"Stop worshiping the Book of Common Prayer"
Via Derek, I found this post on liturgy.
Read it and weep.
I was going to say I wish I had time to respond to it in detail, but that's not even true. My blood pressure is high enough as it is.
So let me pick just one bit. Do I comment on his aesthetic sensitivity to settings of the Gloria ("ack, ick"), his self-important and clericalist condescension to practices that he regards as self-important and clericalist, his apparent belief that worship services exist as vehicles for efficient entertainment and vague general uplift? No, let me take something fairly tangential.
Our author -- the piece identifies him as 41 years old, which from the tone and style I would have thought to be a misprint for 14, except that he is apparently in Orders -- writes:
Also, while I am at it, can we please stop praying for the 'virgin' Mary? The Greek means 'young woman,' and she wasn't a virgin. Virgins don't have babies. How about we pray for 'adolescent Mary mother of Jesus.' Why is that not enough?First of all, we don't pray for the Virgin Mary. We name her in our prayers; we do not pray for her.
Second, the Greek does not mean only 'young woman'. Parthenos also means virgin. If you're going to repeat tired too-clever-by-half talking points about Isaiah and Matthew and all that business, at least get your languages right.
Third, no, as a rule virgins don't have babies. On what grounds, other than a generalized Enlightenment anti-supernaturalism that cannot be reconciled with robust Christian faith, do you deny that this particular Virgin had a baby?
Fourth, we're not going to pray "for" "adolescent Mary mother of Jesus" because that sounds stupid. Only someone tone-deaf to English prose could suggest such a thing -- I shudder to think what your rewritten Eucharistic prayers sound like. (I suspect they sound rather like your post.) Or maybe that phrase is your idea of sarcasm -- in which case, your cleverness is duly noted. So either drop the adjective altogether or call her the Virgin Mary because that's what we call her, just as I might call Elizabeth I "the Virgin Queen" without any particular gynecological significance. And if I catch you making air quotes when you say "virgin," so help me . . .
Labels: Liturgical snark
posted by The Postulant @ 7:06 AM
8 comments
8 Comments:
i rather agree. I do think that always thinking about the next person in through the door ought to be primary; our worship can be daunting, and so we do need to make it as accessible as possible. But because I really don't understand what all the positions do in football does not mean that the NFL should change all the names of them.
One of the commenters noted that usually evangelism happens outside worship; some will come in and be converted during worship, but many more others will not. Evangelism takes the entire community doing all it can to preach the Gospel at all times; it just doesn't happen at worship.
RFSJ+
The comments on the BVM really set me off.
And actually parthenos means virgin. It only means young woman by extension of its meaning of virgin. The word he's thinking of is almah which is the Hebrew word used in Isaiah which means young woman and by extension virgin.
There are a lot of different ways that God may be reverently worshiped and they don't all look like mine. But for a priest of the church to offhandedly dismiss a doctrine of the Creed that points at the heart of who Jesus is and how God has chosen to interact with his creation is just wrong.
RFSJ:
I love the football analogy. And I think the point about evangelism is very important. I became an Episcopalian (I was already a Christian) because someone invited me to a Lenten study on C. S. Lewis. I went for Lewis, but what hooked me was the Eucharist: Rite One, Eastward position -- completely "inhospitable" in that it was unlike anything I had ever experienced, but it was exactly what I had been (unknowingly) longing for.
Derek:
The Greek vs Hebrew was exactly what I had in mind. I was going to make a stronger statement than I did, but Liddell and Scott are less emphatic about 'virgin' as the primary meaning of parthenos than I would have been (see here), so I decided to hold back.
How do people like that get to be priests?
The problem is as much or more the formation as the people. I'll note that he did not attend an Episcopal seminary.
It makes me wonder what the formation is like at the parish that sponsored him.
Then it makes me wonder about the formation that our congregation does...
Hmm. I notice it's the same pattern as my own rector: a lifelong Episcopalian, but Union Seminary. And my rector arrived with the same ideas about jettisoning liturgical tradition and making worship more "hospitable" and "seeker-friendly." The result has been steadily declining attendance for several years now. These ideas don't work just anywhere.
I was shocked when I first read this post on the Lead, especially that the Lead published it at all. I was too angry to even respond to one of the numerous ridiculous things that he says and glad you did it for me.
Thanks Postulant.
You're welcome. It's a veritable piñata of idiocy, isn't it?
Good God, no wonder we're in such trouble. You hit the nail on the head - clericalism gone mad.
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