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Last week, after church, I heard several ladies talking about the music that was sung during the service that had just ended. They said how much they liked the song selection and how upbeat they thought the songs were. Some of these women were among those who I know have earlier said how the praise songs make them feel so uplifted. Since my church has become too small to have two services, one traditional and one more contemporary, the service now features hymns and psalms during the service and then two to three praise songs after the sermon to finish up the service. Occasionally there are praise songs played before the service starts as well. For many years it was been well known by my family members that I extremely dislike praise songs. However, after a conversation I had with a college friend toward the very end of the school year last year, I have felt that I should make my opinions less private and more public. Grove City College features a form of contemporary worship called “Warriors” every Thursday night. I have always felt a bit guilty for not going because the worship is so popular among fellow students. I was relieved, however, to find out that my friend equally disliked contemporary praise songs. Based on the conversation that we had, I have come up with several reasons why I have come to so dislike praise songs.
I remember, several years ago, reading an article about an atheist who auctioned himself off to people of several religions. Whoever won the auction, the atheist agreed that he would follow them in their religious practices for an extended period of time. The winner of the auction was a pastor. After the atheist’s tour of several churches, he remarked how he disliked the music. He said that many of the songs sung were on the level of something a child would sing. Something that was really worried me lately is how intellectually lacking many of today’s churches are. While there has been resurgence in interest in religion since the 1980s, much of that interest has been superficial and has lacked an intellectual base. As I turned 18 a few years ago I had a real spiritual crisis as I felt the church had not properly prepared me intellectually. This problem is no more evident than in praise songs. While hymns of old contain so much doctrine and spiritual truth, most praise songs are reduced to nothing but mantras. Compare, for instance, a praise song and a hymn sung last Sunday at my church:
Blessed Be Your Name (excerpt)
Blessed be your name – In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be Your name
When I’m found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed be Your Name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be your Name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name.
Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
Oh, to grace how great a debtor,
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let thy grace, Lord, like a fetter,
Bind thy wand’ring heart to Thee:
Prone to wander, Lord I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love.
Here’s my heart Lord,
Take and seal it
Seal it for thy courts above
The first song says two things: praise God in times of plenty and praise God in times of want. However, that is all the song is about. This message is then repeated in every verse and the bridge. The second song, the hymn we learn 1. Man is constrained to be a debtor due to Christ’s forgiveness, 2. God will bind our wandering hearts to Him, 3. This is because, even Christians who love God, are prone to wander, 4. God will take our souls and seal them for all eternity in heaven. Moreover, none of these themes are repeated in the hymn. Verse one is a call of praise, verse two explains why the hymnist is praising God and verse three is the hymnist’s prayer. Many hymns contain such deep and rich biblical truths and sound doctrine. I would encourage you to read Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, Crown Him with many Crowns, A Mighty Fortress is our God, O God, our Help in Ages Past, Onward Christian Soldiers, and, my favorite hymn, Be Thou My Vision (See below). My chief problem with praise songs is that they tend to be shallow and repetitious. Notice, in Blessed Be Your Name, the constant repetition of “blessed be.”
That brings me to my second problem with praise songs. The repetition and upbeat melodies tend to, psychologically, make a person emotional. I cannot help but think of the World War I American propaganda song “Over There!” that was intended to raise support for the war in Europe. When these things happen, it can be dangerous because it make a person feel that he or she is truly being pious when, in fact, it is merely an upbeat song causing emotion in a person and not true conviction. It bothers me when many Christians who like praise songs think themselves truly pious because they can get a so-called “spiritual high,” completely with hand raising, from these songs yet do not understand even the fundamentals of the Christian faith and live a life that is far from “worthy of the calling we have received.” When emotional praise songs substitute for real piety we are being seriously mislead in our Christian walk. Next time you are listening to an upbeat song on the radio or on your iPod that is repetitious, check your emotions and see how similar they are to when you listen to a praise song.
Lastly, praise songs are in the arena of popular culture. The Church does not belong in realm of popular culture. Popular culture is the realm of commercialism and I absolutely abhor people who try to “sell” Christianity. Christianity is a historic religion. It is not some fad that will quickly pass away. High culture, like hymns, can be appreciated by all generations but the praise songs will one day become obsolete and a future generation will not be able to appreciate them because they belong to an era of pop culture that has long since ended. Imagine listening to praise songs done in the likeness of Frank Sinatra or Buddy Holly songs. I feel incredibly uncomfortable praising the Lord in a song that contains music that could be used to sell pop or hair products. Finally let me say that I believe hymns are much better for reverence, which is a very proper thing to do in a service. They are slower and beautiful. They allow you to focus on what the words are saying, something I do not feel is always possible with praise songs.
I would like to say also, due to the popularity of such songs, that I do not feel that such songs are unbiblical or evil. Also, I do not believe that just you prefer praise songs to hymns that you are a lesser Christian. The above is my opinion only and I will not try to throw Scripture at you to show that you are unbiblical for worshipping with such songs. I only ask that you consider the above and see if you don't come to the conclusion that traditional forms of music are more conducive to worshipping our Lord God.
Hi there. I'm the atheist who went to all those churches :) A friend alerted me to your site. I completely agree that the songs are not very intellectually stimulating. Thee's no poetry or metaphors... it's just sort of chant-like. And, thus, boring. That's not to say some songs aren't catchy, but Britney Spears has more depth in her songs than much of what I've heard in church.
ReplyDeleteI think you need to be careful not to brush all "contemporary praise" songs with the same brush. Your argument, while based in truth, it too extreme and leads to two logical conclusions that I don't you think you mean them to.
ReplyDeleteThere are many Psalms themselves that are repetitions of praise refrains that don't necessarily teach any deep spiritual theology. It's proper to praise God in a variety of forms. To say that every song sung to God in praise has to contain some deep theological message is an extreme position that doesn't withstand reasonable Biblical scrutiny. The beings in heaven in Revelations themselves sing "praise" music of the "mindless" variety you describe (See Revelation 4). I don't subscribe to people who get a "spiritual high" by waving their arms around to catchy music, you can't discount people who feel closer to God by signing praise songs.
Also, calling modern worship songs as "contemporary" is a logical fallacy because you're taking a very narrow view of history. What's "contemporary" in Christianity? As you point out, there's roughly 2000 years of history of Christian worship. What about songs sung before 1700? Why is what we now think of as "classical hymns" treated as some ultimate era of song worship? Why is 1700 - 1950 some special body of work? Why aren't we signing mono-tonal Gregorian chants? What about Syriac Christan folk songs? What about the Aramaic equivalent of "Mighty Fortress" sung in 3rd century Rome based on the lute? The church used to teach that anything but mono-tonal chanting was wrong and heresy.
A final consideration to remember is that hymns used to be one of the few ways to teach illiterate people theology. In past times, wide swaths of the population were at least functionally illiterate if not completely illiterate. Songs packed with theology were a way to teach theology is memorable ways. That doesn't need to be completely abandoned but shouldn't be given such dramatic importance in a culture where Christian Education is widespread and virtually everyone is very literate (based on historical standards).
II appreciate your feedback Jason, it helps me think clearer about the stances I take the reasons for them. However, I maintain my position. My main argument is that praise songs are done in a manner that conjures up raw emotion. I do not want to label every hand-raiser as fake, but I certainly think that that the style of music is conducive to people raising their hands not out of true conviction but because they are "caught up the moment." I also do not have a problem with repetition. My problem with repetition in praise songs is not that it is un-biblical but that it is employed, along with a kind of music, in a way in modern times that produces nothing but emotion. Modern man has discovered how to psychologically stimulate his unsuspecting fellow man to produce a selected emotional response. I do not think that praise songs intentionally do this, but they do do it. Maybe you have just been around more pious praise song advocates than I have. When I compare the people attending the more traditional services at the two Grove City churches I have attended during school with people at my current church and students from Grove City who attend contemporary services, I find greater hypocrisy among the praise song crowd. I find a body of people who think that because a certain emotion is stimulated in themselves that they are truly pious. Their emotion has blinded them to their great spiritual problems in their everyday lives. Again, let me stress that this is NOT every person, or even a majority of people, who likes praise songs, but is many.
ReplyDeleteMy second point is that many churches institute contemporary services to be "cool." I've seen this with a local church in Butler, which I will not name, that has grown to immense size because of its ability to present itself as the "hip church of Butler." It's the place to be. Yet most of the incoming people who go there have no theological commitments whatsoever. They don't go there because they agree with the church's theology. They probably don't even know the church's theology. They go because it's the "happenin' place to be" on a Sunday morning. Like I said this smacks of modern consumerism. We should not try to "sell" Christianity.
I would object to your statement that I am canonizing songs done from 1700 to 1950. The hymn that I have printed below, which I reference as my favorite hymn, dates from Ireland in the 8th century. My favorite Christmas hymn is O Come, O Come Emanuel, which is a medieval hymn. There is also Luther's great hymn "A Mighty Fortress is Our God," that I mentioned, which is from the mid 1500s. I also have no problem with chanting. In fact I would like to hear choirs do more of it. I would also like to see many songs from pre-1700 included in hymnals such as the Aramaic and Roman-era songs you mention. The reason that the church was so down on more musical forms of worship was because their concerns mirrored mine. They worried that the songs/chants would become more about the music than what the song was actually saying. However, I do believe that the church was being too strict. When I used the term "hymn" I was using a specific term too broadly. There are also hymns which I dislike for many of the same reasons I dislike praise songs. There also may be some "praise songs" which I find as acceptable as "hymns." So, I admit, I was using the two terms too broadly.
ReplyDeleteFinally, I do not feel that every song must have a DEEP theological message. I just ask that it has some and that it is at least different from every other song. And I understand why hymns were originally sung. While it is true that modern people are more literate, I do not think that people are greatly more theologically literate. At the very least, they are not as theologically literate as they could be given the great amount of education and information offered to them. Songs that teach doctrine couldn't be a bad thing in these times. The mellower tunes of traditional songs also allow more meditative opportunities. When I sit in GCC chapel on Tuesday and Wednesdays, the atmosphere is a condition that I can barely hear myself think. Yet when I attend vespers on Sunday nights I have experienced some of the most heartfelt connections with God and greatest theological insights of my life. Basically what I am fighting against is the creeping tendency of the church to emphasize raw emotion over intellect. I am certainly not against emotion but at least let it be emotion that is created because of rational thought processes and not because the music is making us feel a certain way.
I think you have some good counter points here and we'll have to discuss this in person in the near future. However one thing I caution you is to not draw too much conclusions from Grove Ctiy. It's a good school with a deserved excellent reputation but its religious activities are no more special that anyone else's. The same hypocrisy and legalism exists there that it does in many other places. In some ways, I think Grove City is worse because a lot of things (like Warriors! I couldn't stand some of the people that harped on Warriors) encourage people to push a legalistic "I'm a better Christian than you are because I do ___" where ____ is some program that they think you should do because it's "right".
ReplyDeleteBoy, you two give me a lot to think about. I just feel uncomfortable singing the praise songs, maybe because I don't know the song to sing it!
ReplyDeleteInteresting discussion...makes me think, that is for sure!
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