Category: Culture
“Sightings” by Martin Marty
“Shocking” News on Worship and the Public
Martin Marty, May 1, 2017
The focus of Sightings is on the “public,” as in “public religion,” a concept which often leads to discussion of “church and state” affairs or “religion and public life.” The “private religion” of the sanctuary and temple does not often make news. Yet we have to be ready for surprise, and we were prompted to be surprised, even shocked, by headlines like this one from last week: “Survey shocker: music dead last, sermons first, as worship draws.” It headed an article at Baptist News Global by Jeff Brumley, who was shocked—shocked!—as he presumed most of his readers, Baptist or non-Baptist, must have been. Instantly the subject of this “survey shocker” appeared in many articles on the internet.
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What were we ever singing for?
I’m gifted the trust of the pulpit at a local congregation this Sunday. Earlier today I was working on my words. In the background, a M*A*S*H marathon. The episode, “Dear Uncle Abdul” caught my attention. During surgery, the main characters wonder why there is no song for the Korean War. Fr Mulcahy decides to write a Korean War song. At the end of the episode Fr Mulcahy, sitting at a piano in the Officers Club, sings what he has written. Seems fitting for such a time as this.
There’s no one singing war songs now like people used to do,
No “Over There,” no “Praise the Lord,” no “Glory Hallelu.”
Perhaps at last we’ve asked ourselves
what we should have asked before,
With the pain and death this madness brings,
what were we ever singing for?
Fr. Mulcahy’s Korean War Song
(from episode “Dear Uncle Abdul”; sung by Fr. Mulcahy)