Another aside: What we want music to be

           One of the more notorious events, supposedly, in the history of music as usually taught in such classes was the “riot” that happened at the Paris premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s ballet The Rite of Spring (Le sacre du printemps) in 1911. Accounts of said riot range from angry shouted demonstrations interrupting the performance to incidents of violence in the audience to, in the most extreme cases, reports (or rumors) of people stripping naked and running randomly around the performance hall. 

Note the word “supposedly.”

Musicologist Linda Shaver-Gleason writes the blog “Not Another Music History Cliché!”, devoted to rooting out and exposing bad writing and bad musicology (and frequently both at once). A recent entry tackled the whole “Rite riot” story with the aid of research by another musicologist, Tamara Levitz, pointing out that no such thing happened; at most a few people in upper balconies might have shouted at each other. (I confess with some horror that the “riot” probably came up in my old lectures, mostly because it came up in the dadgum textbook.)

In short order: it didn’t happen; references to a “riot” take a couple of years to start appearing, instead of instantly; it made for a good story, so it spread quickly; but no, it didn’t happen.

For our purposes the most interesting part of this blog entry is the final part: “why does the myth of the riot persist?” There are, of course, multiple reasons, including the above-noted “good story” point. Also noted is the phenomenon that we moderns with our good sense and taste enjoy having it over on those stupid dolts who didn’t appreciate Stravinsky’s genius at the premiere (when of course the vast, vast majority of us would have been as puzzled as most everybody else at the premiere); and perhaps the most salient or at least interesting point: it tells us a story about what we want Great Art to do. Ordinary, sedate, refined ballet-goers were driven to madness by Stravinsky’s rough, “primitive” (the word used most at the time), rhythmically dynamic music (note we are speaking of the music, not Nijinsky’s choreography). Great Art moves us, makes us do things we wouldn’t otherwise do (so the story goes); that’s what makes it Great Art. Or something like that.

Hopefully you can guess by now why this is worth thinking about in this blog, devoted as it is these days to the subject of congregational singing – which, as inspiring and moving and enlightening as it can be, is really not anyone’s idea of Great Art. That’s not the point of congregational singing. The primary role of congregational song is, in effect, communication – conveying our praise to God, God’s blessing or instruction or comfort to us, our joint instruction to one another about being the church. Colossians 3:16 pairs the instruction to “sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God” with the instruction to “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” and to “teach and admonish one another in all wisdom,” suggesting a trio of instructive practices.

And yet we want the music to do more. We want the music itself to overwhelm us, to drive us into spiritual ecstasy. You see it in the contemporary service, the woman “lifting up holy hands,” practically begging to be driven to, who knows, speak in tongues or something Spirit-like. Or the song leader in the big traditional evangelical or revivalistic worship service, gyrating and sweating, urging the congregation to greater and more emotional fervor of song.

We want the music to do the work of the Holy Spirit. And as this blog has already noted, music is not the Holy Spirit. The Spirit may choose to move through it, but is not required to do so. And all our sweating and straining and lifting of hands avails us nothing. 

We want the music, also, to do our work. We want it to be a shortcut through the hard work of prayer, meditation, and study, the things that truly do prepare us to be moved by the Holy Spirit. Music isn’t a shortcut to that preparation. We still need to pray, and meditate, and study. Our congregational song can be a part of all of those things, but it is not a substitute for them.

So sing. Definitely sing.

But study and teach and pray and meditate too. Music will not do that work for you.

Artist's rendering of what didn't happen at the Rite premiere...

Ridiculous Comparison: The mainline and Broadway

So if the mainline church is lacking in celebrity (whatever that means in churchworld), what of it? Where's the fit? Despite the most virulent naysaying of the vultures, the mainline is not dead yet, and as long as that's the case it maintains some toehold in American religious culture (whether that's a good thing to be part of is a question for another time). So, what is that toehold?

I'm going to put forth a Ridiculous Comparison. I'm liking this so much I'm putting that in caps, as a potential recurring feature of this blog. Or a threat to do so. Who knows? But here goes:

The role of the mainline in American religious culture is somewhat, a little bit, kinda sorta like the role of Broadway in American entertainment. (Yes, I'm currently watching the Tony Awards. Why do you ask?)

No, I'm not trying to make a full-fledged equation betwen the two, although somebody will probably try to claim I'm doing so. But there are similiarities, I think, at least enough to justify a Ridiculous Comparison.

So, for your consideration, a few rough comparisons of Broadway and the mainline:

1. They're both quite overshadowed by far more pervasive and flashier options in their respective fields of endeavor. Speaking of the Tony Awards, the occasion of that broadcast is for an awful lot of people the only awareness of Broadway they ever get. In many ways I do count myself among such people. I don't get to New York very often at all, and while I'll try to get to a show if one comes near me, I'm not living in a place where that's the easiest thing to do.

On the other hand, Hollywood churns along with ridiculous sums of money going into movies that can potentially tank incredibly badly, and yet the cycle happens again and again. If that happened to a producer one time on Broadway you'd probably never hear from that producer for quite a while; Hollywood somehow doesn't work that way.

Throw in television in its various permutations, streaming services, and other entertainment options that frankly encourage people never to leave their homes (or to not look up even if they do), and Broadway becomes a lot of work and a good deal of expense by comparison, at least in the perception of a lot of potential audience members.

A mainline church can seem like a lot of work. If they're doing worship right you can't just show up; you actually are asked to participate. You might even end up speaking as much as the preacher (or is that just my church?). They can be rather hard to find depending on where you live -- the mainline is getting a bit more scarce in some rural areas, for example. Mainline churches don't tend to carry quite the prestige that they once did, and certainly not the sense of social compulsion that once filled pews if nothing else would. Megachurches tend to consume a lot of oxygen in the communities they inhabit, and mainline churches can struggle to breathe. The mainline and its churches don't get to fail; when you go down, you're gone for good. Church celebrity, as noted elsewhere, tends to be an evangelical thing. In multiple ways, the mainline just gets overshadowed.

2. For both, the most vital signs of life are found when those long excluded, and their stories, are , included. Suffice to say Broadway benefits tremendously from the presence of artists male and female (and even in-between), artists of color, LGBTQ+ people, and more that I'm sure I'm not thinking of in every role possible -- on the stage, directing, providing technical prowess, composing, and all the other jobs that make a show happen. Further, an awful lot of the best of Broadway happens not just when the excluded are in the cast or behind the scenes, but also when their stories are the ones being told.

This last point might be more aspirational than current in the mainline, but as far as the life of the church, the places where church is actually showing life tend to be the places where the once-excluded are included. You want examples of the moribund and fading mainline to justify your vulturing? Find the churches where the old white guys still hold sway. When the folks who have spent generations being shoved aside or thrown out or worse are now part of the church, not just on the margins but being heard and welcomed and having more than a token voice, the church is living and even feisty.

3. They are both at their best when they tell the story differently, finding an unconventional perspective to illuminate what we (think we) know. Hollywood can give you movies, for example, based on the events of September 11, 2001. They can give you a movie about what happened on that plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, one about the emergency personnel responding to the attack, a forthcoming movie (originally a play, admittedly) about people trapped in one of the towers that day, and so forth. Broadway can do those, but it's at its best when it tells the story of Gander, Newfoundland, the place where all those transatlantic flights on 9/11 landed when they could no longer get into the US. (I really, really want to see that show now.)

Similarly, this may be more aspirational than real, but the mainline church is at its best when it "tells the story slant" (to crib from Emily Dickinson). The more the church opens up the whole of scripture, finding the stories the rest of the church doen't hear or doesn't want to hear or wants to stop anybody else from hearing, the more the mainline is telling the whole story of faith, of salvation, of the relentless God who would never accept human lostness. Are you willing to learn from the midwives Shiprah and Puah, or the slave Onesimus, or the Syrophoenician woman who, when first rebuffed by Jesus, nevertheless persisted? They're not tidy stories, but they still tell us of God's moving among God's people. And those stories certainly haven't been told enough.

Maybe this is silly, but it's not as if we don't have some things to learn as a community of churches trying to be faithful, even if a faithful remnant. If we can learn something from Broadway, let's learn.

A number from Come From Away at the Tony Awards. 

Yeah, I want to see that show.