Today a phrase popped into my head: "the democracy of the dead." My all-knowing husband informed me that it was from G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy (New York: John Lane Company, 1908; p.85).
The full quote has implications for church music:
"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father."
As the body of Christ, we are composed of many millions who have gone before. We should think of our Christian family not only as those in the Sudan or Pakistan, across space, but as those who believed in the salvation God promised Eve, across time.
If only songs from our moment in time are called acceptable for worship, whether the latest hits in praise songs or the hymns with the most up-to-date language, we reject the worship of most of the body of Christ. "We don't need you. You're dead. You have nothing to say to us--and nothing to say to God with us." In refusing the music of past generations, we break the communion of saints.
The one who made us saints in the first place, the Holy Spirit, is also the one who inspires expressions of praise. It's extremely odd that Christians who insist they sing only contemporary music or drastically edited hymns in order to "get into the Spirit" or to praise the Spirit "better", refuse to look for the Holy Spirit or learn how to honor Him in His work of the past two thousand years. I think the Spirit just got slapped in the face.
4 comments:
[This is from Michael Royal, but was posted under one of the Intros originally.]
Rebecca, great work on the blog! Keep it up.
Just a thought on the idea of the “democracy of the dead” – it seems that any community in which tradition thrives is in fact a “democracy of the living” which simply shows strong preferences for things of the past instead of (or along with) things of the present. And perhaps members of these communities place a value on tradition, as such, as well. Nevertheless, it is always a matter current taste, so isn’t saying “give the dead a vote” the same as saying “you have bad taste”? Which would of course be a fine thing to say, in my opinion.
Response to MR:
Thanks for the comment! I want to be sure I understand you: you're saying that we invoke the argument to "give the dead a vote" when we think that our present community of the living is exhibiting "bad taste"? So that if the living were showing "good taste", we wouldn't need to bring the dead into the picture?
Hmm, kind of. I was just suggesting that the argument to “give the dead a vote” seems to boil down to an invitation for people to accept the speaker’s personal preferences for things of the past, more than a kind of moral argument for including works of the past into current practices, as dead people don’t care much about being included.
BTW, I like JC's comment above.
Oh, but they DO care, Michael! I'm reminded of Jesus' comment that if God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and if God claims this title for Himself in the present tense, then Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are still alive--and God is the God of the living.
However, I'm not so much concerned with that as I am with the necessity for us, the embodied living, to show our participation with those who are "under the throne of God" as an act of humility (our own opinions are not king--none of us chooses how to worship God on our own), an act of corporate worship (God is constantly calling for the liturgy to be the work of the people, a sign and a means of the reconciled community), and an act of faith (we are including these worshippers in the belief that God has indeed preserved them and will raise them with new bodies in the fullness of time).
Thanks very much for your comments. This discussion, too, is getting long. I may have to reprise some of it as a new post!
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