Trivialising the Sacred

Breda O'Brien

Issue 352, vol.88, Winter 1999

Occasions which would have been once seen as too sacred to allow the intrusive presence of media, are now set up to facilitate the needs of the media. [The radio commentator at the 1937 Coronation in Westminster Abbey] had to switch to another church for sacred music as the newly crowned King received communion, because it was considered too sacred a moment to intrude upon. One only has to contrast this with the near media razzmatazz of Diana's funeral, which even featured applause from the crowd at one point.

Meyrowitz examines what he calls the great leader phenomenon in relation to American presidents. He believes that the great leader mythology can only be sustained if distance can be maintained from the majority, if a leader is allowed to maintain mystique. Television bulldozes that distance away. We see our leaders sweat, fumble and doze. One of the most important effects of this levelling effect is the undermining of the notion of authority.

Another consequence of the levelling effect of mass media that militates against religious faith is that everything is reduced to the banality of a sound-bite. Neil Postman [says that] the jumbling of everything together and the treatment of all issues with the same degree of respect (or rather disrespect) ultimately renders everything trivial. It is Postman's thesis that television is an inescapably trivial medium, best suited to entertainment. Meyrowitz would concur, but he would also say the effect leaches out into every aspect of our lives, rendering everything and everyone small enough, metaphorically speaking, to fit on a screen. The decay of reverence, of introspection, is in no small way due to the all-pervasive influence of television.

The intrusion of television into every aspect of our lives also smashes the boundaries between the sacred and the profane. The levelling effect of media where everyone's opinion is just as valuable as the next is one which does not transfer easily to the world of spirituality. Or rather it does, but something is lost when the great traditions of the world religions become just somewhere to loot for spiritual soothers. To really find God everywhere, one first has to find God somewhere. It is just too easy to deceive oneself that one is being authentically spiritual, if the yardstick of a living tradition is not present. "If I am living within an authentic Christian community I will be challenged when I am deceiving myself. If I am supermarket shopping among the great world religions and picking what suits me, there is no one to call me to account, or to care for me". (Eamonn Conway).

What do we as Christians enshrine at the heart of our beliefs, Christ or the New Age ? If it is the latter, why do we go on calling ourselves Christian ? And if it is the former, why, oh why, are we so uninspiring ? The sacred is often trivialised within so-called orthodox Catholicism because we do not make the effort to make our worship beautiful and profound. The various "new movements" within the church such as Sant' Egidio and Focolare offer a sign of hope so long as they do not become mini-churches within the church. Many of these movements are the only encounter people have with the idea that Christianity is something which we live together. This is sad, because some people are in danger of never receiving the comfort and challenge of a real religious faith. What we really need is the courage to be out of step, to be politely mocked by the post-moderns for claiming that one can attain to truths which are not purely subjective. We need to see how community can be constructed in a shattered, frazzled, urban world of gridlock and escalating house prices and parents who desperately juggle work and child-rearing.
Breda O'Brien is a journalist and secondary school teacher.