Understanding Christian Worship Seminar Presentation Liturgy & Technology

Transcription

1 Understanding Christian Worship Seminar Presentation Liturgy & Technology This presentation is a brief look at the interaction between Liturgy and Technology, focussing on a three-fold definition of technology that of hardware, processes and frameworks. Hardware is the specific artefacts of manufacture, for example a screwdriver, book or jet engine. Processes are the means by which those artefacts come into being assembly lines are perhaps the most accessible image here, but human skills and techniques certainly fall into this. Finally, frameworks refers to the over-arching mindset, worldview or attitudes which back up the technological possibility of hardware and processes. 1 I have drawn heavily on Susan White s essay, Liturgy and Technology, found in the edited work of Bradshaw and Spinks, Liturgy in Dialogue. Here, White begins by arguing that technology has been a pervading influence of all human activity, including worship, in every age. There are, however, arguments against this. For example, Victor Turner defines religious ritual, and therefore, liturgy, as prescribed formal behaviour for occasions not given over to technological routine 2. However, this is clearly based upon a different understanding of technology, as its pervasive influence in the form in which we are considering it, is hard to deny. 1 White, Susan, Liturgy and Technology, p Turner, Victor, The Forest of Symbols, p.19, cited in White, S

2 White then goes on to examine the extent to which liturgy intersects with technology in each of the three manifestations in which we find it, as in the subtitle to this presentation; hardware, processes and frameworks. Firstly, hardware. White argues that homo sapiens is, and always has been, homo faber Man the Smith, or Man the Maker. How have the things that man has made and the ideas that man has come up with affected liturgical life? What examples of liturgical hardware can we find? There are innumerable places we could start perhaps most recently with the increased availability of digital projection equipment and the rate at which churches have incorporated them into liturgical services. Or, with increased transport capability, the reduction in localised church life and the advent of mega-churches to which people travel many miles. Perhaps most significantly, the invention of the printing press. However, White draws on the work of Lynn White, Jr. 3, and George Ovitt 4 to give a more historical case study. Specifically, the monastic lifestyle and the daily office. Such were the demands of monastic life, that the recitation of the office was in conflict with the chores of daily life, particularly, agricultural requirements. Without wishing to compromise the time spent in prayer each day, they developed changes in planting, ploughing and harvesting, incorporating rudimentary tools to increase their efficiency and give them more time for other activities. 3 White, Lynn, Medieval Religion and Technology, cited in White, S. 4 Ovitt, George, The Restoration of Perfection, cited in White, S

3 If this, though, was liturgy leading to technological advance, then there is also a case to be made for technological advance adapting liturgical practice. Parallels can be drawn between the development of clock-determined time keeping, and praying by the clock! And, of course, where would the church be without the bell?! There are always examples that can be found to any hypothesis that provide the argument against, and there are a number of ecclesial communities that would like to describe themselves as technologically regressive. White refers to the use of candles and torches, the lighting of the New Fire with flint at the Easter Vigil, and the pervasive preference of hand-worked over machine-worked altarware, vestments, communion elements and architectural ornaments. 5 Of course, it can be argued that these are nothing but different applications of technology admittedly regressive, but not completely rejecting technology. Moving on, we consider Liturgical Processes. How do we act liturgically? Is worship ever found that can be compared with a production line? The primary example of technological process in society is, according to White, bureaucracy. How then is liturgy developed? By committee? In large organisations for mass publication? Much liturgical development has come from organisations and churches in this kind of manner, and no qualitative 5 White, S, ibid., p

4 judgement is expressed in White s essay. However, she does ask three questions of this manner of liturgy development: 1. How accurately do they describe the shape of the liturgical world as we know it? 2. Is this what we intend? 3. Is it what we want? To this list I would wish to add one further question and some corollaries what does this make of primary theology, which we looked at towards the start of this module? How might the gradual process of being formed by the renewing of our minds interact with liturgical developments based on a system of technological liturgical development? Quentin Schultze in his book, High-Tech Worship? postulates that new technologies are always a mixed blessing 6, and that this remains true when used liturgically. In the same way that it is true that for some, the contemporary use of technology in worship is a cause of sadness, it is likely that some will find the development of Liturgy as Process problematic. Finally, White considers liturgical frameworks. In a quote from Darwin s Recollections, she makes the case that technology has had a pervasive influence on Western consciousness. 7 I have said that in one respect my mind has changed during the last twenty or thirty years. Up to the age of thirty, poetry of many kinds gave me great pleasure, and even as a schoolboy I took intense delight in Shakespeare. But now for many years I cannot read a line of poetry: I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so 6 Schultze, Quentin, High-Tech Worship, p.13 7 White, S., ibid., p

5 intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have almost lost my taste for pictures or music. My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts. 8 One way in which White suggests this might be interacting with liturgy is the notion of perfection over play. Liturgical accuracy both in terms of theology and artistic, aesthetic value are very real targets especially for the Liturgical Commission! This pursuit of expertise is described as componentiality (but compartmentalism might be an alternative term), where specific knowledge bases are required to be drawn upon for liturgical development or revision. Wight suggests that academic theology and the practice of religion are not far behind professions such as medicine in this. For sure, much liturgy is done on the hoof perhaps especially within the Free Churches but it could be argued that the process of liturgical revision is far removed from the average member of a congregation or parishioner. There is, on their part and/or on the part of the revisionist, a dependence on specialised knowledge. Technology is here to stay, and has been as long as man has been around. Whatever the interplay between it and liturgy is, and however we may feel about that, there are some important questions that need to be considered. It would appear that the effect of technology on liturgy have crept up on much of the Western, Christian world. How it now responds is a matter for much discussion. 8 Darwin, Charles, Recollections of the Development of my Mind and Character, cited in White, S

6 Questions for discussion 1. Should Christian Ritual be used to fend off the advances of technological advancement? (Reference to Berger et. al. on p.181) 2. What technology might we be able to implement in liturgical activity, or what liturgical need might be answered by technological development? (Reference to Chazanof on p.188) 3. What might be wrong with Liturgical Process in the form of bureaucracy? (Refer to p.192) 4. Are we technological people? Does post-modernity challenge this? What might that mean in the context of worship? (Refer to p.195) Bibliography Schultze, Quentin J., High-Tech Worship?, Baker Books, Michigan, White, Susan, Liturgy & Technology, in Bradshaw & Spinks (eds.), Liturgy in Dialogue, SPCK,