On the 24th January, 1969, a number of historical events occurred…

Richard Nixon was President of the United States and the war in Vietnam was dragging on…

Martial law was declared in Madrid, Spain, the University of Madrid was closed down and 300 students were arrested under the regime of General Franco…

TV’s favorite shows (in black and white) were Gomer Pile, Star Trek and High Chaparral…

The race between Russia and America to be the first to land on the moon was hotting up…

Time Magazine reported on how much the life of a negro in America had improved: only 27% of negros were below the poverty line!

On that same day, a more joyous event occurred that affected the lives of tens of thousands of Copts who had, or were, to migrate to Australia:

The Nematalla family, headed by the recently ordained Hegumen Fr Mina, pulled in to Melbourne on an ocean liner on their way to their destination in Sydney and stepped on Australian soil for the first time. Shortly thereafter, using korban bread baked on the ship as it drew into port, the very first Coptic Orthodox liturgy was prayed in Australia. These events were to be repeated two days later in Sydney Harbour, where this time, Fr Mina and his family had come to stay.

And thus, the Coptic Orthodox Church in Australia was born.

A few days ago we commemorated the 40th anniversary of this landmark event. Anniversaries are a time for celebration of achievments, and it is not uncommon on occasions such as this to list facts like the number of Churches opened and marriages conducted. But I think it should also be a time for self-reflection.

A Church is not really about the number of buildings built or acreage owned. It is not about successful services established, nor even about converts won or congregations grown. Christ never seems to have been interested in that sort of thing, and His Apostles, if their writings are anything to go by, did not measure their mission in these terms. That’s not to say that these things are not important – they are, in that they are the scaffold we use to build the true structure of the Church. But no one builds a building and then lives on the scaffold!

The true Church building exists is the hearts and lives of its members. Every good deed, every honest word, every act of compassion, every willing self-sacrifice, every sincere repentance and every genuine prayer is a brick in the Church of Christ. God does not need physical temples in which to dwell – He wants our hearts for His abode.

So how would the balance sheet of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Sydney over the past 40 years fare on these criteria? They are not tangible, and therefore not measurable, but they are the only true indicators of success for a Church. There are Churches that are mere shells – beautiful exteriors encasing spiritual emptiness. We pray for our Church never to become one of those.

Well, you are part of your Church, and thus partially responsible for its performance: so what would your report card look like?

Fr Ant

Life will always have its ups and downs, as I am quite sure you know by now. One of my favorite passages in the Bible is the bit that comes before the famous verse: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”. It reads:

Philippians 4:11-13
Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content:
I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound.
Everywhere and in all things
I have learned both to be full and to be hungry,
both to abound and to suffer need.
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

St Paul says a lot of things like that, and it always strikes me that that is the only way a human being can be truly invincible. When your treasure is in Heaven, no one can take it away from you, and no earthly troubles can take away your joy.

I find this to be one of the ways I can tell how sincere my faith in Christ is at any given time. If tribulations come along and I find myself disturbed by them and restless, it is a sure sign that there is something wrong in my relationship with God. It is a message for me to turn back to Him in abject repentance and implore Him for His mercy and forgiveness, and His aid in my weakness.

And yet, we need to distinguish between what is a purely human reaction to life and what is a spiritual state. As humans, our brains are made of cells and chemicals and electrical impulses, and sometimes these physical systems run ahead of our conscious, spiritual mind. Our reaction to pain is a case in point. A person can be totally and utterly convinced that the needle the doctor is about to poke into her skin is for her own good, and will not hurt that much, and yet, she may still flinch and sweat and feel her heart race at the sight of it.

Human brains can sometimes run off on their own into anxiety, or depression, or fear, or anger; all by themselves. So what is the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian? The Christian doesn’t suddenly become super-human and beyond human physical instincts and frailty. Even the Lord Christ Himself, when He became human, suffered this kind of reaction in the Garden of Gethsemane. That is what it means to be human.

But to be Christian means to subject the body to the spirit. In Gethsemane, after the weeping and pain came surrender and peace. For the Christian, after the internal battle with the flesh comes surrender to God’s will, and all that this surrender bestows. Love, Joy, Peace. The fruits of the Holy spirit (Galatians 5:22ff) are the gift of God to His children. These are fruits that are practical treasures – not treasures to be locked up in a safe and never seen, but treasures that transform our lives daily and bring fulfilment and contentment to us, we humans whose instincts and desires might never allow us to experience true contentment otherwise.

To follow in the path of Christ is to find this true contentment, in whatever state one is. “If you love Me,” He said, “You will keep My commandments”. Sinners and tax collectors who loved Him in humility and offered a genuine repentance found acceptance and forgiveness with Christ. Their lives were transformed and Love, Joy and Peace became their treasure. The Chief Priests, Scribes and Pharisees practiced a legalistic obedience to God, and yet were always willing to disobey Him in their hearts, seeking their own wills above God’s, trusting to their own wisdom rather than simply obeying the Truth of God. You will recall what Christ said to them…

True contentment is never found in one’s external situation, for that can never be perfect so long as we dwell on earth, nor should we expect it to be. Nor should we set our hopes on making our lives perfect in this world. No, true contentment comes from winning the battle of the ego within, from sincere surrender to God, unconditionally and totally. It begins inside, and works its way out to one’s external life.

It is the seed of Surrender that bears the Fruit of the Holy Spirit.

Fr Ant

Angela asks how one can deal with the Little Nasties: the unexpected sins one discovers inside one’s heart.

Finding the Little Nasties within is not always an easy task. They have prodigious camouflage abilities and even when you pick up their scent, they can be surprisingly slippery. And when you finally manage to corner them, they have a way of turning on you viciously.

The faults within us are clever at dressing themselves up as virtues, and it is not uncommon to find that I can be regularly committing a sin under the guise of self-righteousness. “Of course I had to get angry with him – he had to be put in his place. Let’s see him try that with me again!” Detecting a Little Nasty requires a great deal of courage, the courage to strip away the comfortable covering of feeling good about oneself and exposing the raw mess underneath. It is much like cleaning the slough off a nasty festering skin wound – it hurts a lot, but it has to be done so the infection doesn’t end up killing you.

In tandem with courage, brutal honesty will help a great deal. We can all be quite honest about the faults of others (at least within ourselves) but for some reason we find difficulty in applying the same standard of honesty to our own situation.

I don’t think it is possible to attain this sort of honesty without first offering up a sacrifice. The great ox of being pleased with oneself must first be led to the altar and slaughtered, its remains burned as a sweet aroma of surrender on the altar of Truth. Until one gives up this powerful desire to be pleased with oneself, it is virtually impossible to be honest, for it bestows the strongest motivation to find another way of looking at things, a way that is more acceptable and less damning. Once this major barrier is broken down, the door is opened for God to enter and begin the long laborious task of rebuilding one’s self afresh; only this time, He will do it the right way.

Do not misunderstand – I am not saying that one should live their life feeling miserable and despondent about themselves – far from it! For the rebuilt self-image in which God participates is immensely pleasing, but for very different reasons. The self-pleasing image of myself brings misery in the end, for it is based on lies. But the divinely designed self-image is based on Truth, and “the truth will set you free”.

There is an immense joy and peace that comes from seeing the truth in yourself. It is peace because you can feel secure that there are no nasty surprises lurking unseen or undetected and waiting to jump out and destroy your life, or at least your comfortable self-image. No, everything is out in the open, nothing is hidden, what you see is what you get, so you know exactly what you are dealing with. That is actually quite peaceful, even if what you are dealing with involves Little Nasties. Better the cockroach you see and deal with than the cockroach you nervously hear scratching about somewhere behind your pillow!

And it is joy, for Truth brings its own joy. We experience this joy when we learn something new about the truth of God’s creation, for example; like the joy of neatly solving a complex puzzle or of learning how wonderfully designed an eye is. Truth just fits together so neatly! It is as deeply satisfying as clicking the 1000th piece of a jigsaw puzzle into place and stepping back to enjoy the completed masterpiece that cost you so much time and effort. Knowing the truth about the Little Nasties within is similarly satisfying – the picture is not so pretty, but there is a great deal of happiness to be found in finishing it off.

But also like a jigsaw puzzle, putting the real picture together can be incredibly difficult at times. Little Nasties can be a bit like quicksilver – just when you think you’ve got a good grasp, it slips right through your fingers.

You find a Little Nasty in your heart. But within days, perhaps hours, you have been distracted, or become busy with other matters, or subconsciously avoided pursuing it, until before you know it, the Little Nasty has been consigned to that drawer in your mind marked “For Future Investigation – When I Have the Leisure”. For of course, there are far more pressing matters to attend to, aren’t there?

Grasping and holding quicksilver needs patience and care, and a bit of experience. So does hunting Little Nasties. Experience is a great teacher, and the little critters become easier to catch when you’ve learned a few of their tricks so you go in prepared for them. Setting aside some uninterrupted daily time for hunting Little Nasties is one strategy. Moments of quiet contemplation are invaluable in this pursuit. How many Little Nasties have I trapped sitting alone in an empty Church with nothing but my thoughts for company, or walking in a park, or gazing upon the ocean waves lapping on the shore? It is in these moments of serenity that the Spirit of God is most able to work in us.

Dogged persistence is another invaluable tool. There are creatures in nature that bite a human and will never let go, even if they die. I think God may have created these tenacious critters partly as a example for us. Once you have the Little Nasty in your sights, don’t give up until you have flushed it into the open and dealt with it!
Neither should one enter into a conversation with the Little Nasty. Often these conversations end up with the Little Nasty convincing you that it’s not really so bad, and giving you a hundred reasons to let it go, and lulling you into a false sense of security. Do not even begin such a conversation! If you find yourself in one, get out! Tell the Little Nasty, “Get behind me, Satan!”

Worst of all is when a cornered Little Nasty turns vicious. It can rip your soul out, if you let it. It can turn the blame back on you so powerfully that you lose your confidence and your hope and collapse in a shivering heap while it makes its getaway to the safety of the shadows of your heart once more.

“How dare you think you can deal with me in this way?

Better men than you have tried before this, and failed!”

This is the kind of stinging attack of which only the desperate are capable. And it can really ram home. The best shield against it is humility. Humility is shield that is made of the strongest materials there are: it is made of God’s grace and bound together by His unconditional love. When it is shiny and polished and well cared for, you can see your reflection in it, but it is a reflection from the loving, gentle, compassionate grace of God that reflects the deep beauty He created in us rather than the ugliness we have accumulated through our years. Oh, you can’t hide the ugliness and you know it’s still there, but somehow when you see that ugliness reflected from God’s grace and love, the original beauty God designed for you shines through it and transforms it.

“Yes,” you find yourself responding to the vicious attack of the cornered Little Nasty, “I am all that you say I am, it is true. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. And He still loves me with all my weakness and faults. And if He has hope for me, then neither will I abandon hope. If He can still see what I might become, if He has a plan for transforming me, then I will trust myself to His grace and love, and I will patiently hunt down every single Nasty that I have so foolishly invited into my heart until I have banished every single one, or until my last dying breath stops me. Now stop your ruckus and give yourself up, for you must know that you will not escape me today, no matter what you do. For the Lord of Truth is by my side.”

To every hunt, there must come an end, one way or another. Sometimes, our Little Nasties get away, but sometimes we catch them and eradicate them from our hearts.

Happy hunting!

Fr Ant

One of my favourite hymns of all time must be the Morning Doxology. The tune is lovely: lively, enthusiastic, full of joy and hope … a great way to start off the day. On special ocassions, like the Raising of Incense for the Great Feasts, Easter, Christmas and Epiphany, this hymn has a special long tune called The Seven Ways. it combines all your favourites from tasbeha and the liturgy, and is a truly heavenly experience, when it is done right.

But it is the words I especially like. Please allow me to share some of them with you, together with some thoughts.

The Light of Truth: who illuminates: every one : who comes into the world.
You came into the world: through Your love for mankind: and all the creation: rejoiced at Your coming.

The imagery of light darkness is of course is a very well known device used in the Gospels and the Bible in general. This hymn applies it, though, in a very intimate way to or daily experiences. It sets out clearly near the beginning just Who exactly is the source of all light in our lives. True, we no longer think that God literally holds the sun in his hands and moves it across the sky for us, but we know that it is He who created this whole universe, gave it its laws of nature, and designed this amazing planet for us to dwell on.It is true, then that every morning that dawns upon us is a gift from the hand of God. The light that shines upon us from the rays of the sun is symbolic of the light of Truth and Love He shines in our hearts.

With the morning, the past day is wiped away, consigned to memory, while a new and exciting day full of potential is revealed by the sun’s light. So also does the light of God push behind us our past failures and weaknesses, and reveal to us new hope, a hope founded not on ourselves, but upon the power of the Giver of that Light. Thus did St Anthony the Great pray every morning, “Lord, I have not yet begun to know You! Forget all the wasted days of my past and let me begin a new life with You this day”.

and later on:

Let there shine in us: the senses of light: and let us not be covered: by the darkness of pain.

It is only when our souls are blinded by the darkness that we can fall in sin. We err when we consciously or unconsciously hide ourselves from the Light of God’s Truth and love, and there in the darkness, our baser instincts can gain control over us. It stands to reason that when one throws open the curtains and lets the Light back in, the works of darkness flee and dissolve away. This is what happens when we repent and then confess. This is what happens every time we invite our Lord into our hearts with warmth and longing.

When going from a dark room out into bright sunshine, one is blinded for a while until the eyes adjust. So also, when returning to the room, the eyes see nothing for a while until they readjust. At the beginning of the day, we cry to God to give us eyes for light, not for darkness, to grant us to roam free in the wide world of light, not to be imprisoned in the man-made prison of our selfishness and self-centredness.

and:

In this morning: ease our inner ways: and our outer ways: with the joy of Your protection.

That which we do on the outside is a reflection of that which we are on the inside. Most sins begin in the mind and heart, and from there progress to fruition in action or word. Thus we ask God to walk with us this day along our inner paths. These are the paths the feet of our mind will tread, the directions our thoughts will follow. Without Jesus to guide us, it is all to easy to lose one’s way and find oneself treading upon thorns and thistles, or fighting through dense undergrowth and branches that will not yield. Much effort, little progress … all because I chose the wrong path.

But with Jesus beside me, listening to His directions, feeling His gentle nudges on my hand in His, looking to Him constantly for a lead, for reassurance, for courage and strength, any path is negotiable. Even when the right path becomes dangerous and difficult, His presence at my side makes the path not only bearable, but passable.

and:

Out of Your goodness: You prepared for us the night: grant us this day: to be without sin.

The night and the day are both from God. He allows us to enjoy the sweet rest of sleep as well as the thrill of the challenges of the day. With Him, good can be found in both darkness and light. Under His protection, we can even “Walk through the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil”. Sleep, often called in Coptic tradition, “the little death”, holds no fear, for it has become inhabited by God.

We give thanks for the night that has safely passed, for all previous nights and days that have now passed. It is good to remember that the Lord has never left us. With that knowledge to fortify us, we can look forward to the new day with hope rather than fear. Perhaps today is the day that I will repent truly from my troublesome sins?

___________________________________

You can find the text of the Morning Doxology in any Psalmodia book, or online, in Coptic and English, at:

http://www.alhan.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=34&Itemid=57

You can also hear it as an audio file or download it as an mp3 from the above site or from:

www.coptichymns.net/

www.tasbeha.org/

Aren’t we blessed to live in an age of technology!

Fr Ant

In the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy the hero discovers the answer to the meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything: it is 42. Actually, he got it wrong. It is 41.

The Coptic Rite frequently uses a hymn which consists basically of one phrase repeated 41 times. I am referring of course, to the KYRIE ELEISON.

The words are Greek, not Coptic, harking back to the early days of Christianity when Greek was the common language in use throughout most of the Mediterranean civilisations. The Gospels were originally written in Greek and the liturgies we use in the Coptic Church were originally all in Greek. It is only as time went on that they wee translated to the vernacular Coptic. Even today, the standard form of the “Coptic” liturgies we pray – when we say we are praying in Coptic – has a pretty significant percentage that is Greek, not Coptic.

But I’m actually not interested in the language side of things today – I wanted to contemplate on the spiritual significance of the 41 Kyrie Eleisons. You might have asked yourself at some stage, “Why do we just repeat the one phrase over and over like that? Didn’t Jesus warn us against just such a practice?”

“And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.” (Matthew 6:7)

Yes, God knows that we need His mercy. But the prayer is for our benefit, not His. It is a reminder to us of that need for mercy, lest we should ever forget and think ourselves self-sufficient without Him. As I sing the repetitions of “Lord have mercy!” I can have two things running through my mind. One is my deep need for the mercy of God; the other is the mercy of God itself, and the God of Mercy Himself.

Our need for mercy stems from our inherent weakness and moral frailty. God is all-good. We desire to be one with God. Yet we sin. By sinning, we exclude ourselves from being one with God. Oops. How is this problem to be solved? There is nothing we can do about it, for it does not lie within our power. Only He can do something about it … and He did.

God’s solution to the problem was to become one of us, to suffer for us and to die for us, and then to rise again from the dead, satisfying the law of justice, yet opening a door to the infinite possibilities of mercy. On His way to completing this course, He was tied to a post and whipped. The 41 Kyrie Eleisons bring us to the very Roman pavement upon which his tired knees rested, and challenge us to look on as the sadistic whip, sharp stones and rusty nails tied to its cords, is scraped over and over across the bare back of the Humble Servant.

Can you stand here unmoved?

What heart of stone would not cry out, “Stop!” Not only is this inhuman, it is uniquely unjust, for all have sinned, all deserve the reward of their evil … but not his Man. Anyone but this Man. This is He whose gentle eyes gave hope to the woman caught in adultery after He saved her life from the bloodthirsty mob … the same eyes that now weep in pain and agony. This is He whose strong voice echoed over the Mount as He taught the multitudes to be meek, lowly, poor in spirit … the same voice that cries out now uncontrollably in suffering. Anyone but this Man.

Imagine that from the midst of His blood and spasming muscles His eyes glanced out for a moment through tangled, sweaty hair and met with yours … And what will you say now? Can anyone remain silent? There is no “I will do something to save You!” You will find no comforting if futile action to ease the burden of this monstrous event. It is done. It is finished. It has happened. And all because of our sins. He took what is ours, and gave us what is His.

What then will you say? Is there anything else we can say, other than “Lord have mercy!”?

Sometimes we pray this hymn with a fast tempo, as if the pain of it is such that we only wish to bring it to an end as soon as we can. At other times, we pray it more slowly, as befits a dirge of sadness. Always, we should pray it with this image firmly held before the eyes of our minds: the broken Body, leaking blood from a thousand points, submitting to this suffering … that I deserved instead.

We cry for mercy because we never meant it to come to this. All those times we gave in to sin … it was never meant to end like this! We cry for mercy for the chains that bind us still to our frail humanity, the undependable, unfaithful, unthankful and brute nature that drags our eternal spirits down into the dust of sin again and again … only the Suffering Servant has the power to break those chains, and so, even while He suffers, we cry out for His mercy. It should be He who cries out for mercy from His tormentors, but instead, it was He who administered mercy to them as He hung on the Cross, asking for His Father’s forgiveness for them. He has taught us to ask, and so we do.

No, this is no vain repetition. This is not multiplying empty useless words (or at least, it never should be). This is our witness, so many times each day, that we know and appreciate the sacrifice of profound love that our loving Saviour offered for us. If any words of prayer have meaning, it is surely these simple words!

Fr Ant

Thanks to Romani and Tony for their thoughts (see ‘comments’ on the previous blog).

Of course you are both right in pointing out that there are situations in life where one needs to take a stand and say or do something. Examples that spring to mind might be if I were a German living in Germany in the early 1940’s, watching my Jewish neighbours disappear mysteriously one by one. Another example might be the kinds of subtle and blatant religious persecution going on in Egypt and Sudan and many other places at the moment. In cases of injustice, of the oppression of the poor, neglect of the needy … yes we should definitely not shirk our moral duty to do something.

Even in these situations, where one is morally justified in being criticial, the sins of judgement and pride are never far away. How many people have set out to right a wrong only to end up becoming a wrong themselves? I think there are certain rules one can follow that minimise the dangers of this happening. Please pardon the excessive use of cliches.

Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin.

Or as Romani sportingly puts it – play the ball, not the player. Stick to the issue and don’t attack the person. Personal attacks have the very unfortunate side effect of forcing a comparison between the attacker and the attacked, and such comparisons are never good for anyone. They only lead to a sense of self-justification and pride and superiority complexes. If on the other we just stick to the actual issues at hand, there is a far greater chance of ending up with a good outcome. Besides this, personal attacks hardly ever work. Very few people really change anything because someone just told them to.

But for the Grace of God, there Go I…

Even if you do no share the sins you see in others, do not think that’s because you are a specially holy person! If not for God’s protection and care, that could very easily have been you making that mess. If you had lived the life that other person has lived, might you not have done even worse? What is scarier is that today you may be the judge, but tomorrow you may be the criminal yourself. History is replete with examples of normal, good people who, through circumstances, ended up doign abnormally horrible things. Can you really guarantee that will never be you? The Prize winning novel “The Lord of the Flies” by William Golding is a chilling reminder that just beneath our civilised surface lies a wild animal straining to be set free to wreak its havoc. Recommended reading for those who think they are above the sins of others.

Only Poke Your Nose Into Where It Is Warranted

None of us have been appointed sole and sagacious guardians of good for all humanity. We are given responsibility for certain, proscribed areas – parents are responsible for their children; teachers are responsible for their pupils; policemen are responsible for their beats. Within that area of responsiblility, of course you must be proactive in dealing with wrongs and teaching what is right to your charges – it would a sin to neglect that responsibility. But if you notice something wrong that is not within your area of responsibility, it is often wrong and also damaging for you to take it upon yourself to fix it. Just try disciplining someone else’s child and see what I mean! The best course of action in these situations, I think, is to pass on your concerns to the person who is responsible, and leave them to deal with it. I think that’s what we would all like people to do to us, so we should accord the same respect to others. Of course there will be situations where a certain degree of ‘follow-up’ or lobbying is required, but as a general rule, overstepping one’s boundaries does no one any good.

That said, my previous blog was not really considering these kinds of situations as much as looking at the more common situation where one is tempted to be critical of others in a more general sense: things like ciriticising other drivers on the road, or the way your wife folds the washing, or the person on the news who got themselves into terrible credit card debt – that sort of thing.

Here, I think there is a very important distinction to be made between Judging on the one hand and Discernment on the other. In my definition, for the purposes of this discussion, Discernment is where you recognise the difference between right and wrong, simply and objectively, and it pretty much stops there. Judgement takes it one step further and adds a layer of subjective reaction. Generally this takes the form of classifying the person at fault (”What an idiot!”) or comparing oneself favorably aginst the offender (”I’d certainly never be that silly”).

We have to discern – otherwise, ignorantly confusing good with evil, we would fall into many sins: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil” (Isaiah 5:20) . But we also have to avoid judging others, setting ourselves above them and seeing ourselves as superior to them: “Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls.” (Romans 14:4) Judgement belongs to God and to God alone. We really don’t want to get into a demarcation dispute with Him!

So long as we stick to the purely objective Discernment, we will be reasonably safe, spiritually speaking. Add to Discernment a healthy dose of humility and compassion, and you’ve got a pretty good system going!

Fr Ant

Addressing the remaining issues… (see parts 1 and 2)

C. “This is Protestant music.”

What exactly makes music Protestant?

What makes anything ‘Protestant’?

We define our denominations according to their theology, as well as their history, culture and demographics and so on. For example, we speak of the “Russian Orthodox Church”, and we know we are speaking of a group of Christians who hold to an Eastern Orthodox theology, who are mostly of Russian descent, although there are many members from other ethnic backgrounds, and who use chants and prayers and hymns in the Russian language and style.

But which of those descriptions is essential for the salvation of the Russian Orthodox individual? Which of them really characterises what it means to be Russian Orthodox? Do you have to be Russian? Do you have to speak Russian? Do you have to use that particular musical style? Certainly, the style helps define the CULTURE, but it does not define the FAITH. Greek, Macedonian and Japanese Orthodox Christians all hold to exactly the same faith, the same theology, yet they express their faith differently, according to their own culture and style of music. Without doubt, a style of music should enhance and complement one’s faith and beliefs, but there is nothing in our faith to say that only one particular style of music is going to do that.

Don’t get me wrong – I am absolutely in love with the rich treasure trove of Coptic Hymnology. I wish everyone could taste it and enter into the beautiful world of the spirit it can open up. I believe strongly that it should be carefully preserved and experienced and passed on intact and inviolate to the next generation. But I also believe that there can be room in our lives for more than one style of music.

A musical style cannot, in itself, be ‘Protestant’. Yes, perhaps historically Protestants have tended to use it, but that doesn’t give them ownership over that style, anymore than Protestants doing mathematics gives them ownership over the set of natural numbers. Can you imagine that? “No! We mustn’t count in our Church! We’d become Protestants!”

D. “We don’t want to become Hillsong.”

Hillsong, if you don’t know, is a Pentecostal Assemblies of God movement based in Northwestern Sydney that has grown in numbers and in notoriety over the past few decades. It specialises in worship services that are closer to a pop concert than they are to a traditional Christian worship service. Thus they have appealed to a young generation who enjoy going to ‘church’ to sing and dance and have a great time. All the traditional Christian Churches have, I think, felt the impact of Hillsong as their own young people are at times attracted to go and find out what it’s all about, and occasionally, they stay and never come back. This has made the traditional Churches somewhat defensive whenever the name ‘Hillsong’ is mentioned.

What is it about Hillsong we don’t like? I propose that we should not be cranky about their apparent success at drawing young people in, nor about their professionalism in putting on concert services, nor about the industry standard slick CDs they put out. There is nothing inherently wrong in singing snappy, catchy tunes to praise God. Nor is their anything wrong in using the music that speaks to a new generation – “I have become all things to all people that I might by all means save some” quoth St Paul.

No, our problem with Hillsong is their theology, and their philosophy. Theologically, they preach what has come to be known as the “Health and Wealth Gospel“. The gist of this is that material success is a sign of God’s favour and blessing – pretty much always. Thus, they soothe the consciences of the rich (it just means you’re God’s favourite) and their pastors are quite proud of their own personal wealth (extra special favourites!) It really is Christianity for Yuppies, but with such dangerous and subtle flaws that it genuinely runs the risk of no longer being true to the Gospel of Christ who remarked that not only did He have nowhere to lay His head, but encouraged His followers to sell everything they had. If the precepts of the Health and Wealth Gospel were to be consistently followed through, then God must have totally rejected St Paul the Apostle, since he was deprived of both health and wealth in the most dramatic of ways through his whole preaching life (just read 2 Corinthians 11 & 12 if you don’t know what I mean).

Philosophically, we have a big problem with reducing Christianity to the level of a consumer item. Yes, it is true that we should follow in St Paul’s footsteps and be all things to all men that we might by all means save some, but I don’t think watering down the Gospel and commercialising it is really what he had in mind. There is s fine line between doing something professionally and doing it commercially, and I think that Hillsong too often cross that line. It is true that Hillsong have a very large “front door” with large numbers going in. But it is a lesser known fact that they also have a very large “back door”, with lots of people leaving all the time in disappointment and disillusionment. Their congregation is not as stable as most traditional Churches, but the faces are always changing. Added to that is their Pentecostalism. That is perhaps a topic for another day, but I have deep concerns about modern day Pentecostalism and its ’showiness’ and lack of theological foundation or even of sensible purpose.

No, it’s not Hillsong music that we distrust.

E. “This will make the youth think Church is giving them permission to listen to horrible worldly music on the radio.”

And they don’t already? OK, here’s my understanding of our Church’s attitude on Christian liberty: “All things are lawful to me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful to me, but not all things build up” (St Paul again). Our role then is not to ban our youth from engaging with the secular world, but to train them and equip them with the divine wisdom, discernment and passion for God that will make the influence flow the other way – not from the world into them, but from them into the world. Whatever happened to “Let your light so shine among men” (Jesus this time)?

We only fear our youth listening to modern music because we fear it will lead them away from Christ. But surely this means we have failed miserably in instilling them with a genuine love for Christ? A person of any age who loves Christ with all his/her heart will not need anyone to tell them “Turn that song off – its leading you away from Christ”. They should be self-aware enough to sense the danger and devoted enough to make the right decision. There is even the possibility that the young person might use the secular song to bring them closer to Christ. Some love songs, for example, if sung with God in mind as the Beloved, can actually be quite beautiful prayers. This is not something new – King Solomon made a Book of the Bible out of that very concept!

Christianity, more than anything else in this world must be from free choice and sincere desire for God. Sure, we restrain younger kids with strict rules of what’s allowed and what is not in order to protect them from hurting themselves. They don’t yet know how to handle the world, so we help them do it. But is anyone really going to argue that a 25 year old, who might be responsible for millions of dollars or dozens of workers at work, can’t be trusted to be responsible for his/her own salvation?

F. “What is our Church coming to???”

Its senses, I hope. We live in a world of change, and often the answers of yesterday lose their relevance very quickly. If we are to remain strong as a Church and true to our core Christian mission, then we simply have no choice but to quickly separate the chaff from the wheat, to distinguish what is merely cultural norm from what is spiritual imperative, so that we can preserve that spiritual imperative by applying it to the ever changing cultural landscape in which we find ourselves.

I’m sorry, but musical style is not one of the spiritual imperatives of the Gospels. Yes, music has a powerful effect on people, but it is also true that it affects different people in different ways. I find today’s contemporary pop music just as cacophanous as my parents found the Beatles back in the 60’s, or their parents found jazz back in the 20’s.

Authentic Christianity isn’t bogged down in changing fashions.
It speaks the language that gets the message through, for it is the message that matters, not the medium.

Fr Ant