“Scribbling in the Sand” -- CCM and Liturgical Catechesis -- Pt. I: Context

So…this may be a bit of a ramble, and I may end up splitting it into multiple parts. But I was listening to the music of contemporary Christian musician Michael Card (pictured above), and thinking about how while I often find myself frustrated by the lack of effort put into CCM on the radio today (and many of my Catholic and Orthodox compatriots, perhaps understandably, refuse to listen to it at all), it got me thinking about the role of music in shaping and forming people of faith in the kanon (rule) of faith.* Obviously, it’s reductive to blame the success or failure of Christian formation and discipleship in America purely on the arts, but music shapes worship and liturgy, and liturgy shapes our spiritual communities more than we realize.

Fr. Alexander Schmemann, in his seminal work, For the Life of the World, writes, “We do not need any new worship that would somehow be more adequate to our secular world. What we need is a rediscovery of the true meaning and power of worship, and this means of its cosmic, ecclesiological, and eschatological dimensions and content.”**

I would question slightly Schmemann’s assertion that there can be nothing new in worship/liturgy. I think that the Spirit has and continues to inspire gifted liturgists to compose offerings of the cosmos to God in new and powerful ways. But his point is well-taken: worship matters, especially in an age where we see an increasing de-valuing of the human person (white supremacy, homophobia, transphobia, anti-immigrant sentiment, etc). Certainly, fixing our liturgies will not miraculously solve our problems. Direct action and advocacy are needed to overcome the injustices in our society, and as surely as St. James the Just once wrote, “faith without action is dead,” Christians need to live out their faith in concrete acts of discipleship on behalf of the vulnerable in our society. But I do think that if American Christianity, and American Protestantism in particular is to “save its soul,” so to speak, part of that healing transformation will or should involve a deepening of the roots of its liturgy, worship and music to once again speak to the deep sacramentality of God’s creation and the time-honored truths of the faith.***

I and various friends of mine have agreed that, as we transitioned from churches with a low view of liturgy (ie, little emphasis on communal prayer, worship music which generated emotional intensity but often failed to teach or form people for communion with God and humanity, central focus on the personality and perspective of the preacher) to churches with a higher view of liturgy (i), we gradually became to feel that our faith and our action felt more integrated. You can no longer easily ignore, “the sick, the suffering, the captives” when you pray every Sunday for their salvation. We felt more inspired and moved to do good works, and when we did so, we felt we were doing not just a social good, but also a deeply holy thing.

As I think back to that Michael Card album, I think about some of the early CCM artists, particularly those involved with the Jesus Movement and the evangelical equivalents of the 60s counterculture and how many of them felt, at their core, like liturgists. That is to say, they wrote music not merely to produce a feeling, but to form their listeners for the life in Christ. Michael Card strikes me as exemplary of this movement. This man does so much research on Scripture and doctrine that he fills entire books with the material that doesn’t make it into his songs. In my next post, I want to focus in on Card’s work in particular, discussing how it shaped and formed my faith in a liturgical manner, and how it might continue to speak to American churches today. Through the rest of this series (yeah, pretty sure this will have to be a series now), I will examine a handful of other artists and trends in the CCM genre from the 60s-present, continuing along this theme of liturgical catechesis, how American Christian music has shaped the church, and how it might shape the church to reflect Christ more courageously against co-optation by bigotry and imperialism in the days to come.

*Greek word κανων, meaning “measuring stick,” where we get the word “canon” in the sense of “regulatory or formative work”.

** Fr. Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1963), 134.

***Note: a few caveats. I am speaking as an Eastern Orthodox Christian who was raised evangelical Protestant, but I will be primarily speaking about Protestant contexts in this essay, with occasional references to Orthodox theology where it sheds light on the subject. I know Protestant churches are not a monolith, and a handful of denominations seem to at least be on their way to reclaiming Christianity from the specter of whiteness, heteronormativity and patriarchy. I would cite the UCC, parts of the Episcopal Church and the ELCA as examples. I also do not write with any illusions that Orthodoxy is immune to these problems. I think we have inherited a strong, dignifying and humane liturgy but have thus far had trouble putting its meaning into practice and teaching our youth about how the Liturgy forms and shapes us. All this to say, this piece is necessarily limited in scope but I am aware of and continue to do my part to work towards resolving problems in my own spiritual community. I just feel that as someone who has experienced both liturgical “worlds”, so to speak, I am in a position to offer some thoughts that folks may find helpful.

i. Note: When I talk about “high view of liturgy” vs “low view of liturgy” I don’t necessarily mean “high church” v “low church”. There is nothing about a more contemporary style of worship that precludes having a rich liturgical life. I have been in Masses and Divine Liturgies that seemed wholly detached from their sense of purpose, and I have been in low church contexts where the sense of purpose and responsibility to offer the world up to God has been crystal clear. What I mean more is the problem of some churches who seem to have little to no sense of leitourgia as “the work of the people,” that we are coming together not just for our own edification, but to commune with God and with the world around us, through prayer, worship, teaching, formation, the sacraments/mysteries, etc.