Tradition!

 First published in Column 8 on the 1^st May 1991

 The Anglicans have been in the news lately, what with New Zealand doing its bit in favour of women bishops, and trad Englishmen getting uptight over the use of non-trad instruments, at the new archbishop’s enthroning.

I’m all for a bit of solemnity myself, particularly when it comes to ceremonies of some importance, such as weddings and coronations and, I suppose, enthronements.

My wife and I went to a wedding a while ago, and were amazed by the minister’s seemingly casual and off-hand approach to the whole thing, especially to the bride. I think if it had been my wife and I getting married, we might have gently reminded him of the seriousness of the nuptial state, all due respect to his position.

On the other hand I wasn’t bothered when my mate Kiri te Kanawa caused a bit of a stir at the wedding of one of the royal offspring. Her dress and hat were nothing less than sartorial versions of synthesisers and saxophones, about which there’s more below.

(I’d like to do an occasional bit of name-dropping in this column, but Kiri’s the only person of importance whose name I can honestly drop.)

Back to the archbishop’s enthronement. There was bound to be some controversy. He hasn’t exactly leaned on ceremony in any other area of his bishopric, and I don’t suppose this ‘burly football fan who enjoys a pint of beer’ (as one report has it) was likely to start at his archbishopising.

(Incidentally, his photograph doesn’t show a particularly burly person, just a rather chubby one – in a cherubic kind of way. And according to one less biased report I read, he and his wife find the quiet of the pub garden a reasonable place to pray. Try doing that in a New Zealand pub!)

News reports about the enthronement said trad musicians believed saxophones and synthesisers and Gospel music – instead of an organ and choristers – would destroy the solemn atmosphere inside the cathedral. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect from people who think church music reached its peak in Palestrina’s day (1524 to 1594, for those who have to know. AD, that is.)

Incidentally, traditionalists forget that the organ, the instrument supposedly always found in churches, is a relative newcome itself. There was a time when even earlier trad people threw up their hands in horror at the thought of such a noise in church.

It’s this excessive traditionalism that puts people off going to such churches. And in the end it turns those churches into museums. I rather think that’s exactly the kind of thing the new archbishop is out to avoid.

Churches that are no more than monuments exist all over the world. We even have the problem with beautiful old churches here in Dunedin. The congregation that had the vision to build the place dies off, leaving generations further down the track with the upkeep of a work of art, which is miserably cold in winter and impossible to heat.

In the end the place becomes little more than a tourist attraction and has to pay its way in a manner quite out of keeping with its original purpose.

God and the congregation have usually moved on long ago, and may well be found elsewhere playing music with ‘unsavoury associations,’ on guitars, synthesisers and saxophones.

As I said, I’m all for a reasonable solemnity, but I’m not into tradition. Trad people love to put a damper on anything that has the smell of life about it. And life is something that dear old George – I’m sure he wouldn’t mind me calling him by his first name -  has plenty of.

Westminster Abbey choir