Cambridge

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New York Times digs into 'The Messiah' and finds emotions, art, politics and very little Christianity

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Gentle readers, please allow me a second moment of reflection on the challenges of secular journalists attempting to cover news stories centering on great works of sacred choral music. I have, after all, been a choral musician since I was 6-years-old and I didn’t jump into journalism until I discovered that it’s hard to major in music at a major university if one cannot play the piano.

The other day, I took a look at a New York Times feature about the unsuccessful efforts at the KIng’s College at Cambridge University to carry on — damn the coronavirus, full speed ahead — with its world-famous Christmas Eve performance of “The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols.”

As you can tell from my snarky headline, I thought it was strange that the Times team didn’t include anything about the contents of this Anglican worship service, including the fact that the “lessons” are, in fact, lengthy passages of scripture. Thus, the headline: “New York Times asks: Did COVID shut down live festival of content-free lessons and carols?”

I didn’t expect a religion-beat story. However, I still thought it was strange (or, alas, not so strange) to completely skip over the religious intent and message of a worship service held in a chapel. After all, as noted in this Cambridge essay about the rite:

Wherever the service is heard and however it is adapted, whether the music is provided by choir or congregation, the pattern and strength of the service, as Dean [Eric] Milner-White pointed out, derive from the lessons and not the music. ‘The main theme is the development of the loving purposes of God ...’ seen ‘through the windows and words of the Bible’. Local interests appear, as they do here, in the bidding prayer, and personal circumstances give point to different parts of the service. Many of those who took part in the first service must have recalled those killed in the Great War when it came to the famous passage ‘all those who rejoice with us but on another shore and in a greater light’. The centre of the service is still found by those who ‘go in heart and mind’ and who consent to follow where the story leads.

So might these Bible passages about life, death, suffering and new hope have been relevant during the COVID-tide of 2020? Apparently, that is not a topic one could expect to read about in The New York Times.

But what about the even more famous scripture passages, images and themes in “The Messiah” by George Frideric Handel?

Surely the Times team couldn’t produce a feature story — “Meet the People Who Can’t Bring You ‘Messiah’ This Year” — about why this work is so important to listeners and performers without discussing the content of this sacred classic? Maybe a tiny splash of digital ink, like one or two paragraphs?


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New York Times asks: Did COVID shut down live festival of content-free lessons and carols?

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For a certain kind of Christmas music lover (tmatt raises his hand high) there are few words richer and more emotional than, “Once in royal David’s city, stood a lowly cattle shed. …”

The former choirboy in me — yes, there are fine choirs in some corners of Texas — has always tried to imagine the pressure on the boy soprano chosen to sing those words at the start of the annual Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols in the gothic chapel at King’s College, Cambridge.

Whatever the word “tradition” means in Anglicanism these days, tuning into the live radio broadcast of this rite is an example of something sacred that still plays an important role in British life. I mean, everyone is listening — including the Queen.

But in 2020 ... And what about that mutant variation on COVID-19 … Isn’t choral music really dangerous? … Of course the chapel is empty … Are there masks that match robes worn by the choristers? Etc., etc.

I’m happy to report that several news organizations thought ahead and wrote stories about the Christmas Eve challenges of COVID-tide, including The New York Times: “A Choir Tries to Keep Its Christmas Tradition Alive.”

The story starts exactly how you would imagine that it would start — with a rehearsal as the choir prepared for the ritual that everyone is hoping will be allowed to proceed:

CAMBRIDGE, England — On a recent evening, the 16 boys and 14 men of the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, stood in the gothic chapel where they perform, spread out in the flickering candlelight.

A few of the choristers gazed at the vaulted ceiling about 80 feet above them. Then Daniel Hyde, the choir’s music director, signaled that he was ready to begin, and all slipped off the masks they had been wearing to sing “I Saw Three Ships,” a sprightly carol that will be heard by about 100 million people. …

Each Christmas Eve, the choir’s “Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols” is broadcast live on radio stations worldwide, including about 450 in the United States.

What are the stakes here?

In a typical year, the choir performs in religious services in the college chapel several times a week and tours worldwide. It has sung the Christmas Eve carol service every year since 1918, and the event has become a cherished holiday tradition.


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Stephen Hawking explored the universe: Were the mysteries of his heart newsworthy?

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So here is the question of the day: Does it matter that famed physicist Stephen Hawking was -- as best one can tell from his complex and even impish way of expressing himself -- an atheist who still had moments when he could hint at doubts?

Does it matter that the mind that probed the far corners of the universe couldn't handle the mysteries of the human heart and that this pained him? After all, in an empty, random universe, there are no moral laws to explain the physics of love and attachment.

If you pay close attention to the major obituaries, it's also clear that Hawking's giant reputation and celebrity was the black hole that sucked some thoughtful coverage into nothingness.

On one level, I thought that some of the best material on Hawking's faith questions was found in a compact, logical sequence in The New York Times. As always, things begin with the book that made him a global phenomenon:

In “A Brief History of Time,” Dr. Hawking concluded that “if we do discover a complete theory” of the universe, “it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists.” He added, “Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of why it is that we and the universe exist.”
“If we find the answer to that,” he continued, “it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason -- for then we would know the mind of God.”

But Hawking kept writing and, as always, his opinions grew more provocative.

Nothing raised as much furor, however, as his increasingly scathing remarks about religion. ...
In “A Brief History of Time,” he had referred to the “mind of God,” but in “The Grand Design,” a 2011 book he wrote with Leonard Mlodinow, he was more bleak about religion. “It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper,” he wrote, referring to the British term for a firecracker fuse, “and set the universe going.”
He went further in an interview that year in The Guardian, saying: “I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”

So what is missing from that version of Hawking? What did the Times skip over in its main obituary?

The answer can be found over at The Washington Post, where the main obituary wrestled -- briefly -- with a faith angle in the other part of Hawking's life that produced headlines.


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Crane’s world: Atheistic thinker's tolerant theory of religion counters those 'new atheists'

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Crane’s world: Atheistic thinker's tolerant theory of religion counters those 'new atheists'

Fellow journalists, have no fear. Publishers Weekly assures us that an intriguing and newsworthy new book about religion is “enjoyable” and The New York Times finds it “lucid.”

This despite being written by a heavyweight philosopher and published by the intellectually elite Harvard University Press.  

The title, “The Meaning of Belief: Religion from an Atheist’s Point of View,” announces that author Tim Crane, raised Catholic in Britain, is, yes, a convinced atheist. But instead of preaching to his choir he seeks tolerance and disputes the contempt for belief from “new atheists” in media-beloved books like “Breaking the Spell,” “The End of Faith,” The God Delusion” and “God Is Not Great.”    

To Crane, atheists of that sort do not grasp the immensity and sheer humanity of religion, why the world’s 6 billion assorted believers are neither fools nor knaves, and why faith cannot be liquidated in our scientific age though many have tried -- whether through education, propaganda, prison, or executions.  

The Religion Guy has not (yet) read this book but alerts fellow journalists to the news potential signaled in coverage to date. Note especially the Times treatment by James Ryerson, whose Book Review columns cover university press offerings. 

Crane -- reachable via timcrane@ceu.edu --  is no slouch among philosophy professors. He just moved to Hungary’s Central European University after holding the Knightbridge chair at the University of Cambridge, and previously headed the philosophy faculty at University College London.  

He laments atheistic portrayals of religion as some unfortunate carryover from primitive civilization that tries to explain the cosmos in the way science does, as a result appearing “irrational” and “superstitious.” Instead, he figures, two natural factors underlie faith.


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