© 1992 Jack Rogers
© 1992 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
MUSIC IN WORSHIP
This column addresses the concern for contemporary aids to worship. We welcome material which you may be inspired to write and share.
By the time of the publication of this column the Advent season will be long behind us. The scents of Christmas cooking, the sounds of caroling, the joy of giving will be yet another memory of a special season.
As I replay the scenes of past Christmas events in my mind, there are nagging memories which disturb and concern me: that 1000th hearing of Silent Night in the aisles of the supermarket, the pervasive “Ho, ho, ho” of Santa Claus ringing in the ears of my children. and the constant mythologizing of the birth of Christ. Year after year, I have endured sermon after sermon admonishing us not to forget the true meaning of Christmas while the ever increasing din of materialistic ceremonializing drowns out the Advent message.
I realize that it is not culturally popular to attack the holiday season that even “non-believers” enjoy; but I believe that we need to take a look at the pageantry of Christmas and see what it is telling us. Most ministers are painfully aware of the secularization of the Advent season, but we seem to be losing the spiritual battle. With the increasing sophistication of the market place, Christmas has been over-shadowed by economic indicators — a litmus test of our national prosperity, and the “make or break” desperation of the retail season.
Christmas has become a commercial pageantry larger than life, and the event itself has been mythologized beyond recognition.
Christmas has become a commercial pageantry larger than life, and the event itself has been mythologized beyond recognition. It is not just that we have lost the historical accuracy of the timing of the events themselves. The incarnation story has become a mishmash of myth, legend, fable, folk tale, and bedtime story. This process of the secularization and enculturation of spiritual celebrations can be well illustrated in music. It has been studied and well documented in the field of Ethnomusicology.
The scenario of the cultural absorption of spiritual celebrations has parallels in the secular world of music. When a new musical style breaks on the scene there are a few adherents who proselytize its virtues to the public. As that music becomes accepted and popularized, it undergoes an evolutionary process whereby it changes into a “watered down” version. At this point many of the self-proclaimed prophets of the new music will drop away and no longer embrace it as their own. As this begins to occur, the public will absorb the musical style into a simplified version that is their own. Although basic elements of the original music will remain intact, the initial meaning is generally lost.
A recent example of this musical evolution occurred in “rap” music. Initially the music was a form of social and political protest, and used extraordinarily strong language for its message. As the form became popularized in the media (M TV and other shows), the popular artist took up rap and transformed the lyrics to the traditional popular forms generally centering around romance, social acceptance and popular social issues. The rap music of today has become a mild, popularized, homogenized second cousin of its originators, and has lost much of its meaning for the inner city poor from whence it came.
Although it is a long step from rap to Christmas carols, I contend that exactly the same process has occurred on a much larger scale in relation to our Christmas music. Indeed. the gargantuan appetites of the Advent music producers have gobbled up many of the more obscure carols and hymns. Imagine my amazement at hearing a syrupy rendition of Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent while passing the cut meat department! It was this event that caused me to say, “enough is enough!”’
I believe that Christians need to take a hard look at the Advent season. We need to examine what has happened to the very foundation of our faith. As a religious institution, the church has failed miserably in the preservation of the true Advent message. What can be done to recover the spiritual message of the Incarnation?
First of all, we need to recognize that it is difficult 10 reconstruct history. The cultural Christmas with its pageantry is here to stay in the foreseeable future. Let us celebrate this Holiday Season with enthusiasm and magnify its message of hope, good will and love for all. It has much to contribute 10 the common good.
Happily, information in The Urantia Book presents us with the possibility of a creative alternative. It tells us that Jesus was born on August 21st, the time of the year some scholars have hypothesized his birth took place. This date gives us an opportunity to develop a celebration that would focus on the spiritual meaning of the Incarnation: the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of humankind. What a fortuitous opening this could be to highlight the central message of Jesus’ mission to our world! Here is a foundation for the greatest possible pageantry of Advent: God’s presence in our world!