Again, you state the obvious. But I'm afraid you have changed the subject.

We start with the obvious and the possible.

As for solutions to the immediate worship problem, there is nothing I can say. Too much depends on variables only you know. What recourse you have to the powers that be, how persuasively you can make a case to them, what inner circles you have access to...

"There is no battle to be won. Beware of the false messiahs who promise to lead us; they are only telling us what we dearly want to hear because they like to be at the front. (This has never been truer than with the fundamentalists.)"

How painfully true!!! How very painfully true!!

Dissidens:

Point three - How is this done given the entire lack of worship in the very "best" churches fundamentalism has to offer? Are you suggesting another venue?

You concentrate on children, and I agree with this basic idea. Have you considered that you yourself might contribute significantly to this end? Adler's Paideia Project and Sproul's Veritas Academy try to help in this regard, but I fear that they come woefully short. You, O Dissidens, might actually have something very valuable to offer.

This is your only answer, Dissidens?

lol What part of "Little To Offer" don't you understand, Ryan?

Ryan:

That is my first answer. We begin with obedience.

Mal:

Well, yes I am suggesting another venue. Worship is not limited to the church. The church is not excused from providing worship (as we are learning), but we can worship privately and we can lead our families in worship.

This has to mean more than reading a banal, trite and perfunctory devotional thought followed by a banal, trite and perfunctory quatrain which we found on a conveniently dated page of a booklet we keep in the napkin holder. Yet how many of us know this to be the diet of our childhoods?

I know I keep saying ‘this is a disgrace’, but it is. I can name at least five pastors who did, or do, this--one of them being my own father. I look you all straight in the eye and ask you, if this is what we got at the hands of our pastor-fathers, how were we supposed to learn about the Christian life we read of in the NT or Bunyan or Tersteegen?! Are we surprised that we’ve produced no Miltons? “DJD” (or whoever mimics him) has nothing for those I love.

As for your second paragraph: no chance of that happening. Let me make a couple of points in regard to that.

For Americans there are three kinds of problems: those that can be solved with a pill, those that can be solved by a technique, and those that can be solved by an institution. Another institution we do not need. How many of the agonies we’ve been speaking of lately are inflicted by those institutions?

I do concentrate on children, that is the pattern of scripture, and that is where culture always begins. Remember Horace? Adler and Sproul are welcome to their programs—they may be helpful, but I’m going with the OT instructions to fathers and trust that of all those things I can accomplish, God will honor some with modest success.

Why are Sunday School classes taught by the weakest in our churches? Is this because we found a better outlet for our mighty brains?

The title of the post above these comments is my own testimony: I have little to offer. I don’t believe all the flattery and you shouldn’t either. Just meet the needs of those in your little circle and let God worry about how big that circle gets.

We must do our duty to those God puts within earshot. We can take comfort and encouragement from those of like mind, but I fear we expect we can just sidestep the errors of our past and pretend we’ve lost no ground. The problem begins with our expectations. We are at ground zero, we need help, and we cannot expect help if we are not being obedient.

What could it hurt to try it God’s way?

Dissidens,
YOu said, "I don’t believe all the flattery and you shouldn’t either. Just meet the needs of those in your little circle and let God worry about how big that circle gets."

This, I think, is one of the major problems in fundamentalism. All these big shots want to make a name and a legacy and build a monument to their memory, and they forsake the venue, HOME, where they may actually make a difference. I have seen it over and over. I pray that I may not follow that path. This post is most intriguing, and it has caused me no small discomfort.

Dissidens and Bob, I couldn't have said it better. What a great way to start the day.

Indeed, what we see before us is a perfect picture of fundamentalism as a movement. Real virtue is too demanding. These are the proud children of Esau.

The scandals of their history are dismissed with what Kirk called "the sanction of ideological commitment" yet the scandals of their opponents only confirm their apostasy – only they “err on the side of the angels”.

The deformity of their sentiments is obvious, even to themselves, but that is dismissed by what I will call “the piety of the clan”.

They have a genuine affection for the ugly and the superficial, whether in their art, their devotion or their personality, they love power and the honor of place.

There is nothing noble or sublime in their loves; they love a thing not because it is good, but because it is theirs.

And their vaunted separation is itself selective and narcissistic.

They have a compulsive predation which can no longer distinguish between separation and factionalism.

They are, at heart, moderns, in that they have construed their vices to be the virtues necessary for the distresses of the moment.

It seems to me that this brand of fundamentalism (imperialistic) which you condemn is kind of passé. Most fundamentalists that I know of are moving away from this and adopting a different brand of fundamentalism (although that does not necessarily imply that it is better).
Perhaps this is due to the circles I'm in, but if I'm right (or if a rather large segment of fundamentalism is not imperialistic), aren't you condemning a caricature of fundamentalism?

Two things: I wish I could be as optimistic as you. I do not think that this kind of fundamentalism is passé…it’s not so much outmoded as it is ineffective. While it seems to have taken a blow to the nose in some respects, I’m not hopeful. Fundamentalism has lost its aggressiveness not because it is better but because it is weaker.

But here’s the real problem: Let’s assume you are correct for the sake of this argument, we still live with the consequences of that era. Fundamentalists see their history as a sequence of discrete moments, some of them embarrassing, but none debilitating. They seem to think that, yes, ok, so we have reason to blush over Finney, Sunday, Norris, Shields, Hargis… yes, ”mistakes were made”… yes, we make worship into a kind of shallow, repetitive emotional event, but in the end we are a good people because we separated from Modernism.

But history is not a sequence of discrete moments which call for reckless and quixotic heroism. That is precisely their problem, and it is a perfect example of their cultural backwardness. It is as though transcendental things have no place in their temple. Garlock merely illustrates it for the non-historian.

I mention their warm embrace of the theater not because I have a special hatred of movies, or because it is the handiest sharp stick to poke fundamentalists with. (I grew up in this same generation, and read John Simon and Terry Teachout to understand my culture.) But it is the most obvious and undeniable example of a serious break with historic Christianity. The church despised the stage and gave us its reasons. Hutchens “stipulates” that it is a gift of God. Well isn’t that just special?! He stipulates. Then read what he says: is theater useful as art? No, it’s useful as propaganda. Now fundamentalists will not be so blunt, but that is exactly what they too have done.

If they could wipe the slate clean and start fresh tomorrow, they would still have had their affections shaped by their decisions and their history, and they must act out of their own natures. That is what culture is intended to do for us, spare us the incarceration of the historical moment, to give perspective.

Getting perspective, a sense of proportion and continuity, from a fundamentalist is like getting an anniversary card from a prostitute: it’s just not part of the transaction.

I genuinely appreciate the frustration you feel with much of your worship, I don’t have to imagine it. It is like having a weekly root canal. But the solution is not as easy as you hope.

But as I wind this up, I see a post by Threnus which once again illustrates:

As he [dissidens] himself was once heard to remark, "Fundamentalism was a great idea. In fact, it was the LAST great idea

It was a great idea, it was never a great movement. And it is the movement you must live with. It is the movement, not the idea, which made fundamentalists what they are, it is the movement, not the idea, which produces its “culture”.

Neo,
"It seems to me that this brand of fundamentalism (imperialistic) which you condemn is kind of passé. Most fundamentalists that I know of are moving away from this and adopting a different brand of fundamentalism (although that does not necessarily imply that it is better).
Perhaps this is due to the circles I'm in, but if I'm right (or if a rather large segment of fundamentalism is not imperialistic), aren't you condemning a caricature of fundamentalism?"

It is the circles you are in. The majority of fundamentalism is as Dissidens says. Although there are pockets of those who are trying to change it. That is my viewpoint, albeit a Northern one.

dissidens,

For those of us still mobile enough to move to better ground, what do you suggest? Stay, pray, and work for reform? Find a new home that cultivates genuine worship and community? Plant a church?

pilgrim

pilgirm,
dissidens doesnt offer suggestions, he just makes non-pietistic, non-mystical, yet somehow nonsensical statements which sound oh so sensible. to skewer fundamentalism is easy, to benefit from its hardfought battles is simple, to sound "icy" is soooo POMO, but not pomo because D has no label. Sound sensible? sound stupid? welcome to the world of dissidens--best solution? get out your Scriptures and study--dissidens has no real help for the church or the churches

Ok, who left the basement window open?

an open basement window in D's house simply means I came in at the ground floor--dissidens is still clawing his way out of the crypt in the basement--that would be lower down.

denzel:

I came into this discussion saying a) I had no answers, b) that the nature of the case is such that there cannot be answers, c) that those I trust--and quote--on these matters offer no answers, and d) that any suggestions I might make would not be acceptable to my audience.

You come and announce in pidgin English that I have no answers.

It's always gratifying to know that we are reaching out into the rocket science community.

Pilgrim:

What do I suggest? I don’t have a satisfying answer to your question, but I can at least tell you why it is unsatisfying. Maybe that will help you choose a course of action.

Imagine that you are a settler. Your boots are wet from wading ashore. You have nothing and there are no supply houses, few tools, no farm equipment, the land is not even cleared yet. You have no herds, and only a few cattle to start one with, and if you have to eat them this winter you will never have herds. You have no house and no furniture, you have no community and your neighbors may even be hostile. You know winter is coming, so you know the only way to survive is to have a harvest; that means getting something useful planted; that means clearing a field. I think you begin to see that this is why settlers always come in bunches.

And I think you may begin to see the problem. I once tried to start a fellowship of like minds in the shadow of Willow Creek in Barrington, IL. What do you have to offer your straggler settlers when they look across the valley and see all the candies and bonnets the modern Christian desires?

I know you don’t make a culture in a lifetime, it takes time, skills and effort. As Eliot said, if you want a coat, you start by planting grass for the sheep.

I think we are talking subsistence evangelism here. And it seems to me you start by looking for the necessary skills, beginning with a generation capable of preserving whatever it is you create, and you give them the reasons you judged it worth creating so they will preserve it.

That would be step one.

Look around for some hardy settlers.

". . . you give them the reasons you judged it worth creating so they will preserve it."

So I'm looking for "preservationsists"? How ironic.

pilgrim

pilgrim:

It is very ironic.

I prefer the term conservative, it is the more precise term. If I can paraphrase Weaver: "Behind every old way lies a deep thought." Conservatives change the old ways when necessary but try to do so with an eye on the deep thoughts.

Of "preservationism" I am deeply suspicious. First because of its provenance; this comes from people who preserved so little, never had an eye on the deep thoughts, and now find themselves concocting neologisms to fix a problem they (partly) created.

dissidens,

So why ought I settle where no land is cleared? Are there no likeminded settlements that I might use as a place to learn pioneering skills before I enter the frontier alone? If so, you may not want to define the precise latitude and longitude, but are there not identifying characteristics of vital settlements that I might use to recognize them from afar before I get my boots wet wading ashore?

pilgrim

Hmmmm. I think we ran past each other here. Let me go back.

I'm not suggesting you ought or ought not do anyhing, I am merely trying to establish some notion in your mind of what I take to be the state of affairs. As a practical matter you might well settle on some already cleared land. As a practical matter you might be in the happy circumstance of having sufficiently like-minded people to begin a work. More power to you. That is why I am slow to make practical but useless suggestions: your actual situation could be better than my imaginary one.

My overall point was this, perhaps I was not clear: When settlers started fresh, they began with some sort of support. There were ships coming from home. Settlers tried to produce something--timber, pelts--something with which to trade with Europe for the goods they needed. Likewise with our own foreign missions efforts: we had supporting churches, we had service institutions providing pastors, literature...

My specific point is that we are in a different situation. Few of us are of a like mind. Some of us, both in theory and in practice, have had our sensibilities trampled and our efforts frustrated by those content with the status quo, those from whom we once expected support. We do not have like-minded pastors emerging from those service institutions (incl. fundamentalist), and we certainly don’t have even a hymnbook.

I have in mind a particular situation; I will be as specific as I can and still be discreet: there was a small (and dwindling) effort I joined shortly after the start. The whole time I was there the point was made repeatedly, and especially pointedly on church anniversaries, what we were about, what we thought was important, and how we were different from the 20 churches in a 5-mile radius.

The pastor left, I became the "interim administrator", the building was completed and everything changed. I had reason to suspect what was afoot and had braced myself. Because I had some musical training, it was often left to me to explain our position on church worship and our use of it. Once the people got their building I began hearing murmurings about our song selections. It came to a head in the deacons’ meeting, the charge was made, and I pulled from my folder two sheets of paper. One was a list of the hymns we sang since I came (taken from bulletins) the other was a list of the hymns we sang since the change of administration. I asked to be shown what I had changed and which “new” songs I’d introduced. There was a long silence I understood to be an impromptu prayer meeting.

They said they wanted to return to the “old favorites” by which they meant the trite fundamentalist hymnody we’ve been discussing here. What they did not want was the broad spread of Christian thought that began with oh, say, Bernard of Cluny. These people thought I was being innovative by singing the songs of the 12th Century and they were being “traditional” by demanding their “old favorites”.

What was true of worship music was true of other issues as well. What we had here was not a meeting of the minds. In fact we had representatives of the BJ camp doing their best to counter our efforts on every occasion that presented itself.

I could tell stories of the experiences of Sardonis as well. How many times and in how many places he devoted himself to the teaching of comically small groups of people, often in training for the ministry, which existed for a time and then disappeared.

Understand, I do not blame him for failure. We were in agreement as to ends. I am discussing means. I seek to understand how he failed, how I failed, and why.

I’ve gone on too long, but I’d better clarify one thing. It may be supposed that I think we failed in everything. That can’t be true because those experiences taught me what I know and what I persist in holding dear. Lots of thoughtful people emerged from those experiences made better and more thoughtful. I speak only of the planting of churches and the production of an acceptable form of church culture. They do not exist.

Willow Creek exists. Cedar Ridge Community Church exists.

Your experience, Dissidens, seems to be very similar to that of the time of the Kings of Israel.

A good king would come and the people would worship God while the king was around. Once the king died, the people would go back to their old ways and back to idol worship.

Is the problem, then, that you did not have enough people who had the same convictions you had, and who were willing to teach them to their children?

Neoclassical:

Leadership is always important; it is rare that students will pursue an ideal they don’t admire in their teacher. I attribute the rise of a good Lutheran liturgy to Luther’s own skills; he was a serious musician. He was not pointing people down a difficult path he was unfamiliar with.

But beyond that, reality complicates things. Some people will sit back and pay lip service to any ideal so long as it doesn’t cost them. It will even play to their vanity to do so. And the difficulties we may face in trying to dignify worship will fall on all sorts of hardships.

I do think that the first hurdle is getting people to take God seriously. That is the crux of the problem. If in the minds of churchgoers God exists to service their bourgeois emotional needs and to leave them undisturbed, serious music or culture will remain in their minds something “those pervs in New York City do”.

That is a good reason to start with children, as though God’s commands were not enough.

Once seriousness is abandoned, any method used to reinstate it runs the risk of playing to human pride—as we saw with neo-evangelicalism. All hat, no horse.

This morning was a good case in point. I went to an evangelical church to hear a pianist. [http://www.samrotman.com/schedule.htm] He dressed in a plain tux, worked like a stevedore, perspiring heavily, playing D. Scarlatti, Beethoven, Chopin, Schubert, Bartók and Debussy (all from memory, of course). He played for a while, got up, mopped his face, gave his testimony, and went back to playing.

At the end of his hour the preacher got up to close the service, called the “worship team” to the stage and led in prayer. We--well, not we--the mob sang Amazing Grace. The “worship team” was dressed very casually, one guy in what looked like a suede Hawaiian shirt, swaying ever so comfortably and watching the stage monitors for the words. The words to Amazing Grace.

Now you tell me, who here was serious?

History is so illuminating.

While my church is horribly lacking in any kind of musical ability in the classical sense (when it comes to rap and hip hop they could but the boots to any of the mainstream gangster groups), a small ray of sunshine has appeared. An upgraded library with significant acquisitions has given me a new selection to play with. Schubert, Chopin, Brahms...I think I have found a brief respite....

Yes, that’s nice for you who hold the faiths of Schubert, Chopin, and Brahms.

What concerns us here is your last sentence: I think I have found a brief respite.

Some of us wonder what sort of faith it is that we seek respite from. Whatever happened to the faith of our fathers? How do Schubert, Chopin, and Brahms console us in that loss?

I might find some respite in Biber, Bach and Handel. But even that won't do.