Tradition and excellence

I have been reading a book by Susan Hill, The Shadows in the Street, in fact a detective. But what was interesting to me is that the Dean of a large cathedral is one of the main characters. This Dean wants to do away with the beautiful traditional music in favour of modern wishy-washy songs, in order to attract more people. In the meantime the organist threatens to resign as the role of the choir is reduced to a mere nothing. So a kind of war is going on. Interesting, because that is something which we also see in our church in The Hague. I thought that Cathedrals wouldn't have such problems, cherishing traditional services and traditional music. Although, on second thoughts, I think Joanna Trollope in The Choir also mentioned this conflict and it was an important issue in that book.  I quote from Susan Hill who makes one of her female characters say:

 "... (the Dean) is evangelical-charismatic – what my mother would have called Low Church and I call happy-clappy. I daresay it has its place – but that place is not St. Michaels or any other of our great cathedrals which have a tradition of excellence in liturgy and music. That's what cathedrals are about - excellence. The best. It shouldn't mean being out of date or out of touch - times change, so do people. But change is not the same thing as wanton destruction...."

Apparently it is a universal problem, not just a problem in our corner of the world, where we now have to sing at least one gospel song in every service. Perfect for youth gatherings, but really not for worship in a church service. Is it an attempt to save what can be saved, to attract more people? But in our chaplaincy it doesn't seem to work that way, quite the opposite. People leave because there is no difference any more with any of the other evangelical churches. They came for the wonderful liturgy and the beauty of the services and the music. Destroy that and one destroys the church in the process.

I can't find the passage, but at one point someone, and I think it is even the Dean but it doesn't really matter, looks up in the cathedral at the beautifully carved wooden angels, brightly painted. That can't refer to any other cathedral but Ely, where in the north and south transepts the wooden roof is decorated with such angels. 

And on top of that one of the female characters, a doctor, is reading a book which was given to me by my Canadian friends, Gilead, by Marilyn Robinson, a very interesting and unusual novel, which has won the Pulitzer Prize. It is a novel full of spiritual force, a rarity amongst modern novels. I can't but admire and like Susan Hill.