Music brings us closer to God?

There is a fascinating piece in the July edition of Eternity Magazine (an Australian church paper). The question is: 'Can music bring us closer to God'. Two songwriters who I respect immensely, Rob Smith and Ben Fielding answer differently.

On the side of "No and Yes" is the typically measured and balanced Rob Smith, a lecturer at Sydney Missionary and Bible College.  He points out that only Jesus can bring us closer to God: 'if as a resul tof the Holy Spirit's work in us we have come to put our faith in Christ, then we have already come to God and cannot come any closer in this age'. He draws our attention to Rom 5:1-2, 1Pet 3:18, Heb 12:22-24, Eph 2:13 and Eph 3:11-12. The once for all sacrifice made by Jesus when he sacrificed his own body for us is not to be repeated. On the other hand, once we have experienced this incredible grace, we are freed to continually 'draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water (Heb 10:21-22). To the extent that our singing involves the word of Christ dwelling in us richly (Col 3:16), we find a means of being filled by the Spirit with the fullness of God. He uses the analogy of a married couple having dinner together - it doesn't make them married, but does bring them closer.

Ben Fielding is a songwriter and worship pastor at Hillsong Church in Sydney. In the past I have had the benefit of Ben's generosity in sharing his insights on songwriting with a group of church music directors, and I was hugely impressed by his concern for good teaching through music. He takes a different angle to Rob. While Rob starts with the atonement and works backwards, Ben starts with creation and works forward through redemption to show how God uses creation, and music in particular, to draw people to himself in repentance and faith: 'God does use music to draw people unto Himself, to tell His story and beckon repentance.' He is talking, first, about music in general not just church music. It's a rich place to begin a theology of music. Yet he is working towards the same point as Rob - the two meet in the middle, at the Cross of Jesus:

Though music can be a wonderful, spiritual and powerful expression of God-given creativity, its importance must be held in the perspective of Jesus. It is Jesus who overcomes sin and makes a way to the Father. Nothing takes the place of Jesus - not the apostles, not the prophets, and not music. However, they are not in competition. Through Jesus we can boldly enter God's presence with worship and singing.

Music, then, can be a means by which the 'character of our faithful God' is declared. 'We should concern ourselves with presenting biblical truth that necessarily points towards Jesus.' The emotional expreiene of music should not, according to Fielding, be confused with the presence of God. It is the work of the Spirit that brings about repentance and change. 'Music enables us to turn to the Lord in agreement with one another as we sing the same words and melodies, powerfully depicting the unity that is taking place.' Music is used 'by God to draw us closer' - closer, he means, in the sense of drawing our gaze to the cross of Christ.

What a fascinating study in two able songwriters from different traditions arriving at the Cross together. 

What I love about Darlene Zschech's theology

I’ve never met her, but I have a huge amount of respect for Darlene Zschech. Until 2007 she was a pastor at Hillsong church here in Sydney. She still tours and leads a growing church in Newcastle. Leaving aside the obvious debt we all owe her for bringing worship music to where it has come worldwide, her discipleship and church leadership off stage has benefited some of my dearest friends.

At the same time, I believe it’s often fruitful to compare and contrast our respective theological positions on worship. Our respective traditions may have much to learn from each other. Realising that I don’t have all the answers either, in this brief blog post I also want to provide some friendly critique of her theology of worship as presented in Extravagant Worship.

There is much I love in her theology of worship.

1. Zschech is dead right in pointing out that worship is bigger than merely music. Worship is bigger than music. “Although music is a wonderful expression of worship, it is not in itself the essence of it. The core of worship is when one’s heart and soul, and all that is within, adores and connects with the Spirit of God.”¹
2. She is right to make Christian education a central goal in our music ministry: ‘make the Word memorable and settle the message into our hearts.’²
3. She presents a balanced view of the place of emotional response in music ministry: music is ‘not about stirring ourselves into an emotional frenzy’, but ‘corporate worship’ should help turn the congregation’s ‘eyes to the Lord.’³

Yet, I do want to suggest some possible tensions in her theology of worship which make me reluctant to adopt it wholesale without thinking it over some more. The biggest tension I detect is over the issue of ‘excellence’.

Zschech rightly puts great emphasis on excellence, something which I have often written about and agree on. Yet I’m more cautious about the reasons she gives for seeking excellence: ‘We are to serve God with excellence because we know an excellent God.’⁴ Like the high medievalists, Zschech wants to ‘enter the throne room of God’.⁵

Largely I think this theology is reactive against more mainline traditions (such as Anglicanism), which have been (I’ll freely admit) too afraid of excellence. She thinks this fear has ‘kept almost an entire generation out of the house of God’.⁶

And to her credit, this emphasis on excellence is qualified: we give our finest ‘at whatever stage your finest is.’⁷ We bring our gifts in a context of grace, and Zschech is too experienced a pastor to seek to establish a ‘performance-based Christianity’ on or off the stage.⁸

However I do take issue with some of the arguments she uses to bolster this argument of excellence. “Extravagant worship grabs God’s attention ... Throughout the stories in the Bible, whenever someone demonstrated extravagant worship, God reacted with extravagant blessing. It’s cause and effect. Extravagant worship brings extravagant results.’⁹

My nervousness about this is that I am very unexcellent! I’m not talking about the quality of music, even. The fact is that the excellence of our offerings, as God measures it, is entirely dependent on the heart. As Hebrews 10 points out, God has never been pleased by sacrifices or burnt offerings. Zschech obviously knows this, and so concludes that ‘the only thing God wants from you is your heart.’¹⁰

I don’t think I’m being too nitpicking to say that there is a tension here. Is God impressed by musical excellence, or does he just want us to serve with the right attitude?

What is missing, I think, is a bridge between the Old Testament passages and the New Testament hope. In the Old Testament even our most righteous works are considered as dirty rags (Isaiah 64:6). In the New Testament, we are given the incredible invitation to continually ‘through Jesus … offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that confess his name’ (Hebrews 13:15). What is missing from Zschech’s worship theology, therefore, is the very important concept of a priest: not one who wears robes, but Jesus our great high priest. With Jesus standing as our representative before God, the excellence of our worship is guaranteed.

As much as it pains me to say it, therefore, the excellence (in a musical sense) of our worship, and the strength of our good intentions, becomes much less relevant to how acceptable our worship is. Don’t get me wrong, I want excellent music as much as the next music snob. But I’m not sure that we want to tie that excellence to its suitability for worshipping God.

1 Darlene Zschech, Extravagant Worship (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2002)., 27.

2 Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 196.

3 Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 169.

4 Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 127.

5 Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 155.

6 Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 128.

7 Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 127.

8 Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 148.

9 Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 34-35.

10 Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 46.

On Hillsong's lyrics and theology

Really interesting article this month from Eternity magazine on Hillsong's lyric vetting process. I remember being quite surprised talking to Hillsong songwriters about how hands on their pastors are in the songwriting process.

Senior associate pastor Robert Fergusson writes:

“It’s a huge act of trust and submission, for someone who writes international award winning songs to submit their songs to us … it’s a great act of humility. I’m constantly honouring people like Darlene Zschech and Reuben Morgan who are happy to do this.”

It's a reminder to us here at Garage Hymnal (who are by no means international award winning songwriters!) to make sure we're humbly seeking feedback from godly people on our lyrics (thanks to Mark Peterson, Rob Smith, Philip Percival, Bart VandenHengel, Cedric Tang, Dave Parker and others who have offered suggestions on our last few albums). [update: I very carelessly left Peter Rodgers of this list, many apologies!]

http://www.biblesociety.org.au/news/inside-hillsong-music-120202-1