The quote below is a great follow-up to this earlier post. I lifted this entirely from Jared's blog.

Self-denying humility ought to show up in the way we worship together. Thankfully, we don't hear as much these days about worship wars in Christian churches as we did just a few years ago, but they are still there. For years I thought this phenomenon was the bane of the "make it up as you go along" whirl of low-church evangelical Protestantism, and mostly it is. But even with a set traditional liturgy, Roman Catholics and other groups often experience the same kinds of tensions.

Maybe you're like me, reared to have the worship music tastes of a seventy-five-year-old woman. That's because, I think, a seventy-five-year-old woman was picking out the hymns and gospel songs in the church where I grew up. I tear up when I sing "Just As I Am" or "To God Be the Glory." And I'm left cold by what some people call the "majestic old hymns." They sound like what watercress-sandwich-eating Episcopalians from Connecticut would listen to (not that there's anything wrong with that). And so many of the contemporary songs sound as if they were written by commercial jingle writers, trying desperately to find words to rhyme with "Jesus" ("Sees us?" "Never leave us?" "Diseases?"). I'm not saying aesthetics don't matter in worship. Worship is, after all, commanded to be offered with "reverence and awe" (Heb. 12:28). I am saying our varying critiques of musical forms are often just simple narcissism disguised as concern about theological and liturgical downgrade.

We need more worship wars, not fewer. What if the war looked like this in your congregation—the young singles petitioning the church to play more of the old classics for the sake of the elderly people, and the elderly people calling on the leadership to contemporize for the sake of the young new believers? This would signal a counting of others as more important than ourselves (Phil. 2:3), which comes from the Spirit of the humiliated, exalted King, Christ (Phil. 2:5-11).

When I insist that the rest of the congregation serve as backup singers in my own little nostalgic hit parade of back-home Mississippi hymns, I am worshiping in the spirit all right, but not the Holy Spirit. I am worshiping myself, in the spirit of self-exaltation. The church negates the power of the third temptation when we remind ourselves that we all have this devilish tendency and cast it aside whether in worship planning or missions or budget decisions.

-- Russell Moore, Tempted and Tried (Crossway, 2011), 149-150.

Yes.

Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. (Romans 12:10 ESV)

From Think Theologically: How to worship when you think the songs suck. Some excerpts, below:

And that my friend, brings us to the point. “How do I worship when I think the songs suck?” you might ask. Well first off, you don’t express that you think the songs suck to anyone else. You may ruin a genuine worshipful experience for them by your complaining. While they were perfectly fine worshipping to that particular song, your comments could forever taint it for them. You are certainly free to mentally critique the artistic and theological merits of the songs you sing each Sunday. But when you decide one or more are duds, don’t rain on everyone else’s parade.

The church has enough people complaining about enough things.

Yes.

I am guilty of ruining songs for other people. And I'm not talking about songs that have bad theology. I'm talking about songs that don't float my boat, or have an emphasis problem or metaphorical turn that I find slightly troubling.

I hadn't thought of it this way: I may be ruining a worship experience for someone else when I do that. I may be stealing worship from God, and replacing it with confusion or cynicism.

This still leaves the question though of “how do I worship when I think the songs suck?” The answer, in short, is that the worship set wasn’t picked for you, and part of being in community of believers gathered to worship is forfeiting your preferences in deference to others. A prime example of this is theologian John Frame. While a classically trained organist who doesn’t like contemporary worship music, Frame nonetheless argues for its legitimate place in worship services. I’m sure he might cringe as well at some of the current praise choruses that are popular out there, but out of love for his brothers and sisters in Christ, he lays down his preferences and worships alongside those who sing songs he might not particularly like.

I think this is the ultimate answer to the question. When you think the songs suck, you can still, and should still worship God as fervently and freely as you would when its your absolute favorite song being sung. You may however need to mortify your critical spirit and get over yourself first, but you should still strive to worship God through song each Sunday whether you particularly like the selections or not.

Jesus didn’t die on the cross so you could sing your favorite songs every Sunday. He died so that you might learn to die to self as well. Part of doing that might just be singing songs you don’t like, and singing them as genuinely as the songs you do.

Amen.

[H/T Parchment and Pen]

Caught in the mom-wagon? Make your drive instantly bad-action with any of these fifteen songs. You can't not feel cool driving to these tunes.

1. "Trouble Man" by Marvin Gaye

2. "Midnight Rider" by Allman Brothers Band*

3. "The Letter" by Joe Cocker

4. "Low Rider" by War

5. "Call Me The Breeze" by Lynyrd Skynyrd

6. "La Grange" by ZZ Top

7. "E-Pro" by Beck

8. "Super Bad, Parts 1 and 2" by James Brown

9. "Repo Man" by Ray LaMontagne and the Pariah Dogs

10. "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" by Michael Jackson**

11. "1999" by Prince

12. "American Girl" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

13. "Whole Lotta Lovin'" by Led Zeppelin

14. "Blitzkrieg Bop" by The Ramones

15. "Pride and Joy" by Stevie Ray Vaughn

Pop 'em in, crank it up, and rock out with your Crocs out.

Any recommendations you can make? What songs bad-action up your ride?



* Willie Nelson's version of this song works equally well.
** Will also accept "Billie Jean" as an alternative.

Tonight I was searching for something on my solo blogsite and skimmed a number of old posts, most of them written during a particularly introspective period a few years ago. At the time I didn't know who I was writing for, because no one really has ever read that space, so I'm wondering if maybe I was writing for future self to read. I was able to put words together back then.

All is well, but the words aren't flowing as easily anymore. They are swallowed up in busyness and distractions. All for good causes, I believe, but I long for simplicity.

And for no other reason than that, and because YouTube is the last refuge of the "I Got Nuthin'" blogger, I give you this simple Zooey Deschanel goodness. It's a rare doldrummed spirit that can't be lifted by a ukelele and two part harmony.



Jesus loves you, and everything is going to be set right.

Good night.

[H/T Althouse]

Have you heard of Gungor? Gungor is a Christian band (or, if that bugs you, a band that happens to be Christian :-) that has put together some pretty good music over the past few years. I'm not that familiar with them, but our College and Young Singles ministry contains some young people who are huge fans. I've heard that their concerts are great worship experiences. We've even used some of their songs for our before-teaching worship on Sunday mornings and at our homegroup on Friday nights.

Gungor has a new album out called Ghosts Upon The Earth. Our friend Quaid pointed me to the blog post in which Michael Gungor and his wife Lisa describe the album.

Now, before I excerpt part of it, I have to come clean: while I consider myself fairly current and I have a taste for newer music, if you're under the age of 25 or so, I could be your dad. So keep that in mind. I'm not exactly a hepcat. Plus, I admit that I've had this little yellow warning light going off on my discernment panel in my inner control room for awhile when it comes to Gungor. It's not a siren, just a small warning that now and then goes beeeep. One concern I have is that, while their music is great, I haven't been able to detect a clear Christology in it. That's for what I've listened to, which is certainly not their whole catalog. Of course, I could be wrong. I've been wrong plenty in my lifetime.

So, with that said, I'd be interested in your thoughts on Michael Gungor's notes about his song "Wake Up Sleeper".

This song puts music to that side of Jesus’ message. When Jesus spoke most of his nice, comforting words like “blessed are the poor”… or “don’t worry about tomorrow”, etc., he was primarily talking to a group of people on the underside of power. He was talking to the poor. To those who had fallen short in their weaknesses, Jesus said things like “neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more.”

But he wasn’t always so gracious toward those with power and religious authority. He would say “Woe to you Pharisees…you whitewashed tombs…you brood of vipers” and so on. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day worshiped a religious system, a book, or a law more than they did the very Spirit of God. They worshiped their own place and thoughts and understandings of God rather than simply worshiping God. This seemed to infuriate Jesus.

In my opinion, this hasn’t changed much. Much of the Christian world right now worships the Bible more than it worships God. If you go to the website of a typical protestant, evangelical church right now, there’s a good chance that under the belief section you will come across the Bible before you come across any language about Jesus. You will probably find more theology about what you need to do to go to Heaven than you will about following the teachings of Jesus, or the Kingdom of God, or anything like that.

I feel like much of modern American Christianity should actually change its name to something else, maybe something like Bible-anity. As a whole, we’re rich, we’re arrogant, we’re judgmental and we’re dead inside. Sounds like the Pharisees to me.

This song is a call to repentance, a call to wake up. It’s an invitation to join the poor and the sinner and the broken once again that we may come alive and join with God again.

[Emphasis mine]

So, what do you think of that? Should most of us drop the Christian tag and start calling ourselves "Bible-ians"?

I have to admit this troubles me. I'm wanting to cross-check my opinion on this with some of you. Let me acknowledge first that there is probably some truth to his point. But is it accurate?

For what it's worth, I went to my church's website to see our statement of belief. The first three paragraphs deal with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, before paragraph four, which deals with the Bible. And we're fairly conservative, evangelical and protestant. So maybe we're an outlier?

Secondly, I read every lyric of the new album. There isn't a mention of Jesus anywhere, or much of anything that couldn't be sung in a Unitarian church, even though the whole album deals with spiritual themes. Now, of course, just because you are a Christian and you make music doesn't mean you have to sing about Jesus in every song, or in any song. But if you're going to scold others for not mentioning Jesus prominently enough on their websites . . .

Thirdly, trust me, I know that there are plenty of problems in the American church. But I've never thought that one of them is that we pay too much attention to the Bible.

Finally, I get spooked when people begin talking about the Bible like it's something that is getting between a person and God, especially when it's so easy to create a false god for oneself when sailing the windblown seas without the Bible for a rudder.

I am interested in your thoughts on this, so if you have any, especially if you are a Gungor fan, please leave them in the comments. Thanks.

EW's Owen Gleiberman reports:

I went to a showing of From the Sky Down, a documentary about U2 directed by Davis Guggen- heim, with more or less one thought in my head: Do I really need to see another U2 documentary? . . . I would probably have skipped the film entirely were it not for the fact that I’ve greatly enjoyed Davis Guggenheim’s work — An Inconvenient Truth (2006) and Waiting for “Superman” (2010), and also, maybe especially, It Might Get Loud (2008), his marvelous ode to rock & roll guitarists. (If you’ve never seen it, you really should.)

I’m glad I listened to my instincts. From the Sky Down looks back at U2′s career through the lens of the band’s single most dramatic transformational moment: the recording of Achtung Baby in 1990-91. Sure, I already knew that that album — a great one — marked U2′s early-’90s reinvention of itself into, ironically enough, a “rock band.” (That’s when Bono started to wear sunglasses, and also when they exchanged the thumping drive of their rhythms for dance grooves, industrial-funk grooves, soft-rock grooves. Simply put, it was when they started to groove.) But From the Sky Down captures how a moment like that one doesn’t just happen. The band members didn’t simply wake up one day and look at each other and say, “Hey, dudes, let’s rebrand!” In fact, Bono and the Edge, by the end of the ’80s, knew that they had pushed their politics, their sound, their stoic po-faced album covers, their indie-band-gone-arena-rock mode as far as it could go, and that they couldn’t just keep doing it anymore.

But what to do instead? From the Sky Down, without being at all overblown about it, presents the recording of Achtung Baby as a moment when the band was trying, in essence, to get from one side of a canyon to another, only they weren’t at all sure that there was a bridge they could walk across, because only the album they hadn’t made yet could be that bridge . . .

The movie is startlingly intimate — and honest — about the fears, the personal and musical tensions, the artistic chaos, the grinding work and discovery that went into the recording of Achtung Baby. It is, quite simply, one of the most transcendent close-up looks at the process of creating rock & roll I’ve ever seen.

I know U2 purists disagree with me, but I think Achtung Baby is their best album, and it's certainly one of the ten best albums by anybody in the last 20 years. Looking forward to the doc.

This is an extra cut from U2's Slane Castle DVD (circa 2001, I think). As an extra, it's a rough edit, but I love this version of "Mysterious Ways," as Bono is joined by his daughter on stage. My favorite part is around 4:20, when he hugs her while he's humming. Love it.

Paul Simon has been making great music for a long, long time. I saw this intriguing review of his new album So Beautiful or So What on The Rabbit Room that you might find interesting. It certainly piqued my interest in the album.

Here's one of the songs: Getting Ready for Christmas Day. Loved this one.

In case you have no idea what this is about, here is the original version of the song that caused all the hooplah. It's amazing how songs can be redeemed.

Just like lives.

It looks like U2's mammoth 360 Tour will close up shop in July. Where does U2 go from here? My brother and I kicked around a few ideas over lunch today, and hopefully with a little luck U2's manager, Paul McGuinness, will read this post (I'm pretty sure he has Thinklings on his reader) and implement our ideas. Here's what U2 should do:

- Within 12 months of shutting down the 360 Tour, they should release a low-key, stripped down album. Nothing too crazy.

- Within 18 months of shutting down the 360 Tour, they should embark on a worldwide arena tour where they would play maybe four or five songs from the new album, two or three anthems ("Streets" and "One" being two of the three), and the rest of the songs should be hardcore U2 fan favorites, of which there are many to choose from, like "Acrobat," "Angel of Harlem," "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me," "Breath," etc. The idea behind this tour is it would be a fan's tour, bolstered by the intimacy of arenas.

- Within 36 months of shutting down the 360 Tour, the new tour should be shut down and U2 should take a break for six months, regroup, and then start working on another mega-album in the vein of The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby, or even All That You Can't Leave Behind and How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. I know it's practically impossible to force the production of a great album, but they should take at least 18 to 24 months and make it happen.

- Within 60 months of shutting down the 360 Tour, U2 should release the new, aforementioned album. It will change the world.

- Within 66 months of shutting down the 360 Tour, U2 should embark on their last enormous, worldwide stadium tour. The tour should last two to two-and-a-half years. It'll be the last great U2 stadium tour; everything after this tour should be done in arenas. By the time this tour ends, members of U2 will be pushing 60 years old, and they'll once again need to musically reinvent themselves, assuming they want to continue making music until they die (I'll bet that's at least Bono's plan).

There you go, Paul. No need to thank me.

Actually, I don't know the kid, so I don't not like him as a person. But as a counterpoint to Shrode's previous adoring tribute to Bieber's towering greatness, I offer this borrowed post from my brother, honorary Thinkling Stroke:

just hear me out. i'm not hating on bieber in the sense of "i hate his music and teeny-bopper culture." i don't have strong issues with those who are fans of his, really, either. what i don't like (and i'm not calling shrode out on this, i'm just reminded of it by his post) is people trying to tout bieber as a good Christian influence amidst a sin-filled environment. (from what i read, shrode was hopeful that bieber could stand for something other than the world and that bieber came from a faithful family that he was rooting for to direct justin in the right direction.)

this has probably been addressed at stuff Christians like, but i know that Christians like to root for famous/successful Christians. heck, i praised tony dungy and kurt warner on this very blog for the confusing contentment they've demonstrated in their post-nfl lives.

on a minor level, the danger here is promoting a celebrity as Christian in such a way that they become models in the faith when they shouldn't be. on a an extreme level, the danger is following a "Christian" celebrity so that we can label our idol worship as something much more tame, like "support."

back to what spurred this line of thinking... in the thinklings post referenced above, bieber's faith-walk was wondered about and certain evidences were given in hopes that he might be a believer who is working hard at keeping his nose clean and sending out good clean, positive vibes. (i really hope i'm not misstating or misquoting anyone.)

in the comments, someone mentioned that bieber's rolling stone cover was already a sign that he was headed for or already on a slippery slope. i went looking for said photo because i had seen things of bieber on SNL that already concerned me. i really didn't think he was a Christian role model, anyway, based on the fact that he's a secular artist. shamefully, it's the cynic in me that doubts a believer who is serious about their faith can really be wildly successful in the entertainment industry.* to me, you have to sell out to some extent to be THAT successful. at the very least they aren't characterized by their faith in Christ. i could be wrong. please remind me of examples where i am.

anyway, what i found on rolling stone's site was not the cover photo in question, but a picture of bieber flipping the bird to some paparazzo. granted, this does not mean he isn't a believer. but it is evidence that we should be extremely careful in promoting any human as a role model who isn't characterized by imitating Christ.

i don't doubt that bieber is talented. i don't doubt that his music is positive. i don't doubt that he's a generally good kid. BUT what that all adds up to is as eternally significant as charlie sheen's recent tirades. beyond that, it might even be more dangerous than sheen's "words of wisdom" because bieber is safe, cuddly and encouraging. sadly, anything short of Christ just makes for a safe, cuddled and encouraged journey to hell (unless you side with rob bell (oooooh, booyah, didn't see THAT coming did you? obligatory rob bell reference: check.)) basically, #tigerblood is just as God glorifying as #bieberfever.

so, to sum up: i don't mind if you're a bieber fan. i really don't. shoot, continue to pray for him, hope he stays out of trouble, etc. but please don't try to champion him as a Christian role model or put him on a pedestal. it's ok to enjoy secular music, really it is. as long as we don't glory in it and don't idolize those who represent it. and whatever we do, we dare not label it as "Christian" so we can embrace, stomach and parade our worship of anything/anyone other than Christ.

looking for role models? look for this attitude: "Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ." 1 Corinthians 11:1

wondering what to worship/promote: "Some boast in chariots and some in horses, But we will boast in the name of the LORD, our God." Psalm 20:7

"But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." Galatians 6:14




*i believe pro athletes are different because their profession/success is based more on their athletic ability than their image or message/brand.

I'm not sure if this has already been posted, but it's awesome so here you go:

This is fabulous: The Mnozil Brass performing Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.



Note: The video is over nine minutes long, but the song is just over six minutes. The remainder of the video is raucous encore clapping and then an evidently very amusing monologue (in German) by the band leader.

In the midst of debates about music in worship, I've heard people talk about songs with "bad theology." I would heartily concur with anyone who says that we shouldn't sing songs with bad theology in our worship services, whether the song is "contemporary" or "traditional."

At our church, we made a pretty dramatic change from a traditional to a "blended" service. And so in keeping my promise to our folks that newer music would still have good theology, I've tried to be diligent. But I'm having a problem. Where are all these songs with bad theology that I'm supposed to be keeping out? It's hard for me to exercise my pastoral veto pen when there aren't any bad songs to nix.

So I was hoping you could help me. Can you give me some examples of songs with bad theology? No song is off limits. Feel free to use a contemporary praise song or an old hymn.

Warning: You'll need to explain your example. Please cite the offending lyric and explain why it is bad theology. One of the things I've noticed is that sometimes "bad theology" is kind of hard to universally agree on in a song. I mean how much poetic license do we give someone?

For example, for a long time the only example I ever heard about a contemporary song with "bad theology" was "Above All" by Lenny LeBlanc. The offending lyric was supposedly:

"Crucified laid behind a stone
You lived to die rejected and alone
Like a rose trampled on the ground
You took the fall and thought of me
Above all

I was told that Jesus did not think of me above all. That the number one thought/priority on Jesus' mind was God's glory. And so this is bad theology because it elevates man above God.

Hmmmm. OK. I get that. Maybe that critic has a point. But personally, I give poets a little license. I get the point of the song, and the point of that lyric, and I don't really think the author is guilty of heresy...

On the other hand, the old saying is that people get their theology from what they sing, so maybe we should be tougher than just keeping "bad theology" out. Maybe we should keep out the iffy stuff too?

Here's a whole blog dedicated to the subject.

Here's a whole post on the subject, with many examples. Mostly he criticizes the "Jesus is my boyfriend" songs. But the only one I saw that he cited as "bad theology" was this one:

The nails in your hands
the nails in your feet
They tell me how much you love me.
The thorns on your brow
They show me how
You bore so much shame to love me.
Richard Cimino – “The Nails in Your Hands”

In addition to “Jesus as my girlfriend” songs – songs about the cross also have some pretty bad theology. Is it true that the only way we know about Christ’s love is through the blood, nails and the thorns on Christ’s brow? And why do we sing songs that are so “happy” sounding about something that was such a brutal and vicious death?

I don't think the song is saying that nails, blood and thorns are the only way to know Christ's love. I think maybe he's being a little too picky here. Songs express emotion, and I think we have to allow the writers that. (And yes, even the old hymns and the Psalms expressed emotion.) I'm not saying it's OK to have songs with bad theology. It's definitely not. I'd just like to see one good example of bad theology. I guess I'm looking for something that directly contradicts Scripture.

Though I do agree with the blog author above about "happy" sounding songs about the Cross. The worst offender being "At the Cross."

And of course, the "contemporary" songs aren't the only ones accused of bad theology. There's this example:

Poor apologetics = “I know my Savior lives, because He lives within my heart.”

Good apologetics = “I know my Savior lives in my heart, because He lives!”

Can any of you give me any examples of hymns or praise songs that actually have bad theology?

This song and video both give me chills. We did this song in the College/Young Singles today.

I can't imagine how long it took to create this video (or how many lightbrights it took!).



One thing I love about the David Crowder Band is their genuine creativity. Even though this song is very simple (four chords, repeated over and over again), it hits the heart and brings glory to the One who has overcome.

Do you ever wonder which (if any) of the contemporary songs we sing today in church may end up being the "hymns" of later generations? Some will have to, I believe; every song we place in the category of hymn today was at one time a contemporary worship song.

I can think of three modern worship songs that I believe will be included in the church's hymnody in fifty years:

Revelation Song by Jennie Lee Riddle - straight from Scripture, this song has a lot of the characteristics of a hymn, including a very simple structure (four chords, repeated over and over). This is a powerful song. Below is Kari Jobe's arrangement of it:



How Deep The Father's Love For Us by Stuart Townend - A hymn of praise to God for His great love, beautifully set to music, drenched in scripture. The use of a 5/4 time signature adds, in my opinion, to this song's sense of timelessness.



In Christ Alone by Stuart Townend and Keith Getty - Christ-centered, as all good hymns should be. I love this song.



Which songs of our time do you think we'll still be singing in church in fifty years? Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments.

I don't think there's a better storytelling comedian than Bill Cosby. Here he is at the height of his genius, talking about trying to sit in on the drums at a jazz club occupied by his heroes.



I also love the picture of him trying his hardest and failing, and the expert sliding in to his place to "rescue him." Very gospel-y.

(HT: Zach Nielsen)