Proprietary programs: fifty years ago, congregations bought the whole denominational program.
I was introduced to computers 15 years ago. Ralph Milton and I had recently started Wood Lake Books. We had no staff. If we wanted to get things done--anything from editing manuscripts to keeping track of invoices--we had to do it ourselves.Computers came along at the right time. Their software programs gave us the skills that once belonged exclusively to bookkeepers, typesetters and page designers. Without computers, we could never have succeeded as a publishing house. Because we had nothing invested in traditional equipment, we could move immediately into computers. It gave us about a five-year head start over our competitors.
In those days, though, computers were more primitive than they are now. Everything was "proprietary." If you bought a computer from Radio Shack, you also got their disk operating system (scornfully referred to in the trade as "Trash-80"). And that system limited you to their word processing program, their accounting program, their spreadsheet program ... It kind of restricted your options.
Things are different today. You can buy a computer from Compaq, an operating system from Microsoft, a virus scan from MacAfee, a drawing system from Corel, an Internet browser from Netscape, a screen saver from After Dark ... Nowadays, you mix and match to suit your particular requirements.
That's a paradigm of what has happened in the church. It simply took longer for churches than for computers. Some 50 years ago, if you belonged to a particular denomination, you bought their whole program. If you were Roman Catholic, you used the rhythm method, went to mass weekly, took catechism classes and obeyed the Pope. If you were Presbyterian, you believed in predestination (single or double), knew who John Knox was, and said "debts" instead of "trespasses" in the Lord's Prayer. If you were Anglican, you could find your way through the Prayer Book with your eyes closed, received Communion weekly, and thought history had given Henry VIII a bum rap.
I was teaching Sunday school in the early 1960s when the United Church came up with what it called its "New Curriculum." There was simply no question in our Christian education committee about what curriculum we would teach; being a United Church, we used the United Church program. Period.
In those days, you could easily recognize strangers and visitors to your congregation. Their software didn't match your hardware. They fumbled with their worship books, stood when they should have kneeled, didn't know what to do with holy water and forgot to genuflect.
But that's not the way it works any more. People pick a bit of a belief from here, a bit from there. They hold Baptist convictions about adult baptism, but attend a Lutheran church for the liturgy. They borrow a bit from Buddhism about internal attitudes, a bit from native spirituality about relationships with the environment, and practise transcendental meditation or t'ai chi.
Lots of people regret that change. They liked to have everything consistent. If, like me, you were confirmed as a member of the United Church, you bought the whole package--creed, curriculum and mission support. Or, rather, you bought what you imagined the package to be. That, in turn, depended pretty much on what your minister told you, because the United Church--to the constant consternation of its more conservative members--tended to be a bit of a buffet from the beginning. More so, at least, than most of the other denominations, which at least had traditional confessions, liturgies ... and statements of faith to keep everyone and everything in line.
Some people prefer to have their faith cut and dried. There is a kind of security in that kind of religion. You don't have to keep weighing this belief against that doctrine, this sacrament against that social program. You aren't constantly faced with confusing and complex choices. And there's a lot of comfort in that way of thinking.
But I remember those proprietary computer programs. They didn't give us many choices either. And we often had to put up with faulty, inadequate and incompatible programs. Because we had no choice.
None of us would go back to the proprietary computers of 15 years ago. Maybe we shouldn't keep yearning for the proprietary churches of 50 years ago, either.
Jim Taylor is a writer, editor and co-founder of Wood Lake Books.
ROB MAGAZINE But it was a two-step process?\parPRA
 Printer friendly
 Cite/link
 Email
 Feedback
| |
| Author: | Taylor, Jim (American writer) |
|---|---|
| Publication: | Presbyterian Record |
| Date: | Jun 1, 1998 |
| Words: | 722 |
| Previous Article: | Thanks for the memories: musings on the good, the bad and -- in the church. |
| Next Article: | National Ahab month. |
| Topics: | |