Dear Mr. Lewis:
I have to tell you that I’m challenged, fascinated, and perhaps even a bit convicted by a passage in your book “Letters to Malcolm.” I’ll recopy the passage here so you don’t have to dig up your original copies. (Actually, I guess Malcolm has your original copies.) This is what you wrote on pages 3-4
“It looks as if they (clergy) believed people can be lured to go to church by incessant brightenings, lightenings, lengthenings, abridgements, simplifications, and complications of service. And it is probably true that a new, keen vicar will usually be able to form within his parish a minority who are in favour of the innovations. The majority, I believe, never are. Those who remain– many give up churchgoing altogether– merely endure.
Is this simply because the majority are hide-bound? I think not. They have a good reason for their conservatism. Novelty, simply as such, can have only an entertainment value. And they don’t go to church to be entertained. They go to use the service, or, if you prefer, to enact it. Every service is a structure of acts and words through which we recieve a sacrament, or supplicate, or adore. And it enables us to do these thing best– if you like it “works” best– when, through long familairit, we don’t have to think about it. As long as you notice, and have to count, the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance. A good shoes is a shoe you don’t notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling. The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.”
Mr. Lewis, I’m afraid maybe I’m being defensive here, but I wonder if I can object, debate, and question a few of your points here. If they weren’t so persuasive I wouldn’t be so captivated by them, so I hope you can see this as a sort-of flattery.
As you may or may not know, in the year 2008, there a huge array of options for woshippers. Lightened services, brightened services, shortened services, lengthened services, traditional ones, post modern ones, etc. I totally hear what you’re saying about the idea that these should be a lense and not the picture, that these should not be our focus. And your observation that this is about worship and not entertainment is huge.
But here’s the thing, Mr. Lewis. Some of these services and practices speak to my every day life experiences. Putting on a suit to go to church would just be like a kid playing dress up. It’d be fake and false. I could pretend, Mr. Lewis, that I’m moved by organ music. But the thing is, I’m not.
I think it’s a fair enough point to worry about trivializing worship and turning the whole thing into a dog and pony show. But I have to tell you, I’d notice a service a lot more, not a lot less, if it didn’t speak to my life experience. I’m considering what you’re saying around the idea that change just draws attention to the service and away from God.
But I’m wondering something, Mr. Lewis. I mean this as an open question, not a rhetorical one. I’m a pretty new Christian who attends a church that’s not afraid to shake up its order of service, so maybe my image on this is all wrong. But the thing I’m wondering about is this:
Doesn’t doing the same thing, in the same order, in the same way, for years and years, doesn’t this lead to going about worship on autopilot? Is the risk of empty ritual any smaller than the risk of focusing on the service rather than the object of our devotion?
Mr. Lewis, if you’re not in a condition to answer, I wonder if maybe somebody else might chime in with their own thoughts.
Sincerely,
Jeff, a wanna-be inkling.
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