2010/10/17

review: Christ Church, Oxford Cathedral

The church: Christ Church, Oxford Cathedral
Denomination:  Church of England (Anglican)
The building: The building is impressive and eclectic. It is part of Christ Church, and wholly surrounded by the college.  
The church: This is the cathedral church of the diocese of Oxford, and also the college chapel.  Somehow it manages this split personality: but I'm not sure it makes for a close-knit congregation.  By its nature, it has several distinct sub-communities.
The neighborhood: City-centre Oxford; the heart of the University.
The cast: About five clergy (I didn't see any names); a verger in a cassock covered by a curious (i.e. not Oxford) black gown; a choir of around 10 men and 10 boys.
The date & time: Sunday 17th October, 6.00pm Christ Church time (which is 6.05pm British Summer Time).


I haven't been to Christ Church for years - I'm guessing, about 15.  On a whim, I thought I'd drop in to Evensong, and see what's what.  I remembered a fairly low-church austere set-up, with no announcements or concession to those unfamiliar with the service.  I found an even lower set-up (all the genuflection has disappeared! and the odd bows in the Gloria patri, and no one making the sign of the cross at 'the resurrection of the body' in the creed), and a few interruptions to the liturgy of the 'now turn to page 45, paragraph 2' kind - which disappointed me a little.

What was the name of the service?
Choral Evensong
How full was the building?
Probably about 25% - but it has many parts, so it's hard to say.
Did anyone welcome you personally?
Someone handed me a service booklet; I'm not sure that they actually spoke.
Was your pew comfortable?
Not bad.  
How would you describe the pre-service atmosphere?
Quiet and reserved.
What were the exact opening words of the service?
Welcome to Christ Church.
What books did the congregation use during the service?
A booklet set out the liturgy for the service; the hymn book (a new one on me; I forget the name) was needed for the two hymns; the prayer book was used for the psalm; and another booklet listed the psalms, hymns, and music chosen for the day.
What musical instruments were played?
Organ.  And the choir - is the choir an instrument?  They played a big role in the service.
Did anything distract you?
Not much.  The chap sitting in front of me elected not to kneel for the prayers.  He didn't even adopt a 'non-conformist crouch', preferring to sit bolt upright, so I found myself breathing down his neck, quite literally.
Was the worship stiff-upper-lip, happy clappy, or what?
Low and Liturgical. Cathedral worship in the finest Anglican tradition.  The choir is probably still being broken in, as it were, it being the start of a new academic year. There was nothing wrong with the music, but nothing really stood out, save a curious emphasis/intonation in the psalm.
Exactly how long was the sermon?
Sermon? This was evening prayer.  No sermon.
On a scale of 1-10, how good was the preacher?
Who needs a preacher?
Which part of the service was like being in heaven?
A sense of peace, of measured, dignified worship.
And which part was like being in... er... the other place?


Kneeling with my nose in someone else's back.
What happened when you hung around after the service looking lost?
Oh, I don't think you do that at the cathedral.
How would you feel about making this church your regular (where 10 = ecstatic, 0 = terminal)?
Oh, I don't think you do that at the cathedral.  Well, I suppose some people do. But that would be a 0 for me.
Did the service make you feel glad to be a Christian?
Yes.
What one thing will you remember about all this in seven days' time?
The great familiarity of the liturgy (I gave up on the booklet half-way through the first page), and the surprise at not having any genuflecting to do.

Post-script: the organ voluntary was some kind of variations of the theme of the Westminster Chimes.  Truly Bizarre.  A glance at wikipedia suggests to me it was probably by Vierne.  It was certainly in his style.

2010/10/05

do you believe?

Do you believe in ghosts?  Do you believe in miracles?  Do you believe in the supernatural?  In spirits?  In life after death?  In literal plenary inspiration?  In the Virgin Birth?

Christianity seems to be based on most of those (spot the odd one out!).  And to those of a modern mind-set, they are concepts from the pre-scientific age.  They are best dismissed as fantasy or mistakes, as neat ideas which turn out to be unsupported by evidence: like alchemy, the ether, or scientific determinism.  Healing - like homoeopathy - is readily explained by the placebo effect; some other miracles by the human propensity to see patterns where none exist.  As far as we can tell, the laws of physics (and other branches of science; indeed the laws of information theory which some now think make a better foundational theory than particle physics) are uniform and immutable across time and space - albeit with special perturbations near singularities and the big bang.

The last bit is, I fear, code for saying 'we're still working that bit out'.  Since we plainly do not know everything yet - and some have begun to say that actually we never will; that the enlightenment itself is running out of steam - it is a little surprising that some will go so far as to say 'there is no such thing as ...', or even perhaps 'I don't believe in ...".   It's a reasonable short-hand, but we can hardly say it's an accurate, scientifically supported statement: it's hard, after all, to prove a negative.

So, I think I'd rather prefer a different kind of dialogue.  If we offer a Christianity based on miracles ("they happen today") we alienate a lot of scientifically-minded people.  If we major on bizarre bits of the supernatural, we are liable to persuade people - at least the kind of people I mix with daily - that we are nutters.  So let's not do it.

I'm not going to go so far as to say there are no miracles: we have much too much to learn about the world to say that there are no mechanisms which suspend the regular laws of physics.  But I don't think it's very helpful to talk about them.  If we're going to read biblical accounts of impossible things, I'd certainly rather dwell on the message and the point, rather than on their historicity.    Does that defame the God of scripture?  Is it dishonest?

2010/10/03

the other point of view

I saw something recently - I forget where, sorry - that in days of yore when people studied rhetoric, prior to the start of any debate, each antagonist was required to state the argument of the other.  They had to satisfy each other that they understood the main points of the other's point of view, before trying to persuade anyone against it.

I don't know if that's a true characterization, but it's an attractive thought.  Of course, in any dialectic one seeks to nullify each argument of the opponent, but too often we fail to grasp what's really on the mind of those we disagree with.  Politicians seem to be particularly bad at this - the objective observer can see them scoring points against each other (all too often ad hominem, or against infelicities in the presentation) instead of  engaging with the argument itself.  This is either naive small-mindedness, or wilful misrepresentation.  Neither is very attractive.

Sadly, the same thing seems to be all over the blogosphere in the 'Christian' blogs.  The amount of bile poured out upon those perceived as somewhat heterodox sometimes takes my breath away.  So much of it seems to come from those who don't want  to see the other's point of view. I looked earlier today for some emerging church commentary/perspective on the Alpha course.  Instead - as is the nature of a google search - I found endless blogs denouncing both as the anti-Christ.  (Incidentally, one of the best, most balanced commentaries that I found on Alpha came from an atheist Nature editor, in the Guardian.)

Would that we had grace to understand properly the things that others would have us believe.  And would that they too would engage and grasp that with which they would argue.  Too much apologetics is quite introspective, built upon successive evangelical arguments, rather than being tested by real engagement with those who would wish to dismiss it all - which, in turn, makes it easy to dismiss because its content is rubbish.  That doesn't honour the gospel; that doesn't direct people to the wonderful person of Christ - and that's the real shame.