What The Church Can Learn from Fringe Plays

Plus unauthorised fire, family Bibles and a brief digression about paper.

If you want something Christmassy, I’ve written over here about what ingredients Christmas movies need to give us those seasonal sensations - and how they are found in the original Christmas story.

I don’t want to get distracted by Christmas because in the last couple of posts (here, then here), I’ve been writing about the need to read the Bible aloud better in our churches. And it’s important we see the need in order go through the bother of the how. Because it is a bother.

Just for context, let’s take your average actor who is performing a one-person Fringe show that might be seen by an average audience of 12 over a two-week period. That’s 14 shows. That’s a total of 148 people.

For how long would that actor expect to rehearse that show?

Let us suppose he or she did it intensively, nine til five, for three weeks. Let’s give them an hour for lunch and some time to get in and out of a leotard. That’s still about 100 hours of rehearsal – for 1 hour show. So each minute is getting about 1 hour 40 minute of rehearsal.

I would expect there to be about 148 people at my church on a Sunday morning. Using the yard stick of an actor rehearsing a play that almost no-one is watching, how long is adequate preparation for that Bible reading? If it lasts 3 minutes, we’re looking at five hours. Yes. Five. Hours.

Who’s going to prepare for 5 hours to read from the Bible for a church service?

*buzzer* Yes, that’s the sound of a false equivalence klaxon. A theatrical performance involves paying money. It has to be ‘professional’.

I’d respond by saying, firstly, you’ve really not seen much Fringe theatre, have you? But secondly, your audience is not the paying public. It is not even the congregation of 148. It is the living God.

Nadab and Abihu Go Rogue

Look what happened to Aaron’s sons when they took a slapdash approach in the newly instituted tabernacle in Leviticus 10:

Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, contrary to his command. So fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.

Sure, God no longer expects blood sacrifices of physically perfect livestock and cleansing rituals that we find in Leviticus. That system has been done away with. But would it kill us to make some effort? It killed them not to do so.

Back to Now

The reality is most of us can read. And most of us can read aloud. Almost all of us could read a passage of scripture aloud with no preparation. And after we’ve sat down, the congregation would agree what we’ve said is what was written down. Put like this, it all sounds lumpen and prosaic. Because it is. We must to do better. Literally for God’s sake, if not our own. Although we benefit too.

*buzzer* Yes, that’s the sound of a false equivalence klaxon again.

Wait, I thought I’d turned that off. No? Oh, here’s the other false equivalence. It goes like this: a script is meant to be performed. The Bible is an ancient document that isn’t. It’s completely different so there’s really no comparison.

Wrong. Dead wrong.

Scripture is a script. It comes from an oral culture. Most people, throughout most of human history, have experienced the Bible aurally, that is, through their ears. In 2022, we’re surrounded by books, tweets, cooking instructions, leaflets and forms. Words are written down everywhere.

We might think that has been the case since the invention of the printing press five hundred years ago. Okay, well, let’s assume that’s true. (It isn’t.) But that means that for over 1400 years, the Church had to make do without books. And before the Church, Israel had to make do without books for over a thousand years as the Hebrew Bible was collated and read aloud.

No one was reading text for themselves and to themselves. For centuries, reading and writing was as highly specialised as writing computer code is today. It’s not just about literacy and control of ideas. It’s about the cost of paper.

Brief Digression about Paper. Bear With.

It was colossally expensive. Anything written down had to be as compact as possible. So you had scribes who wrote down small consonants with no gaps and made squiggles for vowels and breathing.

What this teaches us is that everything in the Bible is intentional, including the repetition. It had to be there for a reason or the paper costs were unjustifiable. So read the repetition. It must be important.

The text God has given us was fit for most people in history. And those people have experienced those words by hearing, saying, singing and memorising.

Brief Digression about Paper over.

Actually, no, let’s stay with the cost of paper. We assume that since Gutenberg started knocking out books in Germany, and Caxton in London, prices of books tumbled. Well, yes. Books went from being Rolls Royce-expensive to Ranger Rover-expensive. Most people couldn’t afford them. One reason was that paper was still very expensive. It’s only in the last couple of hundred years that that paper has become almost disposable.

That’s why a household would have a large, hard-backed family Bible and pass it down through the generations. It was still a very expensive item. And there was only one copy so it would be opened and read aloud to the family. That’s what Puritan ReadsTheBibleLoads Johnson would be doing every morning and evening every day. Oh, ReadsTheBibleLoads Johnson is a puritan I made up in the last post. I guess you had to be there.

My point is this: throughout most of human history, until practically yesterday, most people have experienced the Bible through listening. God has given us a text which takes that into consideration, because He’s gracious like that. Whereas we just moan that Stephen’s sermon in Acts 8 is a bit long, and we can probably lose a few bits in the middle.

What’s My Motivation, Love?

When it comes to reading the Bible aloud in church, we should note that an actor prepares carefully. He, or she, works hard to understand the text, the overall themes and the motivations of the characters. This takes time. Of course, he or she is working with a flawed text by a fallible writer. The church reader is working with a text written by the Author of Life, and the True Word.

Have I convinced you to take way more time preparing to read in church? I hope so.

We’ll get into the details next time, so why not subscribe? It’s free.

For now you can listen to Barry Cooper and I talk about it on the Cooper and Cary Have Words podcast.

Talking of Fringe plays, I wrote one about science and religion. It’s called The God Particle. It’s a romantic comedy and toured the UK five times, and was video captured rather brilliantly at the Merlin Theatre in Frome. You can get access to it. If you like my writing, I really think you’ll like this. And you’ll be supporting this substack. Thanks!