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| Benediction Curious the way reality television shows sign off these days. They all have some sort of maledictive parting shot. The Donald’s “You’re fired!” may be the most famous — if not most popular: He’s had the phrase trademarked and copyright-protected. How did we get here? In the ’70s, Chuck Barris had The Gong Show. It was a low-rent version of American Idol. But instead of Simon Cowell groaning about the singing being awful, your act simply got gonged. Someone swung a sledgehammer at the gong — didn’t matter that you were only midway through “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” In 1998, CBS’ The Survivor turned television programming on its head. This new reality show captivated audiences during the summer slump period. Although there was not specific malediction at the end of each show, the tribe did vote, and every week some hapless soul was voted off the island. Then reality shows, or at least “in your face” shows, began to appear faster than we even cared. Anne Robinson, voted the rudest woman on television at the time, appeared in a black cape on The Weakest Link, and when contestants were voted off by treacherous competitors, she snapped “Goodbye” and they then had to deal with a bad-bye knowing that their peers had just rejected them. The reality of rudeness was just beginning. Apprentices are embarrassed before a nationwide audience: “You’re fired.” Martha Stewart frames it differently on her version of the same show: “You just don’t fit in!” On The Starlet, losing hopefuls are told “Don’t call us; we’ll call you.” The Law Firm lawyers are told: “The verdict is in; you are out!” The Assistant: “You are clipped.” Project Runway: “Either you’re in or you’re out. And you’re out.” I Want to be a Hilton: “You’re not on the list.” The Cut: “You’re out of style.” Somehow “reality” became associated with rudeness and incivility. Political talk shows at the same time escalated their overheated rhetoric to mimic the times. To produce a reality show was to produce a show based on fierce, cutthroat competition and where the loser was not allowed to depart with grace or dignity but instead was required to suffer the further indignity of a verbal undressing before being dissed and dismissed. There’s a reason why we call the worship space a “sanctuary.” No wonder people who attend church often say that a major reason they attend is to find a safe space where they can escape the wrangling of the political world, where this sort of reality can be, at least for an hour or so, “left behind.” The only rapture they’re interested in is one in which they can be lifted out of the malodorous and maledictive atmosphere in which they have to live day in and day out, and for a few moments live, breathe, and worship in a benedicitve experience in which congregants say to each other: “You are blessed.” Or, “You are forgiven.” Or, “Go in peace.” The worship wars — for example — continue apace. Professor Tom Troegger, then at Iliff School of Theology, now at Yale Divinity School, noted in these pages the irony of a religious institution such as the church embracing the nomenclature and imagery of “war” to describe our discussion about music and worship in the church. Strange indeed. Consider the word “benediction.” The Hebrew word for blessing, benediction — b’ra·khah, pl. b’rakhah·khot — comes from berekh (“knee”), thus making a connection between worship and kneeling. It’s hard to fight when you’re kneeling. It can be done, I suppose, but it’s hard. Perhaps the longing for benediction explains why St. George’s Episcopal Church in Arlington, Virginia, created an “urban abbey”— a sort of monastery without walls. People who sign on, commit themselves to a “monastic” rule that includes daily Scripture readings and prayers, monthly community service and some kind of annual spiritual program of renewal. When the “abbey” was launched, 30 people signed up. This is typical of the renewal taking place in churches that used to call themselves God’s frozen chosen. And according to David Roozen, director of the Hartford Institute for Religious Research at Hartford Seminary, it’s critical for church growth and improving the viability of mainline churches in decline. To answer the question as to whether increased use of so-called “spiritual” practices would encourage church growth, Roozen worked with certain indicators and ran them through a computer model that measures congregational health. He found that adopting spiritual programs — let’s call them benediction blessings — significantly increases the chances of measurable growth. What’s surprising is that this would surprise any of us, that we’d need a Lilly Foundation grant to spend beaucoup dollars to find this out! Imagine! People wanting to come to church to receive blessing, to be spiritually fed and renewed! That they’re turned off by what one member of the urban abbey at St. George’s says is “the church forgetting to be the church.” Let television and the world utter dire imprecations and maledictions on people whom they deem to be losers. Let the church and its people offer benedictions and blessings upon all those same people and ourselves. The LORD bless you and keep you;
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