Amy Welborn: "Participation"

Amy Welborn writes a thoughtful, non-polemical piece, entitled "Participation" (May 9, 2012), on two music books she discovered in her parents' stash that belonged to her great aunt, and what these teach us about church music before and after the late 60's and 70's.

In the email sending me the linked post, a reader comments:

The transformation coming out of the sixties and seventies was amazing. I recall in the Methodist Church I grew up in a fixation with "Lord of the Dance" and leotard-clad liturgical dances, which made far more people uncomfortable than comfortable. (the lead dancer, a great friend and strong believer, is now in L.A. and agnostic/New Age, scornful of all traditional belief.)

But along side this, there was indeed genuine renewal, Lay Witness weekends, and the excitement over the fact that religion could mean relationship and not just "church" or the terrain of the clergy. For many this did not mean any contradticition with "duty." For others, the whole thing was about experimentation and civilized revolution under the guise of church structures. In Protestantism, a democracy, there could always be vocal dissent. As I watch now, I see that in Catholicism, a conciliar victory meant institutional approval, which was far more impossible to stave off.

[Hat tip to J.M.]