The Church today is caught up in "Worship Wars". This is nothing new or shocking unless you've lived under a rock for 15 or 20 years. Every since Contemporary praise music started to "come into the scene" in a major way, local churches have started "wars" over the music to be played during the services. The Western church has become divided on the issue, starting new churches, making separate services for the various styles, and trying to find compromises that will keep everyone happy, in the same service and the same building.
Up until a few months ago, I saw this as merely a fact of life. People will disagree about music, so play a couple of hymns, a few modern songs, then get on to the sermon. Such an apathetic view might seem shocking coming from a musician. But my church has almost seamlessly made the transition, especially after it somewhat survived a split over money. So music style was never exactly the first thing on my mind during a service.
Then I went to college. (How many stories start with that?)
During the first semester I took a course called "Music in the Christian Perspective". It was an introductory music course, and during the wide range of discussions, morality of music was discussed. We looked at Plato's view, and some other writings. Just today, in fact, a man from my church was discussing the Reformed view of the arts - the arts are not amoral, but moral. Such an idea crossed my mind until MCP. While I don't recall the final outcome of the course discussion, it did prompt me to look into Christian music a bit further.
One day a friend of mine, S. K. Johnson (http://apostello.wordpress.com/) started up a discussion with me about a paper he was writing called "Religion for Coach Potatoes". In it, he points out how worship music today does not force us to use our intellect. Citing Issac Watts, author of many of the great hymns, he writes that "In Watts’ hymns, knowing about God was necessary to understand the concepts being expressed, and thus to be able to sincerely express them in worship." He goes on to say that "his method has a specific goal in mind; acknowledging who God is with clarity and depth, and developing understanding of these divine truths in the soul so that it raises up in worship. Declaring that “God is great” is only worship, if we truly know why we are saying it. This method of worship, as a sequence of understanding and then response, thought and then emotion is all throughout Scripture. Ezra led Israel in worship by first telling the history of Israel up to that point, and then the Hebrews worshiped God for what He had done. Or, as it says in Romans 12, “in view of God’s mercies...worship” (NIV, emphasis added)." He compares that style of worship with the one that we find in our CCM style today. "The songs that have resulted from the CCM industry use very simple language, are often repetitive, and are aesthetically emotional. These songs rely on eliciting emotional responses in order to give the facade of understanding an abstract concept. A worshiper may declare something ambiguous about God such as, ‘You are worthy,’ without having their mind brought to a point of understanding what that means."
Clearly, we had a few things to discuss. Or rather, he had a few things to say which I listened, nodded my head, and thought about later.
One night after Koin, the idea finally began to make sense inside of my head. Koinonia, or Koin as we call it on campus, is a student lead praise and worship session held on Sunday nights. And it is really great. Spending an hour, lifting up praise with fellow students is one of the things I love, whether it be in Koin or when a friend pulls out a guitar and a praise session starts in a dorm room. But one night I left thinking "what have I just done?" My mind had been in some far off place while I was singing the songs. Some of the songs were even about me, what I could bring to God. How much I loved God. But God doesn't need that or want that. He knows that we can't bring anything, and that however much we say we love Him, we fall incredibly short when we try to live out our faith. And the most important thing that hit me was the fact that I hadn't thought during the service. I didn't need to use my intellect, it was all about the emotional rush. i hadn't learned anything about God. And that fact didn't sit well with me.
I saw why it matters. It matters what we sing, because if we're not engaged, if we're not lifting God up, then what are we doing? We're going through the motions, though we've learned to cover it up more than you might see in an Orthodox church. These "Worship Wars" should not be about what music we like to listen to in church, but what music we should or need to listen to during a service.
One of the best articles I have read on the subject is entitled "Durable Hymns" by Donald T Williams, on Five mark of Excellence That Could End the Worship Wars.
"The "Worship Wars" that rage in the church today are nothing new. St. Ambrose was considered an innovator for writing hymns and teaching his people to sing them. The controversy over melismatic textual elaboration in the Middle Ages was (according to legend) settled by Palestrina's Pope Marcellus Mass. the Reformation started debates over exclusive psalmody and the use of instruments, debates that continue among Protestants to this day, although they are now overshadowed by heated arguments over contemporary praise and worship music versus traditional hymnody."
He puts forth the idea that in order to judge the music of today, we must look at the music of yesterday. The reason the hymns we still have today are considered "great" is because they've endured years of weeding-out. There was bad music when Issac Watts was writing, but those songs have not survived. Williams argues that there are five points of excellence that made the best stand out and survive, and that those are the points by which we should judge contemporary music.
The first is Biblical Truth. The should be a strong emphasis on the words of praise being at least scriptural, if not Scripture itself. The older printed version of hymns would often include the verses that justified the content of the hymn. Can we look at the music we're singing today and find verses that clearly support it? Often times we can, but they are shorter and simple phrases, instead of longer, more complex passages that were once used.
The second in Theological Profundity. We should be using our minds while we worship! Christ even commands us to love and worship God with our minds! One example Williams cites is Charles Wesley's him "And Can It Be That I Should Gain?" Our music today should offer chances for theological reflection.
A third mark of excellence is Poetic Richness. The words chosen should not be so difficult that a layman cannot understand them, but intellectually suggestive and emotionally powerful. An example is the use of the "wretch" in Amazing Grace".
A fourth mark is Musical Beauty. As any music major will tell you, there are rules in music. And those rules simply must be followed, unless you are writing abstract 20th Century music. There are certain tendencies in music that should be used, and others that should be avoided. Melodies and harmonies should be well shaped. And Williams makes one other point - "And where did so many guitarists get the notion that it is somehow cut to avoid ending a song on the tonic chord?". I can understand not ending on the tonic if you are transitioning to another song which resolves the tension, but let's try to land on the tonic a little more often than we do.
The fifth mark is Fitness. There should be a good fit between the well-written words and excellent music. Everything should be appropriate.
Now, I'm sure many will say "Well, Williams is simply the type of old prude who hates all contemporary music and just likes hymns better, and obviously you feel the same way". But that's not the case. We should look for these marks in our music today, and they can be found. There are so many good Christian bands who have rich and powerful music, in a variety of different styles. But rather than just letting anything into our church, we should have discerning taste. This is one of the reasons why I believe it is critical for Christians to have at least some sort of theological background. It is important to be able to discern not only between good and bad, but between good, better and best. Both traditional hymns and contemporary music should have a home in the modern Church.
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First of all, I agree that music in worship is very important and we should think about it's role in worship.
I like a lot of the points raised (risen? whatever) about thinking about the meaning of the worship music we use. It seems silly to worship solely for the emotional feeling we get when singing praise songs or traditional hymns. It is important to know where those words come from, or what inspired them. I think it is, though, equally important to consider emotions when discussing worship music. We have a hymnal full of songs sitting in the pew and I can think of about 4 that really make me feel like I am worshiping, how ever inadequately.
Emotions can connect us with a time we've experienced God. For example, there is a a hymn called Tu Has Venido La Orilla (You Have Come Down to the Lakeshore) and I cry nearly every time I sing it: not only because of the words and their base, but because of memories I associate with that hymn. The first time I ever sung that song was after a 2 week trip in Mexico studying liberation theology and humanitarianism in the borderlands. Those two weeks were filled with more times I felt connected to God than the rest of my life combined. In the closing worship of that trip, we sang that hymn and those words became real to me; I was being commissioned. Whenever that hymn is such in church, I am brought back to that poignant time in Mexico and I feel recommissioned. I am reminded of my experiences of God and of the lessons I learned while exploring who God is, or at least my feeble attempt to do so. Without those emotions, the words wouldn't mean hardly as much.
I often times feel that using broad, simple statements about God might be one of the most effective ways of exploring God, when you think about the words you are saying, as you've encouraged. Your example of "you are worthy" is a pretty general statement to make of someone who is as expansive and vast as God, so one may not feel like they are saying anything about God. When you think about it though, you are saying absolutely everything about God. If you're sitting in your room after a worship service and thinking about "what service did I just perform for God?" and you think of the words, there is much more time for personal growth and exploration. One thing I think worship leaders often don't encourage enough is contemplation outside of the sanctuary. Were Christians sitting down for 15 minutes after a worship service to think and pray about what they had just done, rather than taking everything a worship leader says and leaving it at the door, Christians would experience so much more than what they had gotten in the hour that sat down and followed the bulletin.
So, in short, I agree that worship music should be chosen based on the words, and biblical and spiritual content, but I also believe that the emotions of the worshipers or writers or composers should be taken into account equally as much.
I also believe that if worship leaders, and other Christians, encouraged worshipers and fellow children of God to ponder and pray about the things they experience in worship, the worship experience would be a much more rich experience, both for the person and for God.
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