The shallowness of Protestant rituals in modernity was the result of not taking them as seriously as possible. The need for a richer, deeper, more spiritual ritual in postmodernity will push Christians to regard each symbol with the utmost seriousness. To do this, we may need to move our rituals out from under the intense light of reason—which tries to analyze their contents—and treat them as artistic and poetic expressions that are meant to awaken the spirit and in [Evelyn] Underhill’s words, “evoke the mysterious.” Sometimes we need to allow our rational mind to be transcended by the presence of the holy.
Postmodern Christians already are revisiting the discarded sacraments, and we have much to gain by looking again for the sacred, worshipful aspects of marriage, repentance, and confirmation as a rite of passage. The nonrational element of rituals and ceremonies appeal to the postmodern soul. In rituals, doing is attached to believing—the Word of God is made tangible, and the inner work of God’s Spirit is make visible. None of these things requires rational analysis and exposition for postmoderns who are able to enjoy the spiritual value of a ritual as an experience of grace.
—from Chuck Smith, Jr., The End of the World As We Know It (Water Brook Press, 2001)
Masterpieces to download and display.
The Internet site, The Text This Week (www.textweek.com), categorizes great religious paintings by subject matter and by season (Advent, Christmas, etc.) and provides links to the images. Some can be projected or printed. The user must check copyright information. Text Week also offers commentary on the week’s lectionary readings and a concordance of preachable movie scenes submitted by visitors to the site.
New Communion symbols
Instead of wafers and cups of juice, use grapes and a variety of colors of bread. The bread will represent the variety of people who participate with us around the world in the act of Communion. The juice of the grapes, which ferments into wine, is essentially the life force of the grape—the “blood” of the grape.
—from Brad Berglund, Reinventing Sunday (Judson, 2001)
Hey, hay!
At Christmastime, members of a church in Monterey, California, bring in hay and lay it in front of the altar—wide, deep, and thick. They place simple paper mache figures of Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, and scruffy shepherds in the hay and invite worshipers to come and kneel. A member who immigrated from eastern Europe remembered as a child kneeling on the straw at the altar to receive Communion on Christmas Eve.
—from Eleanore Fuecht Subbrock, Seasons for Praise (Concordia, 2000)
Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership.
