A Return to Tradition

[Xue Sheng]

Something curious is happening in the wide world of faith, something that defies easy explanation or quantification. More substantial than a trend but less organized than a movement, it has to do more with how people practice their religion than with what they believe, though people caught up in this change often find that their beliefs are influenced, if not subtly altered, by the changes in their practice.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/national/2007/12/13/a-return-to-tradition.html?s_cid=et-1217

 

[Steel Tiger]

The move to have mass performed in a language other than Latin was an attempt to make the God more accessible to the common people. I, however, believe that it seriously affected the mystic nature of the mass. To use the terms coined by Durkheim, it moved the ceremony out of the sacred and into the mundane. As a result it began to lose its power as a transportational medium. people are rediscovering that power now thanks to the Pontiff's edict.

Of course, this also raises the question of whether the ceremony has become more important than the message. It is often taken as a sign of decadence when the performance of the ceremony is the important thing and what is being transmitted is secondary. It was something like this that Charlemagne was working against when he had masses said in French rather than Latin - the ceremony losing contact with the word of God.

 

[Xue Sheng]

The move to have mass performed in a language other than Latin was an attempt to make the God more accessible to the common people. I, however, believe that it seriously affected the mystic nature of the mass. To use the terms coined by Durkheim, it moved the ceremony out of the sacred and into the mundane. As a result it began to lose its power as a transportational medium. people are rediscovering that power now thanks to the Pontiff's edict.

Of course, this also raises the question of whether the ceremony has become more important than the message. It is often taken as a sign of decadence when the performance of the ceremony is the important thing and what is being transmitted is secondary. It was something like this that Charlemagne was working against when he had masses said in French rather than Latin - the ceremony losing contact with the word of God.

Good point, I do believe in many cases, particularly in Western Religion that the ceremony has become more important than the message.

I am however wondering if the return to tradition is not based in an overall feeling of helplessness or hopelessness in society due to the current situations though out the world such as War in the Middle East, Terrorism and lack of faith in the US political system.

 

[Steel Tiger]

Yes, the traditional values of the Catholic Church anyway were, "We're the top of the pile and we take no **** from anyone." The development of personal relationships with God seriously changed the nature of Christianity. It gave the religion as a whole a weaker profile I guess. Perhaps people are looking for the seeming strength of the past in this move toward traditionalism.

What could be better than bringing back the Church of the 11th and 12th centuries? Then we could happily invade the Holy Land again to rescue Jewish places a Jewish man (you know, JC) visited from the ... Jews. Oh yeah, and the Muslims, who don't live there anymore.

Better yet, we could counter Jihads with Crusades. Real crusades,authorised by the Pope, not these fake ones that Al Kaeda claim have been launched against the Muslim peoples of the Middle East.

 

[Xue Sheng]

The middle east still has not gotten over the Crusades so that would likely not surprise anyone there at all, but it is a good point I had not considered.