Ah, the Brits. Ever ready with an outstanding turn of phrase, or two...
Damian Thompson:
Actually, I’d say that too much worship has been driven by guitar-strumming, Lib Dem-voting primary school teachers, and that this can have the effect of making you want to put your head in the oven.
Andrew continues: “It’s significant that many Roman Catholic colleagues call themselves ‘pastoral musicians’, which implies an understanding and empathy for real participation by all.”
No it doesn’t: it implies that, in addition to subjecting to the congregation to sub-Baez caterwauling, they also want to “pastor” their victims. My advice to the Mass-goers of Middlesbrough: keep those ear plugs in even after the music stops, just to be on the safe side.
The bad news is that we haven't begun to hear the efforts of the Britney Spears-inspired twitterers, who are still in their early-to-mid teen years. But in 10 years or so, they will obtain their "pastoral musician" positions and proceed to sound like disaffected lovelorn chipmunks who are under the influence of waterboarding--just like their 'model' singer--who by that time will have morphed into an alcohol-cum-coke cloud of disembodied disheveled hair.
The bad music and musicial "presentations" at mass each week ( unless you find a nice, early, quiet 7:30 mass someplace), are the result of the broadway theaterization of the Church, at least here in Milwaukee. Mass has become a production, with directors walking around the altar, throughout the Church ( and what ever happened to genuflecting when you pass the tabernacle?)
ReplyDeletePerhaps as some of the gender confused influences of the Church back away, class and reverence will replace tackiness and fabulousness of bad music in Church
As you probably well know, this trend is not endemic to the Catholic church alone, but to most of the evangelical churches.
ReplyDeleteCrappy music+crappy teaching=crappy christians.