Worship at the Doors of Perception
by S. M. Hutchens
Psychedelic churches offer a chemical enhancement and intensification of what nearly every church tries to effect on its worshipers in the first place: a “worship experience” in which the psyche is stripped of its normal and rational inhibitions and sense of the Real to achieve the satisfaction of unaccustomed exaltation. (Thus it must continually be advanced and improved upon, constantly added to and changed, for excitements wear off in time.) I see no reason why the majority of professing Christians should have any objections whatever to this, or claim that the drugged churches are any different in kind from what they are seeking in their own—it is the logical end of all “heart (i.e., splanchnic) religion,” of all enthusiasm. Here lies the reason for the utter failure of “liturgical renewal,” whether among Evangelicals or Catholics, whether high or crude—the poisoned Kool-Aid drunk automatically and with such gusto that it is presumed innocent unless proven guilty among those already predisposed to like its taste. The proof of its god is in the thrill.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
S. M. Hutchens is a senior editor and longtime writer for Touchstone.
subscription options
Order
Print/Online Subscription
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Order
Online Only
Subscription
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more from the online archives
31.4—July/August 2018
on the Brevity & Theology of Her Recorded Words by Judith Anderson
14.1—January/February 2001
The Christian Heart of Fatherhood
The Place of Marriage, Authority & Service in the Recovery of Fatherhood by John M. Haas
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
