Helmut Richter <hhr-m@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in
news:59DF1034-803C-543F-627C-43F7D532854F@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> In the matters we are discussing, the difference between "teaching",
> "trying to teach", and "accidentally teaching" can become im****tant.
I'm not so sure.
> The architecture example is quite illustrative:
The were two points about the architecture example. The first
is that "doctrine informs practice". Churches who don't believe
that Christ is bodily present in the Sacrament reflect this
doctrine in their practice. They have Communion only 3 or 4 times
a year (or less), and perhaps don't have an altar at all, but
just a stage (as the TV preachers.)
The other point is that "practice informs doctrine". Some friends
of mine tem****arily moved to a small town in order to care for
a friend who was dying of cancer. They attended the Missouri
Synod church in that town while they were there. That church
celebrated Communion every other Sunday, (whereas their home
church celebrated every Sunday.) So, as was their habit, they
went to Communion every time it was offered in this church.
This was noticed by the parishoners, and finally someone took
them aside and said that if they went to Communion every time,
people would thing they were great sinners who had too much
to forgive. My friends were pretty shocked at such a juvenile
attitude, and spoke to the pastor, who was also chagrined to find
out that so many of his flock held this opinion. Who knows what
the real history of this misconception is, but for the sake of
an example, I suppose it to be the practice of not having
Communion every Sunday, which, accidently, taught the people
that frequent Communing was a sign of personal evil. (I couldn't
cook up a better example on the fly.) The idea here is that
a bad (or even inferior) practice teaches false doctrine, even
unintentionally. Even without the pastor verbalizing it.
> This is an example that what seems
> to be the blatant and unambiguous message of the architecture to some
> people would not even come to the minds of others as a possible
> interpretation.
There are two things here also. One is that I think the message
can be subliminal and still quite powerful. The other is that
it's also bad practice to fail to teach something you could have.
Very often the "other side" says what you have:
> What is wrong with it?
And the answer is "by doing what you're doing, you're failing
to teach an im****tant lesson." Admittedly, when I was thinking
of the "congregation in the round" sort of architecture, I was
thinking more of the altar-less verion. What's wrong with
setting up one's sanctuary like the mega-churches do? Well,
there's no altar at all. The preacher prances back and forth
on the "stage", and so he becomes the center of wor****p.
Hypothetically, he could be speaking absolutely correct
doctrine, but if they'd have arranged their sanctuary more
carefully, the doctrine would be taught not just audibly and
intellectually, but also visually and intuitively.
Many of the praise songs I detest are just one sentence
after another beginning with "I". The whole song is
about what the singer thinks about God. And in an
argument, the defenders of such music say "what's wrong
with it?" And the answer is, again, that we think the purpose
of hymnody is to put sound doctrine into the wor****pper's
mouth. By wasting time singing praise song, you've missed
an im****tant op****tunity to teach sound doctrine, and that
would be wrong. Most pew-sitters spend at most 60 minutes in
church and sing 4 hymns per week. Wasting one of the hymns
on a empty praise song would be the church not doing her job.
An extreme case would be that one Sunday everyone shows up
for church and the preacher says "Aw, heck, let's celebrate
our unity in the Lord today by just getting together for
donuts [I believe today is the anniversary of JFK's declaration
"Ich bin ein Berliner", btw] in the fellow****p hall. "What's
wrong with that?" Just as it's wrong for the shepherd to
skip feeding his sheep one day, so it's wrong for the pastor
not to feed his sheep regularly.
> If, however, the theology is in order, both
> architectures can emphasise it -- the classical one by elevating the
> altar, the other one by including the altar right in the midst of the
> congregation.
Maybe on that one point of doctrine, but there could be others
points. It's another part of the issue that my side continually
complains that the other side throws things out without
understanding the implications and ramifications. The classical
architecture is also Biblical in that it's patterned after
the Temple and Tabernacle, and after the descriptions in
Revelation. If we depart from God-given patterns, who knows
what intuition we give up?
> it is not obvious what exactly is
> wrong with the forms of praise in the beginning, in particular as
> compared to the exposition in the middle, nor why the somewhat barren
> forms of praise advocated in the end (the Te Deum would have had a
> hard time to meet the criteria) are particularly appropriate.
I don't know if this is a question, but I'll try to answer anyway.
Improper praise is man-centered. Proper praise is Christ-centered.
It's symptomatic of these praise songs that, aside from the lyrics,
the music is designed to evoke an emotional response, usually with
some sort of over-emphasized beat. So already, the wor****p is
moved away from Christ and onto the wor****pper's "experience".
(Indeed, the mega-churches advertize the "experience" one will
have if they come.) And church-hoppers tell about whether this
or that church "meets my felt needs". Then there's the lyrics:
Sentences (if you can find a complete sentence) that talk about
what God has done are quite rare. God is "awesome" in these
songs, which doesn't say anything about God, but only about
the feelings of "awe" which the wor****pper is having. So again,
it's about the wor****pper and not about God.
We can imagine pagan gods who are scary and terrible and
childish and arrogant who demand a sort of wor****p that
included groveling and flattery. But Christ is the exact
opposite sort of God. He comes to serve us, wash our feet,
in our wor****p. That's what we ought to be singing about
and the style of music should sup****t such doctrine. Our
emotions don't save us, but the objective Word of forgiveness.
Emotional wor****p is man-centered.
> - Throne mysticism:
>
> - Individual mysticism: E
> - Communal mysticism:
>
> - Contem****ary wor****p:
> - Church growth: The praise is a means of communication to people
> outside.
>
> I cannot see that all these which have shown up in the discussion so
> far are all the same or come from the same sources.
I think I could apply the man-centered vs Christ-centered dichotomy
to each one.
>> Back to basics: The two sides of the issue is whether
>> wor****p is man serving God or God serving man. The
>> difference in practice is a reflection of this fundamental
>> difference in doctrine.
>
> I still fail to see that this is a dichotomy, and if it is, that it is
> the problem underlying all above-mentioned points.
Well, it is to my side. Every complaint we have is that
the other side is, in one way or another, obscuring Christ.
>From the blatant: Erecting the screen upon which the day's
lyrics will be projected directly in front of the altar and
crucifix. To the subtle: The pastor quits wearing a collar
in order "to be more accessible".
Bart
--
Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.
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