the day of our Lord's resurrection or a sort of mini-Easter, is special in that regard.  Can any one of us regard our time in the presence of our merciful God to receive His gifts of Word and Sacrament distributed to us quite apart from our merit or worthy regard such a day as ordinary?  No, I did not think so.

There is another aspect to this that perhaps is also worth our attention.  While we regard such time spent together around the Word and Table of the Lord as special, there is also the sense to that gathering that it is ordinary, that is, the common way that God comes to us, through means.  It was common when I was growing up to have the Sacrament only four times a year and there was great counsel from the solemn voices of that day that to have it more often would somehow tarnish its special character and render it common.  Odd how that never applied to hearing God's Word read and preached or praying the Our Father!!  Our Lord never intended for His Supper to become something special in the sense of something reserved for special occasions.  No, indeed, for He commends His testament to the Church with the common to do this often in His remembrance -- as the very means of His remembrance.  So the Sunday of the Church Year may be referred as an ordinal Sunday of a season (after Epiphany or Pentecost) but it is observed in the ordinary way -- gathering together to hear His Word and receive His body and blood and to respond with prayer and praise.  

The weeks of the Sundays outside the Festival half of the Church Year are ordinal and yet they are observed in the same way we observe the Festival Sundays, including feast days.  While there may be attendant changes to the liturgy for some days (such as the omission of the hymn of praise in Advent or Lent), we gather in the same way for the same gifts.  These are never common in one sense and yet it is out common duty and delight in another sense to be there in the Lord's House, on the Lord's Day, around the Lord's Word and the Lord's Table as the people who have been washed by the Lord's water.  Thanks be to God! 

Everyone hopes to be a prophet. . .

Is there a more satisfying thing to say than I told you so?  If you can find it, please tell me about it.  We all want to be a prophet who can foresee the future than remind people we were right in what we saw.  It saddens me that this is about all we invest in that word "prophet" but sin still lives in us.  The other side of that word is that the speaker is speaking for and forth in the name of another.  The prophet does not own the words of his prophecy as much as he passes it on.  Unfortunately, that seems to be missed among us.

It would seem that there are a lot of prophets who would love to tell us what we have done wrong as a church body and make us wallow in our shame for failing to heed their counsel.  People are telling us all the time about the need to change and get with the times or die.  I fear that some of those folks would love to proven right in their prediction even if it came at the cost of our church body and all our institutions.  There are those on one side who like to be a thorn in the side of those who conserve the faith with all of its institutions and traditions.  Stay in the fight and try to change Missouri, they say.  Of course they do.  They would rather be proven correct in their prophecy than hold fast the unchangeable truth of God.  And there are those on the other side who seem to take delight in a circle of orthodoxy that grows ever smaller and with it a church body!  Purity at all costs is their mantra.  Of course it is.  Unfortunately, the litmus tests of orthodoxy grow as the disdain for error increases.  Love means never having to say you are sorry.  Ouch.

Could it be that we do not want to wait for God's justice or be patient as God unfolds His will and purpose?  Could it be that we would rather take into our own hands what God has kept to Himself?  I wonder.  I am not at all suggesting that truth should be compromised or that error ignored but there seems to be little sadness over the inevitable conflicts and divisions being pressed upon us.  I am saddened by the way we inform upon our brothers and sisters rather than address them directly.  The internet is filled with outrage that is also rather prideful, I fear.  But better for us to be proven right than to try in patience and with discernment speak the truth in love.  At least that is how it seems.

Perhaps we have lost our patience and neither wish to wait nor wish to bring people around.  Or perhaps we just prefer to tell the whole, awful truth than work toward cleaning up the mess.  We have our conferences of like-minded people and we live in the echo chamber of our own minds and meanwhile we are failing at the one duty and responsibility God has given to us -- to speak His truth in love.  I am certainly not suggesting that we end all the conferences or podcasts or blogs (never!) but that we also take time to listen.  Instead, we tend to raise our voices complaining about the closed ears of others while forgetting how hard it is for us to listen.  No, some of these differences will not be resolved and it may require us to become smaller to find a more generous unity.  Still, we ought to at least regret out loud the cost of such fracture and division.  Even when we pray for unity it is generally on our own terms even before it is on the basis of what God has said.

I will confess my own sinful joy to sometimes be proven right -- yet the reality is that living to say I told you so will not benefit the Kingdom or manifest the love that is not optional along with fidelity to the Word that is yesterday, today, and forever the same.  The prophets who took joy at the failings of those to whom they were sent did not fare so well, did they?  If the people heard the Word of the Lord and repented, it would rob us of our joy and delight in saying I told you so.  Maybe Jonah could tell us something of that.  Again, before you think I am advocating for more wiggle room in doctrine and practice, I am not.  I merely want us to speak together without a smug pride that hopes to be proven right more than we hope to see reconciliation and unity.   

Our unrestrained embrace of technology. . .

Only a fool would insist that all technology is bad or that it has had a unhealthy influence upon us and our society.  Like anything and everything, technology must be judged on its merits.  That might even be a universal statement except that the merits are precisely that which is in dispute.  What are the good things and what are the not so good things that technology has provided us?  I suspect that we might have great disagreement over the lists written of that which has been salutary and that which has not. 

Christians have also been divided in their embrace of technology.  Some believe that technology is indifferent, it is what you make it.  Some insist that technology has brought nothing but good and mark the success of their churches over their full use of all that technology affords.  Some are not so sure the good outweighs the bad and others are absolutely sure that the fruits of our digital world, social media, and screen absorbed lives is downright evil.  It depends on the day where I fall in this but I am more suspect than excited over what technology and our unrestrained use of it have wrought on us as individuals and as a people together.  With respect to the Church, I am more than suspect but fear that our unwitting acceptance and embrace have worked against our very purpose and life,

Some would complain that we cannot stand outside modernity and its technological world of invention.  We cannot be Amish, they might say with a snicker.  While it might seem that the Amish simply reject all technology, their relationship with technology is more nuanced.  It would not be fair to say that they have chosen one era and planted their flag there.  The Amish are not governed primarily by their rejection of all the things we routinely take for granted but but their Ordnung, the set of unwritten rules guiding their  daily life and not without its local flavor. That is why you see some variance among the Amish about how much technology to use and how deeply they set their foot into modern life.  When it comes to medicine, for example, the Amish may not subscribe to health insurance but they do not disdain doctors or hospitals or modern therapeutic medicine.  Sometimes they avail themselves of the kind of transportation they refuse to own and operate.  When deciding on new technology and its application to their life, the Amish communities are less concerned with the technology itself than how it affects the life of the family, the shape of their community, individualism, and their lives of faith.  Technology is judged by these criteria and, if it is found wanting, it can have more to do with the effects of technology on their lives than the specific technology or devices themselves. 

Sadly, the overall Christian community does not seem to give much consideration to the effects of technology upon people or churches or the values promoted by the Scriptures.  It would seem that we are too busy scrambling to get ahead of each other in adopting and adapting to the changing landscape technology provides.  Think, for example, how quickly we settled into screens and digital worship as a fitting substitute for in person worship.  Covid may have hastened the embrace or even appeared to have necessitated it but we were clearly headed in that direction long before the first person in the US showed symptoms.  I wish that we spent more time actually evaluating the salutary or not so salutary effects of technology on our lives as people, our faith, and the church and its work.  I wish that we gave more consideration to what our rapidly changing technology is doing to us as people than how we might employ it to serve our mission.  Technology is not neutral and it has ramifications well beyond what we can predict.  If anyone is concerned about the morality of our embrace of technology and the digital world, it ought to be the Church and the Scriptures should say something about the good or bad which is the fruit of it all.

Have screens and our culture of screens helped or hurt us as a community in Christ or as individuals within that community?  More than placing a warning label on something, we need to give our people sound counsel so that they can implement technology in their lives in ways that will not compete with or undercut the faith and the work of the Kingdom.  It is one thing to sit on the sidelights and complain that this is not the way it used to be.  It is a far different thing to weigh through the issues and help people decide how much and how far technology should go -- this is true of the Christian faith but it is no less true of the fellowship and community outside the Church.  A sinful people need to admit that as much as something might be used for good, it will by those sinful people surely be used for bad purposes. Artificial intelligence is without doubt a powerful tool for productivity; its benefit to humanity as a whole may not be helpful at all.  In any case, this benefit to humanity should not be treated as a secondary concern. Do we really think that the internet, social media, the ever present screen, and now AI have had no influence upon the loneliness, isolation, division, burnout, and dopamine addiction suffered by our people in greater numbers than ever before?  I am hearing some churches voice some concerns but not enough of us and not urgently enough to keep up with the rapid change of our digital world.  That is sad and our failure as the Church to address this.  Why is it we can talk about nearly every subject known to man as experts but when it comes to giving a critical look at technology we are largely silent?