Author Archives: Derek A. Olsen

Turning of the Seasons

So, the seasons are definitely changing.

School has started, activities are ramping up for the girls, the air during morning walks to school with G has become more crisp.

Football season has started. I’ve never really paid much attention to this one before but living a few streets away from a major football stadium has brought it to my attention in a whole new way and greatly complicates both errands and parking.

The program year at church is also ramping up. I’ve been asked to serve as assistant director of altar guild and there are plans in the works for some Christian Ed work as well—we’re going to start a Sunday morning spiritual formation program for adults as well as children; I’m just trying to figure a way that it doesn’t conflict with choir for those who want to do both.

Solemn High Mass season started too. We did the Solemnity of the Holy Cross as our big kick-off event on Sunday so I was in my tunicle and Lil’ G was boat-girl. Things went well, God was duly worshiped, and the congregation edified in Word and Sacrament. Expect more postings that relate to the altar guild matters as I’ve found a number of the classic manuals for cheap through Amazon and perusing those will probably spark posting topics. I’ve also broken down and ordered a copy of Fortescue; Smokey Mary’s is what I consider a Novus Ordo Anglo-Catholic place, St George’s was straight-up Ritual Notes, so I’ve never needed Fortescue. From what I’m discovering about the Bal’mer Missal tradition, it’s much more heavily Fortescue than Ritual Notes.

Liturgical Change and Museum Religion

The post on the American Sarum conference got some comments that deserve a thread all their own. In many ways, this thread is a continuation of one of the long-standing themes that this blog has struggled with over its several years. Let me lay it out anew with major/axiomatic points in bold…

Liturgies change. Indeed, liturgical and ceremonial tinkering is inevitable across any significant group of folks whether there’s a set standard liturgy or not. Sometimes it’s because the liturgy needs a change, sometimes it’s because the tinkerers want a change.

No matter which way it goes, there’s no such thing as a liturgical change; rather there are theological changes that have liturgical implications. When a worshiping community of baptized Christians gather, they incarnate in a particular way the eschatological reality of the Body of Christ.  (This is most especially the case when they gather for a Eucharist where the whole intention is the making tangible and consumable the literal Body of Christ to be shared amongst them all.) You cannot separate the liturgy, the ceremonial, and the theology of such a gathering—they are inextricably bound up in one another. When the liturgy or the ceremonial gets changed, therefore, a theological change has necessarily occurred. When we say and do something different liturgically and ceremonially, we are just as surely saying and doing something different theologically as well. Sometimes these changes are minor—and sometimes they’re not. Sometimes these theological changes are intentional and conscious—and sometimes they’re not. Sometimes the tinkerers are aware of what they’re doing—and sometimes they’re not.

When liturgies change, my sense is that the motivation for the change and the direction in which the change occurs relate to two different axes: contemporary culture and historical practice. That is, when liturgies change it tends to be because the tinkers are trying to make a statement to the contemporary culture; history can be leveraged in a number of different ways:

  • Sometimes historical practices are jettisoned entirely because of a perceived disconnect with contemporary culture (this would be your praise & worship/Willow Creek type response).
  • Sometimes historical practices are resurrected because they represent a perceived correction to the current deplorable state of the contemporary culture—if the historical practice is maintained, the culture will be restored. (I see this as one of the motivations behind some who call for the ’28BCP & ’40 hymnal/Traditional Latin Mass: if we return to a pre-’60s liturgy, maybe we’ll return to a pre-’60s culture as well.)
  • Sometimes historical practices are resurrected because they represent a perceived connection to the contemporary culture–if the historical practice is maintained, this culture will be better able to hear, receive,  and embody the Gospel.

I’d suggest that this last approach has been behind most of the major shifts in liturgy within the Christian Church as a whole. Most of the major liturgical changes in Western Christendom have been attempts to re-engage/re-enliven contemporary practice based on historical precedents. This is not a new thing. Most of the monastic renewal movements in the eleventh and twelfth centuries were rooted in attempts to return to the True Practice whether that be the Desert Fathers, John Cassian, Benedict or a combination of the three. The Protestant Reformers attempted to return to Early Church practice. The first liturgical revival driven by the monks of Solesmes was an attempt to return to proper medieval practice. The Ritualists attempted to return to a High Medieval practice. Blessed Percy and the English Use tried to return to a Sarum standard. The most recent Liturgical Renewal encompassing Vatican II and the ’79 BCP tried to return to fourth century practice. Picking up a theme from the previous post, isolating one movement as “museum religion” is a bit disingenuous because utilizing historical precedence for contemporary practice has been a consistent habit in the West for a very long time.

Furthermore, we need to note that the exercise of identifying and utilizing historical materials is always a process thoroughly invested with contemporary meanings and limitations. The Protestant Reformers thought that they were returning to Early Church patterns of worship. Their historical reconstructions of Early Church worship didn’t have a whole lot to go on and look little like how we reconstruct Early Church worship today. We have better sources and better scholarship. (Would Luther or Calvin have used the Eucharist of the Didache had they known it?) Likewise, the work of the Ritualists and the Blessed Percy are properly understood as part of a broader English Gothic Revival rooted in English Nationalism and a political and social appropriation of the peculiarly English/British heritage over and against Continental expressions of nationalism. The work of Vatican II and attendant movements cannot be separated from the cultural and social movements of the ’60s. Historical work and even its excess—antiquarianism—are events that are contemporary in nature despite their focus on the past.

Now we tie these two threads together. The appropriation of historical practices always signals theological changes to the contemporary liturgy. Some of the theological changes are because of what the historical practice itself is or does. On the other hand, the very act of incorporating a certain practice from a certain time and place is a theological statement entirely apart from the content of the practice; the very selection of any time and place as an “ideal” is a major theological statement. The selections of the Early Church for the Reformers and the Fourth Century for Vatican II were attempts to achieve a purity that had been lost. The return to the High Medieval or Sarum reflected attempts to recapture a fullness that had been lost. None of these choices are theologically neutral—they all had and have an impact.

So what, what is a Renewal vs. a Revival vs. Musem Religion? Is it purely subjective or are there objective measures? When is a Renewal/Revival/Museum Moment an imposition into a contemporary practice and when does it represent a true enlivenment and enrichment?

For me the issue goes back to theology. As I’ve said before, we’re not the Christian Historical Society—we don’t do things because they’re old, we do them because they proclaim the Gospel. But some times the old ways proclaim the Gospel in new ways or media or avenues that our contemporary society needs to hear. Whenever we try to bring back an old practice, rite or time, my questions are these:

  • Why—to what end? Is it for the sake of nostalgia or fantasizing that the contemporary culture will go away and reformulate itself accord to the ideal pattern if we can sufficiently recall this past time? Or is it because we see a way here that the Gospel can be better communicated in this time and place?
  • Is there a coherence and an integrity between this historical practice and what the contemporary community is doing now? How radical or organic is this change?
  • Are the theological messages and intentions of this change in coherent relation with the theological trajectory of the community into which it is being introduced?

These are the kinds of questions that I see and here us asking about the Vatican II changes and the changes of the ’79 BCP. They’re also the questions that I will take with me to the American Sarum conference. Why a Sarum Revival? Why here—why now? Into what deep currents, culturally and theologically, is it tapping—or do we want to revive it because it seems “cool”? Why Sarum over some other time and place? As I’ve said before, I think there’s a case to be made for infusing as bit of the English early medieval monastic spirit into contemporary American Episcopalianism. Why is Sarum a better choice?

I don’t want to focus narrowly on Sarum here, though. Instead let me just say that this movement is raising for me—for us—a number of questions that I think are important now and may become even more important in the near future. Society is shifting. Technology and the evolving world situation are bring us into new opportunities and conflicts. Where, amongst the contemporary world and the faithful works of the past, is the Gospel best found and proclaimed?

Conference Watch: American Sarum

This is one of those items that entered my in-box at the height of the moving trauma; I shelved it with an intention to get back to it later.

Later has arrived.

There’s a conference slated for January 14th through the 17th in Bronxville, New York entitled American Sarum. As the name suggests, it’s a conference dedicated to the exploration of an American form of the English Use. For those fuzzy on this particular liturgical tradition, I’ll lay out what little I know of it—and welcome correction from the better informed.

The English Use is predominately the brain-child of Percy Dearmer (affectionately referred to as the Blessed Percy). The Blessed Percy was not himself a research scholar but was a well-read popularizer of the work of Frere, Palmer, and that whole body of scholars who investigated medieval English liturgy at the end of the nineteenth century and published works for the Alcuin Club, the Henry Bradshaw Society, and the Plainsong & Medieval Music Society.

The main thought here was this: if Anglican rites need new ceremonial and liturgical blood—and the one-two punch of the Oxford and Cambridge Movements (particularly the latter) convinced many they did—then why ape contemporary Roman Catholic ways? Why not return to the traditions and uses of the pre-Reformation English Church centered in the Sarum liturgy?

Blessed Percy set out to present a ceremonial and liturgy guide to Sarum enhancements for the Prayer Book (as he was English this, of course, means the 1662 BCP). The chief vehicle for this concept was the Parson’s Handbook which attracted a certain following in its day. This style of Sarum enrichment came to be known as the English Use. It was also sometimes known as English Museum Use and, indeed, the main criticism leveled at it was that it was fundamentally an antiquarian’s head-trip; that is, it was created de novo from old liturgical documents and did not reflect a living tradition. Instead, it was a romanticized version of a High Medieval mass with the BCP standing in for the text; how and if it spoke to its new time and place was a different story.

For whatever reason, it pretty much remained the English Use and didn’t cross the pond much. There are a few churches in America that use a form of the English/Sarum Use: one is Christ Church, Bronxville where the conference is being held, another is St John’s in the Village in my neck of the woods (and where I can be found when I’m not at the Advent).

The American Sarum conference seeks to reopen the old questions:

In an age when it is increasingly difficult to define what it means to be Anglican and many Anglicans look to Rome for answers, this conference will take a good look at the origins of our liturgical and musical Anglican heritage and dare to redefine what it means to be an Anglican. The conference will include a hard look at our history from architectural, liturgical, and musical perspectives. Discussions and re-creations of early liturgical practices will provide liturgical and musical insights that are intrinsically English and completely relevant to the liturgies of the 21st century. It is not a matter of “putting the Anglo back in Anglo-Catholic.” Those who will benefit from this experience include all musicians and clergy that identify as Anglo-Catholic, but it will be of particular interest and use to those who do not identify themselves as Anglo-Catholic. This is a conference for everyone, regardless of one’s own “high” or “low” churchmanship, who loves and respects our common Anglican heritage.

The presenters include some top-notch names like Dr. John Harper—yes, that Dr. John Harper—as well as some friends of mine. I showed M the provisional  schedule and we quickly agreed that we have to go.

Whatever you think of the English/Sarum Use—and to be honest I haven’t made up my mind—it will be an opportunity to think through some of the old important questions with some new voices at the table: What does it mean to be Anglican? What place do history and heritage hold in our modern proclamation of the Gospel? Do I prefer apparels or lace on my albs and amices?

Change

Things are changing info-wise. For those of you who actually visit my site and look at my page you’ll notice it’s in flux (again). I decided I just couldn’t live with the font combos any more… Those of you who read by rss feed won’t have noticed a thing, of course, but I’ve got a question for y’all: what rss reader do you use and why?

I learned today that my old stand-by bloglines is going belly-up and I need to find a new aggregator. I’m playing with Google reader but am confused by it at the moment–I’m still used to the Bloglines paradigm. Are there any aggregators out there that let you easily view comments?

As I mess with things the blogroll will be changing. It seems like I’ve been using and pruning it less and less recently and it no longer reflects what’s in my feed-reader. It’s due for an overhaul.

Further Morning Musing

Picking up on the theme from yesterday morning…

In my almost two decades of academic training in the interpretation of Scripture, I’ve met quite a lot of methods and techniques for doing so. Not all methods are equal. That’s fairly obvious and nowhere moreso than when trying to teach students how to preach.

The fundamental goal of interpreting the Scriptures is forming Christian habits within the community of the faithful. Not all interpretive methods tend towards this goal.

As I reflect on the matter, I believe that:

  • some methods are edifying: that is, they are good and efficacious ways to nurture Christian habits within congregations.
  • some methods are stultifying: that is, they become a comfortable means of ignoring the text to maintain a status quo. (I think of parish Bible studies that seem to consist purely of “This is how this text makes me feel” coupled with hearty wallops of “everyone’s entitled to their opinion”…)
  • some methods are pointless: that is, their aims and abilities are so removed from the goal of forming mature Christian communities that it’s a waste of time of attempt to engage them with parish realities.
  • some methods are destructive: that is, they are fundamentally incapable of contributing to Christian maturity in any way, shape, or form.
  • some methods are corrosive: that is, in small doses they may be helpful, but when used habitually and with out adequate safeguards they become destructive.
  • some methods are complementary: that is, some methods need to be paired with one or more other methods in order to be edifying—some methods work well in combination that would function poorly are negatively in isolation.

Having said that, we get to the truly hard part and the place where I find myself pondering the most. To what degree can various interpretive methods be assigned to these categories flatly and to what degree does the assignment depend on the character and composition of the congregation?

I think there are a certain number that can be classed absolutely (i.e., structuralism moves straight to “pointless”), there are some that can be classed conditionally, and yet others that require judicious classification and application.

Like I said, I’m still pondering… What do you think?

New Café Piece

I’ve got a new post up at the Café. Given the state of things I’ve found it difficult to collect coherent thoughts, so this is more of a spur-of-the-moment reflection based on a bit of NPR. Since I was driving to and from storage with stack of boxes, I heard the report twice and each time noticed myself yelling the same things at the radio—so I decided to write it down…

Posts containing more substance are in the works.

Morning Musing

You can observe a clock. Then you can deconstruct it, find out what it’s made of, how it fits together, take out and observe each individual piece, consider what parts make it function, which are decorative, which are essential, and which are not. Then you can put it back together and observe it again.

You can observe a cat. Then you can deconstruct it, find out what it’s made of, how it fits together, take out and observe each individual piece, consider what parts make it function, which are decorative, which are essential, and which are not. But you can’t put it back together and observe it again.

Now, how are spiritual texts like clocks—and how are they like cats?

RBOC: Moving Edition

  • I’ve been away for a while. I’m not quite back yet, but at least hooked up.
  • We’ve been caught in a protracted move. We’re finally in the new place but haven’t settled (so it’s not fully ours yet) and are nowhere near settled (we’re still stuck in a morass of boxes and misplaced furniture—and I still have another two storage units to finish emptying out…)
  • Blogging and most everything else will be light until things have settled out.
  • I’ve been having thoughts about the blog, blogging, and next steps which I’ll share as they become more firm in my head.
  • One change that is coming will be a shift of effort over to the St Bede’s Breviary blog. Based on the last update, much that’s over there is out of date, so I’ll be mostly deleting it and restarting. Once it restarts, however, it may be getting more material there than over here—for a time at least.
  • Too, I’ve got two presentations to get ready for in November, and I have no doubt there’ll be a certain amount of spill-over from thinking about those things into the blog.
  • So—I’ll still alive, I just won’t be around much for a while…

Random Thoughts on Monastic Bishops

The kids are already on vacation and we go to join them tomorrow meaning that M and I got to run together this morning (I just did a light 10 then relaxed while she did another 8 miles…). In the process, I found myself pondering once again Sulpicius Severus and the transmission of the monastic tradition from East to West. In particular, I’m considering the shift of the ascetic ideal from, essentially, hermits to bishops.

Consider–the main texts of the monastic movement in its initial eastern flourishing were Athanasius’s Life of Antony and the various collections of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers. These were then translated into Latin by Jerome & friends. Suplicius who, in an unguarded moment in the Dialogues, lets slip that he hopes to replace Jerome altogether writes the Life of Martin, the Dialogues, and the Epistles. He shifts the ideal away from the unlettered desert hermit and places it onto the noble Gaulish bishop. Likewise, among Jerome’s correspondents are a number of letters to bishops–like those to Paulinus of Nola who turns out to be a friend of Sulpicius as well.

I’m not making an argument at the moment, more lining up some evidence and seeing what patterns emerge. It is fair to say, though, that both Sulpicius and Jerome seem to assimilate monasticism into the western hierarchies more firmly than what we see in the first generations of monastic writings from the East.

Furthermore, I’m now suddenly intrigued by the Celtic bishops. Authentic classical “Celtic Christianity”–as we’ve discussed before–was far more similar to desert asceticism than other models, and one of its most recognizable features is that the bishops were usually abbots. Is this some kind of anomaly or is this the logical outcome of the strand of tradition that runs through Sulpicius Severus?

Still pondering…