The price of liberty, or libertines

I’m sure I'm not the only one who has noticed that in an era where hard-core porn is accessible to fingertip reach on ubiquitous screens, and things appear on network TV that in earlier years would have been subject to prosecution even if displayed in private smoke-filled back rooms, there is a simultaneous call for an almost Victorian propriety in the workplace, in which an off-color joke or a misplaced hand on an unwilling shoulder might be cause for dismissal. I find the tut-tutting of commentators expressing horror and disgust at the Al Franken photo to be incongruous given the language and attitudes expressed on, say, the Celebrity Roasts on basic cable channels, where crowds applaud the most vulgur obscenities about both women and men, issued with the proviso of “no disrespect.” To say nothing of the incongruity of the incumbent in the White House joining in the tut-tutting.

Perhaps Yeats was right after all, and the center cannot hold, but we are entering the widening gyre where prudery and license spin, and the moral compass cannot find true North.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Spectrum of Norms and Customs - And Laws

Early morning thoughts led me to thinking about the range of how norms and customs -- and even laws -- might be expressed in adjectives. This is what came to mind:

Forbidden
Deprecated
Tolerated
Allowed
Encouraged
Expected
Required

Obviously many synonyms could be lined up next to, or in-between, several of these, but the nice spectral number of seven seems just right. It also seems to me that most norms and laws fall somewhere on the ends of this spectrum, but many customs lie closer to the middle. And all of these move about a bit as time passes, custom stales and norms and even laws fall into desuetude.

Anyway, such were my early morning thoughts.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

On Church Growth: A Thought

The problem is not that the church isn't counter-cultural enough. The problem is that the church is thoroughly encultured to a culture of fifty to a hundred years ago. Relating to people in their cultural present, out of the depths of eternal truths, seems a better course, but it is one to which the institutional body seems hard-pressed to bend.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Decline: Causes and Circumstances

Over at Facebook someone has posted a link to a year old article blaming "progressives" for the decline of the Episcopal Church. And just about every other decline, including the decline in numbers of Roman Catholic nuns.

Well, I'm rather familiar with both subjects. Let's address the nuns first. The real "progressive" move that had major impact on religious communities was the shift in teaching regarding the superiority of celibacy over marriage. The latter, for over a millennium point five, was officially seen as a concession to weakness, and a necessity to keep the world (and the church) going; but if you really wanted to be an earnest Christian, you'd best be a nun or a priest. (This took rather seriously the Gospel passage we will hear this coming Sunday, by the way, about what it takes to be "a disciple.")

When in mid-20th-century terms the issue was reexamined, the teaching was nudged to place marriage on an equal, if not even slightly higher, plane. (This is when we started seeing misguided efforts to liken a married couple to the "image of God.") This move, hardly "progressive," had impact on women religious in particular, where the "bride of Christ" analogy had been played for all it was worth. I recall hearing from one late-middle-aged nun, the angry recrimination, "You mean I gave up my life and now you're telling me it's all the same!"

A similar shift in emphasis came with lightening the strict observance of Sundays and Days of Obligation, which — I can recall from childhood in pre-Vatican II circumstances — were held over our heads with dire threat of serious sin. As soon as you lighten the leash that has been held firmly in place, the critter will try to run free. Again, I would hardly call this "progressive."

When it comes to the Episcopal Church, the author does not present a terrifically accurate portrait, at its writing in 2012 or now. Decline in the Mainstream Churches has little to do with progressive / conservative issues. It has to do with a shift in the culture away from "church-going" as the primary focus for one's spiritual life. The 50s were anomalous in terms of the "institutional church" — a boom period connected to post-war and cold war angst (that certainly fueled the Merton-led phenomenon of young folks flocking to religion) and a culture of conformity and propriety. When the post-war fervor faded, distrust with "institutions" of all sorts evolved post-Vietnam, the door to the monasteries was found to swing both ways, and the kids (whose parents diligently forced them to attend) forsook "organized" religion when they reached adulthood in the 70s and 80s. They are not visiting the requirement of religious conformity on their children.

The world caught on, of course, and around the same time started doing things on the formerly sacrosanct sabbath — the Blue Laws have faded to pale grey, like parish records kept in fugitive ink. I can recall the announcement when Macys first said they'd be open on Sunday. Gimbels soon followed. Now even liquor stores are open on Sunday in some places, schools plan major sporting events on Sunday morning, and people have found they have better things to do with their time than attend worship which, as C S Lewis once quipped, makes it seem that "God is a nice old man who likes to be read to." If they are going to read, it will be in bed with the Sunday Times.

What's new attracts — for a time. But even the megachurches are seeing declines, as the novelty wears off. Churches that put on a good show — whether Rock or Roccoco, praise band or plainchant — still "draw" and likely have a future. Good preaching, good fellowship, a sense of identity and mission — these all help. But the days when the culture simply "expected" people to be church-goers is gone, and it isn't coming back.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Enough Oscar, Bring Back Felix

My thoughts on the distasteful and disappointing Oscar-fest: Glib, postmodern sexism is no more acceptable than crude, premodern sexism. Seth MacF is to humor what the other Mac is to cuisine, and he both reveled in and revealed the thin, mean, one-trick horse insubstantiality of his humor.

And the casual, clumsy, "cool" unpreparedness of too many of the presenters ended by making Jack Nicholson appear suave and debonaire in comparison. The cult of personality really does require some. Personality, that is. Just being beautiful and famous will not make you witty or wise.

There were on the whole too few moments of real humor and class -- and most of them came from classy people like Shirley Bassey and Barbara Streisand, Daniel Day Lewis and Christopher Plummer.

The rest were wannabes who couldn't.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
ps: shopping suggestion for Mr. MacF.

Cultural Dissonance

Many conservative Christians are willing to acknowledge that the Scripture reflects the cultures of its time when it comes to social and economic issues, but seem to be unable to see the same influence of long-gone culture on attitudes towards sex and sexuality. They will sometimes find ingenious ways of sheltering the latter from a social or cultural critique or amendment, such as asserting that some things are creation ordinances while others are mere management of human weakness — which doesn't hold up well on examination, since some of the commands issued at creation have since been eliminated or ignored; or by claiming that the Law of Moses can neatly be divided between "civil" and "sacred" matters — a notion the theocrat Moses would have found to be very odd indeed.

It is fine to say that the church should not bend to the culture of this age, but also fair to point out that the church need not bend to the culture of some former age, merely on the grounds that the culture in question was dominant at the time the scriptures were recorded.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Of Church, Decline, and Culture

There has been a lot of statistic-tossing back and forth about the decline of the Mainline Churches in the US, in particular in comparison with such entities as the Southern Baptist Convention. That there has been decline is evident; but the efforts at showing causality seem to me to be hampered by a failure to recognized the differences in culture geographically. When you average things across the whole United States, you tend to miss some important factors.

This might reflect something of the phenomenon of entropy: there is a gradual winding down of things and increasing disorder, yet even while that happens there are “islands” of increasing ordered complexity. So too there may well be islands of growth amidst an over-all trend towards diminishment.

For example, churchgoing is a cultural reality that has been maintained in the South better than in the North. Since the South is a stronghold of the Southern Baptists (duh!) It might make more sense to compare them, and their growth (or decline, as I understand it) with that of dioceses, presbyteries and synods of the mainline churches in those same regions. I know when I was in Memphis two years back I saw a level of churchgoing in all sorts of churches that many in the North would envy. Averaging what is essentially a cultural/regional phenomenon over the whole country is not going to give an accurate picture.

As John Chilton noted in a conversation at the Episcopal Café, you could say the same thing about bowling. It might be helpful to take a look at all sorts of cultural realities and compare their decline and geographic distribution since the 1950s. Is it only the churches that have changed? What about bowling? How has that institution and social phenomenon thrived or declined, and is it tenpins, duckpins or candlepins? What is the most successful “sect” in the realm of Bowlingdom?

The rise and fall of the Drive-In Movie might also make for a good analysis, or even the Cinema itself. Does the rise of the Multiplex reflect the rise of the Megachurch, and for similar reasons? And what relevance does the death of the art house or the neighborhood movie theater have for the plight of small and dwindling churches? In a more mobile culture, perhaps the message to the church is to consolidate the many small neighborhood or village churches into larger and more well-supported few churches — with ample parking!

Context and culture and geography are not lightly to be neglected when seeking to understand social phenomena — of which churchgoing is but one. And distinguishing causality from coincidence is also helpful.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

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