What follows is an oblique and public response to various unrecognized premises underlying a handful of recent [private and off-line, thus no links] conversations. I call it a catechism, but it is really only catechism-esque. It does not attempt a complete, systematic answer as catechisms do, and it certainly does not attempt to answer the questions that philistines suppose are important. Questions 3, 4, and 5, for example, are synecdochic: the principle applies not only to the instrument but to the performance and the work.

So this answers the questions that ought to be asked but aren't. It addresses premises which the philistines won't consider but should.

Given our grim state of affairs, I recognize this is a complete waste of effort. I do not imagine that anything remotely like serious reflection will follow. I do not think the church wants to fix what is broken. I do not believe those who currently profit from their own appetites are inclined to repent. So you must understand that this is rather an academic and theoretical exercise, but I offer it hoping that such an exercise can still provide some guidance when answering fools and degenerates.

THE DISSIDENS CATECHISM

Q: What is the chief end of man?

A: The chief end of man is to love God and worship him aright.

Q: How is God to be worshiped?

A: God is to be worshiped in every human thought and conscious act, but he has most specifically commanded that men praise him with song.

Q: Upon what instruments is man to worship God?

A: Upon the Bösendorfer, the Stradivari, and the Gofriller.

Q: Why these instruments?

A: Why not these instruments?

Q: Who's asking the questions here?

A: We seek to worship on these instruments because they give greatest expressive power to the worshiper and permit the subtlest nuance of our art.

Q: Does art belong in worship?

A: There is no true worship without art in the same way that there is no statement of truth without grammar. A desultory recitation of mundane facts about God does not constitute worship. God's simplest act demands our most scrutinizing imagination and our highest expression of admiration (hence the need for the Bösendorfers...). Trite statements ambivalently executed on inferior instruments are not just unworthy of God, they are unworthy of man.

Q: What is the result of artless worship?

A: The hearts of the people are turned to all manner of wretchedness and profanity so that what is offered as worship is in fact self-indulgence.

Q: Can children and those yet untrained in the canons of art nevertheless worship?

A: It is possible for the young, the naïve, and the parochial to utter partial truths with varying degrees of skill, but the immature and untrained cannot—by definition—speak cogently to the affections and obligations of all men everywhere.

Q: Why are naïve, parochial, and merely subjective expressions to be discouraged?

A: All naïve and parochial expressions are to be discouraged because they fall short of human capacities, they do not accord with the example of scripture, nor do they aspire to that perfection we see in Heaven.

Q: What if the audience does not understand the art?

A: The only proper audience for worship understands everything.

Q: What is to be done with the immature and the naïve?

A: The immature and the naive are to be instructed: they are to be shown what is best in order to develop the proper judgment without which worship is not possible.

Q: Does this mean that worship belongs only to the virtuoso?

A: Worship does not belong only to the virtuoso any more than health belongs only to the physician, but the physician has a fuller and disciplined understanding of what it takes to maintain health. The sick go to a doctor rather than an enthusiastic or well-meaning duffer hoping his good intentions will substitute for skill.

Q: What is to be done with the philistine?

A: The philistine is to be put to death. The philistine that dies in the city is to be given to the dogs to eat, and the philistine that dies in the country is to be given to the birds of the air to eat.

Q: Now can I get a less provocative answer?

A: The philistine is to be encouraged to confess his sins and worship the one and true God.

Q: Does God reject all inferior worship?

A: It has been said that God is easy to please but hard to satisfy. God demands perfect obedience: he does not accept the partial and intermittent compliance that we find appropriate given our preferences or our own judgment of things. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul, heart, strength and mind, by which we are intended to understand that we do not love the Lord our God at whatever level of incompetence our ambient culture has left us.

God is certainly capable of accepting the modest things we offer even as he accepted the modest offerings of the poor in Israel. What he does not accept is the diseased and the lame. And in addition to this, in accepting the modest thing, God is looking on the heart. Here we are judging the fitness of the offering, not the disposition of the heart.

Q: Does a high view of worship disadvantage the common churchgoer?

A: In no way; that is like arguing that one can't enjoy a dish until he memorizes the recipe.

This error flows from a profound misunderstanding of the nature of man and art. It is often supposed that the "rules of art" are arbitrary and arcane precepts that comprise the meaning of a work. It assumes without evidence that art is appreciated only by the knowledgeable. A beautiful melody is a beautiful melody whether or not the listener understands how the composer did it or whether or not he can explain it in a university.

If a musical idea is transformed or developed during the course of the performance, it is transformed and developed for everyone listening. The level of appreciation may vary between novice and expert, but the effect the composer intended registers with every careful listener.

And to suppose that inept melodies or undeveloped ideas are especially suited to the common man is simple bigotry.

Q: Why ought all of this to be important to us?

A:  This ought to be important to us because this is the chief end of man.