Flat Screen Inter Gated Into Traditional Worship

8/3/2019 Flat Screen Inter Gated Into Traditional Worship

1/4

40 FLAT SCREENS AND ROOD SCREENS

Flat Screens and Rood Screens The

Integration of Audio-Visual Technologyinto Traditional Worship

Andrew Cain, Angharad Parry Jones

One of the glories of the Church of England is a formally celebrated

and purposely Catholic celebration of Mass, with all the ritual, drama andchoreography that implies. Such things may not be fashionable, especially

to those whose theology is consciously liberal, and the identification of

Catholic worship in the Church of England with particular views on contro

versial issues has alienated many from those churches where the tradition is

best preserved. Equally, as a consequence of these disputes Catholics have

often isolated themselves feeling a genuine need to safeguard the ritual and

the tradition has become even more unfamiliar and alien to those outside a

rather narrow subset of the Church of England. However, it remains truethat in most cities and towns there is usually somewhere where worship is

offered in full liturgical style - and with it is preserved a rich liturgical,

symbolic and visual tradition that has much to offer the search for new

forms of worship and engagement with God that is at the heart of the

current 'fresh expressions' movement - and the wider desire for the refresh

ment of worship.

In the 19th century the re-discovery of the 'beauty of holiness' was the

heart of the revival of ritual and movement in the Oxford Movement . Theemphasis on dignity, beauty and symbolism was seen as a way of re-engag

ing people with the mystery of God and reinvigorating a tradition of

worship so that it was truly experiential and mystical. The movement was

profoundly influential even beyond the boundaries of that relatively small

proportion of the church that fully embraced the theology that underpinned

the drama. There can be very few churches where the accessories of the

search for beauty in worship, vestments, candles, crosses and more infre-

quendy incense, did not become accepted as normative in Anglicanworship.


2/4

FLAT SCREENS AND ROOD SCREENS 41

or worship groups; the rich colour of vestments and hangings with television

screens; Victorian acoustics with amplification systems. The experience ofmany Anglican worshippers today is increasingly more akin to that of asecular pop concert than that of the worship that was the staple of theirpredecessors for most of the last two centuries.

What then does traditional liturgy and modern technology have to dowith each other? We would like to suggest in this article that the answer is 'agreat deal' - and that the use of the full range of audio-visual equipmentcan easily and naturally be integrated into the context of a traditional struc

ture of the Mass. The juxtaposition of a plasma screen and a maniple bothfollows in the traditions of the development of Anglo-Catholic worship andprovides one answer to the current search for an intensely personal contemporary experience of worship.

Revelation - exploring worship at St James West Hampstead - has beenand continues to experiment with the integration of modern technologiesinto a very traditional experience of the offering of the Mass. Traditionalvestments and words are paired with flat screen televisions, music from

popular culture and fast moving images in an eastward facing Mass thatreduces the personal element of the priestly celebration and gives thecongregation greater freedom to share in and experience the liturgicalaction and exploration in and of itself. Imagery and music are played onscreens flanking the altar and are selected to develop a reflective theme, toaccompany and develop the ritual unobtrusively. In the place of spokenreadings video clips form the staring point for an extended meditation inwords and music on the Gospel. Responses from the congregation are

enabled through the individual lighting of candles, the offering of incenseand the use of holy water to wash hands and faces or, more traditionally, tobless oneself.

The celebration of the Eucharist itself is accompanied by the use ofimagery that mirrors the liturgical gestures of the Mass. When the congregation receives Communion further music and imagery provides a promptto a period of shared prayer and worship.

What has been striking has been the ease with which these seeminglyincompatible elements have simply been accepted and enjoyed by those for

h C h li i l i f ili Th f h h b i d


3/4

42 RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE IN TAMILNADU

theological underpinning that has often been used to either defend or reject

such 'non-essentials of the Faith' is less important than the experience ofworship that their use, and the use of the accompanying technology,

enables.

For some on both sides of the theological, and technological, divide, of

course, this in itself will be problematic. Sidelining the theology of the

actions may well be seen as an unacceptable but it may be a very modern

response to cherished traditional rivalries. Much of the current 'emerging

Church' experience is about that mingling of approaches and traditions in

order to discover a moment of connection. The offering of a highly traditional form of worship in partnership with contemporary imagery and

music is a way of grounding the new and innovative within the tradition of

Christian worship - acting as a bridge both for those who need a sense of

place and familiarity as they are brought forward in their thinking and expe

rience and as an anchor against every wind and changing current for those

who would otherwise be dislocated from the 'faith of our fathers'.

Fr Andrew Cairn is Area Dean ofNorth Camden andVicarof St Mary with All SouL

Kilburn and St James WestHampstead. He has worked in London for over10 years anwas previously Chaplain to Bp RichardHarries.

AngharadParry Jones is a Lay Minuter in the unitedbenefice of St Mary with Al

SouL, Kilburn and St James WestHampstead with responsibility for Revelation. She

the formereditorin chief ofMozaik, the journal of the World Student Christian Fede

tion - European Region.

Religious Experience in Tamilnadu, SouthIndia

Jonathan Robinson

In the tradition of exploring religious experience from the perspective

of other cultures and religious traditions different from our own in early2006 at the suggestion and encouragement of Prof. Paul Badham I initiated


4/4

^ s

Copyright and Use:

As an ATLAS user, you may print, download, or send articles for individual use

according to fair use as defined by U.S. and international copyright law and as

otherwise authorized under your respective ATLAS subscriber agreement.

No content may be copied or emailed to multiple sites or publicly posted without the

copyright holder(s)' express written permission. Any use, decompiling,

reproduction, or distribution of this journal in excess of fair use provisions may be a

violation of copyright law.

This journal is made available to you through the ATLAS collection with permission

from the copyright holder(s). The copyright holder for an entire issue of a journal

typically is the journal owner, who also may own the copyright in each article. However,

for certain articles, the author of the article may maintain the copyright in the article.

Please contact the copyright holder(s) to request permission to use an article or specific

work for any use not covered by the fair use provisions of the copyright laws or covered

by your respective ATLAS subscriber agreement. For information regarding the

copyright holder(s), please refer to the copyright information in the journal, if available,

or contact ATLA to request contact information for the copyright holder(s).

About ATLAS:

The ATLA Serials (ATLAS) collection contains electronic versions of previously

published religion and theology journals reproduced with permission. The ATLAS

collection is owned and managed by the American Theological Library Association

(ATLA) and received initial funding from Lilly Endowment Inc.

The design and final form of this electronic document is the property of the American

Theological Library Association.

Documents

Flat Screen Inter Gated Into Traditional Worship