Is the Church high culture?

Under the influence of pietism the focus of worship has changed from God to us. Now we sing hymns about our response to God, our spiritual journey, whereas on the eve of the Reformation, and some small time after, God was the focus. This meant that worship became more subjective and less focused on the events recorded in the Bible that told of the glory of God. It soon became popular knowledge that the Christian religion was entirely subjective and was only adhered to by those poor souls who could not face the realities of life but needed a sky father to comfort them in the face of tragedy and death.

And so we sit in church and hear again how God loves us, which is true but a drastically reduced version of the gospel. We sing music with a catchy rhythm with no depth of structure or reverence to words that are inane. It is no wonder that going to church carries with it a huge cringe factor.

A faithful church will train its members to be Disciples of Christ. The natural place for this to happen is from the pulpit and the second natural place is in study groups. In the past catechesis was serious business: why is it no longer? It is no longer because we are so concerned to be inclusive that we hesitate to place any barriers at all in front of new members. We drop saying the creeds in church because we think that modern man would be alienated by them. Even the Psalms have become too difficult.

In short, we have lost our nerve, and it shows.