“Music and Christian Formation”

“I will sing with the spirit; and I will sing with the understanding also.”
(I Corinthians 14:15)

It has often been said that the theology of the Episcopal Church is more deeply embodied in its liturgy and artistic expressions rather than in the systems of its theologians, and I think this is probably true. Theology is a normative discipline that gives structure and coherence to religious experience. Theology ordinarily operates with words and conceptual schemes as it invites to re-think the structures of our faith and our religious experience of the world. It is normative in that it seeks to re-shape and re-order the religious experience itself, providing ever clearer and more adequate grounds for understanding and action. And that is precisely what liturgy does in a more radical and primordial sense, namely in the context of the experience itself rather than at the level of reflection upon that experience. Liturgy does that by the sanctification of time in which the Christian story is dramatically re-told, and through its images and symbolic acts provides the context for the recapitulation of that story in the life of the believer so that it becomes his or her story. The liturgical forms, the sacraments, ritual acts, preaching, music, and architecture are not merely edifying and inspirational or illustrative of a set of doctrines but are themselves primary and normative forms of the religious life.
Christianity, as we understand it, is not first and foremost a matter to be thought and discoursed about but, as the ultimate truth about life in this universe, something to be uttered in sacred speech, sung and played in sacred sound, danced in sacred act, eaten and drunk in communion with the transcendent and incarnate God, enacted in concrete bodily actions in the world. This is preeminently the way in which we come to see, hear, and touch the extraordinary things of God, and to come to know who He is and who we are. This is why worship is so important in out church, and why we take such care about what we will do, say, sing, and play when we gather for worship.
It follows from this that worship and the preparation for worship are primary forms of Christian “education,” not in the sense of learning about the faith but rather being formed in it, of undergoing the intensification and shaping of a distinctly Christian consciousness by focussing on God and opening ourselves to him. Music at the Chapel of the Cross is not intended to provide an education in musical appreciation (although one could learn a lot along those lines!) but to help make the reality of God and his saving love for this world a present and powerful force in the lives of those who worship here, to make known the deep things of God and to shape a consciousness that is drawn to receive them. Integral to the training of our musicians is not simply an understanding of what music we are performing, but also an understanding of why we are performing that particular music or singing those particular hymns, of how the music we prepare makes real and present the themes of a particular liturgy and thereby moves us all along in the rhythm of a Christian life.