This from The Very Rev Dr John Shepherd is Dean of Perth, Australia, in the TimesOnline (UK). In an article entitled, “Credo: Trite music blocks our ears to the divine in the liturgy,”  Dean Shepherd writes about the importance of art, and not just are but good art, within the Church, particularly when it comes to our music in the liturgy.

It is in the liturgy that we are able to enter into another consciousness, probe a deeper reality, strive for a sense of transcendence which lifts us above the mundane, and in the words of psalmist, sets us on a rock that is higher than ourselves. Our worship enables us to enter another time and another dimension — a realm of experience beyond our ordinary human experience, beyond all our known thoughts and understandings.

In monastic terms, the liturgy is the path towards an exalted “ecstasy”, a flight into the cloud of unknowing, the place where God is, and where the true contemplation of the creative stillness of God is possible.

And this is a reality which is beyond the ability of historians, theologians, linguists, biblical scholars or even pastoral liturgists to express. Their contributions may even hinder rather than help. The intensity and intangibility of this experience can only be expressed through the arts.

The whole article is good to read!

Credo: Trite music blocks our ears to the divine in
the liturgy

Our worship
enables us to enter another time and another dimension – a realm of
experience beyond our ordinary human experience

John Shepherd

How can we come to an experience of God? It’s a challenge, because no
matter
how much we read the Bible, study theology, formulate creeds, devise
systems
of belief and draw up rules for best Christian practice, all these
efforts
are only partial, tentative explorations into a dimension that lies
beyond
any definitive grid we could ever hope to impose.

Which brings us to the worship of the liturgy, for it is in worship that
we
are immersed in the experience of God. It is here that we engage with
the
living God.

It is in the liturgy that we are able to enter into another
consciousness,
probe a deeper reality, strive for a sense of transcendence which lifts
us
above the mundane, and in the words of psalmist, sets us on a rock that
is
higher than ourselves. Our worship enables us to enter another time and
another dimension — a realm of experience beyond our ordinary human
experience, beyond all our known thoughts and understandings.

In monastic terms, the liturgy is the path towards an exalted “ecstasy”,
a
flight into the cloud of unknowing, the place where God is, and where
the
true contemplation of the creative stillness of God is possible.

And this is a reality which is beyond the ability of historians,
theologians,
linguists, biblical scholars or even pastoral liturgists to express.
Their
contributions may even hinder rather than help. The intensity and
intangibility of this experience can only be expressed through the arts.

This is why music of quality is a critical element within the life of
the
Church. It is a necessity, not a luxury. It is neither a frivolous
confection nor an elitist distraction from the real business of faith.
Music
of quality, in the context of worship, does not entertain or divert. It
reveals.

By means of evolving harmonies, rhythms, textures, modulations,
orchestrations, melodies, counterpoints, imitations, this rich art form
has
the potential to create an aural environment which enables us to
contemplate
the mystery of God.

Music of this calibre draws us into an engagement so profound that its
sense
can never be exhausted. Any work of art, be it sculpture, painting,
literature, poetry or music, whose implications are immediately obvious
and
can instantly be grasped can never enlist our imagination, and so cannot
equip us for mystery; and what cannot equip us for mystery cannot equip
us
for God.

This is why the Church should have no truck with banality. Yet, sadly,
this is
not universally the case. Too often, in a quaintly deluded attempt to
achieve so-called relevance with a largely unidentified and notional
constituency, the words of worship are denuded both of intellectual
challenge and poetic imagery, and the music of worship is reduced to the
most basic and arid of formulae. This toxic combination has achieved
what
many thought impossible. The emptying of our churches of those with
minds to
think, and emotions to inspire.

The power of liturgy was unerringly expressed by the prophet Job (iv,
15): “A
spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up.” Yet this
power
can all too easily be surrendered in favour of pedestrian prose and
incompetent music. Badly constructed melodies and harmonies can only
ever be
transitory simply because they are musically inept. Rhythmic patterns
devoid
of subtlety, trite words incapable of stimulating any kind of imagery
constitute some of the most powerful impediments to the possibility of
encountering the divine within the context of the liturgy.

Not only does this behaviour testify to technical deficiency (an odd
concept
in itself for the Church of God to endorse), it offers nothing but
spiritual
impoverishment to a world clamouring for spiritual fulfilment.

And it goes without saying that the last refuge for those who deny the
possibility of a depth of experience of this dimension will always be
the
accusation of elitism.

True art transcends the ordinary. It invites us to contemplate a
presence
beyond itself. It entangles us in the divine web of ultimate reality,
and so
creates an aural environment in which we can experience, in the words of
Anselm of Bec, the presence of “that than which nothing greater can be
thought”.

The Very Rev Dr John Shepherd is Dean of Perth, Australia