Surely it's possible to explain odd words and technical terms in the sermon or whilst introducing the hymn?
You could, but I don't know about you but I'm tuning in and out during sermons and before hymns I'm fumbling the hymn book finding the page and looking at the music. I'd personally sooner the hymn be intrinsically comprehensible.
I think that part of my antipathy to "modernising" the words of old hymns comes from the time I was attending a large evangelical Anglican church when I was at university. Their hymn book was Hymns for Today's Church and it was awful. Every hymn had been modernised so you couldn't sing by heart - you had to look closely at the words. And it seemed so flat and unpoetic. Even to this working class guy, who had never learned Latin or the Classics, it seemed the very epitome of dumbing down.
I think there's a difference between wanting to remove all the thees and thous (which I think people understand perfectly well) and avoiding obscure theological terms, especially when they appear to occur in precisely one hymn.
At the risk of contemporary chorus-bashing, I'd say that at least traditional hymns use chunks of unfamiliar biblical language in some kind of context or to make a theological point.
I find in many of the more contemporary contemporary worship songs (post-1990s/early 2000s), biblical clips and soundbites appear at random and with clear rationale.
It's as if the writers have hoovered up a few biblical tropes by AI and sprinkled them into the mix - 'Emmanuel', 'The Lion and the Lamb', etc etc without any specific context or purpose other than to fit the tune and format.
There are exceptions of course.
I fully accept the points people raise about 'ablism' and 'elitism' and so forth and am mindful of all that.
Heck, there are Eastern Europeans in our parish who very much struggle with English and whose spirituality is postively medieval. They couldn't cite biblical chapter and verse to save their lives.
But if biblical references are 'unfamiliar' then surely we must make the effort to make them familiar.
I remain very grateful to my evangelical background for giving me a 'working knowledge' and overview of the scriptures.
I know it's easier said than done buy somehow we need to familiarise ourselves and others with this stuff.
Surely it's possible to explain odd words and technical terms in the sermon or whilst introducing the hymn?
You could, but I don't know about you but I'm tuning in and out during sermons and before hymns I'm fumbling the hymn book finding the page and looking at the music. I'd personally sooner the hymn be intrinsically comprehensible.
I’d prefer hymns be intrinsically comprehensible, too.
And I’d be peeved if the flow of the service was interrupted so that the minister or someone else could say, “In the hymn we are about to sing, we’ll encounter the word consubstantial. It means ‘of the same substance or being.’ It is an affirmation that the three Persons of the Trinity are united by being one of substance.”
And I can imagine at least some people then thinking, “Huh?”
If it’s really important to a congregation to sing “consubstantial, co-eternal,” then a religious education or catechesis program outside the liturgy that includes what those words mean needs to be equally or more important. Otherwise, it would appear that what’s really important is either personal preference or avoiding change simply to continue doing things the way we’ve always done it.
Surely it's possible to explain odd words and technical terms in the sermon or whilst introducing the hymn?
You could, but I don't know about you but I'm tuning in and out during sermons and before hymns I'm fumbling the hymn book finding the page and looking at the music. I'd personally sooner the hymn be intrinsically comprehensible.
I’d prefer hymns be intrinsically comprehensible, too.
And I’d be peeved if the flow of the service was interrupted so that the minister or someone else could say, “In the hymn we are about to sing, we’ll encounter the word consubstantial. It means ‘of the same substance or being.’ It is an affirmation that the three Persons of the Trinity are united by being one of substance.”
And I can imagine at least some people then thinking, “Huh?”
If it’s really important to a congregation to sing “consubstantial, co-eternal,” then a religious education or catechesis program outside the liturgy that includes what those words mean needs to be equally or more important. Otherwise, it would appear that what’s really important is either personal preference or avoiding change simply to continue doing things the way we’ve always done it.
Especially given that without understanding what Aristotle meant by substance you're really none the wiser about what it means.
The version of the Nicene creed I know uses "of one being".
@Nick Tamen I can't help but wonder if many Americans would read "Zion" and think of Utah before thinking of any Biblical meaning.
“Zion” (or “Sion”) and “Mount Zion” are not uncommon names for churches—especially Lutheran, German Reformed (now United Church of Christ), Baptist and nondenominational churches—in my part of the world. And one of the leading historically African American denominations in the US is the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (aka, the A.M.E. Zion Church).
Google could have been your friend here. "how many churches named zion in united states" tells me there are thousands of churches named Zion in the United States, including 523 Zion Lutheran Churches, as of 2010.
Zion is also a common name for Lutheran churches in Canada, although I couldn't find a number through a quick Google search.
It's as if I said that someone going somewhere called Trinity in England can only have meant they were going to a single bougie restaurant in Clapham. ("how many churches named trinity in uk" = approximately 600 in England).
If someone is into mountaineering or fine dining, they might have meant a very restricted idea of the name of their locale, and only in that sense is your comparison meaningful. Otherwise, it betrays a profound ignorance of religious life in North America. "I'm going to Zion" means, in almost every context of ordinary life in North America, "I'm going to my neighbourhood church named Zion."
I think that part of my antipathy to "modernising" the words of old hymns comes from the time I was attending a large evangelical Anglican church when I was at university. Their hymn book was Hymns for Today's Church and it was awful. Every hymn had been modernised so you couldn't sing by heart - you had to look closely at the words. And it seemed so flat and unpoetic. Even to this working class guy, who had never learned Latin or the Classics, it seemed the very epitome of dumbing down.
If that was the corner of NW London I think it is, we got rid of HTC a few years ago because it was so awful, and replaced it with the latest A&M- which has "consubstantial, co-eternal".
FWIW, there's some discussion within our parish whether to use 'essence' rather than 'substance' when we say the Creed.
The use of either isn't going to be that helpful to anyone unfamiliar with the Council of Nicea and Trinitarian theology. Which is why I agree with @Nick Tamen that there should be some attempt on whatever form to explain these terms outside of the Liturgy / services / meetings.
In Orthodox circles you'll hear pious statements such as, 'The Liturgy speaks for itself ...'
Well, yes, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have proper systematic catechesis alongside that. Our Deacon told me this weekend how he's often confronted with the most bizarre and left-field questions imaginable after the services and can't always get a cup of coffee because he's got to think on his feet and handle them.
Church is messy. All churches are messy - whether they have a designated 'Messy Church' component or not.
And I’d be peeved if the flow of the service was interrupted so that the minister or someone else could say, “In the hymn we are about to sing, we’ll encounter the word consubstantial. It means ‘of the same substance or being.’ It is an affirmation that the three Persons of the Trinity are united by being one of substance.”
Do people not encounter new words, and think "I vaguely get what this word means from context, but I'm going to go home and look it up", and then do that? That's a genuine question: is that not normal for people? It's normal for me, but I don't claim to be representative of "people".
Especially given that without understanding what Aristotle meant by substance you're really none the wiser about what it means.
True. And I don't think whether the word you use is "substance" or "being" or "essence" makes a difference to this statement: whichever word you use, the statement it makes about God is both deeply profound, and completely removed from everyday experience.
For people who have at least a vague understanding of the "long explanation", hanging a name off it makes sense as a reference. If we had a hymn about exactly what consubstantial means, it probably wouldn't be much fun to sing.
And I’d be peeved if the flow of the service was interrupted so that the minister or someone else could say, “In the hymn we are about to sing, we’ll encounter the word consubstantial. It means ‘of the same substance or being.’ It is an affirmation that the three Persons of the Trinity are united by being one of substance.”
Do people not encounter new words, and think "I vaguely get what this word means from context, but I'm going to go home and look it up", and then do that? That's a genuine question: is that not normal for people? It's normal for me, but I don't claim to be representative of "people".
Seems to me this thread is pulling in three different directions. @ChastMastr and others are arguing for theological density in worship. @KarlLB, @Nick Tamen are arguing for accessible prayer language. And @Rufus T Firefly and @Gill H are arguing for poetic continuity. None of you are disagreeing with the facts of the hymn, you are disagreeing about what worship is for.
I don't think anyone here wants to dumb anything down. We just have different hopes of what liturgy is supposed to do in the moment. Naming that might help you talk to reach other rather that past each other.
We have different liturgies for different moments. We don't use the same vocabulary on Christmas or for an Easter Service. We don't use the same words for a baptism that we use for a funeral.
I would argue the question isn't whether variation is allowed, but the question is what the moment calls for. There are times when the full weight of inherited language is good. But there are times when poetic language works better. And then, there are still other times prayerful language is the best.
Myself, I like to craft a service built around a theme. Today, I used 1 Peter 1:22 for my sermon, so I built the service around the idea of community. That included a call to worship, order of confession, prayer of the day. The readings were RCL. I allowed the music people to select the hymns, all of which were gospel oriented.
The next time I am scheduled to preach is Ascension Sunday, May 14. I am thinking of using the Ephesians passage where Christ is enthroned over all powers. I will likely use the Crown him with Many Crowns theme.
To each, their own though. For me, no one liturgy fits every occasion.
Seems to me this thread is pulling in three different directions. @ChastMastr and others are arguing for theological density in worship. @KarlLB, @Nick Tamen are arguing for accessible prayer language. And @Rufus T Firefly and @Gill H are arguing for poetic continuity. None of you are disagreeing with the facts of the hymn, you are disagreeing about what worship is for.
FWIW, I don't see the disagreement being about what worship is for.
Especially given that without understanding what Aristotle meant by substance you're really none the wiser about what it means.
True. And I don't think whether the word you use is "substance" or "being" or "essence" makes a difference to this statement: whichever word you use, the statement it makes about God is both deeply profound, and completely removed from everyday experience.
For people who have at least a vague understanding of the "long explanation", hanging a name off it makes sense as a reference. If we had a hymn about exactly what consubstantial means, it probably wouldn't be much fun to sing.
OMG I think we could use a Schoolhouse Rock for theology and ecclesiastical stuff. And it would be fun to sing! At least the old SR stuff is, for me… (I’m not quite sure I’m including Apologetix here—I had hopes for them but they seem pretty fundamentalist, sadly.)
Bishop Timothy Dudley-Smith excelled in all the above. As his hymns generally fit well-know tunes they are easy to incorporate.
His best known is probably the least singable.
Contrary to expectations perhaps, I wouldn't 'write-off' all contemporary choruses and their writers either. We don't sing them in my circles but that doesn't mean I don't believe they are of value.
As with familiar words of any kind it becomes easy to say or sing them mechanically by rote if we aren't careful. Like spiritual multiplication tables.
All of us who have more formal liturgies need to be more aware of that. Although the same thing can happen with less formal liturgies too.
I’m troubled by the notion that, with vast amounts of information at our fingertips or even just by speaking into the air with our phones (always at hand) or devices nearby, most people are so incurious that when they hear or see a new word, they can’t be bothered to just find out instantly more easily than any other time in human history. (Mind you, I feel like this is the case about information now in general. It’s really, really sad irony that we have the apex of instant information, even education if one wants to seek it out for free, but with lower education in lots of areas. Screw flying cars, I thought we’d all be at least better educated, not worse, by now. It makes me really genuinely sad. And I deal with it every day…)
I’m troubled by the notion that, with vast amounts of information at our fingertips or even just by speaking into the air with our phones (always at hand) or devices nearby, most people are so incurious that when they hear or see a new word, they can’t be bothered to just find out instantly more easily than any other time in human history. (Mind you, I feel like this is the case about information now in general. It’s really, really sad irony that we have the apex of instant information, even education if one wants to seek it out for free, but with lower education in lots of areas. Screw flying cars, I thought we’d all be at least better educated, not worse, by now. It makes me really genuinely sad. And I deal with it every day…)
"Can't be bothered" is rather judgemental. People have other pressing concerns which demand their attention. I mean, I'm always surprised other people aren't fascinated by how Latin Securus gives both English Sure and Secure, but also Welsh Siwr and Sicr, and how Sicr preserves the Middle English Siker which was later Latinised back to Secure. But they aren't. They, in the meantime, are amazed I don't know which grounds Premier league clubs play at, who the players are, or have any intention of watching any World Cup matches. I spent six months hearing the name "Ed Sheerhan" and thinking he was a footballer (possibly because of Alan Shearer, who was), such is my lack of consciousness of either pop music or football. I couldn't be bothered to find out.
I think you highlight a key point there, @KarlLB. I couldn't name many players in the Premier League, many of the Lionesses or internationally known Olympic athletes.
Yet I could cite all manner of literary and artistic references.
I must admit, I am struggling to understand why someone of your very evident linguistic abilities - you know far more Welsh than I do bach, and correct me on it at times - should be fazed by terms like 'consubstantial, co-eternal' in a hymn.
I get the general point you're making.
But if we didn't have chewy terms like that in hymns wouldn't we end up with the chewing gum variety which go, 'Ooh ooh Jesus ... ooh ooh lovely Jesus ... ooh ooh ooh,' like the pop songs you are unfamiliar with?
I'm being cheeky of course and recognise that there's more to contemporary worship songs than that.
Wesley is supposed to have said that people pick up more theology from what they sing than from what they hear in sermons.
Is this really the case?
Is it realistic to expect everyone to engage with these things?
Heck, we are all interested in this stuff otherwise we wouldn't be posting here.
We all started somewhere.
None of us woke up one morning with a clear grasp of what 'consubstantial, co-eternal' means in a theological context. We were either told or went and found out.
We are all 'socialised' into the faith - into the Kingdom indeed.
I didn't immediately start raising my hands or speaking in tongues the moment I walked into a charismatic gathering.
I didn't immediately start venerating icons and lighting candles the moment I attended an Orthodoxy Liturgy.
I didn't know what bits of cathedral had which particular function the moment I visited one.
Hymns are 'there'. Worship songs are 'there'. Liturgies are 'there'. It's up to us to what extent we make use of them or not. If we do we become acclimatised to them to a greater or lesser extent.
If we aren't interested, we won't bother. If we are we'll find out.
Personally I'm not fazed by the words per se but the concepts behind them. I know that consubstantial means "of one substance/being" but I'm less clear on what that actually means itself. My philosophy is weaker than my linguistics.
I think you may want to remind yourself of the excluded middle fallacy.
Personally I'm not fazed by the words per se but the concepts behind them. I know that consubstantial means "of one substance/being" but I'm less clear on what that actually means itself. My philosophy is weaker than my linguistics.
I think you may want to remind yourself of the excluded middle fallacy.
Which is why I tend to see such terms more as agreed language and less as reflecting reality.
@Nick Tamen I can't help but wonder if many Americans would read "Zion" and think of Utah before thinking of any Biblical meaning.
“Zion” (or “Sion”) and “Mount Zion” are not uncommon names for churches—especially Lutheran, German Reformed (now United Church of Christ), Baptist and nondenominational churches—in my part of the world. And one of the leading historically African American denominations in the US is the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (aka, the A.M.E. Zion Church).
Google could have been your friend here. "how many churches named zion in united states" tells me there are thousands of churches named Zion in the United States, including 523 Zion Lutheran Churches, as of 2010.
Zion is also a common name for Lutheran churches in Canada, although I couldn't find a number through a quick Google search.
It's as if I said that someone going somewhere called Trinity in England can only have meant they were going to a single bougie restaurant in Clapham. ("how many churches named trinity in uk" = approximately 600 in England).
If someone is into mountaineering or fine dining, they might have meant a very restricted idea of the name of their locale, and only in that sense is your comparison meaningful. Otherwise, it betrays a profound ignorance of religious life in North America. "I'm going to Zion" means, in almost every context of ordinary life in North America, "I'm going to my neighbourhood church named Zion."
@Nick Tamen I can't help but wonder if many Americans would read "Zion" and think of Utah before thinking of any Biblical meaning.
“Zion” (or “Sion”) and “Mount Zion” are not uncommon names for churches—especially Lutheran, German Reformed (now United Church of Christ), Baptist and nondenominational churches—in my part of the world. And one of the leading historically African American denominations in the US is the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (aka, the A.M.E. Zion Church).
Google could have been your friend here. "how many churches named zion in united states" tells me there are thousands of churches named Zion in the United States, including 523 Zion Lutheran Churches, as of 2010.
Zion is also a common name for Lutheran churches in Canada, although I couldn't find a number through a quick Google search.
It's as if I said that someone going somewhere called Trinity in England can only have meant they were going to a single bougie restaurant in Clapham. ("how many churches named trinity in uk" = approximately 600 in England).
If someone is into mountaineering or fine dining, they might have meant a very restricted idea of the name of their locale, and only in that sense is your comparison meaningful. Otherwise, it betrays a profound ignorance of religious life in North America. "I'm going to Zion" means, in almost every context of ordinary life in North America, "I'm going to my neighbourhood church named Zion."
I would have thought that Zion National Park would be better-known by the average American than a random neighbourhood church - especially since plenty of Americans won't be Christian at all and the national park is famous way beyond mountineers. For the average American Christian, surely there are many whose denomination doesn't usually name their churches after Zion? I can't imagine that the average RC would think it referred to a neighbourhood church first and foremost. Also, a lot of younger people only know the term with reference to Zionism but wouldn't know the Biblical context as to why it's called that.
If someone said to me "I'm going to Trinity" my first thought wouldn't be a church, because here at least churches are usually named "Holy Trinity" specifically and secular organisations or businesses drop the "Holy" - so my first thought would be that it was something other than a church, usually something named for the area or the street. I also find the idea that someone wouldn't specify that either Zion or Trinity was a church to be strange - usually people say "I'm going to church" or "I'm going to mass" or "I'm going to a service", rather than using the church's name.
@Pomona, I’m not sure why you’re challenging so intently two North Americans on a matter of North American lived experience. I understand what you’re saying and why, but my experience living here doesn’t bear out your assumptions.
I also find the idea that someone wouldn't specify that either Zion or Trinity was a church to be strange - usually people say "I'm going to church" or "I'm going to mass" or "I'm going to a service", rather than using the church's name.
You’re failing to take into a count just how often questions like “where do you go to church” can be asked here.
I’m troubled by the notion that, with vast amounts of information at our fingertips or even just by speaking into the air with our phones (always at hand) or devices nearby, most people are so incurious that when they hear or see a new word, they can’t be bothered to just find out instantly more easily than any other time in human history. (Mind you, I feel like this is the case about information now in general. It’s really, really sad irony that we have the apex of instant information, even education if one wants to seek it out for free, but with lower education in lots of areas. Screw flying cars, I thought we’d all be at least better educated, not worse, by now. It makes me really genuinely sad. And I deal with it every day…)
I think this is a very multilayered issue. As @KarlLB pointed out, people have a lot of pressures going on in their lives. Sometimes other stuff has to be prioritised - although I do agree with you that it's sad, and I also generally feel saddened by how incurious a lot of people are (speaking as someone who is naturally curious and will look things up, and always have been like that). But I'm more sad at the situations that have made people like that to begin with.
I agree with the idea that there needs to be better theological education and spiritual formation for adults at church - and that's something American churches with a tradition of adult Sunday School do much better than their UK counterparts. I also agree with @ThunderBunk that it's something a lot of non-Evangelicals in particular neglect (at least in the UK) aside from perhaps Lent courses.
At the same time, I'm mindful of the fact that for many people making church feel like school is a good way to make sure that they never darken the door of church ever again. For many people the actual learning part of school is something that was a wholly negative experience for them growing up.
What do we do, though, when due to a modern lack of religious education people don’t understand words that have important meanings like that? I think that it is dumbing things down.
I’m afraid I can’t help but feel there’s a lot of “kids these days” going on in this thread.
I had an excellent and pretty rigorous religious education, including catechism, growing up. “Consubstantial”—the word, not the concept—wasn’t, so far as I can remember, part of it. (“Consubstantiation,” on the other hand, was.) I was taught basic, solid theology, but without too many inkhorn words. It’s quite possible to do that.
So from my perspective, there’s no “dumbing down” because there’s no “down” to start with.
But I still tend to think that if one feels the need to fight the dumbing down, the place to start that is outside the liturgy, and then let the liturgy follow. As Article XXIV says, “It is a thing plainly repugnant to the word of God and the custom of the primitive Church, to have public prayer in the Church, . . . in a tongue not understanded of the people.”
Anglicans (even clergy, at least in the C of E) these days don't have to regard the 39 Articles as holy writ. If we all took that literally we would never use words like Alleluia, Amen or even / especially God.
What do we do, though, when due to a modern lack of religious education people don’t understand words that have important meanings like that? I think that it is dumbing things down.
I’m afraid I can’t help but feel there’s a lot of “kids these days” going on in this thread.
I had an excellent and pretty rigorous religious education, including catechism, growing up. “Consubstantial”—the word, not the concept—wasn’t, so far as I can remember, part of it. (“Consubstantiation,” on the other hand, was.) I was taught basic, solid theology, but without too many inkhorn words. It’s quite possible to do that.
So from my perspective, there’s no “dumbing down” because there’s no “down” to start with.
But I still tend to think that if one feels the need to fight the dumbing down, the place to start that is outside the liturgy, and then let the liturgy follow. As Article XXIV says, “It is a thing plainly repugnant to the word of God and the custom of the primitive Church, to have public prayer in the Church, . . . in a tongue not understanded of the people.”
Anglicans (even clergy, at least in the C of E) these days don't have to regard the 39 Articles as holy writ. If we all took that literally we would never use words like Alleluia, Amen or even / especially God.
Yes, I know the status, or lack thereof, of the XXXIX Articles in contemporary Anglicanism.
I question the accuracy your last sentence, though. I suspect most people in the pews, even if they don’t know the etymology or underlying Hebrew meaning of “Alleluia”/“Hallelujah” or of “Amen,” have a sense of how to use them correctly, and a sense that the former means something along the lines of “Praise the Lord” and the latter indicates agreement in some way. (Witness the use of “Amen” as a response in African American preaching.)
As for “God,” there is a vast difference between understanding what is meant by the word “God” and understanding the nature of God.
I would have thought that Zion National Park would be better-known by the average American than a random neighbourhood church - especially since plenty of Americans won't be Christian at all and the national park is famous way beyond mountineers. For the average American Christian, surely there are many whose denomination doesn't usually name their churches after Zion? I can't imagine that the average RC would think it referred to a neighbourhood church first and foremost. Also, a lot of younger people only know the term with reference to Zionism but wouldn't know the Biblical context as to why it's called that.
You keep making assumptions about North American religious life that are simply wrong. To paraphrase Ed Koch, I can attempt to explain why you are wrong, but I cannot comprehend it for you.
For starters, you have a wrong idea about "a random neighbourhood church" being named Zion. Settlement patterns in North America mean that there are often equivalent distributions of the larger Christian denominations, especially in the American Midwest and the Canadian prairie provinces. A common distribution would be 25% Roman Catholic or Orthodox, 25% Anglican or United Church, 25% Lutheran or Mennonite, 25% Presbyterian or Baptist.
Because of these settlement patterns, ecumenism is a way of life. People wind up at each other's places of worship because the public education system tends to foster these relationships, so ecumenical attendance at "hatch/match/dispatch" events is just life. "I'm going to Zion" doesn't necessarily mean worship attendance either; it may mean the destination where you're delivering flowers or going to yoga. Again, unless one is in the habit of hiking trips, "I'm going to Zion" means a Mennonite or Lutheran church near you. Zion may be the name of the largest church in a town or city.
This is to demonstrate that it is likely that Zion is more familiar to more Americans than one park; most Americans are not local to that park either.
If someone said to me "I'm going to Trinity" my first thought wouldn't be a church, because here at least churches are usually named "Holy Trinity" specifically and secular organisations or businesses drop the "Holy" - so my first thought would be that it was something other than a church, usually something named for the area or the street. I also find the idea that someone wouldn't specify that either Zion or Trinity was a church to be strange - usually people say "I'm going to church" or "I'm going to mass" or "I'm going to a service", rather than using the church's name.
I used that analogy because about as many churches are named Zion/Mount Zion in North America as the number of churches named Holy Trinity in England. I thought that perhaps comparable numbers might be meaningful for you.
To me, the real kicker is your refusal to acknowledge - as noted by @Nick Tamen - that there is an entire denomination, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, whose members presumably know their own denominational name. For you to assert that because you, @Pomona, are unfamiliar with the word Zion - that therefore more than a million Black Americans are equally unfamiliar with the word Zion, and can only mean what you mean - is breathtakingly... problematic.
I cannot prevent you from showing your assumptions on this thread, but I can challenge them.
There are actually more churches in Cambridge UK called Zion (2) than there are Holy Trinity (1) as far as I am aware. And everyone local will know the Baptist one as it is a big church on a major thoroughfare.
There are actually more churches in Cambridge UK called Zion (2) than there are Holy Trinity (1) as far as I am aware. And everyone local will know the Baptist one as it is a big church on a major thoroughfare.
To be fair, if you're in Cambridge, then "Trinity" is probably the college
Why, yes. Yes, it is. Though it may be affected by the way people are often educated now, so it may be less their fault, but it still makes me very sad. I'd also say that just wanting to know what a word means is very different than niche knowledge of either the linguistic history of the word or of sports.
Again, this is something that people can find out in an instant, using devices they have on them all the time and are often staring at constantly (I mean, at this point we're all practically addicted to the things), and all they have to do is say, "Hey Siri/Alexa/etc., what does X mean?"and the thing will tell them. And it's just a definition of a word, not the history of the Peloponnesian War or something. (Which I just looked up to make sure I spelled it right, again within instants.)
There are actually more churches in Cambridge UK called Zion (2) than there are Holy Trinity (1) as far as I am aware. And everyone local will know the Baptist one as it is a big church on a major thoroughfare.
To be fair, if you're in Cambridge, then "Trinity" is probably the college
That did occur to me as I wrote it! I should have added a note.
Why, yes. Yes, it is. Though it may be affected by the way people are often educated now, so it may be less their fault, but it still makes me very sad. I'd also say that just wanting to know what a word means is very different than niche knowledge of either the linguistic history of the word or of sports.
Again, this is something that people can find out in an instant, using devices they have on them all the time and are often staring at constantly (I mean, at this point we're all practically addicted to the things), and all they have to do is say, "Hey Siri/Alexa/etc., what does X mean?"and the thing will tell them. And it's just a definition of a word, not the history of the Peloponnesian War or something. (Which I just looked up to make sure I spelled it right, again within instants.)
I think it's just more complicated than that. People can get quite defensive about things they don't know if they've got a bit of a complex about having their intelligence doubted and often prefer not to think about it and not look stuff up. Or they may take the view that they've managed for 50 years without knowing a particular word so it doesn't matter to them. But also there's forgetting. A word comes up, you can't look it up immediately, you've forgotten within the hour.
And then, with some of the words in question, are you any the wiser once you've looked them up?
I'm not sure how the 'excluded middle fallacy' fits here but I'm sure I can work things out.
On the philosophical/theological import of 'consubstantial, co-eternal' then even if one doesn't 'get' that oneself - and yes, it's a conundrum - we can at least get some idea as to what the debates were about at Nicea and other Councils.
It's not as if we can't look them up online or read a book about it all if we are interested enough to do so, and no, not everyone will be.
Nobody is saying we should. Church shouldn't be like school. I agree with that. It shouldn't become a lecture hall with hymns.
That said, I still believe there should be forms of continuing catechesis and 'formation' for those who wish to avail themselves of that.
What form that will take will depend on a whole range of factors and circumstances. It's an issue we are wrestling with in our parish right now.
A few years ago I carried out some editing and focus group work for a friend involved with a particular network of independent evangelical charismatic churches.
He was keen that people appreciate the 'history' and development of that group and that they sll embrace what he saw as its original 'vision' and distinctives.
It soon became clear to me that very few people in that group were bothered about those issues at all.
They were there for the close sense of fellowship and the 'freedom' they valued to express themselves in worship by dancing, clapping and 'speaking in tongues'.
Any ecclesial or theological considerations were a lot lower down their list of priorities, even if they figured at all.
I'm not singling them out for censure. I'm sure the outcome would be similar in principle if I carried out a parallel exercise in churches of other traditions.
An American friend in semi-rural Pennsylvania seems to think that ecumenism is more of a thing over here than over there - on the grounds that I attend ecumenical events.
She says she's not aware of any such conferences or gatherings in the US - what, the whole of the US?
She also maintains that the only times Christians get together over there are on 'national' occasions such as 4th July or Thanksgiving.
I found that very hard to believe and would have assumed that in North America as a whole the situation is more as @Leaf has described - allowing for differences between Canada and the USA in terms of 'settlement patterns' and so on.
But then, the vastness and complexity of Canada and the USA must preclude generalisations of any kind.
There may not be anything much happening ecumenically where my friend lives but there might be all sorts of ecumenical stuff going on in the next State or next county.
An American friend in semi-rural Pennsylvania seems to think that ecumenism is more of a thing over here than over there - on the grounds that I attend ecumenical events.
She says she's not aware of any such conferences or gatherings in the US - what, the whole of the US?
She also maintains that the only times Christians get together over there are on 'national' occasions such as 4th July or Thanksgiving.
I found that very hard to believe and would have assumed that in North America as a whole the situation is more as @Leaf has described - allowing for differences between Canada and the USA in terms of 'settlement patterns' and so on.
FWIW, I think your Pennsylvania friend and @Leaf are talking about very different things, perhaps best described as “formal” and “informal” ecumenism.
Like your Pennsylvania friend, I find the kinds of conferences you’ve described attending unfamiliar, and I struggle to think of anything comparable in my experience. The closest I can come is occasional conferences organized by dioceses, presbyteries, annual conferences and the like, which tend to mainly draw clergy.
In terms of ecumenical services, those do indeed, in my experience, tend to happen at Thanksgiving and Holy Week. (Our Good Friday service is an ecumenical service.) I’m not as used to them around national holidays.
That said, there are also organizations like Church Women United, who sponsor a variety of ecumenical gatherings locally. And there are lots of local ministries all over that have ecumenical support.
On the other hand, what @Leaf was describing is what I’d call “informal ecumenism.” Perhaps this illustrates what I mean: I grew up attending a Presbyterian church. I had three best friends as a child; we all lived on the same block of our small town. Two of those friends (brothers) attended the Episcopal church one block from my church. The other was Baptist. We were in each others’ churches many times while growing up—for baptisms, weddings, funerals, special services, and the like. That’s just how life was.
My Presbyterian church and the Episcopal church in particular often did things together, like Bible school in the summer. And I think I’ve mentioned here before the practice that has been going on for decades that members of the choirs at the Presbyterian and Episcopal churches join forces for funerals at either church. (At my parents’ funerals, some Methodists and some Baptists also joined in.)
Again, informal, but very real and meaningful, ecumenism at work.
And then, with some of the words in question, are you any the wiser once you've looked them up?
And if the hymn writer or liturgist provided a more palatable word, are you any the wiser?
Upthread, @BroJames volunteered "one in substance" as a more palatable version of "consubstantial". Perhaps it avoids the initial big long latinate word scare factor, but both contain the same reference to "substance" (and no, I don't think using "being" or "essence" makes a difference). You're not really going to encompass what any of these statements means without a willingness to wrestle with metaphysics.
But does that matter?
'Here's a metaphysical concept that I don't understand well, but describes God, who I also don't understand well, in a way that I can't really explain, but that's OK, because Jesus is God, and looking at Jesus, enfleshed and fully Man, gives us a relatable way of thinking about God' isn't really a bad place for someone to be.
An American friend in semi-rural Pennsylvania seems to think that ecumenism is more of a thing over here than over there - on the grounds that I attend ecumenical events.
She says she's not aware of any such conferences or gatherings in the US - what, the whole of the US?
She also maintains that the only times Christians get together over there are on 'national' occasions such as 4th July or Thanksgiving.
I found that very hard to believe and would have assumed that in North America as a whole the situation is more as @Leaf has described - allowing for differences between Canada and the USA in terms of 'settlement patterns' and so on.
But then, the vastness and complexity of Canada and the USA must preclude generalisations of any kind.
There may not be anything much happening ecumenically where my friend lives but there might be all sorts of ecumenical stuff going on in the next State or next county.
Tangent over.
Sorry, tangent is picked up.
I can only speak for my brand of Lutheranism. The ELCA has long taken the approach that we can be in fellowship with other church bodies as long as the Gospel is Preached and the Sacraments are properly administered. Thus, we have reached fellowship agreements with the Anglicans, the Reformed bodies, Moravians, Methodists to name a few. We are working hard to reach agreement with the Orthodox. It is not so unusual any more for a Lutheran ELCA congregation to be pastored by an Episcopal priest and a Lutheran pastor to minister to a UCC church. Heck, my son's congregation is pastored by an American Baptist (she did take a course on basic Lutheran teaching--and she seems very sacramental in her approach to ministry).
If I could, I wish I could show you my synod's newsletter. It lists a number of ecumenical workshops being held around the area.
I should mention my wife attends a local oblate meeting from the Benedictine order.
Ecumenical efforts are happening.
But, as Nick has said, there is a difference between formal and informal ecumenical efforts. Ecumenicism at the congregational level, though, is increasing, especially in rural areas. Small congregations of one denomination are joining other small congregations of another denomination to keep going. Two congregations I preached at have joined their Methodist cousins to keep going. I am preaching at a combined Lutheran/Presbyterian congregation for two years now.
@Nick Tamen, sure and I'd applaud all those efforts whether formal and informal.
The kind of conferences I've mentioned here tend to be somewhat 'niche' and attract mostly clergy and academics. I'm neither but have an interest in these things.
In our parish we say 'of one substance with the Father' when we recite the Creed during the Liturgy.
Some would prefer to say 'essence' but I can't say I can see how that makes a great deal of difference.
I don't have a problem with people not reciting the Creed in church services nor is it any business of mine whether they do or not.
But if we hold to Nicene beliefs then it's reasonable to expect that to be expressed in hymnody in some way. If those hymns didn't include terms like 'consubstantial' and 'co-eternal' they'd contain something equally puzzling.
If we want to take Occam's Razor to it all then fine, let's do so and all become Quakers with no hymnody whatsoever, at least not in most Friends' settings here.
I understand there are evangelical Quakers in Kenya and parts of the US so imagine they'd use evangelical hymnody.
I sometimes used to visit the local Pentecostal church in my native South Wales. They'd often sing:
'Thank you God for sending Jesus.
Thank you Jesus that you came.
Holy Spirit won't you tell me,
More about His lovely name.'
I'm quoting from memory but that was the gist.
Yes, it was quite sentimental and very pietistic but it does represent an attempt to present Trinitarian belief in an accessible way.
Techie theologians might pull it apart but I don't doubt their sincerity nor their intentions.
Why, yes. Yes, it is. Though it may be affected by the way people are often educated now, so it may be less their fault, but it still makes me very sad. I'd also say that just wanting to know what a word means is very different than niche knowledge of either the linguistic history of the word or of sports.
Again, this is something that people can find out in an instant, using devices they have on them all the time and are often staring at constantly (I mean, at this point we're all practically addicted to the things), and all they have to do is say, "Hey Siri/Alexa/etc., what does X mean?"and the thing will tell them. And it's just a definition of a word, not the history of the Peloponnesian War or something. (Which I just looked up to make sure I spelled it right, again within instants.)
I think it's just more complicated than that. People can get quite defensive about things they don't know if they've got a bit of a complex about having their intelligence doubted and often prefer not to think about it and not look stuff up. Or they may take the view that they've managed for 50 years without knowing a particular word so it doesn't matter to them. But also there's forgetting. A word comes up, you can't look it up immediately, you've forgotten within the hour.
And then, with some of the words in question, are you any the wiser once you've looked them up?
In theory, one may indeed be wiser, depending on the word, yes.
I’m inclined to say that if people have forgotten it within the hour or just aren’t interested in learning this stuff, whatever their motives, however, sympathetic those motives may be, then I don’t see why we should destroy either the poetry or the solid theology in question. The people who will benefit from it will, and the people who are not willing to become more educated can always explore learning more. But I really think that removing all of this is a bad thing, and at some point we need to say stop for the reasons I’ve said before. And I don’t think this is a slippery slope – I think we’re part way down down that slope as it is and we’re already seeing problems from it in education in general and also in religious education (by which I am including things just learned by people in the church, not formal religious education in a school setting). If people are encouraged to learn, and that education is made available and free even, then I’m sorry, I don’t really know what else can be done other than to hope that they will make use of it and to keep offering it and encouraging people to learn, rather than simply removing anything that might be complicated or involve a deeper understanding.
I would have thought that Zion National Park would be better-known by the average American than a random neighbourhood church - especially since plenty of Americans won't be Christian at all and the national park is famous way beyond mountineers. For the average American Christian, surely there are many whose denomination doesn't usually name their churches after Zion? I can't imagine that the average RC would think it referred to a neighbourhood church first and foremost. Also, a lot of younger people only know the term with reference to Zionism but wouldn't know the Biblical context as to why it's called that.
You keep making assumptions about North American religious life that are simply wrong. To paraphrase Ed Koch, I can attempt to explain why you are wrong, but I cannot comprehend it for you.
For starters, you have a wrong idea about "a random neighbourhood church" being named Zion. Settlement patterns in North America mean that there are often equivalent distributions of the larger Christian denominations, especially in the American Midwest and the Canadian prairie provinces. A common distribution would be 25% Roman Catholic or Orthodox, 25% Anglican or United Church, 25% Lutheran or Mennonite, 25% Presbyterian or Baptist.
Because of these settlement patterns, ecumenism is a way of life. People wind up at each other's places of worship because the public education system tends to foster these relationships, so ecumenical attendance at "hatch/match/dispatch" events is just life. "I'm going to Zion" doesn't necessarily mean worship attendance either; it may mean the destination where you're delivering flowers or going to yoga. Again, unless one is in the habit of hiking trips, "I'm going to Zion" means a Mennonite or Lutheran church near you. Zion may be the name of the largest church in a town or city.
This is to demonstrate that it is likely that Zion is more familiar to more Americans than one park; most Americans are not local to that park either.
If someone said to me "I'm going to Trinity" my first thought wouldn't be a church, because here at least churches are usually named "Holy Trinity" specifically and secular organisations or businesses drop the "Holy" - so my first thought would be that it was something other than a church, usually something named for the area or the street. I also find the idea that someone wouldn't specify that either Zion or Trinity was a church to be strange - usually people say "I'm going to church" or "I'm going to mass" or "I'm going to a service", rather than using the church's name.
I used that analogy because about as many churches are named Zion/Mount Zion in North America as the number of churches named Holy Trinity in England. I thought that perhaps comparable numbers might be meaningful for you.
To me, the real kicker is your refusal to acknowledge - as noted by @Nick Tamen - that there is an entire denomination, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, whose members presumably know their own denominational name. For you to assert that because you, @Pomona, are unfamiliar with the word Zion - that therefore more than a million Black Americans are equally unfamiliar with the word Zion, and can only mean what you mean - is breathtakingly... problematic.
I cannot prevent you from showing your assumptions on this thread, but I can challenge them.
Sorry, I'm confused - nowhere did I say that I'm unfamiliar with the word Zion and I'm not sure where that came from. I also didn't say that Black Americans wouldn't know the term - I don't appreciate having words put in my mouth. I have to say that I think your responses have felt quite personal in a way that a thread about liturgical terminology in Eccles doesn't seem to warrant - I'm sorry to have offended you, but you seem to be assuming a degree of bad faith which just isn't the case. I'm sorry if you thought that I was somehow intentionally trying to ignore the existence of the AMEZ Church - I am actually quite familiar with the existence of the AME and AMEZ churches. I didn't intentionally ignore @Nick Tamen 's post.
I sincerely just made an example based on the (many) Americans I know including some based in Utah. I know that Zion National Park is a very popular US National Park to visit. I also know people who have assumed that Zion is necessarily a reference to (modern) Zionism but not knowing the Biblical reference. I wasn't intending to suggest that I was judging those people, just that this is something I've come across. I'm sorry for making what you felt was an inaccurate example but I think the aggression of your response is unwarranted.
Why, yes. Yes, it is. Though it may be affected by the way people are often educated now, so it may be less their fault, but it still makes me very sad. I'd also say that just wanting to know what a word means is very different than niche knowledge of either the linguistic history of the word or of sports.
Again, this is something that people can find out in an instant, using devices they have on them all the time and are often staring at constantly (I mean, at this point we're all practically addicted to the things), and all they have to do is say, "Hey Siri/Alexa/etc., what does X mean?"and the thing will tell them. And it's just a definition of a word, not the history of the Peloponnesian War or something. (Which I just looked up to make sure I spelled it right, again within instants.)
I think it's just more complicated than that. People can get quite defensive about things they don't know if they've got a bit of a complex about having their intelligence doubted and often prefer not to think about it and not look stuff up. Or they may take the view that they've managed for 50 years without knowing a particular word so it doesn't matter to them. But also there's forgetting. A word comes up, you can't look it up immediately, you've forgotten within the hour.
And then, with some of the words in question, are you any the wiser once you've looked them up?
In theory, one may indeed be wiser, depending on the word, yes.
I’m inclined to say that if people have forgotten it within the hour or just aren’t interested in learning this stuff, whatever their motives, however, sympathetic those motives may be, then I don’t see why we should destroy either the poetry or the solid theology in question. The people who will benefit from it will, and the people who are not willing to become more educated can always explore learning more. But I really think that removing all of this is a bad thing, and at some point we need to say stop for the reasons I’ve said before. And I don’t think this is a slippery slope – I think we’re part way down down that slope as it is and we’re already seeing problems from it in education in general and also in religious education (by which I am including things just learned by people in the church, not formal religious education in a school setting). If people are encouraged to learn, and that education is made available and free even, then I’m sorry, I don’t really know what else can be done other than to hope that they will make use of it and to keep offering it and encouraging people to learn, rather than simply removing anything that might be complicated or involve a deeper understanding.
I don't personally think that it needs to be as dramatic as "destroying" anything (I am only speaking for myself and not for @KarlLB here). I think that we (general "we") have a duty to make church accessible (meant in the widest possible sense ie not just disability), and the liturgical language and education that we use is part of that. I think that "accessible" can take many different forms and I don't think there's one particular solution. I don't, for instance, think it would do any harm to provide Easy Read versions of church booklets in the same way a church might provide eg Spanish versions (without making assumptions about who would use such versions - it's not just disabled people). I think that thinking in terms of adding accessibility in order to widen participation is better than taking anything away.
Why, yes. Yes, it is. Though it may be affected by the way people are often educated now, so it may be less their fault, but it still makes me very sad. I'd also say that just wanting to know what a word means is very different than niche knowledge of either the linguistic history of the word or of sports.
Again, this is something that people can find out in an instant, using devices they have on them all the time and are often staring at constantly (I mean, at this point we're all practically addicted to the things), and all they have to do is say, "Hey Siri/Alexa/etc., what does X mean?"and the thing will tell them. And it's just a definition of a word, not the history of the Peloponnesian War or something. (Which I just looked up to make sure I spelled it right, again within instants.)
I think it's just more complicated than that. People can get quite defensive about things they don't know if they've got a bit of a complex about having their intelligence doubted and often prefer not to think about it and not look stuff up. Or they may take the view that they've managed for 50 years without knowing a particular word so it doesn't matter to them. But also there's forgetting. A word comes up, you can't look it up immediately, you've forgotten within the hour.
And then, with some of the words in question, are you any the wiser once you've looked them up?
In theory, one may indeed be wiser, depending on the word, yes.
I’m inclined to say that if people have forgotten it within the hour or just aren’t interested in learning this stuff, whatever their motives, however, sympathetic those motives may be, then I don’t see why we should destroy either the poetry or the solid theology in question. The people who will benefit from it will, and the people who are not willing to become more educated can always explore learning more. But I really think that removing all of this is a bad thing, and at some point we need to say stop for the reasons I’ve said before. And I don’t think this is a slippery slope – I think we’re part way down down that slope as it is and we’re already seeing problems from it in education in general and also in religious education (by which I am including things just learned by people in the church, not formal religious education in a school setting). If people are encouraged to learn, and that education is made available and free even, then I’m sorry, I don’t really know what else can be done other than to hope that they will make use of it and to keep offering it and encouraging people to learn, rather than simply removing anything that might be complicated or involve a deeper understanding.
I don't personally think that it needs to be as dramatic as "destroying" anything (I am only speaking for myself and not for @KarlLB here). I think that we (general "we") have a duty to make church accessible (meant in the widest possible sense ie not just disability), and the liturgical language and education that we use is part of that. I think that "accessible" can take many different forms and I don't think there's one particular solution. I don't, for instance, think it would do any harm to provide Easy Read versions of church booklets in the same way a church might provide eg Spanish versions (without making assumptions about who would use such versions - it's not just disabled people). I think that thinking in terms of adding accessibility in order to widen participation is better than taking anything away.
Absolutely! And maybe a lot of people could use the refresher as well.
Comments
You could, but I don't know about you but I'm tuning in and out during sermons and before hymns I'm fumbling the hymn book finding the page and looking at the music. I'd personally sooner the hymn be intrinsically comprehensible.
I think there's a difference between wanting to remove all the thees and thous (which I think people understand perfectly well) and avoiding obscure theological terms, especially when they appear to occur in precisely one hymn.
@Gill H - ha ha to the veiled 'Vale' reference...
At the risk of contemporary chorus-bashing, I'd say that at least traditional hymns use chunks of unfamiliar biblical language in some kind of context or to make a theological point.
I find in many of the more contemporary contemporary worship songs (post-1990s/early 2000s), biblical clips and soundbites appear at random and with clear rationale.
It's as if the writers have hoovered up a few biblical tropes by AI and sprinkled them into the mix - 'Emmanuel', 'The Lion and the Lamb', etc etc without any specific context or purpose other than to fit the tune and format.
There are exceptions of course.
I fully accept the points people raise about 'ablism' and 'elitism' and so forth and am mindful of all that.
Heck, there are Eastern Europeans in our parish who very much struggle with English and whose spirituality is postively medieval. They couldn't cite biblical chapter and verse to save their lives.
But if biblical references are 'unfamiliar' then surely we must make the effort to make them familiar.
I remain very grateful to my evangelical background for giving me a 'working knowledge' and overview of the scriptures.
I know it's easier said than done buy somehow we need to familiarise ourselves and others with this stuff.
And I’d be peeved if the flow of the service was interrupted so that the minister or someone else could say, “In the hymn we are about to sing, we’ll encounter the word consubstantial. It means ‘of the same substance or being.’ It is an affirmation that the three Persons of the Trinity are united by being one of substance.”
And I can imagine at least some people then thinking, “Huh?”
If it’s really important to a congregation to sing “consubstantial, co-eternal,” then a religious education or catechesis program outside the liturgy that includes what those words mean needs to be equally or more important. Otherwise, it would appear that what’s really important is either personal preference or avoiding change simply to continue doing things the way we’ve always done it.
Especially given that without understanding what Aristotle meant by substance you're really none the wiser about what it means.
The version of the Nicene creed I know uses "of one being".
@Pomona: your comparison was exceptionally inapt.
Google could have been your friend here. "how many churches named zion in united states" tells me there are thousands of churches named Zion in the United States, including 523 Zion Lutheran Churches, as of 2010.
Zion is also a common name for Lutheran churches in Canada, although I couldn't find a number through a quick Google search.
It's as if I said that someone going somewhere called Trinity in England can only have meant they were going to a single bougie restaurant in Clapham. ("how many churches named trinity in uk" = approximately 600 in England).
If someone is into mountaineering or fine dining, they might have meant a very restricted idea of the name of their locale, and only in that sense is your comparison meaningful. Otherwise, it betrays a profound ignorance of religious life in North America. "I'm going to Zion" means, in almost every context of ordinary life in North America, "I'm going to my neighbourhood church named Zion."
If that was the corner of NW London I think it is, we got rid of HTC a few years ago because it was so awful, and replaced it with the latest A&M- which has "consubstantial, co-eternal".
The use of either isn't going to be that helpful to anyone unfamiliar with the Council of Nicea and Trinitarian theology. Which is why I agree with @Nick Tamen that there should be some attempt on whatever form to explain these terms outside of the Liturgy / services / meetings.
In Orthodox circles you'll hear pious statements such as, 'The Liturgy speaks for itself ...'
Well, yes, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have proper systematic catechesis alongside that. Our Deacon told me this weekend how he's often confronted with the most bizarre and left-field questions imaginable after the services and can't always get a cup of coffee because he's got to think on his feet and handle them.
Church is messy. All churches are messy - whether they have a designated 'Messy Church' component or not.
Do people not encounter new words, and think "I vaguely get what this word means from context, but I'm going to go home and look it up", and then do that? That's a genuine question: is that not normal for people? It's normal for me, but I don't claim to be representative of "people".
True. And I don't think whether the word you use is "substance" or "being" or "essence" makes a difference to this statement: whichever word you use, the statement it makes about God is both deeply profound, and completely removed from everyday experience.
For people who have at least a vague understanding of the "long explanation", hanging a name off it makes sense as a reference. If we had a hymn about exactly what consubstantial means, it probably wouldn't be much fun to sing.
I don't think many people do that, no.
I don't think anyone here wants to dumb anything down. We just have different hopes of what liturgy is supposed to do in the moment. Naming that might help you talk to reach other rather that past each other.
We have different liturgies for different moments. We don't use the same vocabulary on Christmas or for an Easter Service. We don't use the same words for a baptism that we use for a funeral.
I would argue the question isn't whether variation is allowed, but the question is what the moment calls for. There are times when the full weight of inherited language is good. But there are times when poetic language works better. And then, there are still other times prayerful language is the best.
Myself, I like to craft a service built around a theme. Today, I used 1 Peter 1:22 for my sermon, so I built the service around the idea of community. That included a call to worship, order of confession, prayer of the day. The readings were RCL. I allowed the music people to select the hymns, all of which were gospel oriented.
The next time I am scheduled to preach is Ascension Sunday, May 14. I am thinking of using the Ephesians passage where Christ is enthroned over all powers. I will likely use the Crown him with Many Crowns theme.
To each, their own though. For me, no one liturgy fits every occasion.
OMG I think we could use a Schoolhouse Rock for theology and ecclesiastical stuff. And it would be fun to sing! At least the old SR stuff is, for me… (I’m not quite sure I’m including Apologetix here—I had hopes for them but they seem pretty fundamentalist, sadly.)
- Language 'understanded of the people.'
- A degree of theological depth.
- Appealingly 'poetic' language and music that stirs the soul.
All at the same time.
Achieving all those things at once is easier said than done.
We may fail but at least let's make the effort.
His best known is probably the least singable.
Contrary to expectations perhaps, I wouldn't 'write-off' all contemporary choruses and their writers either. We don't sing them in my circles but that doesn't mean I don't believe they are of value.
As with familiar words of any kind it becomes easy to say or sing them mechanically by rote if we aren't careful. Like spiritual multiplication tables.
All of us who have more formal liturgies need to be more aware of that. Although the same thing can happen with less formal liturgies too.
Especially if they contain obscure words people don't know
"Can't be bothered" is rather judgemental. People have other pressing concerns which demand their attention. I mean, I'm always surprised other people aren't fascinated by how Latin Securus gives both English Sure and Secure, but also Welsh Siwr and Sicr, and how Sicr preserves the Middle English Siker which was later Latinised back to Secure. But they aren't. They, in the meantime, are amazed I don't know which grounds Premier league clubs play at, who the players are, or have any intention of watching any World Cup matches. I spent six months hearing the name "Ed Sheerhan" and thinking he was a footballer (possibly because of Alan Shearer, who was), such is my lack of consciousness of either pop music or football. I couldn't be bothered to find out.
Yet I could cite all manner of literary and artistic references.
I must admit, I am struggling to understand why someone of your very evident linguistic abilities - you know far more Welsh than I do bach, and correct me on it at times - should be fazed by terms like 'consubstantial, co-eternal' in a hymn.
I get the general point you're making.
But if we didn't have chewy terms like that in hymns wouldn't we end up with the chewing gum variety which go, 'Ooh ooh Jesus ... ooh ooh lovely Jesus ... ooh ooh ooh,' like the pop songs you are unfamiliar with?
I'm being cheeky of course and recognise that there's more to contemporary worship songs than that.
Wesley is supposed to have said that people pick up more theology from what they sing than from what they hear in sermons.
Is this really the case?
Is it realistic to expect everyone to engage with these things?
Heck, we are all interested in this stuff otherwise we wouldn't be posting here.
We all started somewhere.
None of us woke up one morning with a clear grasp of what 'consubstantial, co-eternal' means in a theological context. We were either told or went and found out.
We are all 'socialised' into the faith - into the Kingdom indeed.
I didn't immediately start raising my hands or speaking in tongues the moment I walked into a charismatic gathering.
I didn't immediately start venerating icons and lighting candles the moment I attended an Orthodoxy Liturgy.
I didn't know what bits of cathedral had which particular function the moment I visited one.
Hymns are 'there'. Worship songs are 'there'. Liturgies are 'there'. It's up to us to what extent we make use of them or not. If we do we become acclimatised to them to a greater or lesser extent.
If we aren't interested, we won't bother. If we are we'll find out.
I think you may want to remind yourself of the excluded middle fallacy.
Which is why I tend to see such terms more as agreed language and less as reflecting reality.
I thought that the national park named after
I would have thought that Zion National Park would be better-known by the average American than a random neighbourhood church - especially since plenty of Americans won't be Christian at all and the national park is famous way beyond mountineers. For the average American Christian, surely there are many whose denomination doesn't usually name their churches after Zion? I can't imagine that the average RC would think it referred to a neighbourhood church first and foremost. Also, a lot of younger people only know the term with reference to Zionism but wouldn't know the Biblical context as to why it's called that.
If someone said to me "I'm going to Trinity" my first thought wouldn't be a church, because here at least churches are usually named "Holy Trinity" specifically and secular organisations or businesses drop the "Holy" - so my first thought would be that it was something other than a church, usually something named for the area or the street. I also find the idea that someone wouldn't specify that either Zion or Trinity was a church to be strange - usually people say "I'm going to church" or "I'm going to mass" or "I'm going to a service", rather than using the church's name.
You’re failing to take into a count just how often questions like “where do you go to church” can be asked here.
I think this is a very multilayered issue. As @KarlLB pointed out, people have a lot of pressures going on in their lives. Sometimes other stuff has to be prioritised - although I do agree with you that it's sad, and I also generally feel saddened by how incurious a lot of people are (speaking as someone who is naturally curious and will look things up, and always have been like that). But I'm more sad at the situations that have made people like that to begin with.
I agree with the idea that there needs to be better theological education and spiritual formation for adults at church - and that's something American churches with a tradition of adult Sunday School do much better than their UK counterparts. I also agree with @ThunderBunk that it's something a lot of non-Evangelicals in particular neglect (at least in the UK) aside from perhaps Lent courses.
At the same time, I'm mindful of the fact that for many people making church feel like school is a good way to make sure that they never darken the door of church ever again. For many people the actual learning part of school is something that was a wholly negative experience for them growing up.
Anglicans (even clergy, at least in the C of E) these days don't have to regard the 39 Articles as holy writ. If we all took that literally we would never use words like Alleluia, Amen or even / especially God.
I question the accuracy your last sentence, though. I suspect most people in the pews, even if they don’t know the etymology or underlying Hebrew meaning of “Alleluia”/“Hallelujah” or of “Amen,” have a sense of how to use them correctly, and a sense that the former means something along the lines of “Praise the Lord” and the latter indicates agreement in some way. (Witness the use of “Amen” as a response in African American preaching.)
As for “God,” there is a vast difference between understanding what is meant by the word “God” and understanding the nature of God.
You keep making assumptions about North American religious life that are simply wrong. To paraphrase Ed Koch, I can attempt to explain why you are wrong, but I cannot comprehend it for you.
For starters, you have a wrong idea about "a random neighbourhood church" being named Zion. Settlement patterns in North America mean that there are often equivalent distributions of the larger Christian denominations, especially in the American Midwest and the Canadian prairie provinces. A common distribution would be 25% Roman Catholic or Orthodox, 25% Anglican or United Church, 25% Lutheran or Mennonite, 25% Presbyterian or Baptist.
Because of these settlement patterns, ecumenism is a way of life. People wind up at each other's places of worship because the public education system tends to foster these relationships, so ecumenical attendance at "hatch/match/dispatch" events is just life. "I'm going to Zion" doesn't necessarily mean worship attendance either; it may mean the destination where you're delivering flowers or going to yoga. Again, unless one is in the habit of hiking trips, "I'm going to Zion" means a Mennonite or Lutheran church near you. Zion may be the name of the largest church in a town or city.
This is to demonstrate that it is likely that Zion is more familiar to more Americans than one park; most Americans are not local to that park either.
I used that analogy because about as many churches are named Zion/Mount Zion in North America as the number of churches named Holy Trinity in England. I thought that perhaps comparable numbers might be meaningful for you.
To me, the real kicker is your refusal to acknowledge - as noted by @Nick Tamen - that there is an entire denomination, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, whose members presumably know their own denominational name. For you to assert that because you, @Pomona, are unfamiliar with the word Zion - that therefore more than a million Black Americans are equally unfamiliar with the word Zion, and can only mean what you mean - is breathtakingly... problematic.
I cannot prevent you from showing your assumptions on this thread, but I can challenge them.
To be fair, if you're in Cambridge, then "Trinity" is probably the college
Why, yes. Yes, it is. Though it may be affected by the way people are often educated now, so it may be less their fault, but it still makes me very sad. I'd also say that just wanting to know what a word means is very different than niche knowledge of either the linguistic history of the word or of sports.
Again, this is something that people can find out in an instant, using devices they have on them all the time and are often staring at constantly (I mean, at this point we're all practically addicted to the things), and all they have to do is say, "Hey Siri/Alexa/etc., what does X mean?"and the thing will tell them. And it's just a definition of a word, not the history of the Peloponnesian War or something. (Which I just looked up to make sure I spelled it right, again within instants.)
I think it's just more complicated than that. People can get quite defensive about things they don't know if they've got a bit of a complex about having their intelligence doubted and often prefer not to think about it and not look stuff up. Or they may take the view that they've managed for 50 years without knowing a particular word so it doesn't matter to them. But also there's forgetting. A word comes up, you can't look it up immediately, you've forgotten within the hour.
And then, with some of the words in question, are you any the wiser once you've looked them up?
I'm not sure how the 'excluded middle fallacy' fits here but I'm sure I can work things out.
On the philosophical/theological import of 'consubstantial, co-eternal' then even if one doesn't 'get' that oneself - and yes, it's a conundrum - we can at least get some idea as to what the debates were about at Nicea and other Councils.
It's not as if we can't look them up online or read a book about it all if we are interested enough to do so, and no, not everyone will be.
Nobody is saying we should. Church shouldn't be like school. I agree with that. It shouldn't become a lecture hall with hymns.
That said, I still believe there should be forms of continuing catechesis and 'formation' for those who wish to avail themselves of that.
What form that will take will depend on a whole range of factors and circumstances. It's an issue we are wrestling with in our parish right now.
A few years ago I carried out some editing and focus group work for a friend involved with a particular network of independent evangelical charismatic churches.
He was keen that people appreciate the 'history' and development of that group and that they sll embrace what he saw as its original 'vision' and distinctives.
It soon became clear to me that very few people in that group were bothered about those issues at all.
They were there for the close sense of fellowship and the 'freedom' they valued to express themselves in worship by dancing, clapping and 'speaking in tongues'.
Any ecclesial or theological considerations were a lot lower down their list of priorities, even if they figured at all.
I'm not singling them out for censure. I'm sure the outcome would be similar in principle if I carried out a parallel exercise in churches of other traditions.
'I meet Romanian people here ...'
'I like the music...'
Or whatever else.
An American friend in semi-rural Pennsylvania seems to think that ecumenism is more of a thing over here than over there - on the grounds that I attend ecumenical events.
She says she's not aware of any such conferences or gatherings in the US - what, the whole of the US?
She also maintains that the only times Christians get together over there are on 'national' occasions such as 4th July or Thanksgiving.
I found that very hard to believe and would have assumed that in North America as a whole the situation is more as @Leaf has described - allowing for differences between Canada and the USA in terms of 'settlement patterns' and so on.
But then, the vastness and complexity of Canada and the USA must preclude generalisations of any kind.
There may not be anything much happening ecumenically where my friend lives but there might be all sorts of ecumenical stuff going on in the next State or next county.
Tangent over.
Like your Pennsylvania friend, I find the kinds of conferences you’ve described attending unfamiliar, and I struggle to think of anything comparable in my experience. The closest I can come is occasional conferences organized by dioceses, presbyteries, annual conferences and the like, which tend to mainly draw clergy.
In terms of ecumenical services, those do indeed, in my experience, tend to happen at Thanksgiving and Holy Week. (Our Good Friday service is an ecumenical service.) I’m not as used to them around national holidays.
That said, there are also organizations like Church Women United, who sponsor a variety of ecumenical gatherings locally. And there are lots of local ministries all over that have ecumenical support.
On the other hand, what @Leaf was describing is what I’d call “informal ecumenism.” Perhaps this illustrates what I mean: I grew up attending a Presbyterian church. I had three best friends as a child; we all lived on the same block of our small town. Two of those friends (brothers) attended the Episcopal church one block from my church. The other was Baptist. We were in each others’ churches many times while growing up—for baptisms, weddings, funerals, special services, and the like. That’s just how life was.
My Presbyterian church and the Episcopal church in particular often did things together, like Bible school in the summer. And I think I’ve mentioned here before the practice that has been going on for decades that members of the choirs at the Presbyterian and Episcopal churches join forces for funerals at either church. (At my parents’ funerals, some Methodists and some Baptists also joined in.)
Again, informal, but very real and meaningful, ecumenism at work.
And if the hymn writer or liturgist provided a more palatable word, are you any the wiser?
Upthread, @BroJames volunteered "one in substance" as a more palatable version of "consubstantial". Perhaps it avoids the initial big long latinate word scare factor, but both contain the same reference to "substance" (and no, I don't think using "being" or "essence" makes a difference). You're not really going to encompass what any of these statements means without a willingness to wrestle with metaphysics.
But does that matter?
'Here's a metaphysical concept that I don't understand well, but describes God, who I also don't understand well, in a way that I can't really explain, but that's OK, because Jesus is God, and looking at Jesus, enfleshed and fully Man, gives us a relatable way of thinking about God' isn't really a bad place for someone to be.
Sorry, tangent is picked up.
I can only speak for my brand of Lutheranism. The ELCA has long taken the approach that we can be in fellowship with other church bodies as long as the Gospel is Preached and the Sacraments are properly administered. Thus, we have reached fellowship agreements with the Anglicans, the Reformed bodies, Moravians, Methodists to name a few. We are working hard to reach agreement with the Orthodox. It is not so unusual any more for a Lutheran ELCA congregation to be pastored by an Episcopal priest and a Lutheran pastor to minister to a UCC church. Heck, my son's congregation is pastored by an American Baptist (she did take a course on basic Lutheran teaching--and she seems very sacramental in her approach to ministry).
If I could, I wish I could show you my synod's newsletter. It lists a number of ecumenical workshops being held around the area.
I should mention my wife attends a local oblate meeting from the Benedictine order.
Ecumenical efforts are happening.
But, as Nick has said, there is a difference between formal and informal ecumenical efforts. Ecumenicism at the congregational level, though, is increasing, especially in rural areas. Small congregations of one denomination are joining other small congregations of another denomination to keep going. Two congregations I preached at have joined their Methodist cousins to keep going. I am preaching at a combined Lutheran/Presbyterian congregation for two years now.
Now I am handing the tangent baton back.
The kind of conferences I've mentioned here tend to be somewhat 'niche' and attract mostly clergy and academics. I'm neither but have an interest in these things.
Which is one of the reasons I come here.
@Leorning Cniht - that's pretty much where I'm coming from.
In our parish we say 'of one substance with the Father' when we recite the Creed during the Liturgy.
Some would prefer to say 'essence' but I can't say I can see how that makes a great deal of difference.
I don't have a problem with people not reciting the Creed in church services nor is it any business of mine whether they do or not.
But if we hold to Nicene beliefs then it's reasonable to expect that to be expressed in hymnody in some way. If those hymns didn't include terms like 'consubstantial' and 'co-eternal' they'd contain something equally puzzling.
If we want to take Occam's Razor to it all then fine, let's do so and all become Quakers with no hymnody whatsoever, at least not in most Friends' settings here.
I understand there are evangelical Quakers in Kenya and parts of the US so imagine they'd use evangelical hymnody.
I sometimes used to visit the local Pentecostal church in my native South Wales. They'd often sing:
'Thank you God for sending Jesus.
Thank you Jesus that you came.
Holy Spirit won't you tell me,
More about His lovely name.'
I'm quoting from memory but that was the gist.
Yes, it was quite sentimental and very pietistic but it does represent an attempt to present Trinitarian belief in an accessible way.
Techie theologians might pull it apart but I don't doubt their sincerity nor their intentions.
In theory, one may indeed be wiser, depending on the word, yes.
I’m inclined to say that if people have forgotten it within the hour or just aren’t interested in learning this stuff, whatever their motives, however, sympathetic those motives may be, then I don’t see why we should destroy either the poetry or the solid theology in question. The people who will benefit from it will, and the people who are not willing to become more educated can always explore learning more. But I really think that removing all of this is a bad thing, and at some point we need to say stop for the reasons I’ve said before. And I don’t think this is a slippery slope – I think we’re part way down down that slope as it is and we’re already seeing problems from it in education in general and also in religious education (by which I am including things just learned by people in the church, not formal religious education in a school setting). If people are encouraged to learn, and that education is made available and free even, then I’m sorry, I don’t really know what else can be done other than to hope that they will make use of it and to keep offering it and encouraging people to learn, rather than simply removing anything that might be complicated or involve a deeper understanding.
Sorry, I'm confused - nowhere did I say that I'm unfamiliar with the word Zion and I'm not sure where that came from. I also didn't say that Black Americans wouldn't know the term - I don't appreciate having words put in my mouth. I have to say that I think your responses have felt quite personal in a way that a thread about liturgical terminology in Eccles doesn't seem to warrant - I'm sorry to have offended you, but you seem to be assuming a degree of bad faith which just isn't the case. I'm sorry if you thought that I was somehow intentionally trying to ignore the existence of the AMEZ Church - I am actually quite familiar with the existence of the AME and AMEZ churches. I didn't intentionally ignore @Nick Tamen 's post.
I sincerely just made an example based on the (many) Americans I know including some based in Utah. I know that Zion National Park is a very popular US National Park to visit. I also know people who have assumed that Zion is necessarily a reference to (modern) Zionism but not knowing the Biblical reference. I wasn't intending to suggest that I was judging those people, just that this is something I've come across. I'm sorry for making what you felt was an inaccurate example but I think the aggression of your response is unwarranted.
I don't personally think that it needs to be as dramatic as "destroying" anything (I am only speaking for myself and not for @KarlLB here). I think that we (general "we") have a duty to make church accessible (meant in the widest possible sense ie not just disability), and the liturgical language and education that we use is part of that. I think that "accessible" can take many different forms and I don't think there's one particular solution. I don't, for instance, think it would do any harm to provide Easy Read versions of church booklets in the same way a church might provide eg Spanish versions (without making assumptions about who would use such versions - it's not just disabled people). I think that thinking in terms of adding accessibility in order to widen participation is better than taking anything away.
Absolutely! And maybe a lot of people could use the refresher as well.