Every year we have two or three charity carol services with celebrity readers and an excellent visiting choir. We also have carol services for law firms, livery companies and Barts Hospital, in addition to our own traditional services. And there are some carol concerts. "Services" have clergy present and offiating and sanctuary and altar candles are lit. "Concerts" have neither clergy nor sanctuary candles. Some concerts, however, have a reading or two, often inclkuding scripture, so the boundaries are malleable.
Gradually, however, at the charity services the biblical narrative has shifted from the readings to the music. So the story is told through the items sung by the choir and the hymns or carols sung by the congregation. As these include "Good King Wenceslas" there is a gap between biblical truth and creative fiction. This year's readings included Dr Seuss, Dickens and C.S. Lewis but not a single biblical reading. This is, I think, a step too far. For next year I shall need to define "a carol service" as having at least one, maybe two, biblical readings.
Life at the Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great - by The Revd Dr Martin Dudley
1 comment:
You are right - it is a step too far, and good on you for doing differently next year.
It seems to me a sort of secular squeamishness has developed against invoking anything too overtly religious in such services (carols themselves having become, in many people's minds, simply the musical wallpaper for the festive season). Time to stem the tide a bit...
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