The Low Hypocracy
I apologise in advance for the conversational manner of this post, it is late and I have been working on a thesis all day that has left me too drained to properly itterate and reference my thoughts, but I hope you get the general ‘gist’ regardless.
The reformation brought with it a plague upon Christianity, a plague of anti-religious sentiment. The liturgical and aesthetic was stripped from the Church to give us what we refer to as the ‘low church’. Denominations on both sides of the modern theological divide, of Fumdamentalism and Liberalism, have avoided anything which may be construed as religious arguing that it distracts from true worship.
My first point, of two, is that liturgy does not distract from true worship. It has been argued that a ritualised act or symbol causes too much focus to be taken away from worship, however, many who take part in liturgical worship with an open mind leave with a different view. Clarke is one recent convert to the view that liturgical worship offers just as edifying an experience, with just as much focus on God, as low church worship. Many scholars with a sensibility to Radical Orthodoxy argue along the same lines – even emphasising the greater experience offered by liturgy.
My second point is that the low church has become religiously anti-religious. There is still a ritualised liturgy, however, it is a liturgy lacking in the aesthetic spleandour of conservative services. There still remains an order of service, it may not be as widely used as a Catholic Mass but a service of a structure similar to the following is still an order of service: a few hymns interspersed with a family message and prayers, a sermon, a final hymn and a final prayer.
At some stage it must be realised that humanity is an experiential creature. We are not so devoid of involvement that the mundane allows us to focus on the divine just as easily as the ornate and aesthetic. Reasoning that there is a God through a self-imposed sense of the inerrancy of scripture is no more admirable than seeing God in creation. A choral evensong is always preferable to an evangelical, Bible-camp style acoustic sing-along – try it and see.
