Tag: catholic

Some art in Spain!

Christian Renaissance Movement

Back when I was in seminary…

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Aren’t cameras the best?

…I found a book at our “free store” that really struck me. It was the autobiography of St. Anthony Claret (get it, especially if you are a “professional” evangelizer!), whose feast day is today. He was something of a mix between Fulton Sheen, John Vianney, and Oscar Romero – he conquered the art of mass media evangelization, worked non-stop to the point where he was manifestly aided by extraordinary graces, and in the meantime managed to build up industry wherever he went to support the impoverished and uneducated.

Well, this past weekend I hopped on a plane to Barcelona to pay the saint a visit.

Barcelona is great. It is fun, not too expensive, and super Gothic. There is actually even a neighborhood called the “Gothic Quarter.” But we’ll come back to that.

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After finally figuring out how the train station worked (which took over an hour), I headed out into the foothills of Catalonia toward Vic, the apex of my pilgrimage.

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The architecture, as I described to a friend in the USA through some very expensive text messages, was “low medieval, quaint, and Catalonian,” but most of the structures in the old city are probably only early 18th century. It felt like I had gone through a time machine nonetheless. I mean, where else do you find a statue of St. Joseph and the Christ Child over a dentist’s office (left photo)?

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Notice the similarity between this church and convent/rectory and the mission churches in the southeast of the USA.

The place was pretty packed with churches, but none were open Saturday except the cathedral. But not even a vigil there! I guess everyone gets up early on Sunday.

Alas! I had arrived. And sadly, this church too, would remain closed the whole of the day. Evening prayer outside would have to suffice. Horseshoes, hand grenades, and pilgrimages, right? And I have an excuse to return now, too!

I spent a good deal of time at the cathedral instead.

The Diocese of Vic has a pretty proud ecclesiastical history. They are actually even operating a whole episcopal museum near the cathedral.

The nave is large and dark, nothing too extraordinary, though the pillars are rather thick. What I found so distinctive about the interior was the mural of the stages of the crucifixion (as distinct from the Stations) which covers the entire upper wall, on all sides. Behold, a few samples.

It calls to mind El Greco, doesn’t it? But there is a touch of something else.

I discovered a new saint, buried in an exquisite side chapel: St. Bernat Calbó, 13th Century Bishop of Vic.

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It turns out St. Michael of the Saints (17th Century Trinitarian priest) is also buried in Vic, which is his hometown. Double reason to go back… I only found out as I was writing this post!

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Lettuce pray.

Back to Barcelona. Sunday morning I went to the cathedral for the 10:30 Mass, in Catalan (the main language of the region). But first I stopped in this church, which I think is the “Basilica de Mercé” though I could be mistaken. (Use your best Catalan skills to translate.)

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Finally I got to the cathedral, which is actually NOT Sagrada Familia, despite what you may have thought. More on that place in a bit. First, feast your eyes on this…

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They were being persnickety about pictures in the main nave – which I approve of – but I snagged a real keeper of what are undoubtedly the coolest choir stalls I have ever seen.

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The picture does not do these babies justice.

There were several side chapels, a few of which looked like this (pardon the tilt, I shot through a grille):

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The cathedral is also home to St. Eulalia, a 3rd century martyr, aged about 13!

I went to the harbor for a bite to eat, then I was off to Sagrada Familia for a Holy Hour… On my way I bumped into a guy who saw me at Mass way back at the cathedral – I was wearing a shirt with my Alma Mater on it, and he recognized it. (A small, American, Catholic, liberal arts college is not usually an international attention-grabber, but this was not the first time this had happened to me, believe it or not.) Had a nice chat, in English!

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The fact that construction is still ongoing since the 19th Century adds a touch of mystique.

Antoni Gaudi was a genius. We will have to do a whole article on him, or even just on Sagrada Familia. Take a look at just a little of what is going on in this place’s exterior:

Unfortunately, all visits to the main nave are ticketed, including for Mass, which is not on a schedule anyway. AND THEY WERE SOLD OUT OF TICKETS. I did go down for free to the lower church/crypt, but it was packed and Mass was going on (and without a chasuble… grrrrrrrr…).  So it was not very conducive to mental prayer, unless I was going to Mass for the second time. I went back upstairs for a walk around, then figured I’d go back to the cathedral for an hour – but THAT WAS NOW BEING TICKETED TOO. I’ve heard of “pay to play,” but “pay to pray” was a new one. Where is Pope Francis when you need him?

And with that, I returned to Rome, mostly a happy camper.

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St. Anthony Claret, pray for us!

Post by: Eamonn Clark

A Call to Arms

Christian Renaissance Movement2 Comments

Dear brothers and sisters,

Among the many crises we are facing today in the Church in the Western world is the obliteration of Christian art. One might immediately be inclined to ask, “How did we get here?” Indeed… How exactly did we go from Dante and Michelangelo and Mozart to having trouble differentiating churches from communist buildings?

As interesting as the answer might be, that is not the point here: the point is that however it happened, it happened – and now we have to fix it.

We can’t blame others for the void which we ourselves now allow to exist. No, it is NOT the “spirit” of Vatican II’s fault that we have not done more. No, it is NOT some inherent fact that Christian art can’t be popular today and so isn’t worth doing – good Christian art continues to be one of the major forces in global tourism, and since good Christian art always glorifies God, it is always worth doing. If you build it, they will come. Beauty is captivating in every generation. The human spirit is ever aspiring to the transcendent, and since we are in the unique position of having the fullness of supernatural truth, we are also in a unique position to reveal the fullness of supernatural beauty.

It is simply a matter of the diffusion of responsibility… “Someone else will do it.”

Well guess what? We are still able to complain because not enough people are doing anything about this crisis! You and I are the problem with the world of art, to paraphrase G.K. Chesterton.

Put on sackcloth and ashes over the fact that Tolkien and O’Connor are gone, and there hasn’t been anyone like them since. Well, if you are a writer, stop churning out fan fiction and start planning the next great Catholic epic – or short story.

Don’t like the Year of Mercy logo? If you draw or paint, what materials did you offer your parish to supplement (or replace) that image in flyers and the like?

Whine all you want about the Gather hymnal. If you are a musician, what are you doing to contribute to the solution? Do you at least help at your parish?

Moan and groan til the cows come home about the rock people in Noah, the liberties taken in Exodus: Gods and Kings, or, saints preserve us, the acting and writing in almost all films made “by Christians for Christians.” If you are a filmmaker and aren’t looking to break in to help, then guess what: you are part of the problem!

There is an interview with Barbara Nicolosi over at Aleteia. It is provoking – how exactly do we fix the mess of Christian film, both in Hollywood and in the indie scene? How do we raise the standard?

The answer is clear: good artists need to go there. The world of art, and film especially, is a 21st century mission territory. You don’t need to go to Sudan or Borneo to do the work of evangelization – you can just go behind a camera… or in front of a canvas.

In all this trouble, there is little more frustrating than the persistent “response” genre of Christian YouTube… What the digital world needs isn’t a couple of witty poems countering some kid’s mediocre ecclesiology or spiels about how wacked-out Buzzfeed’s idea of Christianity is. What the digital world needs is…

TO SEE THE GOSPEL FIRST.

If all the digital world gets from us is apologia and defense, there will never be a real kerygmatic moment… It is as if we have forsaken the sword to take up the shield alone. We need to be first, forcing the responses and defenses. This is especially true in the digital world, where few people bother to look into responses, as thoughtful and artsy as they may be. Clicking is hard, after all, and to click a second time so that you can actually be challenged to think? Whew, that is a lot to ask of the average millennial.

Our material needs to be seen before the Devil’s. And what we put out there needs to be worthy of the call.

The pen has always been mightier than the sword. So too has the paintbrush, and now the camera and microphone are as well. If we continue to allow the world to be polluted both with the dangerous art of secularists and modernists and with the even more dangerous art of untalented or misguided Christians who harm the Church’s credibility in the eyes and ears of those who so often encounter our art without knowing the soundness of our doctrine, we may as well have set loose the next great heresiarch. This is a real battlefield that we have been put on, and the law of the land is, “Fight or die.” Right now, we are dying.

If you are a struggling artist, you are finding out there’s not much money to be had anyway. Why not make all your non-money doing something for the Lord? He might just deign to bless you in this life and the next for your labors. If you are a successful artist, then why not turn your expertise toward God, the highest object of all? We are in desperate need of your talents… Don’t bury them in the world. Come join the fight!

Sincerely,
-CRM

 

Featured image: The Battle Between Israel and the Amalekites, Nicolas Poussin

Will the Real St. Matthew Please Stand Up?

dellacarita

“That finger of Jesus, pointing at Matthew. That’s me. I feel like him. Like Matthew.” Pope Francis remarked in his 2013 interview with Fr. Antonio Spadaro, S.J.

“It is the gesture of Matthew that strikes me: he holds on to his money as if to say, ‘No, not me! No, this money is mine.’ Here, this is me, a sinner on whom the Lord has turned his gaze. And this is what I said when they asked me if I would accept my election as pontiff.”

In Caravaggio’s The Calling of St. Matthew, Pope Francis found the perfect image to express his own surprise at being uniquely called by Christ to serve the Church as supreme pontiff.

But, we have a problem. Which figure in the painting is St. Matthew?

(If you haven’t already done so, take a moment to give the painting at top a good look and try to figure it out for yourself.)

Besides the faintest loop over Christ’s head, there are no halos in this painting. Nor should there be – St. Matthew was only Matthew the tax-collector at this point. Here he is, in the midst of his sin, and in corrupt company. Matthew has just as much chance of being called out of this situation as any of the five guys in the tax office.

So, which one is he?


Option 1: The Bearded Man

At first glance, Matthew appears to be the man with long beard. His eyes show surprise, his face is illuminated, his finger seems to point toward his breast. And, maybe just to help us out, he has a distinguishing coin in his hat and a right hand fingering money on the table. If there is anyone in this painting who is reacting as the one who is called, it’s this guy.

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There are two other reasons why the bearded man is the best candidate for Matthew.

First, Caravaggio did not paint The Calling by itself. With this painting in the Contarelli Chapel in the San Luigi dei Francesi Church in Rome, Caravaggio painted two other scenes from the life of St. Matthew: The Inspiration of St. Matthew and The Martyrdom of St. Matthew. In both of these adjacent paintings, Matthew is depicted as a man with a sizable beard.

The second reason concerns some of the interesting history going on at that point. Before this was painted, there was a passing fear that France might go the way of the Church of England. This fear partially subsided when the Huguenot (Protestant) Henry IV converted back to Catholicism upon taking the French throne in 1593. Caravaggio was commissioned six years later to paint three works for the church of San Luigi dei Francesi (St. Louis of the French). To flatter the now-Catholic king of France (and appease his patron), Caravaggio painted St. Matthew to resemble Henry IV. (You can see the bearded resemblance here.)

But that might not be the whole story.


Option 2: The Hunched-Over Man

People make a big deal about Christ’s pointing gesture just below the window in the painting. His hand is unusually relaxed for a definitive signaling of direction. The reason for this is very likely that Caravaggio is alluding to a more famous painting: The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo.

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Michelangelo’s Adam is depicted in the Sistine Chapel fresco in the moment just before his animation, with his finger less than an inch from that of God. Michelangelo, instead of showing an Adam already filled with life, depicts the precise moment prior to his ensoulment with all the drama of a limp wrist.

Like Michelangelo, Caravaggio is not capturing the moment of the calling of Matthew; he is capturing the precise moment before the calling of Matthew. The finger of Christ the New Adam has yet to be fully extended, the call is only just about to happen. The whole painting is in that dramatic tension of the moment before the call. If Matthew is the hunched-over man at the end of the painting, it almost would be more accurate to call it The Moment before the Calling of St. Matthew.

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And here, Matthew is still a sinner, still a tax-collector, still fingering his coins and gripping his money bag. The bearded figure to his left echoes the perceived direction of Christ’s soon-to-be-extended finger, pointing not to his own breast but to the hunched over man next to him. This man’s face, only half-illuminated by the light that comes from Christ’s entrance, still intently looks down to the table; he has but to lift his head an inch to make eye contact with Christ. Will his eyes meet the gaze that tests mortal men and will he remain the same? Will he respond to the call?

 

So, which one is Matthew?

It’s still not entirely clear.

But that’s probably how Caravaggio wants it to be. Caravaggio’s art was at the cutting edge of the subjective turn of modern thought. As a controversial artist of his time, he departed from the idea that art is exclusively at the service of the true, good, and beautiful, and turned instead toward an innovative realism. (Remember our earlier post on what makes art good.)

Part of Caravaggio’s goal is to pull the viewer into the painting. He wants this ambiguity; he knows that things are not so cut and dry in this world. Christ entered a world in chaos, a world engulfed in sin. He calls us out of that darkness and into His light.

Turning again to the painting, if we go to the source of Christ’s call and look above His outstretched right hand, we are at the foot of the cross (the fourfold window pane forms a cross). At that cross, at our Lord’s ultimate crucifixion, darkness appears to triumph over light, chaos over order, death over life.

But it is precisely at that moment when Christ conquers. It is from that cross that Christ calls His disciples, and it is to that cross that Christ calls His disciples. We are drawn up while we are still sinners into the cross, into the central mystery of our faith.

Pope Francis, without weighing in on the identity of Caravaggio’s Matthew, hits on what our response should be to Christ’s call: “I am a sinner, but I trust in the infinite mercy and patience of our Lord Jesus Christ, and I accept in a spirit of penance.”

Independent of who we decide Matthew to be in this painting, our response to Christ should be the same as that of Pope Francis. We are that sinner uniquely called by Christ. How will we respond to His call?

 

Main image: “The Calling of St. Matthew,” Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, 1599-1600

Post by: Deacon Peter Gruber

Should Christians Dance?

Christian Renaissance Movement1 Comment

A young priest sets out into the countryside to journey to his new assignment… He is not quite sure how to get there, but in the evening, while walking in a field he finds two boys. They tell him he has just crossed into the parish boundary. Father gets on his knees and prays in thanksgiving for being sent there and in preparation for the work he will do in the little country town. The first and most important job, he would find out, will be to eradicate “the scourge of dancing.”

Of course we are speaking of the one whom they called “the saint” even during his lifetime – St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars. We are not speaking of Rev. Shaw Moore, the antagonist of Footloose… Although the two might have gotten along, ecumenical issues aside.

Dance is commonly assumed to be an art form and a generally good way to recreate. Such assumptions are in fact so deep that the suggestion that it might be better to do away with public dances is seen as rigid, cruel, “medieval,” etc. One can only imagine the reactions of North Dakota’s teens to then Bishop Aquila’s decision a few years ago to ban dances (and pajama days) in one of his Catholic schools in the Diocese of Fargo… Maybe even some parents and faculty were upset. But would they have told John Vianney that he had been “too rigid” after he finally conquered the last of the dancers in the tiny village of Ars, which by that point had become the brightest beacon of holiness and civility in all of France?

The Abbé Trochu, in his famous biography of the saint, notes that, while St. Francis de Sales “wore gloves” when treating the topic, Vianney did not. “Go on! Dance! Dance all the way down into Hell!” Thus spake the saintly curé from the pulpit, time and time again. After decades, Ars was perfectly obedient to its pastor and was much happier for it.

Imagine the efforts it would have taken to accomplish the same feat in a 21st American century town even of normal size by today’s standards.

The people of Ars were not having dainty upper-crust waltzes, but neither were they “grinding,” “twerking,” or doing any other kind of categorically pornographic actions, which no reasonable person would think to call morally acceptable. They were simply dancing like country folk, having some drinks, and then getting too familiar with each other. The saint saw that this was not an accidental relationship, and he thought “the dance” to be the single greatest occasion of sin in Ars.

Note that it was seen by him as an occasion of sin, not necessarily a sin in itself, except perhaps inasmuch as a certain recklessness therein could be an expression of a lack of due care to avoid offending God. So, the question remains: can a Christian dance?

It depends.

The downfall of dance is usually what is touted as its greatest quality – the ability to arouse and express the passions. It is violent, it is sensual, it is angry, it is sad, it is joyous, it is whatever you need it to be. It intensifies all these things and shows them to others, while “freeing the spirit.” That’s the point. And that’s the problem.

In expressing the passions haphazardly, one can lose a grip on reason and be drawn to wherever that passion leads. The main problem is with sensuality.

First of all, we can, without hesitation, discard the utterly obscene motions and actions that have no other purpose than to sexualize the participants. These are not only done out of inordinate desire for the pleasures of the body, but they are also scandalous. Scandal here means a “stumbling block” to the spiritual lives of others – to cause sin in them. We are bound to avoid causing sin in others inasmuch as it is possible while not neglecting other duties. Nobody has ever had a duty to do anything like one would find going on at the average American high school dance. And it can never be good art, if art is the good expression of something good to express.

Secondly, we must examine the motivations and circumstances of those dances which are less clear. Should a desperate bachelor engage in a romantic tango with a beautiful woman he’s just met? Perhaps this will be a real challenge to him interiorly, urging him to go further and further… The same may hold true for her, which he must be careful about as well. Such a dance loosens the foundation on which chastity rests.

But what about a professional dancer who is so used to these movements and is so concentrated on his craft that he is greatly fortified against temptations? It seems the difficulty begins to disappear. And if a man is dancing with his wife, certainly there is no problem.

The case becomes different according to the abilities and circumstances of those involved, and according to the capacity of a dance to evoke problematic urges.

What would John Vianney think of the teens of Bomont jumping on the Kevin Bacon rock-n-roll-will-free-your-soul bandwagon? If we are honest – which we are here to be – we must say that he would probably be just as indignant as he was when he arrived in Ars, if not more so. He would think Rev. Moore was a wuss and a bad leader for finally caving. He would go to his bedroom, scourge himself to a bloody pulp, not eat for a few days, then start preaching, if his approach in Ars is any indication.

While the final scene of the film doesn’t have anything too bad (especially since these kids who have apparently never danced before are actually professionals), it is the culture and ideas which are introduced by the habitual loosening of inhibitions in social settings with the opposite sex (that often also involve alcohol) which sends up red flags. It is the dark cloud on the horizon: there is not yet a storm, but one is coming.  Just as well, the spirits of angst and rebellion are not spirits from God, but they are exactly what Kevin Bacon’s character and the whole idea of rock-n-roll are about.

There are ways to “cut loose” and socialize that do not involve the dangers of “the dance.” Running, golfing, hiking, and yes, even spelunking are all appropriate alternatives. I simply can’t imagine John Vianney giving a sermon against spelunking… Can you?

“But wait!” some will say. “There is that scene where Bacon’s character goes before city council and throws down some verses from Scripture about how great dancing is! Ha. Game, set, and match, you Jansenist clown!” Unfortunately, we will have to save the detailed examination of the Scriptural treatment of dancing for another post. For now it will suffice to say that the Holy Bible decidedly does NOT encourage us to “kick off our Sunday shoes” so that we can do the worm to impress our friends.

Here is a challenge to those who have charge of Catholic schools: take a good, long look at the reality of what is going on at your dances, and whether it is worth the spiritual risk.

 

Main image: screenshot from “Footloose” (1984)

Post by: Eamonn Clark

How the Camera is Spoiling Religion

Christian Renaissance Movement3 Comments

A while back a professor commented to my class about the cover of a recent edition of The Word Among Us. He noted that the title was “The Gospel of Encounter,” and yet it featured something rather opposed to such a notion… A woman who actually “turned away from the Vicar of Christ,” as he put it, to take a selfie. (It’s the June 2015 issue.)

You have no doubt experienced the frustration of such things before, if you’ve ever been to Notre Dame, the Holy Sepulchre, or any major church or shrine. A lot of people are there just to snag photos.

I was recently at the Holy Father’s Sunday Angelus address, which is held weekly in St. Peter’s Square. Yes, it makes sense that people would take a picture or two, yes, it makes sense to have two large television screens with live streaming due to how far away the Pope’s window is. But what I noticed was something very odd and disconcerting: many people were taking pictures of the screens.

They were taking pictures. Of pictures.

“Little Johnny, look at this photo here, it’s from 40 years ago.”
“Oh boy, what’s it of, grandpa?”
“It’s a picture of some footage of the pope.”
“Wow, golly gee, that must have been special. But can’t I just look up the real thing on YouTube?”
“That’s not the point – I saw this footage in person.”
“I can too, grandpa, here it is. If only you had seen the pope himself!”
“I did, but the screen was just as interesting.”

Why aren’t people satisfied with a postcard from a famous church? Certainly, it’s not the 50 cents it costs, because people are likewise not satisfied with the professional quality footage that is now taken at every papal event and then immediately uploaded for the whole world to see. Is it really necessary that it’s on YOUR phone? Why not just soak in the experience instead, so that it’s actually in YOUR brain?

“I just want to remember it,” people will say. Well, first of all, if you need to take a picture to remember something, it couldn’t have been that spectacular, so why do you want to remember it? And you can’t remember something you never really encountered in sincerity anyway. The “flesh and blood” of the experience must be primary, the digitized “word” of the experience must be secondary.

In focusing too much on getting a picture, one immortalizes a moment that he never had.

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God can’t be experienced directly in this life, only in the next life in the fullness of the Beatific Vision, where we will behold the Divine Essence “face to face.” For now it is always, as St. Paul says, “dimly in a mirror.” (1 Cor 13:12) Why are we so intent on adding yet another piece of glass to hide Him from ourselves?

Many years ago I traveled to Quebec. I was in some reenactment Native American village (or is it Native Canadian?), where my group was told by the guide that absolutely no pictures were to be taken of the masks inside one particular hut – that if this law was broken, our cameras would be too. Why? Because there was a belief that developed that taking a picture somehow steals the soul away from the object… It desecrates it, profanes it, sucks its life out. While we know that masks don’t have souls, and that cameras don’t half-kill what they capture images of, perhaps this is not far off from the truth, but in the opposite direction: taking pictures of the sacred, if done irreverently, is bad for the photographer’s soul. It half-kills the experience he could have had. It has profaned and desecrated his relationship to it.

Now, there can be good photography of the sacred. There is plenty of it, actually. But good sacred photography is never done out of vanity, out of “touristic” motives, out of bandwagon-hype. Such would be, in some small way, a sacrilege. If a Catholic walks into one of the great churches of Christendom, forgets to genuflect, and starts grabbing pictures of the statues, hasn’t he sort of missed the point? And how much of an excuse does he really have?

Perhaps some person or place really speaks to you, and after having authentically encountered it you desire to catch a picture. That is quite a different phenomenon, as you have already genuinely engaged with what you now encounter through lenses, mirrors, and a screen. The Word became flesh, after all – He certainly did NOT become a digital picture.

In the meantime, let’s all sit back, relax, and actually experience the incarnational nature of our Faith, rather than neurotically re-immaterializing it.

 

Post by: Eamonn Clark

Main image: CTV’s coverage of the Papal audience of May 25, 2016

Why is only this called Praise and Worship?

Christian Renaissance Movement14 Comments

Deep in the silence of the Roman catacombs, a dim light grows brighter from around the corner as several torchbearers approach. There is urgency in their demeanor, but there is also a peacefulness. As they turn into the long, narrow corridor, the figure of an emaciated but sturdy pontiff can be seen slowly making his way behind them in full vesture. He is preparing to celebrate Mass over the tomb of one of his favorite martyrs, but he is trying to escape the notice of the emperor’s soldiers above. He turns to one of his deacons: “We’ll keep the volume on the amps down this evening, but I think we can still use the drum set.” The little group starts their liturgy to a hushed rendition of “Gather Us In.”

Suddenly, several of the emperor’s guard are heard rushing down from above! But the worship leaders will not be deterred, singing all the louder, “Gather us in, the rich and the haughty, gather us in, the proud and the strong…” The men get closer and closer. “Not in the dark of buildings confining, not in some heaven light years away…”

You decide what happens next: Are the soldiers so touched by the devotion and beauty of what they encounter that they are miraculously converted, or is this pope martyred for having terrible taste in music?

This is a ridiculous example meant to illumine a serious problem… The crisis of liturgical music, and even more broadly, the crisis of Christian music today in general.

Before we get into it, can we atone for the sins of the video above with a sample of something that won’t offend our sensibilities and is possibly similar (albeit very distantly) to what might have actually been sung in such a setting?

Ahh. That’s better.

We can realize the disparity in the dignity of the two pieces. We laugh at the thought of acoustic guitar accompanying someone like Pope St. Sixtus II, whose mere memory emboldens faith and charity. But when we imagine him being surrounded with this wonderful a capella piece performed by Ensemble Organum, it moves the mind to another world – we sense that this chant has a gravity and that anything done while it is sung is at least similarly serious. (And yes, it is a capella… The deep tones are droning.)

You will no doubt agree that this music is ordered to the praise and worship of God. Why then, does “Praise and Worship” refer to a class of music with such vast differences, like “Gather Us In,” (which, to be honest, is really more like a hymn than real P&W) or the stuff you would hear on the local Christian music radio station?

It starts in the same time and place that many other important things began to be destroyed: the late 1960’s in California. Coming on the heels of the secular music revolution going on at that time, “Jesus music” made its debut. A small group of hippies figured out that “free love” wasn’t all it was cracked up to be and starting becoming “born-again” Christians. Then they simply incorporated biblical messages into the music they were already playing in the back of the van and on the street corner. The growing popularity of the music of the ecumenical Taizé community in France also had some influence over the new genre, which is not so bad in itself, but when combined with 70’s guitar gets a little strange.

Credit needs to be given for the desire to leave a terrible way of life and to embrace and share the Christian faith. But if you are listening from far away, you ought to be able to tell whether a song is more likely to be about the Incarnation or about dropping acid. It is fundamentally a problem of proportion between means and ends. (This will be explored in other posts.)

The novelty of such a strange mix took off, and it turned into a bona fide industry within a few years. Soon it became “contemporary Christian music,” even having its very own magazine.

This all of course also conveniently followed the Council, which had set the stage for a plethora of misguided innovations.

So whence did the name “praise and worship” come? Perhaps there was some event or concert that first popularized the phrase, or maybe some big producer started talking about the music in that way. But that it has become accepted terminology – over and against Mozart – is surely more than hearing other people use the term. There must have been some kind of large-scale interior breakdown of the sense of latria (adoration) in order to identify praising and worshiping with only a specific kind of Christian music, and music of dubious liturgical quality at that. It would seem that the Church of What’s Happening Now deemed its music to be superior to all that had gone before, and thus gave it the truly dignified title of “praise and worship” – as if it were the first time music had ever been used for such things… And this is to make no mention of the often self-centered lyrics that sort of miss the point of praise and worship to begin with. (This one might be the worst.) If the songs you sing at church use personal pronouns more than “You,” “God,” “Christ,” etc., then there might be a problem.

Maybe this theory is a little “out there.” But then again, the 70’s were “out there” too.

How is this for a thought: if it isn’t praising God, or aiding in the worship of Him, then it really isn’t Christian music at all. It might be about Christian themes, it might be done by people who are not afraid to say they are Christians, etc. But if we really want to bestow the name “Christian” onto something, it had better be ordered toward Christ. We should remind ourselves how seriously St. Ignatius of Antioch took that title.

There’s no easy solution to this. But let it be known that the official stance of CRM is that all Christian music is also Praise and Worship music. Maybe introducing this idea in our parishes and schools could help recall to mind the truth of the matter and tone down some of the craziness.

 

Main image credit: http://www.confrontmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/crowd2.jpg

There was no music on Calvary

Christian Renaissance Movement3 Comments

Chances are, you’ve heard of St. Ignatius Loyola. Chances also are that you have tried his oft-recommended technique of meditation involving placing yourself in some scriptural scene, trying to imagine all the details of what is going on around you.

This is certainly a good method for reflecting on Scripture, but we 21st century Christians typically have a roadblock to achieving the real purpose of this exercise. It is a case of art revealing and concealing the truth simultaneously… We usually want to “cinematize” what we imagine.

This is easily proven. If you were asked to place yourself at the Mount of Olives during the Ascension, you would probably be tempted to insert a soundtrack at least, and maybe even some crazy angles and close-ups of wide-eyed apostles. But this is just not how we experience real events. So why would we try to experience the Gospel in this way? If I asked you to imagine eating breakfast, there wouldn’t be any orchestral accompaniment. When you start to dream about going home after a long day at work, are your kids running in slow-motion to embrace you? Maybe this type of dramatization opens up a place in ourselves that allows for a greater emotional response, which certainly can quicken true devotion up to a point, but eventually we might find ourselves responding more to the “art” than to God. Of course, this is a new phenomenon, since film is a new art form.

This scene from Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ is pretty well done. But try watching it once with the sound, and once without. Notice the difference – perhaps the one is more emotional, but perhaps the other is more spiritual. (One day I would love to make a short film about some incident in the Life of Christ with no “fluff”… No music, dramatic lighting, slow motion, etc.)

The “silence and normalcy” of the events in the Life of Christ highlight His Incarnation – Jesus is really human, and, like other humans, does not have built-in theme music, a wind-machine on hand (that incident on the Sea of Galilee notwithstanding), or a traveling make-up crew.

The truth is that we are all outdone in spiritual maturity by Elijah. If we weren’t taken in by the storm, we would have been enthralled by the earthquake. If that didn’t get us, we would have bowed down at the fire. But Elijah knew it was the small whisper of wind that was the voice of the Lord.

It is significant for us Christians that Elijah encounters this voice at Horeb, where all those same kinds of things had happened before with Moses and actually were true representations of the voice of God. It seems that in general God becomes quieter and quieter throughout the course of Scripture and salvation history… Paradoxically, the quieter He becomes, the closer we can get to Him.

Sometimes a little fire or earthquake is fine, but often it is a snare. The true life of the spirit is quiet, invisible, and secret. Just as the flesh of the Son of God concealed His Divinity on the cross while simultaneously revealing it, our outer life conceals and reveals our deepest interior life; and since the interior life is what matters most, our default habit ought to be to deal with it directly insofar as it is possible. If we feed the spirit, that will shine forth in our flesh (just ask Moses). On the contrary, expending too much energy enhancing our outer lives through entertainment and pleasures leaves our interior life hanging high and dry – though sometimes people can be tricked into thinking that a fun and “rewarding” life is sure evidence of holiness and Divine affirmation of one’s choices (or even mistakenly branded by well-meaning persons as critical tools of the New Evangelization). Hormones, seratonin, and even genuine spiritual consolations are not the real substance of the spiritual life, they are only afterthoughts and can even be obstacles to growth. The really good stuff is quiet, and sometimes without a drop of sensible devotion. This is a bit like how cinematizing the Life of Our Lord can, in a way, rob it of some of its power. That isn’t to say there is no place for it, just as sometimes God really does bless us materially, but it ought not be the primary way we try to encounter the Almighty.

There was screaming, crying, and there were even a few words, but there was no music on Calvary.

 

Main image: The Deposition from the Cross, Fra Angelico

Science and Value: Why you can’t “just do science”

Christian Renaissance Movement1 Comment

Science can never be “value-free.” If science in the broadest sense is “knowledge coming to be in us,” then it cannot help but be informed by one’s personal metaphysical schemata. To claim that a statement is objectively true is one thing, but to say that all have the same understanding of that statement is quite another. For the same word can represent different realities to different minds, so any kind of conversation about objective truths runs aground on the issue of “manifesting the essence” of what one intends to express the truth about. It cannot be done through human language (though perhaps it can be done through the Divine Word).

The empirical sciences do not by any means escape this problem, for they inherently involve a type of conversation: one collects data and re-expresses it. This is in no way different from any ordinary way of conversing. Saying that science is free of this “problem of expression” is like saying that truth can be told objectively and without any kind of interfering values in English but that it can’t be in French. The language of the most basic science consists in numbers representing quantity, and quantity is based on unity. The inductions made by those advancing to knowledge of such unities are pre-logical and can in nowise be considered as perfectly objective or “value-free.” The language of the more complex sciences is firstly based on the simpler sciences and consists essentially in words representing qualities, the original problem has in no way been avoided. Perhaps it has even been exacerbated.

However, the special place that “modern science” has earned is not wholly undeserved, and its (legitimate) practitioners are indeed to be given somewhat of an elevated authority. The relevant differentiae of “science” as a means of communicating truth is its rigor in observation, care in expression, and “plainness” of its object. By the latter I mean that the field of science generally extends to things that can quickly be made intelligible to the reasonable inquirer, whereas the truths of history or theology are less easily approached.

But that does not mean the less immediately intelligible sciences aren’t worthy of pursuit… theology in particular. Unfortunately, that is a popular attitude. Perhaps the occasional recollection that the whole project of “SCIENCE!” is dependent on more basic and invisible “values” would help correct this.

 

Main image: “Louis Pasteur in his Laboratory,” Albert Edelfelt, oil on canvas, 1885

Justice for Harambe? Sorry, not possible.

Christian Renaissance Movement

“What was that?”

“We just hit a raccoon.”

“Jonathan, don’t you think we should stop?”

“Oh trust me babe, that raccoon would not have stopped for us.”

I’ve had this hilarious exchange from Hot Rod in my mind recently.

There is a reason we say someone is “acting like an animal” when he’s doing crazy or immoral stuff… Animals have no real moral sense, no conscience, no supernatural end to which they are called. We don’t really think of them as guilty or innocent, except inasmuch as those words mean the existence or non-existence of some act.

To begin with, even asking the question sets one off on the wrong path: “Is there a morality gene?” All the dispositions of our bodies can ever incline us to desire are temporal goods (like pleasure or security), even if they are delayed in their acquisition in some way or are diffused among a community to which one belongs, UNLESS they are ordered somehow to the preservation of the species in such a way that it is altogether compulsory. Genetics, therefore, could only ever tell us why a person feels like doing x which will ultimately redound to his own temporal benefit in some way. And in animals, genetics are altogether compulsory, so the disjunction above is irrelevant for them.

In humans, these impulses can be intellectualized into rational selfishness, and certain kinds of structures of cooperation can indeed bring about a society that on its surface is stable and healthy. Read an Ayn Rand novel and you’ll get the idea.

But that’s not what real morality is. Real morality searches for the good in itself, not just for I me myself, even through others, but for others in themselves. Real morality moderates self-interest, while genetics can only incline one to seek his own good.

What about all those birds who are so committed to caring for their chicks? What about those elephants that cry for their dead? What about, etc., etc.?

If an animal does something we might call moral or right that does in fact only lend itself to the preservation of the species (which we would be tempted to call altruism), it is because it had an instinct to. Isn’t that the same as a morality gene? No, it is a gene that compels them to act in such a way, and the satisfaction for them lies precisely in the completion of an urge rather than “doing what is ‘right'” or something similar. There is no order to which a bear clings outside of itself when it protects its cubs – it has no reason for protecting them that it is aware of other than “because that’s what bears do.” We would call this a virtue if it was rationally chosen among other options, but the bear doesn’t have real rational options: it just has genes which force it to act in such a way. In fact, the very same impulse to protect its children would compel it to kill an innocent man, which we would NOT call virtuous.

“So what? It’s still bad to kill animals.” Well, while you chomp down on your burger tonight, think about what Cecil the Lion would have done to you (or your village) if given the chance. Think about what Harambe might have been about to do to that child. And so on.

We are not in a real community with animals, because they can’t communicate with us rationally. They can’t do that because they can’t reason. We are simply better and higher in the order of creation, as Genesis teaches. We have immortal souls, they do not. We can relate with God intellectually, they can not. We are called moral or immoral, they are not. This means that justice, with regard to animals, is nothing more than their proper temporal use as part of the goods shared among ourselves and God, and we expect absolutely nothing from them in return. The conclusion is this: unless you are killing animals for the sheer pleasure of destroying them, or the animal you kill is somehow important for human flourishing (like a cow that makes a family’s milk), or in killing them you are desensitizing yourself to human pain and death, you’re not doing anything wrong.

So there can’t even be such a thing as justice for Harambe. He’s owed nothing – especially since he no longer exists. But that won’t stop our culture from hashtagging more about a gorilla than about the innocent victims of abortion, or the news from covering Harambe’s death six times more than Christians recently killed by ISIS. As G.K. Chesterton famously opined, where there is animal worship, there is human sacrifice.

And anyway… Harambe would not have wanted justice for you.

 

Main image: By TKnoxB from Chemainus, BC, Canada – Flickr, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1826972