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09/13/2004: "Picture, say, Frank Griswold doin' the Time Warp"
Ian Bradley, professor of practical theology at St. Andrews University in Scotland, has written a book in which he advocates the use of musical theater songs in church:
Churches have a great deal to learn from modern musicals and could usefully incorporate in their services the spiritual themes and the pastoral care they offer their audiences, a new book argues.
Startlingly, the thesis–said to be the first to take the theology of musicals seriously–is the product not of a showbusiness hack but a Church of Scotland minister and reader in practical theology at St Andrews University.
Ian Bradley argues in the book You've Got to Have a Dream, to be published next month, that musicals like Les Misérables and The Rocky Horror Show, not to mention more likely candidates such as The Sound of Music and Jesus Christ Superstar, now form a more common means for people to gain their philosophy of life and spiritual and theological perspectives than attending church.
The Beeb thinks highly of The Sound of Music, so why shouldn't the church?
In the cold war, seeking something to reassure the public in the event of a nuclear attack, the BBC lined up The Sound of Music as the first film that would be broadcast after the bomb dropped, the book says.
And that, I'm sure, would have been very comforting to the survivalists whose television electronics were lead-shielded against electromagnetic pulse. But maybe The Wizard of Oz is more your speed:
The musical version of the Wizard of Oz, filmed in the late 1930s as the US emerged from the depression, has in the words of one commentator, the clear message: "Believe in yourself, stick by your friends, fight for what's right and things will get better."
"Believe in yourself"–yes, I can see why you'd want to use that in a C of E service, what with God being so passé in many Anglican parishes.
The author admits: "I have myself sung from The Sound of Music while preaching in an Anglican cathedral, and from Les Misérables, Godspell and Whistle Down the Wind in school chapels. We could and should be using show songs much more...as worship songs in their own right as well as triggers for prayer, sermons and reflection."
Of course, Bradley doesn't say exactly what you'd be worshipping if you used, say, "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" from Mary Poppins, or "Luck Be a Lady Tonight" from Guys and Dolls, or perhaps "Sweet Transvestite" from The Rocky Horror Show. But I reckon we can use our imaginations.
