Tearing down our idols
About a year ago a prominent Canadian Christian professor took aim at one of today's most popular worship songwriters in a piece called "Chris Tomlin's Worship Songs: We Have Got to Do Better."
Setting the tone early in the article, one of the first things he says of Tomlin's songs is that "many of them stay with you after church, even if you want them badly to go away." He roundly criticizes Tomlin's songs for their "bad lyrics," "musical clichés" and "discomfiting lyrics." He calls him an outright "bad lyricist," who "either doesn't care about rhyming and settles for the merest assonance, or he lacks the skill or patience to actually craft rhymes."
Why stop there? The professor goes on to write that Tomlin also lacks a "strong grasp of Scripture, and particularly of the metaphors and allusions he uses."
If this diagnosis is correct, then many of the rest of us are musical idiots who lack the ability to discern a good song from a bad one. He nearly says as much: "We are the most educated Christians in history, and yet our lyrics are considerably stupider than our much less educated Christian forebears…"
Chris Vacher, a worship pastor from Orangeville, Ontario and founder of a Canadian songwriting collective known as WorshipRises recently came to Tomlin's defence.
Echoing my own experience, he says, "I do know this: more often than not, if I do a Chris Tomlin song with our church, they are singing their hearts out for the glory of God. As a worship leader, what more could I ask for? Why do I care whether the last word of each line rhymes? All I care is that I am putting words in the mouths of the people of this church which give God glory, stir the hearts of people toward Christ and proclaim the gospel to those who don't know Him."
If a loose rhyme scheme is all it takes to keep someone from worshiping God, the problem likely isn't with the song.
At the other end of the spectrum is the widespread idolization of the band Hillsong United. With a cast of hip, young and good-looking band members and the Hillsong promotional machine in full force, United has become the "it" band in worship music.
In today's industry, music and image are inextricably linked. Unfortunately, this is just as true of the Christian music subculture as its secular counterpart. The visual presentation of Hillsong United is a message to its audience: image counts for a lot.
One disturbing outworking of this message became evident to me recently as I was looking at the search terms that bring traffic to my blog. One of the top search terms is "Hillsong" and the words most commonly paired with that term are "girls" and "girl singer."
The girl they're likely searching for is Brooke Fraser, one of the aforementioned hip, young, and good-looking members the band. Type that name into a Google image search and you'll see her in poses ranging from "cute" to what can reasonably be described as "seductive."
This strong push toward image marketing says nothing about the quality of the music that emanates from Hillsong's various incarnations, the quality of which ranges from lacklustre to profound. Fraser herself is a gifted writer and singer who penned the popular anthem "Hosanna" (the one that begins with "I see the King of Glory…").
But it does say a lot about the methods they're willing to use to sell worship music. When we see a "professional worship singer" posing for photos that are not-so-subtly seductive, it's normal to experience some confusion.
There's a difference between looking presentable and seeking to become the centre of attention. When sensuality is used as leverage—or worse, manipulation—to sell something for Jesus, we're getting uncomfortably close to the line between acceptable and not-so.
All of this to say that we do still love to attend to our idols, whether by attempting to tear them down with undue criticism or via the adulation that makes them too high a priority in our lives. Given a choice between fickle fascination and condescending criticism, we should choose neither.
In one case, we're tearing down something good for the sake our own over-refined sense of quality; in the other case, we're praising something unholy because we've bought into the false god worship of celebrity culture.
Let's allow the songs to be songs, regardless of who wrote them or what the writer looks like. Let's neither use nor reject songs because they come from a certain artist.
I plan to continue to use both Hillsong and Chris Tomlin material when leading my church in worship. I'll also use anything else that's singable and theologically sound. And I'll continue to be diligent about avoiding the mixed messages of the visual presentation of worship artists.
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