Principles of Immortality

“No-one needs to live forever. I think that sometimes you can outstay your welcome.”

Gemma Malley, The Declaration (2008)

 

So the cross was an instrument of death, yet its image is presumably chosen for sepulchral use because of the life it ultimately represents. So many layers.

The Declaration by Gemma Malley is one of the many dystopian science-fiction novels that have been published for the young adult market in recent years; in fact, it is a particularly typifying example of the genre, featuring, as it does, a female protagonist, a significant romantic subplot, and a pair of sequels that neatly transform it into a trilogy – and, of course, an oppressive and morally-questionable governmental system which the main characters must defy.¹ In this particular instance, the key feature of the said system is the Declaration of the book’s title, a legal contract which people must sign to obtain access to Longevity, a drug that cures all diseases and allows those who take it to stay alive apparently indefinitely. Subscribers of the Declaration agree not to have children; any they do have are classed as ‘Surplus’ and effectively enslaved, a situation in which we find protagonist Anna at the beginning of the story.

The picture Malley paints of a world in which people can live forever is extremely bleak. Even aside from the obvious ethical issues of reducing children to subhuman status, it’s not all rainbows and smiles for the elderly ‘Legals’ either. For a start, perpetual life doesn’t amount to perpetual youth: the Legals’ bodies continue to display the signs of ageing. “Longevity doesn’t cure gravity, unfortunately, Mrs. Sharpe had told [Anna] when she’d been caught frowning at a particularly painful-looking thing that she discovered was called an ‘Uplifter’.”² Second, the Legals, for the most part, maintain the same routines year after year and decade after decade, never doing anything even vaguely interesting or innovative, which might have its advantages in societal terms – “No-one had the imagination or energy to bother with crime any more” – but seems like a pretty dull and depressing way to spend eternity. And finally, Longevity isn’t infallible. The trilogy ultimately sees all the Legals wiped out by a Longevity-resistant virus, their immune systems having been mollycoddled by the drug for so long as to no longer stand any chance of fighting back.

There emerges from all this a pretty strong message that living forever is a Bad Thing. In fact, living forever is presented as barely counting as living at all, simply by virtue of its endlessness.

“No-one needs to live forever. I think that sometimes you can outstay your welcome.”

“I know that we have to live every moment, because we won’t be here forever, and that I wouldn’t want to be anyway. Because knowing something’s going to end makes you appreciate it more, makes you want to savour every moment.”

“You see, what I want is life. A real life, full of moments of joy, of anguish, of irritation, of fun. A life with an end point, which makes each second important.”

“Long life, short life – did it matter when each day was the same, when humans were incapable of living for the moment because of their fundamental need for order, for the comfort of everyday routine.”

“The only people who fear death are the ones who haven’t lived.”

And indeed, it’s hard to argue that the kind of living forever that exists in the world of The Declaration has any real positives at all. But then, it turns out that that kind of living forever isn’t actually living forever at all; as I already mentioned, by the end of the series, everyone who takes Longevity ultimately ends up dying too. It just takes them a few decades longer than usual – fleeting moments in universal terms.

 

Excuse for a pretty space picture to suggest the idea of cosmic smallness. When you consider the fact that the light from some of the stars we see has already taken thousands of years just to reach our eyes, a few decades of life really doesn’t seem like much.

The same is true for every model of immortality the world of fiction has to offer. A vampire lives forever – until you stake it through the heart.³ A robot lives forever – until it is irreparably damaged by some technological assault.⁴ Voldemort spent his whole life seeking everlasting life through whatever dark magic was necessary, but that didn’t stop his eventual demise at the hands of a skinny, bespectacled teenager named Harry Potter.⁵ It’s actually beside the point that these methods theoretically offer a way to live forever: if the potential to die is still there, then, simply by statistics, at some point in the whole of eternity, that potential is going to end up being exploited. Living forever is not actually living forever unless it comes with a guarantee of forever. Anything else, however long it might last, is merely a postponement of death.

Managing to spend a slightly longer time running away from an enemy than your predecessors did does not amount to conquering the enemy. Conquest requires confrontation; yet nobody ever beat death by bravely staring it in the face, either. None of us has the power to overcome death: whether one dies desperately fleeing death or determinedly facing up to it, one is still inevitably going to end up dead.

Well. With one rather important exception.

“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.”

That’s from 1 Corinthians 15.⁶ Keep your Bible open to the page (or keep the relevant tab open on whatever browser you use); we’ll come back to it a couple of times during the remainder of the post. Christ died, was buried, was raised, and was seen, once raised, by over five hundred witnesses who were willing to testify to the fact (‘most of whom are still alive’ surely implies ‘so you can go and ask them if you’re not convinced’). This is a different kind of death-beating strategy: not just prolonging life, not just managing to stave off the inevitable for an unusually long time, but going toe-to-toe with death and actually winning. If it sounds beyond belief, well, that’s because it basically is. It stands at odds with everything we know about death. But that surely makes it all the more the case that, if Jesus really did rise from the dead – and I for one honestly believe that he really did⁷ – then that’s something worth at the very least sitting up and taking notice of. In fact, that’s something so utterly unprecedented, so exceptional, so unbelievable, that if it’s true, it has to redefine the whole way we think about life and death, and about everything Jesus said and did.

 

Look, a familiar adorable children’s creative project based on the single most important event in the whole of history. The resurrection matters more than I know how to express: it cannot be relegated to the craft cupboard.

“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”

We’re still in 1 Corinthians 15. Now Christ is represented as the firstfruits – the first bit of the harvest, the bit that guarantees the rest will be ripening soon – of resurrection. Jesus didn’t just temporarily knock death out; he completely broke it. There was death, busily manufacturing corpses from powerless humans, when along came something that refused to be processed in the same way, that jammed the system and sent it into meltdown. Because of Jesus, death is no longer able to do its job; it no longer holds that power over us. Jesus’ resurrection is a model for the resurrection to come: in him we have a guarantee that the dead can and will be raised. And death will be completely destroyed.

“I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

‘Death is swallowed up in victory.

O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?’”

Yup, still in 1 Corinthians 15. Resurrection isn’t just a case of returning to the same miserable little existence we enjoy at the moment. When we are raised, we will be raised imperishable. Immortal. Unkillable. This is real living forever, with a guarantee that it cannot end. It’s not a postponement, but a genuine victory. Jesus took on death and won, and he invites us to share the victory.

It’s a million miles away from what the Legals in The Declaration like to parade as everlasting life. There is no chink in the armour, no susceptibility to decay, no possibility that ‘forever’ won’t really mean forever. This is not about making life as we know it now last a bit longer. It’s not even about continuing perpetually to exist according to life as we know it now. For one thing, such an existence really would be rubbish, a possibility not undeserving of the kind of bleak picture painted by Gemma Malley, because life as we know it now is imperfect; but furthermore, because life as we know it now is imperfect, it simply doesn’t offer the possibility of ‘forever’. Things that are imperfect are bound by their nature to end sooner or later. Jesus’ resurrection, by contrast, kills death, and brings that very necessity of ending to an end, and makes all of us who are in him imperishable and perfect, so that we can, in perfection, endure forever.

“One day my God gon’ crack the sky.

He gon’ bottle up every tear that we ever cried,

Bring truth to every lie, justice for every crime.

All our shame will be gone and we’ll never have to hide.

No more broken hearts, no more broken homes,

No more locking doors, no more cops patrolling,

No abusive words or abusive touches,

No more cancerous cells that’ll take our loved ones,

No more hungry kids, no more natural disasters,

No child will ever have to ask where his dad is,

No funerals where we wear all black,

And death will be dead and we’ll lock the casket.” – Andy Mineo, ‘Death Has Died’, Heroes for Sale (2013)⁸

And we shall all be changed. I don’t know about you, but I seriously cannot wait.

Footnotes

¹ For a blurb less skewed towards my personal blogging agenda, see Gemma Malley’s website: http://www.gemmamalley.com/book/the-declaration/.

² For this and all quotations used in this post, I am indebted to the Goodreads website, https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/777173.Gemma_Malley?page=1, as well as to the wikispace for someone’s Year 9 English class, which provided this useful thematically-grouped list of quotations: https://year9bbenglish.wikispaces.com/file/view/quotes+from+The+Declaration.doc.

³ There are a fair few bits of vampire-themed fiction about that I like; I talked about CBBC’s Young Dracula last week, so today I’ll recommend The Reformed Vampire Support Group by Catherine Jinks: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5266733-the-reformed-vampire-support-group. It’s not really giving it enough credit to call it a response to or a subversion of the typical glamorous teen vampire romance novel, but the way it absolutely flies in the face of that whole genre is certainly one of its many appreciable qualities.

⁴ As in the CBBC drama Eve: antagonist Mary Douglas builds robots under the title ‘Project Eternity’ and with the aim of achieving immortality – but one blast from an EMP device and even the most sophisticated robot is immediately destroyed. The whole of the second series is currently available on iPlayer, http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b06g95c6, if you’d like to catch up.

⁵ On which note, the Pottermore website has recently been relaunched, so if you weren’t happy with your original house or wand and fancy another turn, now you can: https://www.pottermore.com/.

⁶ I know I always tell you to read the whole chapter, but this time I encourage you to do so especially strongly. There’s oodles more in it that I haven’t been able to explore in this post, but that has important implications for what I’ve been looking at: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+cor+15&version=ESV.

⁷ There are all sorts of people who put forward evidence for the resurrection in quite brilliant fashion; I’ll suggest this recently-published webcomic by Adam4d, http://adam4d.com/jesus-rose-from-dead/, not least because I’ve been looking for an excuse to recommend his work for a while.

⁸ Some kind human called Justin Montero has made a lyric video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWCVyD3BkQk. Among Andy Mineo’s many excellent songs, this is a particular favourite of mine. 

Five Reasons to Give Blood

Bolt:                 What is this red liquid coming from my paw?

Mittens:            It’s called blood, hero.

Bolt:                 Do I need it?

Mittens:            Yes. So if you want to keep it inside your body where it belongs, you should stop jumping off trucks doing eighty on the interstate!

Bolt (2008)

Honestly, I was not expecting to find a stock photo of someone giving blood, so, although I’m not actually obliged to credit her, I nevertheless offer my thanks to Lynn Greyling at publicdomainpictures.net.

Those of you with particularly good memories may recall that the first of my new year’s resolutions for this year was to become a blood donor.¹ I made my first donation a couple of weeks ago and today received a letter containing thanks, a snazzy keyring, and a wallet-sized card informing me that my blood type is A-positive – so I now feel rather like a proper donor, and consequently not too much of a hypocrite for writing this post.

Here’s the thing: only four per cent of the UK population give blood regularly.² Four. Granted, some people are too young (under seventeen) or too old (over sixty-six) to donate, and others have health conditions or other reasons which prevent them from doing so, but the fact remains that a majority of people could be blood donors, yet only four per cent actually are. And, having thought about my own reasons for not signing up to donate sooner, and about conversations I’ve had, I can only theorise that the main reasons why the proportion is so low are simply apathy and squeamishness. So the following list is intended as a gentle shove out of any such apathy and squeamishness in which you, O Best Beloved Reader,³ may be currently residing. Here are five reasons to give blood.

1)      It saves lives.

Let’s kick things off straightforwardly enough: there are people alive today who would not be if donated blood had not been available for them. So, you know, if other people not dying is something you’re on board with, blood donation would seem like a pretty good idea.

There’s a scene in the first ever episode of the CBBC drama Young Dracula in which Mr Branagh, in search of his son Robin, heads to the castle into which the Dracula household recently moved, in flight from an angry Transylvanian peasant mob, and knocks on the door, to which a sign reading ‘Blood doners wanted’ has been attached. The door is answered by Count Dracula’s servant Renfield: “You rang?”⁴

“Sorry to bother you,” begins Mr Branagh.

“Have you come to donate blood?” interrupts Renfield.

Mr Branagh is confused: “What?”

“The sign,” explains Renfield, before repeating, “Have you come to donate blood?”

“No,” replies Mr Branagh. “Look–”

“It’s for a good cause,” Renfield encourages him.

“What cause?”

“Lunch.”

“No, I’m here because – did you just say ‘lunch’?”

Renfield backtracks. “Um, no, I’ve got – ahem – I’ve got a cough.”

A few moments later, Renfield ends up advising Mr Branagh that, if he doesn’t want to donate blood, he should sling his hook, and slamming the door in his face. Count Dracula is none too pleased: “‘Sling your hook’? That was a ten-pint delivery!”

“But he said he didn’t want to give blood!” protests Renfield.

“They never want to give blood!” Count Dracula snarls at him. “That’s why I’ve got these!” He bares his fangs.

 

One assumes this random vampire is hiding some similarly threatening fangs behind that cape.

I reckon a little thought given to why this scene is amusing is quite telling. It’s funny because it’s incongruous: Count Dracula’s lunch is patently not what most people would consider a good cause for blood donation, as the Count himself is well aware, and so Renfield, by asking for willing donations, is clearly barking up the wrong tree. The reason the NHS, by contrast, can plausibly ask for willing donations, is because there seems, oddly enough, to be something of a general consensus among humans that saving people’s lives is, by and large at least, an actual good cause.

                                                                                           

2)      The process is really straightforward.

Step 1: book an appointment on the NHS Blood and Transplant website.⁵ They’ll suggest venues based on your postcode and it only takes a few clicks to sort everything out.

Step 2: fill in the form they send you in the post. It’s just yes/no questions to make sure there aren’t any glaring obstacles to you being able to donate; a couple of minutes is probably all you’ll need.

Step 3: turn up, with your filled-in form, and do what the lovely NHS people tell you. You’ll most likely be in and out in under an hour.

And that’s it. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

3)      It’s not nearly as unpleasant as you may be dreading.

I’ll be honest: I don’t like needles. I especially don’t like them when they’re left in for any length of time. So having one in my arm for seven minutes and forty-three seconds, which is apparently how long my first donation took, is not at all my idea of the most fun in the world. Nevertheless, I genuinely found giving blood to be a surprisingly relaxing experience.

Much as I can detect your cynically raised eyebrows even from here, do please hear me out. For a start, the special blood-donation chairs are really comfy and recline at a very pleasant angle, and the nurses will go out of their way to make sure you’re not uncomfortable; I, for example, was given a cosy blanket in case I should get cold having taken my jacket off. The actual putting in of the needle is, admittedly, a little unpleasant, as you might expect, but, after a few seconds, you stop noticing it. Then you spend the next few minutes staring at the ceiling doing very gentle clenching exercises. Being, as I was, in the state of mild stress that never really seems to go away once one’s third year of university has begun, it was actually very welcome to spend a little while doing something other than working or feeling as if I really ought to be working.⁶ (It’s not just me, either: I was talking to a housemate of mine who gave blood at a similar time to me and she agreed that, in those few minutes, she was the most chilled she’d been all day.) So the actual donation process is really quite unobjectionable. And afterwards, you get to drink squash and eat delicious sugary snacks until such time as you feel inclined to leave.

 

These attractive biscuits may or may or not be representative of the kinds of delicious sugary snacks available at blood donation sessions in your local area. I personally had a Penguin, a Club, and some custard creams.

4)      You have the resources.

I expect many of us who are living on student loans and whatever cash we can persuade our parents to top them up with have grand ideas about all the good causes we’d like to support financially once we’re earning enough of a salary to feasibly do so. I expect many of us who find ourselves making decisions about which bits of work we’re going to leave aside until pre-exam revision, because we simply can’t find the hours in the day to get everything done while still keeping ourselves functioning, have grand ideas about the good causes to which we’d like to give our time could we spare it. Personally, I’m pretty sure that my main problem in the areas of time and money is not so much the amount I have but the way I manage it, but in any case, when it comes to blood, there aren’t many of us who don’t have enough of the stuff sloshing about inside us that we can’t spare just under a pint of it every few months. If you want to be more generous, but feel it would be irresponsible to give away any more of your money or any more of your time, give blood.

5)      It imitates Christ.

“My blood seems to know there are souls to atone.

It gives with no concern for its own

And it will not stop until every drop is spilled.” – Pas Neos, ‘The Joy Set Before Me (The Anointing, Last Meal, and Garden Prayer)’, Who Do You Say I Am? (2012)

It was at Momentum earlier this year that I first came across the notion of blood donation being just another manifestation of the generosity asked of us as Christians, and it was a notion that really struck me. What does it say about us if we’re prepared to meticulously tithe or exceed a tithe, if we’ll happily give over a few hours of our week to unpaid service, and yet we shrink from giving of our own bodies? Do we still think we own them? Has it not yet sunk in that we were bought at a price?⁷ Are we not yet really prepared to present ourselves as living sacrifices?⁸

And on top of that, are we not aiming to be imitators of God, as beloved children, and to walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us?⁹ Gave himself up for us – and bled, pouring out his blood of the covenant for many for the forgiveness of sins.¹⁰ Will we consider him shedding his blood for our sake, even when we were still his enemies, on the cross, in all its appalling brutality – and then refuse to shed our own for anyone else’s sake in the safe, orderly, hygienic context of the modern NHS?

So you’re saying that not giving blood is a sin. Well, no, it’s obviously not as clear cut as all that. But I am saying that I would strongly encourage anyone who would call him- or herself a follower of Jesus and doesn’t currently give blood to have a serious think about why exactly not. Because if it is down to apathy or squeamishness, how can such things stay standing when set alongside the cross?

My aim is not – my aim is never – to guilt-trip (Jesus already absolved everyone who will trust in him of all guilt once and for all by his sacrifice on the cross, so it’s completely missing the point to attempt to imitate him out of a sense of guilt), but rather, as I said above, to offer a gentle shove to those who might need it. If we’re in Christ, we’re set free from slavery to things like apathy and squeamishness, and empowered to follow his example of sacrificial love. Giving blood is, I believe, one small but significant way in which we might follow that example.

Footnotes

¹ See ‘That Kind of Woman’ under January 2016 in the box on the right.

² According to the NHS website: http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Blood-donation/Pages/Introduction.aspx.

³ If you’re wondering, yes, that is a reference to Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories. ‘O Best Beloved’ is such a pleasing phrase.

⁴ It occurs to me that he didn’t, actually, but never mind.

⁵ Indeed, I’ll provide a link for you to make it even easier: https://my.blood.co.uk/home.

⁶ “So you’re advocating blood-letting for stress relief,” was one response to my having expressed this opinion. And no, I’m not – there are, as I hope this post will have shown, much better reasons to give blood than that – but it was quite a bonus how relaxing the whole process was.

⁷ 1 Corinthians 6:19-20: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians+6&version=ESVUK. Yes, the context here is one of sexual immorality, but it isn’t as if we only become not our own specifically when we’re considering using prostitutes.

⁸ Romans 12:1: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+12&version=ESVUK.

⁹ Ephesians 5:1-2: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ephesians+5&version=ESVUK.

¹⁰ And that one’s Matthew 26:28: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+26&version=ESVUK.

I’ve Got a Feeling, or The Actual Problem with Many Modern Worship Songs

Blackadder:   It’s very moving, sir. Would you mind if I change just one tiny aspect of it?

George:         Which one?

Blackadder:   The words.

Blackadder the Third E5, ‘Amy and Amiability’ (1987)

 

What an appropriate guitar this dove-adorned one would be for leading worship.

Ah, the church music debate. Organ or modern music group? Full choir or one guy belting out the melody? Songs individually scattered throughout the service, or grouped together into a couple of long sessions? And, to keep everyone happy, at which services, on which Sundays of the month, should each option be employed? Will the elderly ladies leave if we have drums? Will everyone under the age of fifty leave if we don’t have drums? Is there an acceptable way of removing archaic terms like ‘thou’ from such lyrics as ‘Be Thou My Vision’?¹ Has anyone written an extra chorus, ‘My-Chains-Are-Gone’-style,² that might be shoved into a particular older hymn to catapult it into the twenty-first century, or at least out of the eighteenth?

I don’t suppose it’s particularly necessary for me to state here that I would encourage anyone who feels strongly enough about any of the issues laid out above that it would influence his or her church attendance policy, to have a serious think about the problem of prioritising aspects of the way we do church over pleasing God. Thinking that a particular musical style is necessary or even preferable in order for us to draw close to God is, straightforwardly enough, a form of idolatry. Life and death and angels and authorities and powers and things past and things to come and height and depth and every other created thing can’t separate us from God;³ a disliked genre of music stands less than a shadow of a chance, and it’s frankly an insult to God to suggest that he might be so easily limited. Supposing, on the other hand, that I were aware of the irrelevance of musical style to the fruitfulness of our corporate activities as God’s people, and yet still put it at the top of my priorities list when making decisions about how best to engage in such corporate activities, that would perhaps be even worse: I would be openly placing the importance of my preferences over that of God’s will.

So, in light of all that, the complaint I am about to make has absolutely nothing to do with generic or stylistic considerations. It rather concerns that pretty significant aspect of worship music about which many Christians seem, strangely enough, to have rather few strong opinions: the words.

My complaint is this: the lyrics of many modern worship songs – not all, not necessarily even most, but enough that it’s noticeable – are not really about God, but about our reaction to him. They are not about who God is and what he’s done, but about how we feel about who God is and what he’s done. Allow me to illustrate with a few examples:⁴

“I’m caught in the fire; no escape or no return.

I’m ready for danger; light me up and let me burn.

There’s one name, one power, that makes me come alive.

I’m exploding into life.

I’m going to lift my hands, lift them into the light.” – ‘Dynamite’

“We’re the forgiven, singing redemption’s song.

There’s a fire that burns inside.

Nothing can stop us; we’ll be running through the night

With a fire that burns inside.

We are the free, the freedom generation, singing of mercy.” – ‘We are the Free’

“So set a fire down in my soul

That I can’t contain and I can’t control.

I want more of you, God.

There’s no place I’d rather be than in here in your love.” – ‘Set a Fire’

“We lift your name up higher and higher.

We lift your name up.

We shout your name out louder and louder.

We shout it out now.” – ‘Let it be Known’

“I’m happy to be in the truth

And I will daily lift my hands,

For I will always sing of when your love came down.

I could sing of your love forever.” – ‘I Could Sing of Your Love Forever’

Do you see what I mean? Admittedly I have highlighted what might be considered some particularly heinous offenders, but I was careful to only include songs that I have actually heard used for worship in real life (and indeed sung along to), and I suspect that if you rack your brains and have a directed browse on Spotify or whatever your preferred music-streaming platform is, you won’t struggle to find further examples. The focus is so very much on the self: there are first-person pronouns all over the place, but beyond that, what is being described is persistently a personal reaction. I will lift my hands, we will lift your name, I want more of you, we’ll be running through the night (whatever that’s supposed to mean; I assume it’s not literal).

 

I mean, it might be literal, but I rather fail to see how running about all night for no discernible reason is linked to one’s relationship with Christ.

Well, what’s the problem with that? you may interject. Surely it’s right that pondering the many excellences of God Almighty should provoke a reaction in us. Surely it’s also right to honestly acknowledge and articulate that reaction.⁵ Too true; the trouble is that we’ve skipped a step. The focus is so squarely on our response to God and his character and his deeds, that these things themselves are sidelined; the occasional throwaway line about God’s love or grace or power doesn’t change the overall emphasis of the song. We concentrate on our reaction to such an extent that we pull out from under it the very thing that prompted it in the first place. And so our reaction can no longer even be called a reaction; it’s an action all of its own.

All of a sudden, it’s not what God has done that’s important; it’s what we do and how we feel towards God. These are the things we elevate, as if our emotional experience were the evidence of our salvation, and as if we could somehow present this to God as an offering. Cue the alarm bells: we’re drifting dangerously close to trying for salvation by works. God has done everything that is necessary for us to be made righteous; whether we feel a particular way about that fact has zero impact on the truth of it.⁶

On top of that, if the feelings and behaviours we describe in our songs are not genuinely prompted by God and his character and his deeds, who after all make little more than cameo appearances in many of these kinds of songs, then where are they coming from? Either we’re deriving a supposed spiritual high from the music or the atmosphere or some other component of our experience of singing these songs⁷ – in other words, we’re worshipping something other than God – or we’re not feeling the way the songs say we should at all. This latter scenario was my own experience. Until fairly recently, in fact, I was convinced I was doing something profoundly wrong while singing these kinds of worship songs, because they failed to provoke in me the feelings they described. Standing in a darkened room with a bunch of other awkward church youth, I felt no more alive than usual; I could discern no sensation of a fire burning within me; and, if this was what it was like to sing of God’s love, the prospect of doing so forever was distinctly unappealing. I had no inclination to lift my hands, and yet not doing so when the lyrics were telling me that this was the correct way to worship felt like some kind of terrible sin.⁸ I employed all the mental effort I knew how to trying to rake up some kind of elated, worshipful feeling, being certain that my inability to do so was clear evidence that there was something wrong between myself and God,⁹ which of course only plunged me further into the same distinct lack of elation.

The solution to these problems, of course, is really not at all difficult to discern. Let’s shut up about our reaction and focus on the one we claim prompts it. Revolutionary a concept as it is, let’s sing worship songs that are actually about him whom we worship; instead of repeatedly declaring our willingness to sing of his love forever, let’s actually sing of it. Let’s sing of his majesty and his mercy and his having arranged our salvation so that it is completely independent of anything, including a particular emotional experience, that we could possibly bring to the table. That way, if we do happen to feel more alive than usual or somewhat fiery inside while singing, it will more likely be a genuine reaction to actual truths about our creator and saviour – and if we don’t, it really doesn’t matter. God is who he is and does what he does however we may be reacting to him. And that really is something worth singing about.

Footnotes

¹ There is, in the form of a version apparently retranslated from the Irish by Rend Collective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQNczm45GyY. I must say I prefer the ‘Be Thou…’ version simply because of the way it asks God to be all these things to the singer rather than telling him he already is.

² ‘My Chains Are Gone’, if you didn’t know, is an additional chorus for ‘Amazing Grace’ by Chris Tomlin. In this rather lovely video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-4NFvI5U9w, shots of Chris singing in a pretty autumnal scene are interspersed with clips from the 2006 film Amazing Grace, which is a biopic of William Wilberforce and extremely worth watching.

³ Romans 8. Everyone loves Romans 8. Go forth and read: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+8&version=ESVUK.

⁴ I have not cited the artists responsible for these songs for fear of inaccuracy; worship songs tend to be covered by numerous different bands and it’s very difficult to track down who actually wrote them in the first place.

⁵ There’s a Biblical precedent: take a look, for instance, at Psalm 63: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm+63&version=ESVUK. In fact, some of what David says here is quite similar to the kinds of lyrics I am currently criticising: ‘I will lift up my hands’, for example. But then, there are a lot of expressions of personal feelings and reactions that are included in the psalms that we don’t use in worship songs; ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Psalm 22) springs to mind. A proper look at this question would require another post, methinks.

⁶ Remember Romans 8? (If not, scroll back up to footnote 3, click the link, and read it.) Feelings are not the one special exception; they can’t separate us from God’s love either.

⁷ Fancy some Blimey Cow hilarity on the subject of the spiritual high? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbnJWlFjSFk. I’m not saying, by the way, that it’s absolutely out of the question that some people genuinely have the reactions they describe while singing these songs as a result of pondering God and his greatness, but there’s not a lot in the songs themselves that encourages such pondering.

⁸ More hilarity in the form of Tim Hawkins on hand raising in church: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK2_ezOBa2A. Aren’t I generous today?

⁹ I really should have gone and read Romans 8. Hint.