a funny observation from n.t. wright

Here is another quote from N.T. Wright’s book Surprised by Hope which I have been reading and almost done with.

[W]hen I visit churches that carefully abandoned all signs of professional worship from a former age—robed choirs, processions, organists, and the like—and then invented new forms of worship that demand just as much professionalism in terms of competent people managing sound systems, lighting, overhead projection and PowerPoint, and so on. There is nothing wrong with either. All can and should be done to the glory of God. But the implication that older styles of worship are somehow less spiritual and the modern electronic worship is somehw more worthy is sheer cultural prejudice and should be happily laughed at whenever it emerges.¹

Why this pops out to me so much, is because I’ve had so much experience being involved in the contemporary professional types of churches. It is really funny that he says that basically nothing has really changed except for a surface level modification.

Something else which I have felt. The reactionary ideologies which tried to escape the traditional practices— believing them to be hollow meaningless practices—have themselves erected practices which in some instances  have become hollow in the same sense as those they were reacting against. I guess it is true that one becomes like that which one fights against.

What is worse is that in many of those same churches where the contemporary service has become hollow, they hold even tighter to their practices. Have you ever been in a church where you feel ‘forced’ to raise your hands? I know sometimes, a person, wants to just sit and mediate in worship; within this environment these kinds of actions, outside of the norm, are just not possible—except in the case of a tough person who is willing to go against the structures and powers at be. But who wants to fight when they are trying to worship; that is a tough battle indeed.

1. Wright, N.T. Surprised by Hope. HarperOne, New York. 2008, p263. [↩]