Uncultured despisers

One of the great figures in liberal religion was Friedrich Schliermacher, whose work at the cusp of the 19th century was On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers. It is more the title than the substance of his work that I am thinking of.

I read a report of a movement on the Titanic, I mean, in the Church of England, to yet again revise its baptismal liturgy because the uncultured and secularized Brits don't get it. The reverends want to make the service "more accessible and interesting" to them when they show up for the magical rite. Apparently references to Moses and the Red Sea baffle them.

Reminds me of one Sunday after the high Mass when an irate Dutch woman, with her two school age boys in tow, scolded me for our using incense in the liturgy "because the children don't understand it." "Oh," said I, unsympathetically, "so they understand everything else? Anything else I need to get rid of for them?"

Trying to please people who despise you, cultured or uncultured, does nothing but make them despise you more.