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.