Greg Krehbiel
On fear and the liturgy
by Greg Krehbiel on 21 November 2003
Those of you who have suffered through Catholic liturgical music understand this problem at a level that words cannot convey. For the rest of you, herewith my poor attempt. Imagine songs written by and for a pack of fearful baby bunnies prone to fits of night terrors. That’s what we sing in the Catholic Church.
Does that do it for you? Do you have that image of “fear”? It’s the syrupy (lying?) comfort of the distraught parent with the child who just won’t go to sleep. “Everything will be okay, dear little bunny.” (Contrast, just for fun, No Lullaby by Jethro Tull.)
It’s enough to make you ill. It makes me wonder if I’m doing my boys a disservice by letting them listen to this tripe. It’s a thousand times worse than “Michael Row the Boat Ashore,” which (as an article I recently read rightly claimed) sounds Magisterial by comparison.
But it’s taken me a while to put my finger on just what bugs me about this bunny music, because the truth of the matter is that the Bible is always talking about fear. “Do not fear” and its cognates shows up about a zillion times. So I have to ask myself, is my complaint just? Maybe, after all, Christianity was designed for fearfull little bunnies? Am I just in the wrong place or something?
Then I remember, thanks to all that Bible memorization back in the Evangelical church, that hall of famer of “do not fear” passages, Joshua chapter 1. Joshua was no little bunny. I’ve heard him compared to Stonewall Jackson, and it seems like an apt comparison to me.
Joshua was told not to fear because he was about to march into bloody war against fearsome foes at horrible odds. This was no “the boogy man won’t get you, dear” version of “do not fear.” This was more like the Lt. Colonel telling his soldiers not to fear as they storm the enemy’s machine-gun nest. This was manly “do not fear.” Fight the fight. Act the man. Show courage. Bunnies need not apply. (In fact, in the law of Moses, if you were afraid you were supposed to go home before you infected the rest of the army with your sissiness.)
I think this is part of why we have an impotent church militant. Instead of singing things along the lines of “A Mighty Fortress is our God,” which is full of the Joshua “do not fear” style, we sing this sort of thing, which, while the words aren’t that bad, screams “bunny lullaby” at me.
And that’s the point. We can’t get past the “do not fear” message. It’s part of the package. But it’s supposed to be the active, aggressive, apostolic, evangelistic, missionary “do not fear” message. “A Mighty Fortress” just might rouse the sleepy Christian to put his life on the line as a missionary in hostile territory. The slop we sing on Sundays is more likely to send him screaming from the church hoping to regain some of his manhood by watching a football game.
2003-11-21 » Greg Krehbiel
21 November 2003 @ 12:57 pm
Thank you. Nice entry.
21 November 2003 @ 1:48 pm
How much do you think this kind of music in American RCC parishes resembles the "seeker sensitive" and "contemporary worship" garbage that is widespread in Evangelical churches? As one who has attended both churches and heard the bad music on both sides, they seem pretty close in many ways to me. Maybe it’s something else to blame the Boomers for:)
Rosco
21 November 2003 @ 2:30 pm
My experience of "seeker sensitive" is very different. They know that people don’t want to sing drippy songs, so they don’t do drippy songs. The prevailing sin among the seeker sensitive crowd is music that’s way too noisy — electric guitars, loud drums, etc.
Greg
21 November 2003 @ 3:45 pm
Greg, write a letter to the music director at your church or go and talk with him.
I accidentally attended some sort of Mass for teens at a Jesuit parish recently, and the music was awful crap about seeking justice. I went home and wrote a letter to the music director ripping into his choice of music. I’ve not gone back but it made me feel better.
I think I’m going to become some sort of letter writing nusiance to all the local parishes.
21 November 2003 @ 4:45 pm
Greg,
I agree that the noisy music is a big problem with "seeker sensitive" music. In general it tries to draw people in with "fun worship" i.e. through the use of rock and pop music. Most of this, however, is pretty vacuous as far as theological content goes. Moreover, emotion and feelings are stressed and as with what you are talking about regarding contemporary Catholic music, God’s judgment is rarely mentioned. Instead, Jesus is your good buddy and therapy replaces repentance. It’s not all the same, but I do see a lot of connections between contemporary Catholic and Evangelical music.
Also, have you tried an Eastern Catholic parish? My guess is you would get something quite different than what you have now.
Rosco
21 November 2003 @ 8:17 pm
Well, Greg, that’s the price of converting to Catholism. You asked for it. Shut up and quit griping. At least you’re in the true apostolic church, which is what you were wanting to find. What more do you want? Overlook the negatives. Being part of the true church should silence your gripes.
Jack
21 November 2003 @ 9:57 pm
Being part of the true church should silence your gripes? Just wonderful. That’s the sort of sentiment that has landed the church in the place it is, and that’s the sort of inane logic that gave so much tinder to the Reformation. As Frank Sheed said, the reason God is blessing the Protestant churches is because so many find it impossible to find Him in the Catholic Church. A sorry state of affairs.
22 November 2003 @ 9:25 am
Sorry for beating a dead horse but, trying to imagine the thought processes that go into this sort of thing I can only conclude that (bad) ecumenism is at the bottom of it.
22 November 2003 @ 9:37 am
Wayne — I’m not sure the motive is ecumenism. I think some liturgy directors actually prefer these songs, or believe that the parish prefers them.
(And BTW, the portion of bunny lullabies at my parish has been steadily diminishing over the last several months!)
Greg
22 November 2003 @ 10:14 am
Well, on an individual basis that could be even worse.
I guess they have a lot of discretion at the parish level on what can be used in worship. Fortunately, we don’t have to deal with that issue because we don’t have hymnals, and nothing can be sung in the services that is not in the service books. Those go back a long way. Otherwise I’m sure some choir director somewhere would try to add his own thing.
24 November 2003 @ 8:12 am
greg,
greg,
1st off: Froh Geburtstag zu dir, froh Geburtstag zu dir. Froh Geburtstag liebe Greg, Froh Geburtstag zu dir!. (my apologies if my German is rusty).
2nd: It appears we have a pastor who’s not afraid to address current issues. Maybe a
letter to him presenting this as an issue might help push the trend along.
dennis
24 November 2003 @ 11:02 am
Greg wrote: "I think some liturgy directors actually prefer these songs, or believe that the parish prefers them."
Scary but true. I personally know people who love the stuff. They also like Yanni and Peter, Paul & Mary.
24 November 2004 @ 1:26 pm
“On fear and the liturgy”
Those of you who have suffered through Catholic liturgical music understand this problem at a level that words cannot convey. For the rest of you, herewith my poor attempt. Imagine songs written by and for a pack of fearful baby…