The Undemocratic High Church

I went to this morning's 9:00 service at St. Thomas Episcopal Church on Fifth Avenue. It was a step out of reality, into some other, older world. Perhaps it was a taste of what Tolkien's hobbits felt upon their arrival in Rivendell. The church itself is a beautiful Gothic building, dark and immediate when compared with the light, wide-open glory of St. Patrick's Cathedral, just a few blocks away. Upon entering St. Thomas, one sees at the far end of the sanctuary a solid wall of beautiful statuary: Christ Jesus surrounded by the saints.

The service used the old, beautiful language of pre-modern liturgy. There was a small choir, consisting of little kids with angelic voices. But the musicians were mostly hidden from view; organ music flew out and over from the chancel. An acolyte swung the incense at the offering: something I had heard about but never before seen. And taking the Eucharist there was unforgettable. As we processed up the aisles toward the alter, I felt ever smaller and ever more unworthy. Kneeling only feet from the back wall, I had to crane my neck to glimpse the statue of Jesus high over my head. I took the wafer and wine, prayed, and made my way back to my seat, blinking my eyes and holding my face in my hands.

In short, this was the opposite of all the seeker-sensitive services I have ever attended. The recent Willow Creek revelations - that market research and focus groups somehow failed to yield authentic discipleship - almost seem to belong to a different planet. Indeed, after the service, I found myself reluctant to walk back out to Fifth Avenue, which is again styling itself as Christmastown, USA. So-called contemporary services, on the other hand, always seem to be of one mind with consumerism.

But a high-church mentality is also somewhat opposed to the democratic spirit itself, or at least to its overly individualistic manifestations. At St. Thomas there are vestiges of the old aristocratic culture, not in the sense that anyone is excluded, but in the sense that there is an emphasis on order and beauty, and there is a King at the center of all things. It's an ancient conception of authority: power derived, not from the people, but from above.

I suppose there's not much of a political point to this, except to say that we in a democracy probably need a few undemocratic institutions to help us along. When we know something of the alternatives, we can better evaluate our own democracy. Modern democracy, as well as several Protestant denominations, are rooted in opposition to this sort of aristocratic spirit. I'm not qualified to remark on the theological implications of this opposition, but I will say that encountering the old world can be refreshing to the soul of the beleaguered and wandering democrat.