One thing most of the cool
Christians my age seem to find agreement on is that contemporary church music
is cheesy, manipulative of emotions, and overall not nearly as good as it used
to be or one day could be again. You hear this all of the time, as well-meaning
Christians struggle to control their disdain for Christian radio and other such
enterprises. And I get it, and feel the same way a lot of the time. (Jeremy
Pierce, writing in the now shuttered First Things blog Evangel,
nailed people like me and all of these other dissenters to the wall a couple of
years ago with this truly
excellent post. If you get anything out of this post, let it be
this.) For me what is most lamentable, though, about the current state of
Christian music isn't how cheesy or "positive" it is, but how much it
is exactly like the music of the world. Really, it's true. Listen to a pop
music station and then listen to Christian radio and see if, apart from lyrical
content, you can tell any difference at all. This lack of originality is
unfortunate and unfitting for people who see themselves as filled with the
Spirit of a quite creative God.
But another thing people seem to take aim at is the emotional
response provoked by contemporary worship songs. You know what I am talking
about: the songs with the mindless lyrics that you repeat ad
nauseum while the music swells in the background and, darn't, you
just can't help but lift your hands in worship. This critique finds eloquent
expression in Jordan
Bloom's article in The
American Conservative (non-subtle plug: if you are a conservative in
the sense of holding traditionalist views, such as respect for the land,
appreciation of both the basic dignity of all humans as well as our fallenness,
and essentially hold to the ethical traditions of the great faiths of the past,
and are not conservative in the sense that whatever big business decides to do
next is awesome, subscribe to The American Conservative; it is
truly fantastic). Bloom takes aim at the emotionalism and manipulation at work
in the band Mumford and Sons. There is an ironic note to make here: most all of
the cultured Christians I have been around who disdain contemporary Christian
music freaking love Mumford and Sons, a band who quite unashamedly practices
the same things they purport to hate when they are done by Chris Tomlin or
Hillsong. Perhaps it is the British accent or the fact that Mumford isn't
afraid to throw out an f-bomb every now and then to show just how dern serious
they are, but in any event hanging outside a venue before a Mumford show you
are likely to see a lot of the cool Christian kids with beards and skinny jeans
and iPhones talking about how more "spiritual" music (we can't be
attaching labels like Christian to a band like Mumford) should sound like this.
And to them I say, I've got a Creed album to sell you. (Full disclosure: I dig
Mumford and Sons.)
But I take issue with some of Bloom's complaint. Mostly, the
idea that worship music shouldn't be laden with emotion. Presumably austere,
Orthodox style music with lots of chanting is the ticket. Don't get me wrong,
Bach is great. We listen to him over dinner most every night. People will still
be listening to Bach in 200 years. I don't think they will be listening to
Hillsong or Lecrae or Mumford and Sons, or, God help us, anything else on pop
stations. But I don't like the notion that because Bach is great we should only
listen to Bach. This is akin to the notion that you should only watch movies
from the AFI Top 100 or read books that were put on a list by Mortimer Adler. Sure,
you should watch Citizen Kane, and, yes, everyone should read them
some Plato at one time or another, but it does not follow immediately from this
that you should not watch Dawn of the Dead or read Stephen
King. Both of those, in fact, should be done as well.
As to the substance of Bloom's complaint, that worship music is
cheaply manipulative and emotional, Jonathan Edwards took care of this one far
better than I ever could have some 300 years ago. The New England of Edwards'
time was aflame with revival and, as revivals are wont to do, this one
encouraged some rather grandiose displays of religious fervor, prompting the
polite and thoroughly British inhabitants of the area to bristle at all of this
barbaric emotion. Edwards, writing in a tract called, aptly, "Some
Thoughts Concerning the Revival," has this to say: "I should think
myself in the way of my duty to raise the affections of my hearers as high as I
possibly can, provided that they are affected with nothing but truth, and with
affections that are not disagreeable to the nature of what they are affected
with."
Now Edwards isn't endorsing people dancing with snakes or
shouting weird things while waving flags, necessarily. What he is saying is
that if God is really as awesome as the Bible says he is, grace is as great and
freeing as promised, and Jesus really will one day come back to make all things
new, then it is probably a fine response to be excited about these things.
Which makes pretty good sense. Bloom's thought that this type of emotive
response is all heart and no head strikes me as too simplistic as well as too
judgmental. How can he possibly know what is going through every worshiper's
head? And why is it wrong to get lost in reverie?
Edwards' point, and our goal, ought to be to be worshipers who
worship in spirit and in truth. Who love the Lord our God with all of our
heart, mind, soul and strength. To be able to raise up holy hands or bow our
heads reverently in awe of this world, the work of our Creator's hands, and his
promises to us.
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