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An institution—the church, and an ethos—Christendom—that dominated Western Europe for fifteen hundred years is changing radically, dramatically, and in one sense disappearing right before our eyes. And given history's inexorable movement from East to West, one has to wonder about the future of religion and the institutional church here, and its traditions, its practice of worship in the future. Sherer: When I graduated from Yale in 1989, I loaded all my worldly belongings into my Mazda two-door hatchback and began driving across the country to St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Walnut Creek, California, where I was to be the new organist and choirmaster. What I didn't realize when I got there was that St. Paul's, and nearly every other church in Christendom, was experiencing massive changes. One of those changes was the death of a thirty-five hundred year old patriarchal system through the ordination of women. Another change, growing in momentum, has been the merging of denominations through liturgical resources and polity, changes we have seen most recently between the Lutherans and Episcopalians. We have entered a post-Christian society that began with the Enlightenment, but that greatly accelerated in the late twentieth century, when secular humanism or any other morality was considered equal, or even superior, to the Christian teachings. More changes grew out of the Second Vatican Council, reverberating throughout the church in every denomination. The increase of lay control, an effect of Vatican II, was felt at St. Paul's and many other churches in which I have worked. Another significant change was a societal shift owing to the maturing of the baby boom generation, the first to outnumber the previous generation. This allowed them to take control of church vestries, and corporate boardrooms, and determine what traditions would live and what traditions would die. At St. Paul's, Walnut Creek, the folk group was the most powerful force in the church, and instituted many changes in music and liturgy. Another influence in recent times has been the re-emergence of liturgical awareness throughout the denominations. Even non-liturgical churches are suddenly experiencing Advent, Lent, and liturgical renewal. A huge change affecting all churches is the increase of technology in worship. Every bit as big as the Gutenberg Bible, this change is manifested through big screens, blaring sound systems, tele-evangelism, compact disks, and computers. All these technologies changed how the church worships God. There has been a burst of new hymns and praise choruses, of which we are currently in the process of separating the wheat from the chaff. It will be our children who will decide how well we have done this. There is an old saying, "Whoever weds the popular culture of today will become a widow in the next generation." That is why it is so important to do music that is destined to survive, so our children can be hearing this music and know this music when they become adults. |
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