09 November 2009

Two Thoughts on the Worship Wars

1. It is NOT about instrumentation for the music, but about whether one may dispense with the Church's historic ordering of the Divine Service, replacing that ordering with the ordering used by the Pentecostal Church.
2. It is NOT about rejection of new music; but about whether it is wise and loving to REPLACE the Church's historical musical heritage in toto with newer music rather than faithfully preserving that heritage and AUGMENTING it with music from our day.

8 comments:

Pastor Peters said...

I wish that everyone who nitpicks every argument for liturgical worship and historic hymnody would read this post. It is tiresome to restate what you stated over and over again. Actually the liturgical Lutheran parishes I know have more variety than those who use only what is "contemporary."

Chris said...

Exactly, Fr. Peters. Have you ever noticed how every "hymn" of a praise bands sounds, in words AND music, EXACTLY like the one that came before it?

Even in the Eastern Rite, you can chant, in Byzantine chant, something from the 19th century alongside a Russian style hymn written by a contemporary American composer. Variety.

Dan at Necessary Roughness said...

Yes, AND

It is also about the doctrine that one leaves out while going to Pentecostal ordering. If your hymns can be sung by Mormons, you're not teaching Christian doctrine.

Rev. Allen Bergstrazer said...

I've said for years that if you can take all the 'God-talk' out of a service and still have a foot stomping good time it's probably not divine service to begin with.

The You Tube video Scott posted is worth a look, fake sincerity (whether it be in pseudo charismatic praise, or the liturgy) in worship has been around since Cain and Able. One comment on the video stood out, the poster refered to his worship experience as 'intimate.' It certainly makes you want to pull some folks aside and have a long talk.

Tim Terhune said...

I am a simple layman, but...

what about the transcendence of our historic liturgy and musical heritage? If I want to hear crappy, watered-down pop "Christian" music, I can turn on the radio or download from iTunes. I know this is mere opinion, and not a very good argument against "contemporary" worship. I don't know... it just seems that if the church is constantly chasing the "contemporary", we lose and forget our history. We lose something important about who we are and why we do what we do. Sorry for the unintelligible ramble, but having come from a megachurch where the chase for contemporary was in full swing, I am very dismayed at the trend to pitch overboard anything that smells of historic liturgy.

Preachrboy said...

Lyrics aside, it's not even really about how new or old the music is - it is much more about the style of the music. Some popular "contemporary" songs have been around for decades, and some of my favorite hymns are newer than those.

The problem is the style that emulates modern American pop and soft-rock, with all of its baggage.

It's the thought that diddies for commercials and your high school prom theme are of the same genre as you sing in church.

Is worship to be transcendent and timeless or reflective of the basest elements of our consumer culture? I'm not saying we can't bend a certain amount to American culture (and naturally will anyway), but some want to bend over backwards.

It's also troubling the way many "contemporary" songs are designed to play on the emotions - the implicit message that it has to "feel" like worship (i.e. theology of glory type worship).

Even if you keep the Divine Service text, and take the lyrics to solid Lutheran hymnody, and set it all to a certain style of music - you still have a problem. The medium is, to a large extent, the message.

Are the lyrics/words more important than the style? Yes.

Does all church music have to be played on an organ? No.

Is there better and worse practice, even within the bounds of freedom? Yes.

Dixie said...

Carolina Cannonball the sometimes irreverent convert to Roman Catholicism at the Crescat blog wrote something this week that I thought you might find funny...(cause this ain't just a Lutheran problem.)

... last week before mass announcements were made; Father had enough!

He was demanding reverent silence from his congregation before and after mass! He was mad as hell and not going to take it anymore! He didn't even want to hear the kneelers slamming up and down because it disturbed the prayerful atmoshpere during mass.

Then he proceed to step away from the ambo and direct the contemporary music band to start a rousing rock-n-roll rendition of "Our God is an Awesome God".

I had to stifle my laughter and wonder when the liturgical mosh pit was being instituted. I was kind of looking forward to doing the Pogo down the communion line.

LambertsOnline said...

Excellent blog post by Pastor Weedon and many great comments. Thank you!