{"id":339,"date":"2004-12-25T04:50:00","date_gmt":"2004-12-25T04:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=339"},"modified":"2004-12-25T04:50:00","modified_gmt":"2004-12-25T04:50:00","slug":"339","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=339","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Midnight (imagistic) Mass<\/strong><\/p>\n

A few nights ago, M. and I were sharing reminiscences of Christmases long past, including the experience of Christmas Eve Midnight Mass. It wasn’t the content of the service that mattered, but the experience: the waiting all evening, driving to the church through quiet streets, the explosion of lights in darkness, then walking out from the church into the cold, crisp night air.<\/p>\n

It was one of few times when modern Christianity–at least in our churches (hers Roman Catholic, mine Episcopal with High Church touches at the holidays)–felt like a mystery religion. Watching the stripping of the altar on Good Friday was another such time: it could actually seem deathly scary.<\/p>\n

Neither of us could understand the Protestants–people just sitting passively and being talked at. No altar (at most a vestigial table), but a dominating pulpit that turned the church into a lecture hall.<\/p>\n

A year ago I was introduced to the work of Harvey Whitehouse<\/a>, an anthropologist of religion who divides religions depending on which tendency they embody most: the “doctrinal” or the “imagistic.” Once you have had an imagistic experience, such as an initiation into a mystery, it stays with you, whereas doctrinal teaching must be reinforced with constant repetition.<\/p>\n

Whitehouse has developed this idea in several articles and monographs; his new book, Modes of Religiosity: A Cognitive Theory of Religious Transmission<\/em><\/a> is on my current reading shelf. I may have more to say about it later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Midnight (imagistic) Mass A few nights ago, M. and I were sharing reminiscences of Christmases long past, including the experience of Christmas Eve Midnight Mass. It wasn’t the content of the service that mattered, but the experience: the waiting all evening, driving to the church through quiet streets, the explosion of lights in darkness, then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-339","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":601,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=601","url_meta":{"origin":339,"position":0},"title":"And you thought our buildings\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 20, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"And you thought our buildings were GothicWill a Goth eucharist bring the Goth kids back into the Gothic buildings?The candlelit Goth Eucharist services feature a specially written liturgy and music from bands like Depeche Mode, Joy Division and the Sisters of Mercy.I doubt it, because it's not about the music.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":544,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=544","url_meta":{"origin":339,"position":1},"title":"The altar of the .\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 27, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The altar of the . . . intramural volleyball league?Depending on your persuasion, the following announcement indicates the Paganization of an American university, a celebration of \"diversity,\" a violation of the separation of church [Aztec temple?] and state, \"multiculturalism\" run amok, or good clean fun.The student activities board at a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3617,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3617","url_meta":{"origin":339,"position":2},"title":"Why I Feel Sorry for Christians at Christmas","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"So here it is, two days before Christmas, birthday of Christ the Savior, etc., and I am feeling sorry for the Christian clergy, at least some of them. Along with Easter, this is their big religious holiday. The Incarnation of God\u2014in their theology. And they have to beg people to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":70,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=70","url_meta":{"origin":339,"position":3},"title":"Idol Thoughts","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 27, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"After three days of hearing papers and networking at AAR-SBL, our brains were full, so half a dozen friends and I headed for the traveling Etruscan exhibit at Atlanta's Fernbank Museum. It was wonderful to get away from the convention-hotel district. The exhibit on ancient Etruscan life was organized by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11444,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11444","url_meta":{"origin":339,"position":4},"title":"Catholics in Trouble over ‘Idols’ Again","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 15, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Maybe you missed it, but there was a minor scandal at the Vatican last year over the liturgical use of an image of Pachamana, one name given to the indigenous Mother Goddess of the Andean region of South America. Some traditional Catholics were deeply offended: The statues, which were identical\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Catholicism\"","block_context":{"text":"Catholicism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=catholicism"},"img":{"alt_text":"Idols on the Catholic altar","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.churchmilitant.com\/images\/social_images\/2020-05-14-Hornchurch.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.churchmilitant.com\/images\/social_images\/2020-05-14-Hornchurch.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.churchmilitant.com\/images\/social_images\/2020-05-14-Hornchurch.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.churchmilitant.com\/images\/social_images\/2020-05-14-Hornchurch.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3354,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3354","url_meta":{"origin":339,"position":5},"title":"Quick Day of the Dead Instructions\u2014And How Things Change","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 29, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Last Monday a notice popped up in my university email: It's time to build an altar for the Day of the Dead. (And do it in the correct, traditional manner!) Several professors of Spanish have organized an altar-building event in the student center for a number of years now. But\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}