Reviewing Worship Songs / In Christ Alone

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While messing around on Facebook I came across this blog. It’s called Worship Review. This is not a Lutheran blog. It comes from a Reformed perspective. But it might be helpful in both positive and negative ways. The blog includes reviews of contemporary worship songs. I found one in particular to be most interesting. It’s a review of “In Christ Alone,” a song written by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend. A simple internet search of the song, “In Christ Alone” and you will have the words readily at hand. I am not including them here for copyright reasons. Do the search, and be prepared for a real treat.

The review on the Worship Review blog site is by Jeremy Williams. What I find interesting about the review, is that the reviewer makes no bones about his criteria for critiquing this song. From a Lutheran perspective, this is a contemporary song that absolutely proclaims the Gospel in its truth and purity. It has the cross, the resurrection, substitutionary atonement, just about all that you can ask of a contemporary worship song from a Lutheran point of view. The reviewer, however, rejected this Getty/Townend jewel, because of the reviewer’s Reformed perspective on the Gospel. For the reviewer, the song did not include the decision of the believer.

As Lutherans discerning truth and error in contemporary worship efforts, we would say that the reviewer got it flat wrong. The Reformed perspective the reviewer writes from confuses objective and subjective justification. In other words, the reviewer doesn’t understand that Christ died for the sins of all people in the world (objective justification), because the reviewer holds to the Calvinist doctrine of double predestination (some are predestined to heaven while others are predestined to hell). He rejects “In Christ Alone” because of its confession of objective justification, and the absence of decision theology in its lyrics.

Now, we might praise the reviewer for having the integrity to critique (and reject!) this song on the basis of his clearly articulated theology of the Gospel. Where we cannot praise him, or accept his critique, is for his defective understanding of the Gospel. Read the review and see for yourself what I mean.

I would applaud the underlying premise for such a blog site. However, its theological point of view is not entirely biblical or Lutheran, so it should be used with discernment.

http://worship-review.com/

Surprisingly (or maybe it isn’t so surprising) there is absolutely nothing on this blog site that openly states the theological point of view assumed by the site or its participants. This has to be discovered by reading the reviews. Not so easy a task, if you don’t know the difference between Reformed and Lutheran understanding of the Gospel. Simply using the words of Scripture doesn’t automatically indicate a right understanding of those words. Discernment, friends. Discernment.

JAW

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Evangelicals, the Gospel, and the Guilty Conscience, Part 2

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Last month I commented on a blog post over at the ”Worship Together” web site. The post by Miles McKee was titled, “The Gospel and the Guilty Conscience: Part 1″. I made the observation that there was a pretty good expression of the Gospel in the post, but I wanted to see how McKee developed it in his follow up. Well, the follow up just recently appeared online, and is not surprisingly titled, “The Gospel and the Guilty Conscience: Part 2″. http://blog.worshiptogether.com/

McKee writes: “The remedy for guilt, therefore, is not more self-effort, but more gospel! The more grounded we are in the perfect work of God in Christ the more we will see that Christ Jesus is our entire righteousness.”

This is a blog post worth reading. Again, this is Evangelicals trying to get the Gospel right. And I am still anticipating the follow up posts, to see how McKee will develop this. So far so good.

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“God: the Object or Subject of Worship?” by Robert Webber

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Some of you may be familiar with the writings of the late Robert E. Webber on the Ancient Future Worship blog. Though Webber is no longer with us (died 2007), his writings about worship and the tension between respect for received traditions and engaging the present culture still resonate. Here is an article of his published in a 2005 issue of Worship Leader magazine.

http://www.ancientfutureworship.com/

God: The Object or Subject of Worship?
Many of you know that I have been struggling with the issue of me-oriented worship. Those of you who have walked this path with me- some agreeing, others disagreeing – are probably saying “Oh No, not another article on the same subject!” Well, yes, but with a completely different question for you to explore. The issue is this: In your worship planning do you view God as the object of your worship or the subject of worship?

The Right Question
It has been said that we don’t have answers to our problems because we do not ask the right question. In my years of struggle with narcissistic worship the question of God as the object or the subject of worship has never surfaced until recently. Maybe it has been articulated in your mind and you have settled the question. But for me the surfacing of the issue has clarified the fundamental dis-ease I’ve had with I-Me-My worship. I invite you to explore with me the difference between God as the object of our worship and God as the subject of worship.

God as the Object of Worship
I grew up with a three layered understanding of the universe. God is “out there” or “up there,” the earth is here and below it all is Hell. Most Christians probably function with a visual world view with God seated on the throne in God’s heavens and down below is the earth where people dwell, and in the center of the earth or somewhere below the earth there is a raging fire where those who refuse to believe in God are consigned to eternal death and separation from God.

The three tiered view of the world is not only a spatial configuration in our minds, it is also a visual picture expressed in countless works of art. We have all seen depiction of heaven as that place “out there” where God is seated on his throne surrounded by the cherubim, the seraphim, the angels, and archangels and the countless saints who have gone before worshiping in eternal perpetuity.

This spatial and visual view of God results in a human language that expresses worship to God as the object of praise. I am the subject who worships God. God is the recipient of my efforts on his behalf.

God as the Subject of Worship
The concept of God as an object, an essence who, so to speak, “sits out there” is a Greek idea, not a biblical understanding of God.

The biblical God is the God who acts. He creates, becomes involved with his creation, calls Israel into existence to be his own people, makes himself known to them in Law, present to them in the Tabernacle and leads them into the future. In their history he gives types and shadows of his forthcoming involvement in history to redeem the world. He becomes incarnate in Jesus, dies for us, is resurrected for us, ascends into heaven where he intercedes for us, will return to complete his redemption of the world in the New Heavens and the New Earth.

If we are going to use the subject/object distinction, the scenario of God’s story clearly envisions God as the subject and the world as the object. God creates the world, loves the world, cherishes the world, and saves the world with his own “two hands”, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. The incredible and radical story of God is that he loves the world so much that he enters into the suffering of the world so that through his death, sin is defeated, death is overcome, hell is conquered. And in his resurrection, life, the true life of the Spirit is recovered and man and the world is made new. Is this good news or what? In all these actions, God is not an object, but the subject who is at work in the world, redeeming it and restoring it to himself.

What, then, is Worship?
If God is the subject of worship, how then should we worship? Several things are clear: 1). We do not enthrone God or seat him in the heavenly places. He is not an object who needs us to add anything to his glory. He is most glorious in himself. 2). Worship remembers, enacts, and lives out the story of God. We sing, preach and enact at the Table the wonders of the God who as subject creates, redeems and makes all things new. This worship involves the mind, evokes the emotions, engages the body and all the senses. 3). Doing God’s story, impacts us, the objects of God’s actions. Our true worship then, is to tell and enact how God the subject rescues the world, the object of his love. In worship, God the subject, shapes us the object, into the image of his Son so that we offer our lives to God by living into his death (dying to sin) and living into his resurrection (rising to the new life in the Spirit).

Conclusion
Now, for the question: How would your worship change if we once again saw God as the subject and ourselves as the objects of his love. Plan a worship service like this and let me know the difference it makes.

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Evangelicals, the Gospel, and the Guilty Conscience

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By the time anyone reads this it will be outdated, as blogging goes. The WorshipConcord site won’t be made public for two more months yet. Which means you are reading this well after the fact. But it seemed to be worth drawing our readers attention to a blog on worship called “Worship Together.” An article dated February 18 and titled “The Gospel and the Guilty Conscience, Part 1″ is worth taking a look at.

The blog post, by Miles McKee of Miles McKee Ministries, discusses how living in guilt is contrary to the Gospel. McKee writes about becoming “Christ occupied,” a way of speaking that Lutherans aren’t exactly used to. The Scriptures certainly speak of the Holy Spirit dwelling in you and Christ dwelling in you. Fair enough. Lutherans tend to prefer a way of talking that emphasizes Baptismal regeneration and living in the grace of our Baptism.

McKee’s comments regarding the Gospel, however, are near spot on, and they are worth taking a look at. http://blog.worshiptogether.com/

The reason I find this interesting is that this is a blog about worship by Evangelicals who appear to be trying to get the Gospel right. Evangelicals usually mix personal decision with the Gospel (and thereby add our work to Christ’s gift of grace, even though they claim they aren’t doing this). This is the first in a series of articles about the Gospel, however, so I want to see what McKee says next.

Peace

JAW

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What True Worship Really Is . . . Really

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I guess this is one of those nights when I just can’t sleep. So I’m reading around on the worship blogs. Here’s one that caught my eye, not because I think it makes a positive contribution, but because it provides an example of typical Evangelical thinking about worship. It’s titled “3 Ingredients for True Worship,” by Russell Henderson.

http://www.experiencingworship.com/articles/general/2006-11-Humility-in-Worship.html

The article begins from a rather judgmental point of view, but that’s not the issue I want to address here.

The three “ingredients,” that Henderson argues are the essence of “true worship,” are humility, faith, and obedience. This is the usual Evangelical approach to worship. Worship is something we do. It’s the expression of an attitude we bring to worship in order to have a more meaningful experience with the presence of God.

Does anyone notice an imbalance? There is certainly an element of worship that entails my response to God. But that response to God on our part is evoked by God first coming to us in his Gospel and his sacraments. This is genuine biblical worship.

Now to be fair, we all know quite well that Lutherans don’t always have the right attitude toward worship. Who does? That’s the problem. We can certainly be more humble, more faithful, and more obedient when it comes to worship. But these are not what constitute the essence of biblical worship. No one can do these things to the satisfaction of the one God who lives in holiness, who himself is holy beyond our feeble comprehension.

Biblical worship, as Paul tells us, is Christ-centered, not man-centered. “We proclaim a crucified Messiah.” (1 Corinthians 1.23) This is where our right to come into the presence of God comes from. Or better, our privilege. Coming into the presence of the living God is a privilege, a gift, an indescribably precious gift.

Coming into the presence of God is not something we get right because we are humble enough, or faithful enough, or obedient enough. When you figure out what it takes to get it just right, please let me know. Good luck with that. Certainly we shouldn’t be ”trusting worship to luck.” But that’s precisely what we do when we rely on our own attributes (humility, personal faith, obedience) to make worship “what it should be.”

Biblical worship is what it is by virtue of what God gives it to be in his Gospel and his sacraments: Christ coming to us to deliver to us the forgiveness of our sins. Someone once said, “This is the highest way of worshiping Christ.”

“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” (Hebrews 10.19-23)

Peace

JAW

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