Elitism. . . vs Populism. . .

Over the course years many things have been framed within the context of elitism (or high culture) and populism (or pop culture).  When I was a brand new pastor I was told by one of my members that the people in the pew could not understand my sermons because I used words they did not know.  When I inquired about which words, one example was the word purview.  I thanked the person who told me this and worked to make sure my sermons did not include words outside an ordinary vocabulary but all the while I acknowledged in those sermons that our faith had its own vocabulary which could not be avoided.  It was and is the language of Scripture.  While the temptation is to cite this as an example of an elitist perspective versus a populist one, I do not think the comparison is quite fair.  I was gently reminded that most of the folks in the pews then did not have a college degree and were blue collar.  As conscious as I was to consider this while writing my sermons, I did not shy away from the vocabulary of Scripture.

In a different place I was told that the hymns in the hymnal were elitist or too high brow for ordinary people.  I was encouraged to bring in the song lists from evangelical congregations which was more populist.  This was a critique masquerading as a statement about culture when it was in reality a statement of preference.  In that location the playlists of the local Christian radio stations was decidedly pop Gospel or contemporary Christian music and the few hymns that made the airwaves were generic staples common to Baptist and Methodist hymnals of the day.  This person was trying to say the hymns in our hymnal represented a high brow culture with complicated rhythms, scale, and melodic lines.  This really was not true (the hymnal was The Lutheran Hymnal and it has never been accused of being elitist).  People were not singing because the music was too difficult but simply because their taste ran to the kind of music they heard on the generic Christian radio station.  As we all know, there is nothing quite as complicated as the rhythms, scale, and melodic lines of contemporary music.

Still again I was told that the liturgy was high brow, elitist, and represented something alien and foreign to the culture, experience, and comfort levels of the folks in the pew.  Again, preference was masquerading as a critique about the form and words of the Divine Service.  In this case, the person wanted a worship service that represented the simple faith of Jesus.  I am not at all sure what the simple of faith of Jesus is or if it exists outside of the imagination of some people.  Jesus was never accused of being simple but His own disciples found His sayings hard, too hard for them.  Peter admitted that they followed Jesus not because they found Him simple and direct but because there was life in no one else.  The Divine Service is not representative of a high culture or elitist perspective -- not the words or the music.  In fact, it is much more populist than Gregorian Chant.  It is not that hard to say, sing, or understand but preference sometimes works to frame something in a false context.  Calling the Divine Service high culture is exactly that -- placing the blame on accessibility rather than on preference.

Interestingly, Bach was accused not of being a musical elitist but of being a populist.  His fame was drawn more from his skill at the organ than from his compositional skills.  Bach's appeal was wide as people were drawn into the musical life of the Church by his ability at the organ bench and his ability to use rather basic tools to churn out an amazing repertoire of church music.  Today some warn that the people are not into Bach nor do they appreciate his kind of high brow music.  Really?  In both congregations I have served the folks in the pews were enthralled with the musical witness of God's Word and the keyboard compositions of Bach.  As a child I heard Virgil Fox play Bach's Gig Fugue on old Black Beauty and watched as the people who had filled the auditorium literally stomped their feet to the rhythm of this magnificent piece of music.  We have no need to fear our past nor to manifest our liturgical identity nor to teach out people to sing the great and grand Lutheran chorales.  This is not high brow music nor is it elitist neither is it quite populist.  It is simply wonderful, exciting, and eloquent in its service to the Word.  In art and in music, as well as in preaching and liturgy, elitism is a charge often leveled against truth by those who do not like what it says or sounds like or is.