Byzantine, Texas

  • Subscribe to our RSS feed.
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Facebook
  • Digg

Monday, March 4, 2013

This video makes me uncomfortable

Posted on 8:44 PM by Unknown
This first video made me so uncomfortable I had to pause it a few times. Dancing in church, singing a reworded and auto-tuned pop hit, and using liturgical items as props are all verboten. Shudder.



Now, let's look at this next video. We can find a much more meaningful and appropriate video that celebrates the role of altar servers. Or, if you'd like, within the Western tradition, you can watch this video as well.



All the above goes to my belated point: Making the Liturgy more "relatable" is the opposite direction one should take in presenting the Church to your child. Holiness speaks to a separation from the things of this world that distract us from God. Using cultural distractions to encourage participation in the services of the Church muddles this reality. If what we should be seeking after is packaged in a secular pop-culture medium a false equality and connection is made in the minds of our children that life in the Church is just another way to pass the time. Making the Way into a video game, a music video, or any other trivial entertainment serves to undermine and not reinforce your child's faith. The hard lesson that evangelical efforts to grow the Church through making it more "relevant" have been learned over and over at the expense of tradition and with little to show for it beyond empty coffers, infrequent attendance, and a "spiritual but not religious" ethos.

The Liturgy is best presented as a constant walking towards the transcendant where His people gather in reverence and anticipation of His imminent return. A child that sees himself as someone in service to a thing not only much greater than he, but also something that can transform him into the man God would have him be through service to His Church, is a child that will grow in faith and love of the Lord.

The Lord is my light and my salvation;
Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life;
Of whom shall I be afraid?
When the wicked came against me
To eat up my flesh,
My enemies and foes,
They stumbled and fell.
Though an army may encamp against me,
My heart shall not fear;
Though war may rise against me,
In this I will be confident.
One thing I have desired of the Lord,
That will I seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord
All the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the Lord,
And to inquire in His temple.
For in the time of trouble
He shall hide me in His pavilion;
In the secret place of His tabernacle
He shall hide me;
He shall set me high upon a rock.
And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me;
Therefore I will offer sacrifices of joy in His tabernacle;
I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the Lord.
Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice!
Have mercy also upon me, and answer me.
When You said, “Seek My face,”
My heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.”
Do not hide Your face from me;
Do not turn Your servant away in anger;
You have been my help;
Do not leave me nor forsake me,
O God of my salvation.
When my father and my mother forsake me,
Then the Lord will take care of me.
Teach me Your way, O Lord,
And lead me in a smooth path, because of my enemies.
Do not deliver me to the will of my adversaries;
For false witnesses have risen against me,
And such as breathe out violence.
I would have lost heart, unless I had believed
That I would see the goodness of the Lord
In the land of the living.
Wait on the Lord;
Be of good courage,
And He shall strengthen your heart;
Wait, I say, on the Lord!

- Psalm 27

Where do you find consonance with the images presented in the above Psalm with the "relevant," "approachable," "relatable" strategy for bringing our young men to Christ and service to His Church? I am hard pressed to find even a tenuous connection. How about you?
Email ThisBlogThis!Share to XShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest
Posted in | No comments
Newer Post Older Post Home

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Popular Posts

  • Bp. Vasilije of Tuzla and Zvornik and the sex scandal
    Bishop posing with Belgrade stripper Dejan Nestorovic Belgrade ( Radio Free Europe ) - The Serbian Orthodox Church has approved the resignat...
  • The Theophany of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ
    Theophany of our Lord, Troparion, Tone 1 When Thou, O Lord, wast baptized in the Jordan,/ the worship of the Trinity was made manifest;/ for...
  • “Let us at least die like Christians!”
    From the Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church's website , a rather stirring story on Christian death from the book Everyday Saints . I can ...
  • Pseudo-Cyril of Alexandria on the Eucharist and the Godhead
    From the blog Roger Pearse , a post on how a modern opinion gets conflated with a patristic source. A correspondent has written to me with a...
  • Of Copts and unicorns - μονοκερωτων
    From the blog On Coptic Nationalism, a post entitled Coptic Unicorn: It's Symbolism . The very prominent Coptologist, Alin Siciu, has re...
  • Palm Sunday in Ottowa
  • Harry Potter: an Orthodoxy story?
    ( Moscow News ) - Harry Potter, the world’s most famous child sorceror, is to become an Orthodox Christian figure, in a play written by a pr...
  • Egyptian police abet rioting Muslims vs. mourning Christians
    Cairo ( AINA ) - A media representative for Egypt's Catholic bishops echoed concerns that police sided with Islamic extremists who attac...
  • OCN responds to sacrilegious SNL skit
    ( OCN ) - The Orthodox Christian Network has asked for a public apology from NBC for airing an offensive skit which depicted Jesus as a reve...
  • UK Copts want to accept Chalcedonians by confession
    ( British Orthodox ) - The Synod of the British Orthodox Church has submitted a recommendation to the Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Patr...

Categories

  • books (2)

Blog Archive

  • ▼  2013 (500)
    • ►  August (47)
    • ►  July (73)
    • ►  June (51)
    • ►  May (95)
    • ►  April (71)
    • ▼  March (63)
      • How it should be done: St. Innocent Church in Maco...
      • St. Philotheus and the Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas
      • The whys on dating Pascha
      • OCMC in "urgent" need of your help
      • Met. Tikhon, OCA Council provide update on Met. Jonah
      • Yale - Lux et veritas.
      • Watertown, MA church robbed
      • Parousia when?
      • On the Assembly of Bishops Committee for Youth
      • Death of the branch theory
      • Man wants to remarry, gets govt. involved
      • Curtains and the Presanctified Liturgy
      • Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
      • Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts in Moscow
      • Iconodules the new iconoclasts?
      • Met. Tikhon at Sunday of Orthodoxy service in DC
      • Pan-Orthodox Vespers, the American experience
      • Holy Cross Monastery - a story of survival
      • President Barack Obama visits Church of the Nativity
      • Met. Tikhon welcomed at Rome’s Russian Orthodox Ch...
      • EP invites Pope to travel with him to Holy Land
      • Reading The Scriptures in an Orthodox Manner
      • Cypriot Church in the trenches with government
      • Pope of Rome to Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, et al.
      • Chalcedon 28 - controversial barbarian lands
      • Update on internecine discord in Ukraine
      • Orientale Lumen Conferences scheduled
      • Orthodox delegations in Rome for papal inauguratio...
      • The UK: canary in the coal mine.
      • A video on the bright line of division
      • Kristen Stewart explains St. Patrick's Day
      • Ten Lenten tips
      • Who’s Who of The Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete
      • Notes from OCA synodal spring session
      • Want some Lenten resources?
      • School of Liturgical Chant launched in Chicago
      • Ecumenical Patriarch to attend papal inaugural mass
      • Is rejection of same-sex relationships Orthodox?
      • Antioch and Jerusalem at odds over Qatar
      • The Two Chairs of Peter
      • On papal fervor
      • Pithless Thoughts responds to OCN's SNL appeal
      • OCN responds to sacrilegious SNL skit
      • First Maronite elector ever for Pope of Rome
      • "How Medicine is Destroying Pastoral Care"
      • Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew on the Great Fast
      • Oriental Orthodox respond to John X of Antioch's o...
      • The Copts in Jerusalem
      • Want to see how un-Christlike you are? Try raising...
      • The Last Judgement
      • Jurisdictional webmasters meet at St. Vlad's
      • On Orthodoxy and a new Pope of Rome
      • Things Jesus never said
      • OCF: Making a difference in New Orleans
      • Moscow Times: The Interior of a Church
      • This video makes me uncomfortable
      • On the Ancient of Days icon
      • “Let us at least die like Christians!”
      • St. Emmelia Orthodox Homeschooling Conference
      • Flowers continue to bloom in Arab Spring
      • Resurrection of our Lord Chapel in Dachau Camp
      • "A Journey of Faith" - Growing the Church in Kenya
      • Pastor and laity - "Blurred Lines"
    • ►  February (56)
    • ►  January (44)
Powered by Blogger.

About Me

Unknown
View my complete profile