Why
are we so afraid of emotion in our worship music?
Well produced but unbiblical music can give us a "spiritual
experience" without spiritual reality: we feel close to God
without the need for the accessories (like God's word and obedience).
But given those dangers we good evangelicals seem to have decided,
recently I think, to ration out our emotion in conservatively
levelled teaspoons rather than risk losing our hold on the
word.
This makes sense, given that words
are immune from abuse, whereas emotion
is strange and usually bad.
Except
we know the ‘given’ is rubbish. The pulpit can also easily lull
us into error, be it idle complacency or even wholesale false belief.
Compared to the minefield of oral theology with its tactful
qualifications and reassuring retranslations of the NIV, the hazards
of emotion seem easily navigable. It's
hard to think of a case where a person who has passed from death to
life can go wrong with Joy.
If we are happy, then we should sing songs of praise (Jas 5:13).
Done. We can be serious about the
word,
and excited beyond verbal expression about it’s consequences at the
same time.
Songs
are not memory aids. Nor are they declaratory statements of truth put
to music. They certainly are meant to edify us, but unlike anthems
and war cries they are sung to a true and living God. Likewise
thankfulness is not the only reason we sing. In the first place we
sing because God is God, and is worthy of our worship and praise even
before we get to the specifics. Singing is a very important way we
worship God. Hebrews 13:15 exhorts us to “through
Jesus… continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise–the fruit
of lips that confess his name”.
Not that praise or sacrifices of any kind can make us right with God,
but that being made right with God we can happily fulfil our purpose
in creation: to bring glory to God, and to honour Him in everything.
Songs
teach us, but they teach us best when they speak to our hearts. It is
the language of feelings, yes, but feelings with the depth which only
comes from the solid grounding of truth. Very often songs tell us
what we have known since Sunday school, but with a freshness and
immediacy that cuts straight to our hearts. “Rock of Ages cleft for
me" is impossible to sing without someone crying. The melody is
pretty. It is poetry, by which I mean it opens
up
meaning
with an elegant few words. But it’s
the truth which brings the tears.
Good songs should be written as
songs.
Everyone knows the difference between prose and poetry, song lyrics
and deductive reasoning. We often look to the epistles for verbatim
musical texts. It's not wrong. But it often makes weird songs
(‘therefore’ is not a musical word). Your
love Oh Lord
almost didn't make the Ancon bus because we worried about lines like
"shadow of Your wings". God doesn't have wings, we
reasoned, and the symbolism just pushed too many "pentie"
buttons for a meaty evangelical conference. Then we realised that
line appears in every second psalm, felt a bit silly, and decided our
buttons might need repositioning.
Finally,
good worship music should be as singable as the
best hymns.
Who wants to sing at church like a self conscious teeny-bopper might
sing to the radio? Musically it is a completely different kettle of
worms. Behold
the Lamb of God
is still alive and rocking EU camps 15 years on because it's not
written as a pop song, it's written as a church song. And that means
rock solid melody. Love it or hate it, you can’t forget it…
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