Barrier 2 - Religiosity
I have no empirical evidence for this point, it’s purely anecdotal but I think there’s a cultural religious residue in Scotland that shapes our psyche in a more significant way than say in the major metropolitan areas of England.
Given particularly the West Coast of Scotland’s sectarian heritage perhaps we should be looking at what’s happening with the emerging church in Northern Ireland[1] rather than Manchester, Bristol, York or London?
If you were to stop people on the street of most towns in Scotland and ask them about God or the Christian message, the majority of responders would struggle to give a cogent answer[2]. The vast majority of them even if they believe in God will not be regular attendees of church. That said even the atheists here have an opinion on what makes a proper church service! Smells and bells (at least for one section of the community) it’s not. Neither is it labyrinths, PowerPoint meditations etc etc. Now don’t get me wrong I love all this stuff and have organised and done two labyrinth worship things. But this is perhaps more alien to Shuggy fae Barrhead than a 40 minute sermon with a hymn prayer sandwich either side! This is a long winded way of saying that I think some emerging churches in Scotland will perhaps retain more of the forms of traditional / institutional church than in the case in many other contexts.
I remember reading Kester Brewin[3] commenting about groups wanting to visit VAUX to see what they were doing so they could “learn” from them. Kester would discourage such visits, which on the face of it might seem rather harsh, but his rational was this; You need to find out what it means to be church authentically in your context. So perhaps in our context the emerging church will be a bit more submerged than in other contexts, perhaps it will also be a bit more traditional than in other contexts?
Barrier 3 – The Reformation
In Novenber 2006 the BBC ran a programme where they asked members of the public and a cohort of academics to pick the top ten events in Scottish History that have influenced who we are today[4]. Both the public and the “experts” included The Reformation in their respective lists.
Perhaps this barrier is related to barrier No 2. The advocate for the inclusion of the Reformation on the BBC show was Dr Jenny Wormald. She states, “Protestantism is a much more austere religion [than Catholicism]. It’s something which has had a huge effect on Scottish self-awareness”[5].
There is very much a sense that it is not just the Church of Scotland that is the child of John Knox, but we all in some measure are all his children. Presbyterianism and Calvinism has shaped both church and secular culture in Scotland. You can often hear the phrase “what’s for you will not pass you by” coming from a granny on the bus[6], which is indicative of a Calvinist predestination mindset.
The issue for us is not however one of predestination but dourness! Let me re-phrase that – many expressions of the emerging church have used and incorporated into their worship art, iconography, liturgy, candles and labrythins[7], and would have in general a sacramental approach to things. It is perhaps no coincidence that many of the well known emerging church expressions have their roots in an Anglican congregation where “smells and bells” would be both familiar and acceptable.
For many in Scotland such “smells and bells” are not part of the landscape of their worship experience and thus there is a suspicion of them at best or a complete disconnect at worst. To do a service that does not include the usual mix of soft rock worship followed by a forty minute monologue can leave those who participate feeling like they have just eaten a vegetarian meal when they wanted a burger and chips!
In the recent kids movie, “Happy Feet” about a penguin called Mumble who differs from the rest of the community, Noah the elder, and the other leaders of the community all speak with a thick Scottish accent, and battle Mumbles happy dance with a mournful song[8]. Film critic Mark Kermode and radio presenter Simon Mayo quickly dubbed them, “the Scottish presbyterianists”. I fear there is something of these penguins in many of our church leaderships that views with suspicion expressions of church or worship that are not from our own tradition.
[1] It was with this in mind that I attended the Celtic Soliton Sessions (an emerging conversation gathering) in Northern Ireland in February.
[2] I was involved in street evangelism in Greenock for approx 5 years where we stopped and asked people what they thought about God etc., to my observations here are based on this experience.
[3] Kester was a leading figure in VAUX an alternative worship community in London and is author or the book, The Complex Christ.
[4] See http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/history/scotlandshistory/ for details of this.
[5] Quoted in http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/history/scotlandshistory/vote/display.shtml?more=refo&popup=yes
accessed 5th april 2007
[6] I asked a number of English friends if there was an English equivalent to this phrase. They commented that they had not heard it till they moved to Scotland
[7] I have used a couple of labyrinths and found that those from a high church back ground or no-church back ground have encountered God through this. That said those from mainstream evangelicalism have struggled with such expressions of worship.
[8] On a point of Trivia, the voice of Noah the elder is by Hugo Weaving who played Agent Smith in the Matrix series of films.
Comments