By Tom Dodge
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-863473.mp3
Dallas, TX –
I had not been to church in a long time so when I went a few weeks ago I was surprised by all the changes. This conservative church once prided itself on its strictly scriptural services. Now, during the service, it shows videos. Also words to the hymns are read off the videos instead of from hymnbooks.
Speaking of hymns, they have been updated to correspond with this new era of "positive thinking." Retired to the outmoded list, I'm told, are old standards like "Amazing Grace" (refers to the worshiper as a "wretch"). And "Lord, I Care Not For Riches" didn't make the cut (disdainful of bling, one of the primary goals of positive thinking). Another, apparently too socialist, is "I Want to be a Worker in the Vineyards of the Lord." Also missing is "Angry Words." It goes like this: "Angry words! O let them never from the tongue unbridled slip;/ May the heart's impulse ever check them ere they soil the lip."
And instead of a sermon the preacher spoke of going somewhere in his Exposition. But it wasn't to heaven. I heard no reference at all to the afterlife (involves dying, way too negative). The Lord's Supper ritual is still extant though the elders who served it are not. They're called "shepherds" now. Elders implies old age. Negative.
My visit at least cleared up questions that had been bothering me. Driving around the area in the past few years I've noted strange new buildings with no discernible markings on them. I even went inside one. There were a lot of meeting rooms and a large assembly room with a stage. On the stage were guitars and other stringed instruments, as well as a set of drums. "What is this building," I asked someone there. "A church," he said.
"A Christian church?"
"I think so, yeah," he said.
"That's funny," I said. "Where's the cross? And where's the steeple? Where's the picture of Jesus?"
Well, so these are churches, built without the traditional iconography and symbols. Polls show, you see, that history is a relatively unimportant part of people's lives now. Ask them when the Vietnam War was fought and they're likely to say, "I don't know. That was before I was born." History began for them at their birth. So traditions, including church traditions are unimportant. They say in the polls that they want "life lessons" infused with "positive thinking" instead of sermons, and maybe a "life coach" or a "pastorpreneur" instead of a minister. They want contemporary music, day care, and an emphasis on this world rather than the next.
This doesn't describe every church, of course, only those with large younger mostly-white suburban congregations. The bigger you go in size toward mega-church the more unchurchly it is.
This trend toward corporate Christianity is a tremendous loss, I think, because future generations of children may never know, for example, the beauty of sunlight refracting through a stained glass window - or appreciate the skill and dedication of the hands that fashioned it. Jesus' sermons, especially the Beatitudes of his Sermon on the Mount, have for a long time been deemed too liberal. Will they disappear as well? The Bible is already being trivialized into innocuous upbeat snippets on jewelry, coffee mugs, and bumper stickers. These items, called "Successories," are on sale in the church gift shop. The many wonderful stories of the Old Testament are also disappearing in the transformation, going the way of classic literature, which mined them for plots, themes, and allusions.
Change is inevitable, even in religion. But dropping tradition for the sake of congregations' poll-driven likes and dislikes ought to be condemned in a sermon. But wait. What sermon?
Tom Dodge is a writer from Midlothian
If you have opinions or rebuttals about this commentary, call (214) 740-9338 or email us