I wonder what would happen in a typical evangelical church if the pastor suddenly showed up wearing robes and the liturgy was directed by the Book of Common Prayer (even though, you might have to look this up to be offended).  No doubt the majority of the congregation would be up in arms, if it happened again most would leave.  This is a progression towards more traditional.  But the opposite does happen, that is more–um–worldly, or if you like, less traditional.  And few seem to care.  Maybe it’s because it’s subtle and no one notices, but I doubt it.  So, why is this?  Why is one allowed and the other a crime?

It just so happens that this is the direction the world has been going.  Dress is less formal, the elderly are not respected, tradition is discarded for being tradition.  History is written off as unscientific lies that we can do without. Popular writing is more simplistic, and music is louder and less complex.  “Get with the times”. “This is 2013”.  The ‘new’ is cool the ‘old’ is out because it’s old. This is disposable pop culture.  The whole idea of ‘pop’ culture is that of settling for cut rate.  Those who aspire to more are labeled ‘elitist’ or ‘legalist’, and so the racket is protected.  I don’t think this thinking has any place in the church.

I believe the principles of worship should come from scripture into the church and then into the culture.  But we have gone the other way.  We are immersed in the culture of the world and we borrow from it and take it back to the church and then use the scripture to justify our use of it, of enlightened, non-legalistic, freedom (come on, say it like William Wallace).

Rather than following the world down I believe the church should be leading  the way up as it has for so many centuries.  I think a helpful way to think about aspects of worship as a language.  Whether it be the songs you sing, or the architecture of the church, or the clothes you wear think of it in terms of language. Languages change and evolve over time, the changes are usually subtle and generally accepted by everyone. This will dismiss the old timers who want everything to stay the same, that’s not how it works.

The great rush to modernism cut off everything from the past, or at least pretended to.  What if you did this with language?  “Ok tomorrow we are starting a new language everyone, so get ready.”  “We are throwing out these words, because they are too old”. This was basically attempted with Esperanto, and it didn’t work at all.  Language requires tradition, in fact, it could be defined as a distillation of tradition.   We are fortunate to have a tradition in our language heavily based in scripture. In a very real way the King James Bible was the most influential source of English. It gave us countless idioms today as well as defining many words which makes Biblical ideas very natural to us.  But these are passing away, this is the way of language, the problem is that we don’t write new ones.  And we let the world use even biblical idioms incorrectly “don’t judge” “Jesus is Love”, or even define words. What will our children think ‘marriage’ means?  What does ‘gay’ mean. What does a rainbow mean?  And we cross back over to the aspects of worship. How will people view the metaphor of Christ and his bride in light of our redefining marriage? Who is developing the tradition of worship that our children will follow?  What does the decor of our church mean?  What does the dress of the pastor mean?  Are they primarily driven by an attempt to cut us off from tradition?  Are we driven by an attempt to not look like the Catholic Church? Or do we try to further the richness of language in light of scripture?

Language is cumulative.  New words are derived from some relationship between existing words. This is the job of the poet.  He uses existing words which have one connotation and gives them a different connotation to expand our understanding and revive ideas that have been lost.  He mixes two colors to create a new color.  And if the metaphor or new connotation is powerful enough the old understanding will be lost and the new overpower it.  ‘Shocked’ came to our language as the result of experience with electricity.  Someone used it as a term of surprise and now surprise is the more common connotation.  Are we doing this in our worship?  Are we taking music from the past and mixing the metaphors in an attempt to create more meaning or express deeper truths from scripture?  I don’t think so.  Instead Christian musical ‘artist’ are trying to express themselves, or worship leaders try to build ‘tools'(ewe those modern metaphors, I’m not a machine, I’m a person, so why do I want to think about tools working on me?  Persons operate in story. Mmm, story.) to elicit worship reactions.  Are we adapting clothing from the past and attempting to create clothing that is modest, respects a sense of community and displays biblical principles?  Or are we trying to express our selves?  Are we building elements of worship that respect our elders? Do we take what they gave us and try to make it more true, more good, and more beautiful?

Perhaps we think we are, but I beleive we need to do more thinking, as our ancestors did.