I want to begin with the premise that liturgy is a pedagogical tool and amidst the curating of worship clergy are in many ways teachers and the congregation, likewise, are students. This is not to say that liturgy is just a pedagogical tool but simply that alongside whatever else it may be, it is such. I want to further suggest that the tradition of liturgy that comes out of the norms of White European Christianity carries with it many of the same problems that are found within the expectations of education that come out of White European Christianity. What this would mean is that the critiques presented against these educational pedagogies in general also apply to liturgy.
Mainline protestant liturgy is historically part of white middle-class norms in the United States. This is true both to the type of behavior expected within the liturgy itself and also in that regular participation in such liturgy is such a norm itself. While there has been a general decline in mainline Protestantism in recent decades this is still a generally true statement. The first question here is whether or not, in our liturgical life, can we “see the fallacy of measuring ourselves and the young people in our communities solely against the White middle-class norms”. (Paris, 86)
Now when Django Paris poses this question initially it is targeted at public school curriculum, but what we are doing here is applying these questions to our worship life. Are we only able to conceive of ourselves and an appropriate way to engage liturgical life within the expected norms of the White middle-class? Do we require everyone who comes into our spaces of worship to conform to those norms? The underlying request here is that we work to make our worship spaces anti-racist… and also anti-sexist, anti-heterosexist, anti-cisist, etc.. A major hurdle in this is naming that we still are marked by supremacist ideologies.
This does not mean that many of our congregations, and entire denominations, have not been striving to be spaces free of supremacist ideologies. Too often, however, we simply maintain what Bell Hooks describes as “a world where it [is] fashionable to mouth anti-racist sentiments without truly undergoing the radical transformation in thought and action that must also take place.” (Hooks, 57) Hooks speaks to her friend Ken, who in many ways embodies the reality of too many of our congregations. “Like many white liberals, Ken sees the “whiteness” of his social life as more an accident of circumstances than a choice. He would welcome greater diversity in the neighborhood. However, he does not consciously do enough work either in his own social life or in the larger community to make that diversity possible.” (Hooks, 55)
None of this makes Ken, or our congregations, bad or evil. It just means that we are prone to live into this reflection of Hooks that: “In my childhood that white people could change. And yet I knew that most white people embraced racial domination as their privilege and their right.” (Hooks, 52) The social programing of the white community is an arduous reality to overcome and every anti-racist step is to be lauded. It is simply that we cannot stop taking steps. Hooks reminds us that “Love of justice cannot be sustained if it is only a manipulation to be with the in-crowd whoever they may be.” (Hooks, 62) We must keep loving justice for its own sake, not because it is fashionable and especially must do such when it is unfashionable. There is generally nothing more unfashionable within mainline Protestantism than attempting to change the liturgical life of a congregation.
Maintaining these White European Liturgical norms comes at an overwhelming cost, however. Patrick Camangian relates this cost in the reflections a student, Imani, “according to her, imposing Eurocentric worldviews on communities of color maintains White dominance over their communities. To challenge White supremacist thought, Imani argued that Black communities needed to determine their own notions of dignity”. (Camangian, 439) What we have to ask is whether our congregations are allowing Black communities, other communities of color, queer communities, and other marginalized communities to determine their own notions of dignity… and express them fully in the midst of our worship life.
An often heard rebuttal to this idea is that a certain congregation, while maintaining some variation of White European Cultural norms, has members of the congregation that are Black, LGBTQ+, etc.. A voice that needs to be heard as we evaluate this reality is another one of Camangian’s students, Leon. He was prone to make “observations regarding how Black communities sometimes aspire toward notions of attractiveness that are based on paradigms that socially devalue the phenotypical traits of people of color worldwide, and African-type features especially.” Camangian, 438)
I would suggest that in our liturgical life to have aspirations towards a certain mode of traditional worship is one thing, something that any person can take up. The pivotal question is whether or not amidst such aspirations we are also contributing to the devaluing of other types of features. Bell Hooks reflects on the same phenomena when she notes that “Racial integration ushered in a world where many black folks played by the rules only to face the reality that white racism was not changing, that the system of white supremacy remained intact even as it allowed black people greater access.” (Hooks, 52) Which is to say that racial integration is an essential variable but it is not sufficient by itself to balance the equation. We need a liturgical pedagogy that does more than simply hold up White European Liturgical norms as the sole form of beauty to which we can aspire.
What is another important variable then? Antonio Darder, engaging this problem in regards to our education system, speaks to how we need to “unveil the hidden ideological values and beliefs that inform the development and establishment of standardized curricula, materials, textbooks, testing and assessment, promotion criteria, and institutional relationships, in an effort to support and better infuse our teaching with an emancipatory vison of school and community life” (Darder, 57) The application of this process to liturgy would, in my mind, mean creating a sifting from which three types of things would be found. Core components of our liturgical life would betray ideological values and beliefs that are essential to the Gospel message and essential to Christian witness. Other realities would be sometimes beneficial but always at the least benign adiaphora. The final category would be discovering those hidden ideological values and beliefs that are actually counter to the Gospel message and Christian Witness and are actually taking up the process of devaluing that Leon observed.
Django Paris puts this question another way “What if, indeed, the goal of teaching and learning with youth of color was not ultimately to see how closely students could perform White middle-class norms but to explore, honor, extend, and, at times, problematize their heritage and community practices?” (Paris, 86) Or, in our context: What if, indeed the goal of liturgy was not ultimately to see how closely congregations could perform White European Liturgical norms but to explore, honor, extend, and, at times, problematize their heritage and community practices?
Paris also notes that “It is quite possible to be relevant to something without ensuring its continuing presence”. (Paris, 88) This seems to be a major concern encountered whenever this subject comes up… that what is being suggested is that White European Liturgical norms are no longer relevant and unless we continue to replicate them verbatim we are making them irrelevant. I want to suggest they are relevant because they are an example of “humanizing pedagogies that begin with their realities, ideologies, and ways of communicating their understanding of the world” (Camangian, 425) They are exactly what we are trying to foster and create amidst our liturgical life. It is simply that they are examples from another cultural context.
We have to realize that we need to be able to express ourselves in more than one cultural context. For generations those who could not speak White European Christian liturgical language and assimilate into that culture were at a disadvantage but we are now in a time when it is the liturgical “monolinguals/monoculturals who may increasingly find themselves at a disadvantage” (Paris, 89-90) If our congregations and denominations are going to survive then we must learn to speak other liturgical languages and be able to engage in other forms of liturgical culture. It is not that there is going to be a new liturgical lingua francabut that we will all need to learn to speak multiple liturgical languages and be comfortable amidst a variety of liturgical cultures.
What we understand is that “culturally relevant critical pedagogies draw from students’ cultural frameworks, lived experiences, and diverse learning styles” (Camangian, 428) If we apply this to our liturgical life this would mean that our liturgies should draw from our congregants’ cultural frameworks and lived experiences. They should be aware of the fact that amongst our congregations there will be a diversity of learning styles, or as we more often refer to them spiritual gifts and charisms. There will always be an issue unless our liturgy brings us consistently “to reflect on essential issues of immediate relevance to their community” (Comangian, 434)
What is being requested here is something that is truly life giving, something that liturgy is supposed to be by its very nature. Education is also supposed to be life giving but often falls short. Antonio Darder speaks to:
a living practice that is composed of relevant pedagogical actions within schools and communities that stimulate students’ critical intellectual engagement with their world, support the development of compassionate relationships that reanimated sentient qualities, and fuel a shared sense of citizenship aimed at the well-being of our collective existence. In contrast, educational practices devoid of praxis quickly degenerate into senseless activities that objectify and dehumanize both teachers and students.
(Darder, 84)
We should always be striving for a liturgical life that does the same for our congregations. I would be so bold as to say that if what we are doing as congregations when we gather for worship is not striving for such then we are not actually entering into worship at all.
This places certain expectations upon those who are in charge of curating our liturgical practices, most often clergy. Darder has a concept of “Teachers as organic intellectuals strive to make meaning by grounding their knowledge construction upon the ongoing social interactions and political events that transpire in their world”. (Darder, 67) One of the pressing issues we face is that too many clergy do not seem to consider themselves organic intellectuals going about an art of teaching amidst liturgy but see themselves as maintainers of a static tradition. Their principal commitment too often is to a customary and a set of rubrics. Darden would suggest that life giving liturgy comes from a very different commitment. “Teachers who embrace a revolutionary practice of teaching come to realize that this is best carried out through their commitment to praxis—a commitment to engage the dialectical connection that exists between theory and practice”. ((Darder, 82) It is, however, a much more difficult request to ask our clergy to engage a dialectical connection that exists between theology and practice amidst our lived experiences than it is to ask them to follow the standards for liturgical performance written down in a book decades or even centuries ago.
I am well aware that there is not a clear answer here. I am not suggesting another clear customary to be followed exactly. I am suggesting that we need to read numerous customaries, not to find the exactly right thing to do… but to understand the process that brought about a customary that served its particular time and place so that we can continue to apply that process to our time and place. Just as our education system needs to be transformed from a hegemonic entity maintaining white middle class norms so does our liturgical expectations. This is an inherently life giving process but it is one that takes a new form of discipline, an unresting engagement and love for the people and communities in our midst and liturgy curated with and for their benefit.
Camangian, P. R. (2013). Teach Like Lives Depend on It. Urban Education, 50(4), 424–453. doi: 10.1177/0042085913514591
Darder, A. (2017). Reinventing Paulo Freire: a pedagogy of love. New York, NY: Routledge.
Hooks, B. (2003). Teaching community: a pedagogy of hope. New York: Routledge.
Paris, D., & Alim, H. S. (2014). What Are We Seeking to Sustain Through Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy? A Loving Critique Forward. Harvard Educational Review, 84(1), 85–100. doi: 10.17763/haer.84.1.982l873k2ht16m77
