Westminster Cathedral and Smiley Faces

Easter is the day Christians remember that our God, Jesus Christ, resurrected from His grave. I always anticipate this special day because the way we celebrate the day in church generally leads to reflection and meditation on Christ. I always anticipate returning from Church with an imagined image of something like the picture below in my mind. For whatever reason man-made attempts to bring into life a sense of what heaven might be like seem to capture my sense of awe. Whenever I am in Cathedrals or Churches I can't help but think of the my Savior and His sacrifice. The photo is the interior of Westminster Cathedral, London, how could anyone think of anything other than the God of the Universe with this in their mind. 

This Easter was disappointing for me.  Of course I tried to the best of my feeble ability, to retain visions of grandeur in my mind as I went through the day, but the service I attended did not help. For some unknown reason this particular church thinks images like the one below flashed on the worship screens at the front of the church will not distract from the sense of awe we should have for what Christ has done for us.



The church I attended has ordered its' service so that  at the end of the service while the offertory is being played a power-point runs supposedly to announce the mundane activities of the church which is designed to entertain and amuse. This church also has a printed bulletin, given to every attendee, but obviously believes we are illiterate and cannot read it. The need for this redundancy escapes me. Having said that, however,  I think that most people today are image oriented - thanks to our television oriented culture - and tend to remember bits and pieces of information in reverse order. The last thing we see is the first thing we remember. So, as I left church on Easter 2010 the thing that I couldn't get out of my mind were the animated smiley faces and cartoons of fat babies flashing on those screens.

Here it is Wednesday, and still what I recall most prominently about this service is the above. I wish the last thing I had seen on the screens had been an image of the risen Christ ascending and not a post-modern, idiotic, childish, reminder that our true god appears to be ourselves and our cultural icons.I would rather have seen the picture below as the memorial memory for Easter service 2010.