The rule of the day is entertainment. Entertainment is amusement, diversion, affording pleasure. That's how we see it. Churches are trying to inject entertainment into their services because our culture is centered on entertainment and if you don't compete with that, you won't get people in the door, right? So we have to aim to amuse (a word whose original intent is quite telling), to please.
I'm currently reading Handel's Messiah: Comfort for God's People by Calvin Stapert. Interesting book. It talks about the current events of the Messiah and about Handel himself and about the influences and about the meaning. I'm enjoying it. But one thing he pointed out I found quite interesting.
One person was reported to have told Handel after a performance of the Messiah, "You certainly entertained the people." Handel is said to have replied something to the effect that "If I only entertained them, I failed. I wish to make them better." In Handel's time, it seems, entertainment was not intended as amusement. "Amusement", you see, is based on two components. "A-" is the prefix that indicates "not", and "muse" is a word meaning "to think" or "to meditate on". From the Old French, amuser, it meant "to cause to be idle" or, in today's way of viewing it, the opportunity to not think for awhile. But not in Handel's day.
In his day the notions of "entertainment" and "education" were inextricably linked. The only valid purpose for entertainment was education. There were severe restrictions on "performances" and "entertainment" for that reason. Indeed, the primary purpose of education in that time was moral education. The intent was to teach right and wrong. Entertainment, then, was a "spoon full of sugar" that would help the medicine go down. You may, certainly, entertain, but you must do so for the purpose of teaching decent, moral values. That was the only valid purpose of entertainment.
We've come a long way, baby, eh? (You see, "progress" is not always "improvement".)
4 comments:
Very interesting post. I do this blogging thing for entertainment, but I like it for the fact that I can learn as well. However, a little diversion isn't a bad thing as long as it doesn't consume too much time. I do like the distinction you illustrate between entertainment and amusement.
I'm not nearly concerned with "a little amusement" as I am with how we've seemed to make it our national pastime.
This post has caused discussions in our living room. I have decided that when I put in a movie that is exactly what I hope to achieve, the turning off of my head for a while. It is so sweet, so sweet indeed!
Yeah, right, like you know how to turn it off.
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