Last Saturday I, like 14 million other people, watched the coronation of King Charles III.  Although I had never witnessed a coronation, the service struck me as appropriate and obvious.  I know from history (and from being a priest in the Episcopal Church which is part of the Anglican Communion) that the British monarch is understood to be the head of the Church of England and so a coronation steeped in church liturgy makes perfect sense to me.  As I watched the service, I had no problems recognizing it for what it is — a service of consecration.  In fact, the previous weekend I had attended the consecration service for a bishop and the similarities between the two services were unmistakable.  The coronation service is not only reminiscent of the service for the consecration of a bishop but is also similar to an ordination and celebration of new ministry service for a priest.  So, from my perspective, the coronation didn’t strike me as being odd, dated, or absurd. 

The next day I was talking with a friend and the coronation came up in our conversation.  My friend is someone who was raised in the church (in the American protestant tradition).  My friend’s observation was that, despite understanding the history, the coronation felt really archaic and odd.  My friend’s comment reminded me of the headline in The Atlantic’s coverage: “King Charles’s Absurd and Awe-Inspiring Coronation.” Both my friend’s observations and the title of the article struck me and caused me to reflect on the coronation and how it was experienced and is being interpreted.  In other words, I am intrigued by how our perspectives frame our interpretation of a collective experience.   

As I have thought about the coronation and the ensuing conversations (both personal and those recorded in the media), I am realizing that the coronation itself and the responses to it are touching on spiritual notions.  I realize that that statement may sound far-fetched.  Yet, spirituality is an intelligence — that is, a way of knowing.  Modern research has identified at least a dozen forms of human intelligence:  cognitive, emotional, moral, interpersonal, psychosexual, kinesthetic, self, values, needs, musical, aesthetic, and spiritual.  These diverse forms of knowing have developed in order to answer the various questions that life throws at us.  For example, cognitive intelligence enables us to deal with questions that concern the things of which I am aware; emotional intelligence address how I feel about things; needs addresses what I physically require for survival; moral intelligence addresses what I should do; and spiritual intelligence addresses the question of what is of ultimate concern.  In other words, it is our spiritual intelligence that enables us to assess what is meaningful and thus gives our lives purpose. 

And the primary way we express meaning and purpose is through our rituals — both individually and collectively.   It is through our rituals that we address that which is of ultimate concern and thereby create meaning and purpose in our lives.  Rituals may be very informal and ubiquitous — demonstrated by our customs (e.g., how we greet one another).  Rituals may be focused on a specific life event which marks a change in one’s phase of life or status (e.g., rites of passage, a “sweet sixteen party,” graduation, a retirement celebration).  Rituals may provide a sense of belonging and identity (e.g., baptism, a vision quest, naturalization ceremonies, or pass and review ceremonies).  And rituals may affirm one’s vocation and role within one’s group or society (e.g., an ordination service, a commissioning ceremony, or swearing in ceremonies for elected officials).  Rituals — individual or collective, religious or secular, formal or informal — are the ways by which we express matters of ultimate concern and thereby create meaning and purpose within our individual and collective lives. 

One of the challenges of our modern context is our collective dismissal of spiritual intelligence as a legitimate form of human intelligence.  Our dismissal of a fundamental human intelligence has impaired our ability to value rituals and grasp their significance in our lives.  Instead, we tend to understand rituals as nothing more than spectacles.  Yet, the two are distinct.  A ritual is a subjective experience or an engagement — there is no audience, only participants.  A spectacle is an objective experience or a performance for the discretion of the attendees.  This distinction is critical.  Whenever we fail to participate, to engage, or contribute there can be no ritual.  Any such ceremony becomes nothing more than play-acting and is devoid of meaning.

And this is why I think The Atlantic’s depiction of “absurd and awe-inspiring” accurately reflects the modern response to the coronation.  For those who observed it as mere spectacle, the pageantry is archaic, over-the-top, and absurd.  For those who participated or engaged themselves — not being merely observers or critics of a production — the coronation was steeped in history and meaning and offered a symbolic sense of community and identity. 

This recognition is important for the church to comprehend since, like the coronation service, our rituals are centuries old and are often viewed as mere pageantry rather than as a subjective experience in which individuals are active participants.  Without participation, a ritual is reduced to mere performance and is stripped of its meaning.  Too often our approach (by both clergy and laity) to Sunday morning worship is that of observance.  Little thought, if any, is given to participation and active engagement.  Even the physical space of our churches reiterates that the service is meant to be observed (I once attended a church development conference where the presenter stated that the typical worship space is laid out like a 747 and invokes the same expectation that one is to sit down, shut up, and look forward.). Any involvement of the congregation is typically an afterthought and relegated to participating in the singing of hymns.  If the church is going to reclaim any relevance within our culture, we must once again take ritual seriously and reclaim the participatory dimension of the liturgy.  And we must use language and symbols that are relevant for our context and time.  Otherwise, society’s reaction to the church will be the same as that to King Charles III’s coronation:  absurd and awe-inspiring (with the emphasis, as in the article, being on the absurd).