Yesterday the demonic Momus, his demonic girlfriend, and demonic friend David Woodard did something utterly unexpected: at eleven o'clock we all wrapped up in warm scarves and, crunching across freshly-fallen snow, went to church.
The Mount of Olives church (Oelbergkirche) is a cute little evangelical church by the canal that divides Kreuzberg from Neukolln. I can't remember when the last time I went to church voluntarily was; perhaps never. And that, in itself, seemed like a good enough reason to give our local church a try.
I did go through a Christian phase at about the age of 12, although I suspect it was something to do with liking the design of the Scripture Union logo and wanting to collect their didactic pamphlets, which qualified (with their sans serif typefaces, orange and grey two-colour layouts, and staples) as the kind of boring books I enjoy. Later, I made advertising posters for Scripture Union meetings I never attended. It pleased me to be a sort of embryonic ad man with God as my only client.
This trip to church with David and Hisae brought out some thoughts:
1. The musical standard at the Mount of Olives church was amazingly high. A choir of about ten people made a lovely sound, and the organist up in the hayloft played passages of Messiaen.
2. That made me think that I'd been paying attention to pop music because -- for instance -- David Sylvian incorporated a Messiaen feel in some of his early solo work (like Pop Song, below), but that I'd have found a lot more of this stuff in church than in pop music.
3. I also thought that church, quite apart from being a place where religious people go, is also a place that has kept music-making alive down the centuries.
4. The sermon also reminded me that church can be an alternative political structure, a place where people meet and opinions can be formed outside the regular political and media structures.
5. Since I'd just been looking at the Patti Smith documentary Dream of Life, which contains a pean to CBGBs -- a typical rock toilet I disliked quite intensely when I visited it -- I couldn't help comparing the simple white interior of the church favourably with the aesthetics of nightclubs and rock dives. A church has better acoustics (less bass, a vaulted roof), more subtle and sophisticated music, beautiful lighting (no lasers, but sunlight filtered by stained glass) and a certain threshold of attention and seriousness which I appreciate.
6. There's also something extraordinary that happens in a church that doesn't happen in clubs, though perhaps it does in some gigs: you hear your own voice mingled with the voices of people around you. You're making music as well as consuming it. At the Mount of Olives, the conductor had sections of the congregation sing in a round, and the result was rather gorgeous.
7. There was a moving moment when people from the congregation came up one by one to light a candle and remember someone close to them who'd died, saying a few words about him or her.
8. Afterwards we went over to eat lunch in our local hostelry, and the minister arrived with his posse! He came over and sat with us long enough to explain some of the service (this was "Eternity Sunday", the last ordinary Sunday of the church year). I didn't ask him about the most cultish and cannibalistic moment: when the congregation (but not us) formed a circle and drank "Christ's blood" and ate "Christ's body".
9. Now, naturally I haven't dispensed with my objections to Christianity. I still think the religion did enormous harm by stamping out indigenous folk religion, which was much better in harmony with agrarian fertility cycles. And I resent Christianity for stealing the pagan winter and spring festivals and mapping them, quite fraudulently, to events in the life of Christ.
10. Afterwards, David, Hisae and I went to a different sort of religious ceremony, one closer to my heart. Jan Lindenberg, just back from his Japan trip, was showing his slides, many of Shinto objects and shrines. Since returning, Jan has been unable to sleep in a bed or use Western furniture. He's moved his whole room onto the floor. The little circle we formed around a kotatsu table bearing cake and the various types of tea Jan had brought back from Japan was a ceremony in the church of my true religion.
There is a lot of interconnectedness in all we do that is found in faith whatever the venue. I'm sure you'll find a binary somewhere. By the way next year is the 150th for Presbyterians,.
Whilst not wanting to belittle the importance of the community aspect of churchgoing, and the social function (especially in many latin American countries, where it was a sort of home for grass roots democracy) I always get the impression that most people don't go there for a religious experience. It's to show the community how devout /respectable/fill_in_ the_ blank you are. If you want to 'talk to God' you can 'go direct' and don't need a church to do so. And here in Spain the church is closely allied with the fascist right, and with few exceptions it is still a haven for antidemocratic brainwashing. And let's not get started about the situation in the US of A! All I'm saying is that one has to tread with care.
It's just that I start off very much in the other camp -- the anti- camp that you're in -- so to find that a fairly liberal Berlin church (they do a lot of social work with homeless and alcoholics, for instance) has anything to recommend it is the interesting thing for me to write about!
This is what a lot of non-church-goers think. You might be surprised by the answers you get from actual churchgoers. Church really does have more to do with community than a lot of people think.
Now, naturally I haven't dispensed with my objections to Christianity. I still think the religion did enormous harm by stamping out indigenous folk religion, which was much better in harmony with agrarian fertility cycles. And I resent Christianity for stealing the pagan winter and spring festivals and mapping them, quite fraudulently, to events in the life of Christ.
You might be familiar with this text:
The term "pagan" is continually used in fiction and light literature as meaning a man without any religion, whereas a pagan was generally a man with about half a dozen. The pagans, according to this notion, were continually crowning themselves with flowers and dancing about in an irresponsible state, whereas, if there were two things that the best pagan civilization did honestly believe in, they were a rather too rigid dignity and a much too rigid responsibility.
Pagans are depicted as above all things inebriate and lawless, whereas they were above all things reasonable and respectable. They are praised as disobedient when they had only one great virtue-- civic obedience. They are envied and admired as shamelessly happy when they had only one great sin --despair.
(...) According to him, the ideal of Paganism was not, indeed, a mere frenzy of lust and liberty and caprice, but was an ideal of full and satisfied humanity. According to him, the ideal of Christianity was the ideal of asceticism. When I say that I think this idea wholly wrong as a matter of philosophy and history, I am not talking for the moment about any ideal Christianity of my own, or even of any primitive Christianity undefiled by after events. I am not, like so many modern Christian idealists, basing my case upon certain things which Christ said. Neither am I, like so many other Christian idealists, basing my case upon certain things that Christ forgot to say. I take historic Christianity with all its sins upon its head; and I say that the meaning of its action was not to be found in asceticism. I say that its point of departure from Paganism was not asceticism. I say that its point of difference with the modern world was not asceticism. I say that St. Simeon Stylites had not his main inspiration in asceticism. I say that the main Christian impulse cannot be described as asceticism, even in the ascetics.
Let me set about making the matter clear. There is one broad fact about the relations of Christianity and Paganism which is so simple that many will smile at it, but which is so important that all moderns forget it. The primary fact about Christianity and Paganism is that one came after the other. Mr. Lowes Dickinson speaks of them as if they were parallel ideals--even speaks as if Paganism were the newer of the two, and the more fitted for a new age. He suggests that the Pagan ideal will be the ultimate good of man; but if that is so, we must at least ask with more curiosity than he allows for, why it was that man actually found his ultimate good on earth under the stars, and threw it away again. It is this extraordinary enigma to which I propose to attempt an answer.
There is only one thing in the modern world that has been face to face with Paganism; there is only one thing in the modern world which in that sense knows anything about Paganism: and that is Christianity. That fact is really the weak point in the whole of that hedonistic neo-Paganism of which I have spoken. All that genuinely remains of the ancient hymns or the ancient dances of Europe, all that has honestly come to us from the festivals of Phoebus or Pan, is to be found in the festivals of the Christian Church. If any one wants to hold the end of a chain which really goes back to the heathen mysteries, he had better take hold of a festoon of flowers at Easter or a string of sausages at Christmas.
Everything else in the modern world is of Christian origin, even everything that seems most anti-Christian. The French Revolution is of Christian origin. The newspaper is of Christian origin. The anarchists are of Christian origin. Physical science is of Christian origin. The attack on Christianity is of Christian origin. There is one thing, and one thing only, in existence at the present day which can in any sense accurately be said to be of pagan origin, and that is Christianity.
The real difference between Paganism and Christianity is perfectly summed up in the difference between the pagan, or natural, virtues, and those three virtues of Christianity which the Church of Rome calls virtues of grace. The pagan, or rational, virtues are such things as justice and temperance, and Christianity has adopted them. The three mystical virtues which Christianity has not adopted, but invented, are faith, hope, and charity. Now much easy and foolish Christian rhetoric could easily be poured out upon those three words, but I desire to confine myself to the two facts which are evident about them. The first evident fact (in marked contrast to the delusion of the dancing pagan)--the first evident fact, I say, is that the pagan virtues, such as justice and temperance, are the sad virtues, and that the mystical virtues of faith, hope, and charity are the gay and exuberant virtues. And the second evident fact, which is even more evident, is the fact that the pagan virtues are the reasonable virtues, and that the Christian virtues of faith, hope, and charity are in their essence as unreasonable as they can be.
As the word "unreasonable" is open to misunderstanding, the matter may be more accurately put by saying that each one of these Christian or mystical virtues involves a paradox in its own nature, and that this is not true of any of the typically pagan or rationalist virtues. Justice consists in finding out a certain thing due to a certain man and giving it to him. Temperance consists in finding out the proper limit of a particular indulgence and adhering to that. But charity means pardoning what is unpardonable, or it is no virtue at all. Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all. And faith means believing the incredible, or it is no virtue at all.
It is somewhat amusing, indeed, to notice the difference between the fate of these three paradoxes in the fashion of the modern mind. Charity is a fashionable virtue in our time; it is lit up by the gigantic firelight of Dickens. Hope is a fashionable virtue to-day; our attention has been arrested for it by the sudden and silver trumpet of Stevenson. But faith is unfashionable, and it is customary on every side to cast against it the fact that it is a paradox. Everybody mockingly repeats the famous childish definition that faith is "the power of believing that which we know to be untrue." Yet it is not one atom more paradoxical than hope or charity. Charity is the power of defending that which we know to be indefensible. Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate. It is true that there is a state of hope which belongs to bright prospects and the morning; but that is not the virtue of hope. The virtue of hope exists only in earthquake and, eclipse. It is true that there is a thing crudely called charity, which means charity to the deserving poor; but charity to the deserving is not charity at all, but justice. It is the undeserving who require it, and the ideal either does not exist at all, or exists wholly for them. For practical purposes it is at the hopeless moment that we require the hopeful man, and the virtue either does not exist at all, or begins to exist at that moment. Exactly at the instant when hope ceases to be reasonable it begins to be useful.
Now the old pagan world went perfectly straightforward until it discovered that going straightforward is an enormous mistake. It was nobly and beautifully reasonable, and discovered in its death-pang this lasting and valuable truth, a heritage for the ages, that reasonableness will not do. The pagan age was truly an Eden or golden age, in this essential sense, that it is not to be recovered.
And it is not to be recovered in this sense again that, while we are certainly jollier than the pagans, and much more right than the pagans, there is not one of us who can, by the utmost stretch of energy, be so sensible as the pagans.
That naked innocence of the intellect cannot be recovered by any man after Christianity; and for this excellent reason, that every man after Christianity knows it to be misleading.
Let me take an example, the first that occurs to the mind, of this impossible plainness in the pagan point of view. The greatest tribute to Christianity in the modern world is Tennyson's "Ulysses." The poet reads into the story of Ulysses the conception of an incurable desire to wander. But the real Ulysses does not desire to wander at all. He desires to get home. He displays his heroic and unconquerable qualities in resisting the misfortunes which baulk him; but that is all. There is no love of adventure for its own sake; that is a Christian product. There is no love of Penelope for her own sake; that is a Christian product. Everything in that old world would appear to have been clean and obvious. A good man was a good man; a bad man was a bad man. For this reason they had no charity; for charity is a reverent agnosticism towards the complexity of the soul. For this reason they had no such thing as the art of fiction, the novel; for the novel is a creation of the mystical idea of charity. For them a pleasant landscape was pleasant, and an unpleasant landscape unpleasant. Hence they had no idea of romance; for romance consists in thinking a thing more delightful because it is dangerous; it is a Christian idea. In a word, we cannot reconstruct or even imagine the beautiful and astonishing pagan world. It was a world in which common sense was really common.
(...) (...) My objection to Mr. Lowes Dickinson and the reassertors of the pagan ideal is, then, this. I accuse them of ignoring definite human discoveries in the moral world, discoveries as definite, though not as material, as the discovery of the circulation of the blood. We cannot go back to an ideal of reason and sanity. For mankind has discovered that reason does not lead to sanity. We cannot go back to an ideal of pride and enjoyment. For mankind has discovered that pride does not lead to enjoyment. I do not know by what extraordinary mental accident modern writers so constantly connect the idea of progress with the idea of independent thinking. Progress is obviously the antithesis of independent thinking. For under independent or individualistic thinking, every man starts at the beginning, and goes, in all probability, just as far as his father before him. But if there really be anything of the nature of progress, it must mean, above all things, the careful study and assumption of the whole of the past. I accuse Mr. Lowes Dickinson and his school of reaction in the only real sense. If he likes, let him ignore these great historic mysteries-- the mystery of charity, the mystery of chivalry, the mystery of faith. If he likes, let him ignore the plough or the printing-press. But if we do revive and pursue the pagan ideal of a simple and rational self-completion we shall end--where Paganism ended. I do not mean that we shall end in destruction. I mean that we shall end in Christianity.
Chesterton is a great rhetorician, but politically a bit of a fascist.
Christianity didn't need to erase (by swallowing up and stamping out) paganism. In Japan, Shinto and Buddhism co-exist. One did not replace the other. That's been a great advantage to the Japanese, and it enriches their culture enormously.
I wouldn't consider Chesterton to be a great rhetorician; perhaps I've just heard his points expressed better, if less concisely, in a range of other sources.
One of Chesterton's points is that Christianity did not, in fact, erase paganism, but built upon and incorporated its truths and virtues. Sure, in Japan, you can visit both a Buddhist temple and a Shinto shrine; but here in DC, you can visit both a church and the Library of Congress, which is pretty much a shrine to neoclassical ideals, and is not Christian any more than Buddhism is Shinto.
Personally, I like Shinto better than classical southern European paganism, but I find the virtues of both of those quite harmonious with Christianity.
In Japan, Shinto and Buddhism co-exist. One did not replace the other. That's been a great advantage to the Japanese, and it enriches their culture enormously.
Chesterton is a great rhetorician, but politically a bit of a fascist.
Actually, isn't paganism that is historically asocciated with fascist and nazism?
Weren't they trying to revive paganism, there in pre-war Germany? In the Nietzschean sense -and, some, by actually dancing around naked in the forests?
After reading the first two paragraphs of your first post, I thought, "If this isn't written by Chesterton, I'll eat my hat." He has a very distinctive style, one which I think uses so many absolutes that it weakens his arguments.
Nevertheless, if you can insert qualifiers between the lines, he says some very good things. In this instance, I think his idea of "pagan" is over-influenced by Mediterranean paganism, but it is still partly generalizable.
It might crush Jan's new cultural superiority complex to find out that a LOT of Japanese sleep in Western beds, use Western furniture and enjoy both things.
Did he tear out his loo to make it more washiki, as well?
These things tend to be a passing phase...the hipster tends to display trophism toward an imagined exoticism rather than the more prosaic (and often more interesting) actual exoticism.
and just who do these Japanese people think they are, sleeping in Western-style beds and eating with chairs and dining tables? don't they know there are now Westerners who sit on the floor and sleep on futons??
Ah, those Christians can be a fun old bunch. I must say that was rather fortunate coincidence to find Messiaen's music being played on the day of your chance attendance. If this were on the playlist at my local kirk, I would join the worshippers - in body if not in spirit...
Perhaps this is the music that may put those 'Momus' speakers to good use, rather like the idea of irking the neighbours by playing Messiaen in the wee hours.
I often thought about the role the Church had in promoting literacy (once the Bible was translated into English), and healthcare too.
Oh, btw, on a completely different note (if you'll pardon the expression), I've just received a Nintendo DS Lite, with the Korg DS-10 synthesiser/sequencer software! I can compose music on a train! No idea how to get it out of the little box and on to my PC, but hey ho...
You can plug a 3,5mm-3,5mm cable into its headphone [hole -- I don't know the right word :)] and connect it to your computer's line-in, then record. Not ideal, but works.
They sound excellent. Have you ever heard "canu plygain"? (It's an old type of singing that you can still hear in Wales around Christmastime.) It can sound quite strange and beautiful, if you don't mind freezing the night away in chapel.
you seem a wee bit smug and self satisfied in the picture kneeling on the mat thingy..the gathering all appear dreadfully middle class.this by the way is not a criticism merely and observation.nice hair though had your hair cut?
Well, I don't have any fear of the label "middle class". Occupations, from left to right, in that photo:
Matt is a musician in a band called snd, from Sheffield. He'd say his origins are working class; he's certainly less posh than, say, Jarvis Cocker. Sunshine is an art student from Hong Kong, Aki is a Japanese design student, Jan is a researcher in sustainable design with Deutsche Telekom, Hisae trained as a graphic designer, her parents are lower middle class Osakans, Naoko is a jeweller who works daily cleaning the kitchen in a restaurant, I'm a musician and writer, and David Woodard is a writer and composer.
We're sitting in an extremely modest, cheap apartment in one of Berlin's poorest areas, Neukolln. None of us makes much money -- Jan probably makes the most, with his research job, which is why it was Jan who went to Japan this month rather than, say, me! (And yes, Hisae cut my hair recently, thanks!)
sorry im responsible for the "middle class" comment and im now felling rather humbled.in my defence it was really late when i posted my comment and my better judgment may have been somewhat obfuscated . my vacous vespertine view was in bad taste......sorry.......im just jealous of you lifestyle (not so rich and famous then).but its morning now and in the cold light of day...etc etc. lets put it to bed or should i say futon.
'I didn't ask him about the most cultish and cannibalistic moment: when the congregation (but not us) formed a circle and drank "Christ's blood" and ate "Christ's body".'
This is transubstantiation, and only occurs in Roman Catholic churches (and arguably Eastern Orthodox, although their doctrine is not clarified in the same manner). If you went to anything other that a RC/Orthodox church, this 'cannibalistic' moment you describe is not there. In Protestant churches, Communion is a symbolic and memorial act (consubstantiation), not one where the bread and wine themselves are believed to change in their mystical and true substance.
Yesterday the demonic Momus, his demonic girlfriend, and demonic friend David Woodard did something utterly unexpected: at eleven o'clock we all wrapped up in warm scarves and, crunching across freshly-fallen snow, went to church.
I did go through a Christian phase at about the age of 12, although I suspect it was something to do with liking the design of the Scripture Union logo and wanting to collect their didactic pamphlets, which qualified (with their sans serif typefaces, orange and grey two-colour layouts, and staples) as the kind of boring books I enjoy. Later, I made advertising posters for Scripture Union meetings I never attended. It pleased me to be a sort of embryonic ad man with God as my only client.
