Denatured Worship

And so we move on to this morning's enlightening something spiritual with an illustration nobody else understands.
I've been thinking about the use of the word "feminisation" with respect to worship - in particular with respect to Vicky Beeching's post here. And decided that feminisation is possibly not such a good word to describe things like singing the chorus "Jesus is my boyfriend", holding hands in circles and lighting scented candles. And that's not because these things aren't utterly repellent to most males, particularly of a working-class background - because they are. They're not that pleasant to many females either - maybe it's just that our more subtle brains can better sublimate the experience of holding hands with someone who's added sweaty hands to their whole "just done 10 hours working on the fish counter" demeanour, into an experience of one-ness with the Communion of Saints. And, through more experience and better emotional intelligence, have more nuanced ways of dealing with someone whose hand-holding is - let us say - more friendly than holy.   Whereas for men the alternatives are limited to (a) frozen fear (b) instant recourse to violence or (c) inappropriate and possibly guilty pleasure.
But I'm straying from the point. Let me take you to the world of protein structures. Proteins are amazing things, as anyone who's spent the small hours of the morning looking at the trimeric symmetry of an influenza H2 protein can tell you.
It seems to me that protein structures can tell us a lot about worship. Loosely, there are four ways in which amino acids stick together. First up is the strong covalent bond which is born when the protein is first founded in the protein-forge of the cell. The long peptide chains fold into local three-dimensional structures such as helices - then the whole structure folds into four dimensions* as it buries the hydrophobic elements into the centre of the protein structure. And then single protein macromolecules can bind together into sheets and other super-structures.
I hope you can see how this all relates to worship.
Denaturing a protein happens when some external but not uber-aggressive agent - such as heat - breaks up the secondary, tertiary and quaternary structures and returns the protein to - more or less - a single chain. The original peptide bonds - the strong, proper chemical bonds - are still intact, but all the lovely three-dimensional structures, held together by the delicate tracery of hydrogen-bonding and the blobby, indistinct Van der Waals forces, is lost. You can denature a protein in the privacy of your own kitchen, simply by poaching an egg - see how the optical character of the "white" changes as the protein denatures!
So my proposal, gentle ones, is that modernistic, ocarina-playing, gooey-gushy worship is not feminised. It is denatured. The heat of individualism, the unnatural solution of modernism and the random radiation of post-modernism has broken down its secondary and higher structures . The relationship with God - the peptide link, if you will, of our worship - is still in place. But the super-structure of history, traditional Biblical interpretation, credal statements, the structure of the early liturgies, familial and social relationships and appropriate wearing of lovely lacy vestments is all lost. In such situations, there are still secondary linkages but they are chaotic and ad-hoc. All the shape we used to have is gone, and we are left with "oo God, you are great". Which is true, but lacking in real structure and substance.
And though poaching an egg makes it more digestible, there's no way anymore that it's going to produce chicken.
*I made the "four dimensions" stuff up to try and make molecular biophysics as interesting as proper physics. Although actually, being more complex, it's far more interesting. After all, it's not rocket science.