We live in a postmodern, pluralistic culture that relishes the idea of being known as the most religiously diverse society in the world. Every religion is correct and no one has the right to say anyone else’s faith is wrong. Political correctness demands great care in the use of terminology when referring to deity; gender neutrality and inclusiveness are essential; exclusiveness is to be rejected.
Postmodernism involves, among other things, the denial of absolutes. What constitutes ‘truth’ is determined by each individual’s personal experience. Therefore, truth becomes entirely relative; what is true for ‘you’ may not necessarily be true for ‘me.’ Pluralism is a concept which supposedly accepts every religion as equally valid. There is, however, one exception: Christianity. Christianity is not tolerated by those who boast of their ‘toleration’ because of its exclusivity. Unacceptable in a postmodern society, there is ever increasing pressure to marginalize Christianity in the Western world. And in an ever increasing number of Eastern countries laws are being enacted outlawing ‘conversion activities’ of any kind by Christians.
Today, as never before, all Christians should be deeply concerned by the subtle effect this social pressure is having within the church. Not only is there a marginalization of Christianity occurring in society as a whole, there is also a marginalization of Jesus Christ occurring within the evangelical community. This marginalization of Jesus occurred among the non-evangelical churches decades ago beginning in Europe. However, its occurrence within the evangelical community is relatively recent.
Let’s examine the evidence as seen every Sunday across America in the churches professing to be true representatives of the Living God.
Have you noticed the increasing number of songs in worship services that make no reference to Jesus Christ or His atoning work? More and more of the ‘new’ worship songs are using an abundance of first person pronouns such as He, Him, Lord, and God. The number of times Jesus’ name is used in these new worship songs is seriously declining. A recent review of about two dozen popular contemporary worship songs revealed that the name of Jesus was only mentioned about six times.
The churches that sing these new songs are marketing their worship as ‘contemporary’ which apparently means focusing primarily on the needs and desires of younger adults, eliminating hymn books, and marginalizing the desires and tastes of midage and senior adults in worship music.
We should be concerned about the message being sent to the nonbelievers who are visiting the church. The church is certainly marketing to a broadly diverse audience... a Muslim, a Jew or a Buddhist could easily worship in many of today’s contemporary services and not be offended by the name of Jesus!
An article on Christianity Today’s website written by Michael Hamilton entitled The Triumph of the Praise Songs: How Guitars Beat Out The Organ In The Worship Wars said this, “American churchgoers no longer sort themselves out by denomination so much as by musical preference.” He observed that since the 1950s “denominational divisions have steadily become less important in American church life.” But acknowledging that we are still sectarians at heart went on to say, “Our new sectarianism is a sectarianism of worship style. The new sectarian creeds are dogmas of music. Worship seminars are the seminaries of the new sectarianism; their directors are its theologians. The ministers of the new sectarianism are our church worship leaders.”
What kind of theology are the “seminaries” teaching tomorrow’s church leaders? The message of these new style contemporary “theologians” and “ministers” presented to the people sitting in church pews is not one that promotes the supremacy of Christ!
Hamilton goes on in his article to explain why he believes we are experiencing decline in the church today. He identified the source of the changes when he said, “All of the changes that have precipitated our worship wars are in fact part of a long trail of cultural dislocations left behind by…the baby boomers.” He described the effect as being an unwillingness of this abnormally large generation of Americans to follow their parents’ way of influencing society: “they reoriented our society toward peers and away from family. They have moved the psychic center of the family away from obligation to others and toward self-fulfillment.” He then observed that the generation that did this in society did the same thing with religion. “Surveys consistently show that baby boomers…attend church not out of loyalty, duty, obligation, or gratitude, but only if it meets their needs.”
This raises the additional dilemma which the evangelical church must grapple with concerning the methods we are using to reach people. Are we giving people in the world, who we are trying to reach, more of what they already have, in order to attract them? Or does the church present a message that offers something different; something that the world doesn’t have?
Are we simply attempting to ‘reach’ people or are we trying to make disciples of Jesus Christ out of people who are not believers? Too often it appears we are more interested in attracting people by giving them what they already have and then giving them more of the same to keep them coming back than we are in changing lives.
Talking about the generation that finds its identity in its musical style Hamilton says, “the kind of music a church offers increasingly defines the kind of person who will attend, because for this generation music is at the very center of self-understanding.” What kind of self-understanding is the church imparting to those it reaches? Is it truly helping people enter a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and discipling them to become mature followers of Jesus? Not much evidence of that God-mandated objective exists in today’s church.
Churches today seem more concerned with aligning and merging the individual’s worship experience perfectly with the baby boomer generations luxuriant self-concern…one cannot sing praise songs without noticing how first person pronouns tend to eclipse every other subject. The scripture passages from which many of the praise songs draw their inspiration originate in the Old Testament or the Psalms. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, except when combined with the self-centered focus of the songs, and the worship experience being centered on the “individual” instead of exalting Jesus Christ. Worship has always been about Him.... not us.
I think a serious question needs to be asked... Are the people successfully drawn into the church, so called converts, ‘identifying’ with Jesus Christ and His atoning work on the cross, based on the music being sung in the church? I have grave doubts when Jesus is being gradually removed from our worship songs and replaced with first person personal pronouns.
Worship music, music in the corporate worship service and all of the assistant devices and formulas for expressing worship with music must help churches produce disciples of Jesus Christ. Music is clearly a major distraction in producing the ‘kind’ of disciples God wants, when the focus is so dramatically self-centered and minimally on the Savior and His work on our behalf.
More to come on The Supremacy of Christ next week. Until then, be attentive and active in the Lord.
