A Matter of Taste (pt 3)

Well, I am not going to try and finish chapter one today, there is just a bit too much to chew on, and this book might take quite some time.  I am sure there are sections to take in great sweeps, but these initial pages require due diligence.  The section today is entitled:  Preparing to Pursue Taste Theologically. 

Brown begins by encouraging us to think seriously about taste as a religious and theological issue.  We should not ignore the aesthetics of religious practice, nor should we "uncritically celebrate the spiritual assets of tackiness," though the church will survive tackiness.  He mentions the adage: De gustibus non disputandum est, but concludes that disputations about taste are inevitable and ultimately profitable.

He notes that matters of taste strike deep in our hearts.  We sense an immediate bond and sense of joy when we recognize our tastes are shared and affirmed.  However, there is alienation and a sense of misunderstanding when our tastes are not appreciated by others.  This may even lead to an inability to worship in the same church, or he says prophetically, "It may even strain the notion that we belong to the same church in a larger sense."  These tastes extend beyond the individual to our communities, and to spheres beyond our communities.  This will require us to be sensitive to tastes different than our own; however, Brown argues that love must not compel us to "happily tolerate, let alone promote, aesthetic carelessness or mediocrity."  The "worship wars" raging in our churches today reflect confusion about matters of taste, and tell us that we can no longer ignore aesthetics.

Continuing to argue for the necessity of serious thinking about taste, Brown notes that Jesus was a good storyteller of good stories, that the Roman Catholic Church has benefited from monks singing in tune for centuries, that Wesley was right to collect hymns free of "doggeral" and  "patched rhymes," and that many churches are architecturally beautiful.  He says, "Is it not...the case that these efforts of artistry, requiring discipline and taste, generally enhance Christian life?  And that diverse kinds of artistic excellence and beauty are part of the bounty of the religious life, not merely negligible products of human frailty that a gracious church must condescend to accept?"

Now here's the point, and I must quote Brown, "More pointedly: the evidence of scripture, tradition, and experience all suggest that art can sometimes mediate not only a sense of life but also a sense of grace and of the mystery that we call God.  And since art cannot mediate without the aid of aesthetic imagination, response, and judgment--without taste, in short--we must consider the perhaps surprising possibility that taste at its most encompassing is no less crucial to religious life and faith than is intellectual understanding and moral commitment." 

Before fleshing out in detail the three elements of taste, Brown asks his readers to consider cultivation of an "ecumenical taste," able (1) "to recognize and indeed relish certain aesthetic and religious differences without regarding them as inevitably and permanently alienating; (2) to learn to discern, as an act of love, what others find delightful and meaningful in art that has little appeal to oneself or one's group; and (3) to notice, both more precisely and more generally, points in life and worship where aesthetic aims and religious aspirations (or aversions) are wedded to one another, and thus to see how spiritual growth can have a properly artistic and aesthetic dimension subject to criticism, cultivation, and education."  This is how he counters elitism, and I think this may be where some stumble.

Comments

[Joel]

We need the three elements of taste!

[Hildegard]

And a definition of "elitism."

[jon]

I'll pick it back up again after Lord's Day services...Sunday night or Monday morning. Thanks for the encouraging response, this really is helpful.