For generations, we have been complaining that people are leaving our churches, especially the young. Why are they leaving, and where are they going? A sociological study may soon provide some answers. The matter is tricky, because respondents may not always want to admit, even to themselves, why they leave a church or religion. But for now, we can at least guess at some of the excuses and outcomes.
To those who have rejected “organized religion” altogether, the great American Sunday brunch culture beckons. It’s much more fun to be swilling margaritas with your friends than sitting with a bunch of old people listening to a sermon about fasting and repentance. For more thoughtful souls who nevertheless feel something is missing in the Ukrainian churches, the great American marketplace of religions offers a variety of alternatives. “Spiritual” types may gravitate to New Age cults or varieties of Buddhism. Within the Christian sphere, the Episcopalians offer social prestige, the Evangelical Baptists an accessible theology, the Pentecostals an uninhibited emotional experience, the Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) a morally and physically healthy lifestyle, strong families and social solidarity. One can even escape one’s Ukrainian church without crossing creedal borders: for Catholics, the Latin-rite Roman Church offers ethnically neutral fellowship, a committed cadre of youth, and a true intellectual elite; Orthodox who find the Ukrainian language or identity an impediment may find a home in the Orthodox Church in America.
But to some, the chief problem with the Ukrainian churches is their ritualism. To the modern mind, “rite” and “ritual” connote barbarism and savagery, mumbo-jumbo and sacrifices to stone idols. Surely the Reformation did away with all that. If the backwards Catholics and retrograde Orthodox still worship statues and pictures, at least here in America they tone it down. In fact, two of my most earnestly God-seeking friends rejected the Ukrainian churches in part because of their ritualism – one because she found it pompous, the other because she found it incomprehensible.
If ritualism is characteristic of a primitive religion, one would expect the older ones to have left it behind. But if we look at what is arguably the world’s oldest religion, we see that this is anything but the case. Hinduism, which has existed for some 3,000 years, is rife with ritual. Like Christianity and other faiths, it has rituals for blessing, greeting, purification, veneration, sacrifice, contemplation and commemoration. These are not limited to formal places of worship, but extend to public space as well as to the home. Ritual is central to popular festivals like Holi, Durga Puja and Vasant Panchami. Nor are all the celebrants ignorant villagers. In India, one of the world’s most technologically advanced countries, prosperous Sikh and Jain merchants and manufacturers as well as high-tech Hindus maintain shrines in their homes and perform traditional ceremonies. In the large Indian diaspora in the United States, with an educational level higher than that of the average American, Diwali festivals in New York and Seattle are major events.
This is not surprising. Humans need ritual – not only as a symbol, or as an act considered pleasing to God, but as a concrete expression of spiritual intent. Just as a handshake manifests trust, or a slap on the back denotes friendship, so rites and rituals externalize the movements of the soul, giving them visible form. Standardized, they enable people to worship collectively. Moreover, they are believed to be a non-verbal form of communication with the divine. Naturally, rituals vary a good deal from religion to religion, culture to culture. But from the solemn veneration of the Mother of God in the Byzantine Christian rite to the frantic exuberance of a procession honoring Ganesha the Hindu elephant god, there stretches a continuum of spiritual expression as varied as humanity itself.
Not all rituals, of course, deserve to survive. Today’s Western media are full of stories of religiously based African and Asian customs that discriminate against women, perpetuating the injustices of male-dominated societies. Though we need not censor our traditions, we should be selective.
But why do some people find our Ukrainian church rituals uninspiring? One problem, peculiar to Greco-Catholics, is the admixture of Latin forms. This disrupts aesthetic coherence and comes across as not quite genuine. Another problem is that we have forgotten our rites. Since the Second Vatican Council encouraged Eastern Catholics to rediscover and cultivate their several traditions, including our Byzantine rite, we have tried to revive long-neglected customs and services. This has meant educating both our clergy and ourselves. Children’s catechism alone cannot provide the requisite level of understanding. How many church attendees fathom the significance of every word and gesture of the liturgy? If we did, we would not experience our “long” services as bored spectators at a charade whose meaning we can only guess, but as participants in a sensory drama. For these are “texts” rich with layers of meaning, which we can barely absorb as the words, the song, the choreography of priest and deacons proceed, amidst the scent of candles and incense, to their eucharistic culmination.
Another problem may be that we have confined ritual to sacred space. Historically, the church has often struggled with “popular religion” – sometimes encouraging it, but trying to control it when it threatened to revert to paganism. But too much control kills. Stiff and somber, restricted to a single time and place, religious expression can die. To live, it must be free to erupt into our public arenas and especially into our homes. There, it is not just a folkloric curiosity to amuse children and Americans. It is precisely because our Christmas, Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost rituals are brimming with significance that we can celebrate them in a spirit of confident gladness, not tiresome obligation.
The problem, then, is not too much ritual. It is our own ignorance and neglect. If we can overcome that, we might not even have to worry about anyone leaving our churches.