Pastor as curator
Greetings all! Stumbled accross your site on the recommendation of a friend. As I was searching for more info, I came across this paper which responds to some of Rev. Peirson's (hope I spelled that right) ideas about pastor as curator. I found it interesting, and was wondering if anyone else would like to comment, since I'm obviously new to the concept. Is the author, one Graham Redding if I have it correctly, misrepresenting Pierson's argument, setting up a straw man? Or is he presenting an effective critique?
www.schoolofministry.ac.nz/Inaugural%20Lectures/ SoM%20inaugural%20lecture%2005.doc
P.S. - If I understand correctly, Pierson no longer serves this congregation, but I was hoping from your experience with him, you might be familiar with the ideas. Either way, I hope the article will be food for thought and worth the read.
false dichotomy, and belief in magic
Hi, Rob Brink.
Yeah, Graham Redding's article has a fairly naive association underlying it, that theological truth (right thinking about God) can only be possible where there is a certain type of liturgy (the type represented by traditional high Presbyterian liturgy). Or, from a different angle, whenever you open up liturgy, you risk missing the eternal truth. It is, as you say, a false dichotomy.
It is also a resort to magic, only believing that (trinitarian) Christianity can be practised by a limited range of traditional methods. But (trinitarian) Christianity may be practised by more methods, some less prescriptive than others. In fact, as you pointed out, there is no guarantee that a traditional mode will better represent (trinitarian) Christianity than an emerging mode. Your average Presbyterian minister might be surprised to find that the emerging mode is more effective in effecting (trinitarian) Christian praxis than his or her high Presbyterian liturgy has been. That is, if he or she gave it a go...
"Afraid of missing the eternal truth, they identify it with some previous theological work, with traditional concepts and solutions, and try to impose these on a new, different situation. They confuse eternal truth with a temporal expression of this truth." - Paul Tillich, who may have gone too far in the other direction, but at least appreciated the foible that is Barthianism.
Thanks
Brenda and Deanne: Thanks for your thoughtful replies. You definitely saw some things that I didn't, and helped me understand some of what was troubling me. Thank you.
theology and praxis
Hi Rob,
I had a couple of thoughts... (these have changed during the day, hence the multiple edits...I was initially just responding to the quotes Deane excerpted and then read the whole article...changed some of what I thought the essay was saying.)
Firstly it's worth noting that at Cityside it's not just the pastor that engages in the curating task, this role is taken by different people at different times. We don't really have a theology of the ordained mediator of worship. And as Deane says, the Reformed tradition is pretty alien to our starting place in thinking about worship.
Secondly, I don't think that emerging models are inherently any more 'dangerous' on the level of focusing on 'what we do' than more traditional models. Like you point out, how does a traditional liturgy protect against that? Those who claim that their worship is 'led by Christ' must still operate intentionally and consciously when preparing their liturgy, choosing hymns etc. And the worshippers are still on the receiving end of prayers, words and actions that are shaped by the minister's particular theological perspective. And each worshipper brings their own unique sensibility and responsiveness to the worship, even if it's the same liturgy out of the same book every week, in every church in the country.
The idea that worship starts in God, and is simply mediated by the minister, is in my mind potentially just as 'dangerous' because it won't acknowledge the degree of personal involvement from those 'mediating' the worship. And the trinitarian emphasis in Redding's article in my mind makes God a narcissist, caught up in a loop of self worship that humans are allowed to participate in. The 'responding to God' definition of worship at least allows for free human engagement with God that God hasn't both initiated and received by means of 'him'self. Sweet's idea of Christ as the reference point and guiding star of our worship is to be preferred, as far as I'm concerned. I like the Eastern Orthodox idea of 'hierophany' as an alternative definition of what's happening - worship is a space where (from the perspective of those gathered) God draws near and is revealed in a specially profound way. Or, to draw on the Celtic tradition, worship can be a 'thin place'.
From my perspective, all of us regardless of our theological starting point about worship have to craft worship services, and the writings of Mark Pierson et al are operating on the level of what that craft might consist of in our time and place. They would be the last people to try to take God's place as the source of our worship...they are simply trying to be more intentional, more thoughtful, more creative, in shaping environments and contexts where people in today's culture are more likely to encounter the presence of God. There is a focus there on the cultural starting place of the worshippers, and I think that this is in recognition of the fact that the liturgical forms that Redding seems to favour offer no place for today's post-church, post-christian people to engage.
It's not about structurelessness though - Mark at least has always affirmed the importance of an order of worship that repeats, but where creativity is brought to bear on the repeating aspects of the service. And communion/Eucharist and observation of other sacramental and ritual forms are very important to our worship. The forms of our worship are very much based in what has been handed down over the centuries.
So, on the theological level, I'm happy to accept that worship is God's gift to us, and starts with God. That's why worship preparation is for me a prayerful exercise, from the original seed of the idea through to the end of the service. It's nothing without God in our midst. But I think we can have useful conversations about praxis without constantly having to go back to that level of discussion. Because ultimately as worship 'curators' we are responsible for our 'bit', the bit we can shape and influence, and it's at that level that the prodigal project and Fractals and other emergent writings are focused.
hope there's some sense in the midst of that. What are other people's thoughts?
false dichotomy
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Deane. The part that really stuck out for me was:
"According to this understanding, Christ is not merely the reference point of Christian worship as Leonard Sweet would have us believe. He is the leader and mediator of worship. As Calvin himself declared, it is Christ who leads our songs, and it is Christ who is the chief composer of our hymns. Christ is our great High Priest, the One True Leitourgos of the heavenly sanctuary (cf. Hebrews 8:2). As such the leitourgia of Jesus is contrasted with the leitourgia of humankind. This is the worship which God has provided for humanity, and which alone is acceptable to God. The worship that Jesus offers gathers up the worship of ancient Israel and completes it, and becomes the substance of all Christian worship. "
I wonder if he's misrepresenting Sweet here. He's at least misrepresenting me. (if I'm to be lumped in with the emerging church crowd) Sticking with a traditional liturgy and finding freedom in the form doesn't necessarily mean you're participating in the love of the trinity. Trying out new ways of worship does not necessarily mean that you've abandoned participation in the love of the trinity.
Perhaps it's just a warning, a reminder, that it's very easy when we're trying new things for the pastor to become the mediator instead of Christ. (but if it is, how does sticking with a traditional liturgy protect us from that danger?) I thought the idea behind the emerging church movement was to take a step beyond these old us/them, conservative/liberal dichotomies into something that is faithful not just to our roots and our present context, but also to our Lord.
Never the twain shall meet
Interesting question, Rob. It seems to me to be a case of a fundamental clash in perspectives, that involves a disagreement at a such a basic level, that your options of "misrepresentation" and "effective critique" can't be decided. In the right-hand corner we have Calvinist-Barthian-Dunedin-Presbyterianism; in the left-hand corner we have Tillichian-Auckland-Post-mods. And never the twain shall meet.
But, maybe somebody else would like to comment ...
These are the relevant excerpts from Graham Redding: http://www.schoolofministry.ac.nz/Inaugural Lectures/SoM inaugural lecture 05.doc
...
"Leonard Sweet, American author of the widely acclaimed book Aquachurch, would likely see contemporary developments and experiments in worship as a valid part of the Church’s process of making new maps to guide itself in a fluid, postmodern world. They would be expressions of what he calls the AncientFuture Church, telling the old story in new ways, taking the content of the Gospel (which, he says, is timeless and unchanging) and putting it in new containers.
Writing in a slightly more radical vein from within our own New Zealand context, Mike Riddell, Mark Pierson and Cathy Kirkpatrick, who five years ago published a book called The Prodigal Project: Journey into the Emerging Church, say that the content of worship will inevitably change as it is repackaged, but that’s okay. They compare the task of preparing worship today to that of a curator of an art gallery. A curator, they say, serves art by providing the context for others to engage and participate, giving attention to such things as juxtaposition, style, distance, light and shade. In worship, a curator is a maker of context rather than a presenter of content, a provider of a frame inside which the elements are arranged and rearranged to convey a message.
For these Baptist authors, AncientFuture worship is a way of describing the task of re-appropriating the traditional into the contemporary, and providing new contexts and new content for some of the old rituals, patterns and words. It’s all about contextualisation, and giving people an opportunity to experience God, not just to hear about someone else’s experience of God."
...
"In a follow-up CD to The Prodigal Project (called Fractals), Mark Pierson identifies six qualities of worship in a post-modern culture: authenticity, community, abandonment of dogma, focus on the arts, diversity, and participation. Authenticity, he says, is the most important and the most difficult to achieve. It’s about honesty and integrity, and not being driven by the worship leader to express beliefs we don’t believe. Presumably, worship loses its authenticity when form is followed for the sake of form and fails to express or connect with people’s personal experience. Inauthentic worship, says Pierson, becomes whoreship, a form of prostitution.
At this point, though, my question would be, authentic to whom? Authentic to the people that gather for worship (in which case, who decides if the bar of authenticity has been reached?), or authentic to the Triune God revealed in Jesus Christ?
When, in his letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul describes the institution of the Lord’s Supper, he says that he passed on to them the tradition that he had received. Any notion of authenticity at work here has nothing to do with Paul’s personal intentions, or with the intentions of the Corinthian congregation. It’s about faithful transmission."
...
"the minister of word and sacraments, according to Presbyterian tradition, is not so much a curator of worship, or the facilitator of a God-experience, as an ambassador for Christ, appointed to make the mystery of Christ known.
Accordingly, for all the diversity of worship styles that exist, we are bound to ask if there are constant norms for Christian worship that transcend cultures and keep us faithful to the gospel of Christ. Without such norms there is a danger that, as we focus on contextualisation and the individual experience of the worshipper, and become ever more pluralistic, we will lose sight of the fact that Christian worship is ultimately bound up with honouring who God is and how God acts, as we understand these things to have been disclosed in the person of Christ."
...
"the concept of the priesthood of all believers, so often appealed to today in promoting a participatory approach to the preparation and conduct of worship, only has meaning, as far as Calvin is concerned, when it flows from a prior recognition of the sole priesthood of Christ. When the priesthood of all believers is cut adrift from its Christological mooring the entire focus of worship begins to shift from what is happening in and through Christ to what we do: we connect with God, we sing our songs and offer our prayers, we express ourselves. Worship becomes human-centred rather than God-centred."
From a slightly different perspective than Barthian Presbyterianism, Slavoj Zizek offers a critique that is similar to Graham Redding's.