Perhaps this is a function of getting old, but if worship consists almost exclusively of songs that have simple, soaring, emotionally-get-you-going choruses which are repeated rather a lot, with these even being added to the hymns, does the metaphor in the title of this post work.
Disclosure:
I really love many songs that fit this description that come from my era.
Caveat:
Worship in the City, I almost invariably love the stuff at the City, and really appreciate your adaptation of Jesus Our Great High Priest (I think?). I just got back from an InterVarsity conference š
Caveat II:
I am having fun here, but I am interested in the question.
So?
Neil,
you are opening a can of worms with this question so I will give you my short response.
Are you saying that trite/emotional/lovesong worship is the emotional equivalent of making-out with the Lord? I know that sounds crass, but I think that is what you are saying. I just heard someone refer to this kind of music as “Jesus is my girlfriend” songs.
Charles Westley, composer of such hits as “O for a Thousand Tongues,” “Arise, My Soul Arise,” and “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing” received similar criticism in his day. He was accused of being too influenced by mysticism when he wrote such lines as “Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bossom fly.” Some hymnals even changed the words to “Jesus, Savior of my soul.” Westley’s hymns are subjective, emphasising the believer’s personal experience and affection for the Lord.
I love Wesley’s hymns, and I would cite them as a aesthetically successful attempt to express the Chirstian’s personal, experiencial love of their Savior. So, there is a way to write worship songs that can do this without sounding like Celine Dion singing about Jesus instead of her boyfriend.
That’s all for now.
Kirk, thanks for responding, even to a post that treads lightly in an area that is very serious for you. Briefly, I am not at all complaining about songs that express love for God in a way that echoes romantic language, though I think one must be careful if one goes to far into the “Jesus is my Girlfriend” area.
Also, yes, that is exactly what I am implying with the metaphor, though as you vocalize it in your comment, I realize that that might have been cavalier on my part and might dishonor the Lord. I did it want it to be attention grabbing. No, what I was reacting against was how a succession of such songs which just access the emotions and not the mind as much, seem to me (leaving God’s side out of it for a while) kind of like making out. Sure it is fun and emotionally exciting, but often it does not do a heck of a lot to help the relationship along in its more prosaic moments. In fact, in excessive amounts it might overshadow problems or real misunderstandings of one another in the relationship.
I hope that makes it clearer. So, perhaps I am just complaining about “Jesus is my Girlfriend” songs or having a string of them together. Though, really, “Jesus is my boyfriend” would be more theologically accurate, as C. S. Lewis rightly notes all souls are feminine in relation to God, and,you know, the Bride of Christ and all that in the corporate sense.
Even if “Jesus is my boyfriend” songs are OK, I guess I like them to be varied with “Jesus is the Sustainer and Upholder of the Universe” and “Jesus is the wrathful judge” songs as well.
By the way, I do love songs such as “Jesus, Lover of My Soul” and “Jesus What a Friend for Sinners,” etc.
This is an interesting discussion. I like those kinds of songs too, but I remember a comment on of my favorite teachers in high school made after a chapel service. The chapel band played an emotionally charged song that was to the effect of “Jesus is my love and my joy, and now I don’t cry.” ….My teacher disagreed with the song & said that he struggled with depression even as a Christian. He also commented that more often than not it seemed like God was either taking him through trials or he was suffering alongside a brother or sister, which meant that although he had unshakable joy, he cried a lot over his own or others’ sin and brokenness.
Maybe I’ll make a bit of a scandalous generalization…..that in our time (our broader era) it we tend to a fault toward what placates us and makes us feel good in worship, what helps us to forget the emotional pain of atrocities, war, sexual abuse and slavery, the wreckage that our own idolatry and sin cause because in middle class America, we can choose to not acknowledge it. We can feel it theoretically, but our worship doesn’t have to reflect it… we don’t generally witness police officers cutting people’s hands off on the way to church; nobody we know was tricked into selling their daughter off so that the other six kids didn’t starve. What would our worship and our concept of God look like if this was our reality?
Good question, Angela. How do you think people who do face atrocities and a horrible existence? You have likely worshipped with just such people.
Also, in reference to the discussion at large, I am not dissing emotion in our songs and I acknowledge that what constitutes too much of an emotional focus is a very relative thing. I just believe it is important to have good solid doctrinal content (or more simply put recounting who God is and what he does) as both the proper food for our emotions and a guide for them.
Angela, interesting thoughts. Speaking from my own experience (for what it’s worth) I have found that when I was personally suffering at my deepest, it was very important for me to sing to God. I guess regardless of the song format, to sing of such basic truths as God’s goodness and love, in the midst of pain…well actually I feel it is a test. Can we sing the words? Can we mean them? Can we affirm God’s goodness and power at the same time as we acknowledge that he did not remove present suffering? I know this is steering away from the original discussion of the theological truth of the lyric. But sometimes truth is contained in simple packages, and the depth comes from the heart that can cry out to God, and praise, despite pain.
(I want to add to Ecclesiastes:
There is a time for simple choruses,
A time for complex, weighty hymns.)
Very good addition to Ecclesiastes, Heidi. I completely agree. I suppose at the core of what I think we need is good solid content and an understanding of who God is to feed and, yes, guide our emotional responses to him. And the dichotomy of hymns=high theological content, low emtion and the opposite for choruses is really a false dichotomy.