That Controversial ‘Messiah’
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Amid post-Olympics shifts in China’s attitude toward the West, the government decided that sacred music should disappear. “Quietly and without publicity, the Chinese authorities have let it be known that Western religious music should no longer be performed in concert halls. –
Christianity Today reports It’s an unexpected decision, and one for which there is no obvious explanation or trigger,” Catherine Sampson wrote in The Guardian. Even things that merely seem like Western sacred music — including Carl Orff’s decidedly unsacred Carmina Burana — have been stopped.
The ban may not last long, but it highlights the dual ambassadorship of religious art. Is an audience thoroughly engaged in Messiah a challenge to worldly authority? Is it worship? A threat to a secular Christmas? Part of a secular Christmas?