When I hear about the importance of the church engaging popular culture more richly, I usually hear the subtext “and ditch all that out-moded, incomprehensible stuff that nobody who likes The Simpsons or listens to rock and roll or spends a lot of time online would ever believe. Sometimes they throw in the canard about “speaking in code,” as though any complex endeavor that has lived and developed for decades (much less centuries) doesn’t develop its own in-house terminology. Here’s a message, pop-cultured despisers: I like the Simpsons, I listen to rock and roll, and I spend more time online thasn all of you (as the Apostle would say). And I believe those things, and the church’s particular ways of expressing itself are not inconsequentially dispensable.
So I doubt that many people read the recent posts by Dylan Breuer and and Kathy Sierra and thought, “Hey, that’s the kind of thing AKMA would say about liturgy.” Well, it’s not, exactly. But though these are not the precise perspectives I would bring to bear on liturgical planning, I think that Dylan and Kathy are quite right in what they say on their respective topics, and their observations tend to confirm my very Anglo-Catholic perspective on liturgy. I’ll spell out a more detailed account of the convergence some other time — I’m drafting a series of posts on Enriching Our Worship, the Episcopal Church’s compilation of authorized liturgies, and I probably ought to articulate my liturgical theology in greater detail first — but for now, I want to offer an appreciative link along with a promissory note toward further comment.
yeah, well, i haven’t been to church in nearly two years now. i had great hopes when we finally got a new rector after a brimstone interim who yelled at people who came to church on easter because he hadn’t seen them all year (they got up and left and i thought about that again this easter, the second one that i celebrated alone again just like i used to do before i attempted joining–it leaves a taste, you know?) but my hopes were dashed again again when i read in the bulletin that the theme for whatever it was, advent, possibly, was the gospel according to the simpsons. i came over about 5 years ago but apparently i brought it with me and since i have no intention of going to my family’s hallmark card baptist megaplex (where admittedly they wouldn’t have this problem, not knowing what advent is, even) this whole trend leaves me, and lots more like me (although possibly not so much here in Florida) out in the prodigal cold.