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On July 27, 2023 By In Music, Worship

The Masculinity Of Corporate Singing: A Call To Christian Men To Sing

It was once common knowledge that the burliest and manliest chaps among us were the ones most interested in song. For instance, when soldiers marched into battle or were training for it, they would often march to the rhythm of a rousing tune. When rowers on old ships would drop their ores into the frigid waters, they kept time with sea shanties and other melodies. When those same men gathered together for a pint at the local pub, they sang folk songs and bar tunes. When tradesmen were on the job, they were whistling while they worked. When music was being composed, it was predominantly done by men for men. Essentially, wherever you found the strongest and hardest working men, the most aggressive soldiers, and the saltiest sea dogs, you could guarantee that they were singers. Moreover, they loved it. 

Now, one of the things I find the most peculiar, especially in the modern church, is how effective Satan has been in convincing men to remain quiet in public worship. For too many men believe that singing is a feminine action that grades against their masculinity. Even fewer have found the joy and utter manliness of participating at a rip-roaring level. 

While this does not apply to all men, many no longer feel like loud thunderous song-singing is a masculine endeavor. In fact, who can blame them? When the Church, for the last decade or 12, has adopted overly emotive self-focused songs sung by attractive hip-swaying women on stage, with eyes closed, lights turned down, and maybe a few lit candles to accompany the emergent pop vibe, is it any wonder that testosterone rich men are not clamoring to participate in this? Instead of a Biblically qualified elder leading the saints in public worship of their triune God from the book of Psalms or a Biblically faithful hymnal, far too many churches have adopted the shallow style of the entertainment complex, catering to consumer-driven concertgoers who are looking to be entertained with an experience instead of worshiping the Living God. 

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On July 18, 2023 By In Film, Music

HBO’s ‘Barry’ converts to Christ and listens to David Crowder Band

If you’ve never heard of Barry, it’s a dark comedy on HBO starring Bill Hader (viewer discretion advised). The show debuted in 2018, with its fourth and final season ending in 2023. The main character, Barry Berkman, is a former-Marine-turned-hitman. He uses his military sniper skills to murder people for money. That sounds pretty dark, right? Where’s the comedy? The comedy kicks in when Barry decides to take up acting classes as a hobby. Quirky and eccentric characters give the show a satirical edge.

Seasons 1, 2, and 3 contain little to no religious elements, at least none that I can recall. Imagine my surprise when Season 4 depicts Barry as a convert to Christianity. In Episode 5, Barry is in his secluded home, hiding out with his wife and son. They are watching a live-streamed worship service on their laptop. At the end of the sermon, the pastor says, “Peace be with you.” Barry’s family promptly responds, “And also with you.” They then hug and share the peace with one another.

In other scenes, Barry teaches his son to honor God’s creation and not resort to violence. He teaches the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000. He makes reference to St. Augustine. This is a Barry that we’ve never seen before. He is raising his son in the faith, and it appears that his murderous ways are behind him.

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On July 3, 2023 By In Music

Why Church Music Must Endure

What’s the most popular Christian song sung in churches today? It’s called “Build My Life” from Bethel Music. The song was written in 2016 and has stood the test of a whopping seven years of longevity.

A new study on worship music “found that the lifespan of a hit worship song has declined dramatically in recent years.” There are reasons for this phenomenon. The research indicates that worship songs are made to “feed the algorithm.” In other words, they are intentionally written to supply a current need instead of embracing any sense of historical need. As one pastor observed:

“…the churn of worship music reflects the way Americans consume media in general, where ‘everything is immediate and has a short shelf life.'”

I suspect anyone reading my words for the last couple of years has a deep appreciation for my parody-like observations on such topics and is assured by my vivacious display of righteous anger toward the inevitable words above.

But I don’t want to simply use the above as some apologetic for despising Bethel or Hillsong. Hillsong, in particular, has undergone the agony of death a few thousand times these last few years. I don’t want to beat down a beaten foe, and I do leave room for common grace even music.

So, give me a couple of minutes to indoctrinate you just a bit. After all, it’s the only reason I have a Facebook account. It will be slow and painless. I promise. I will even tell a few stories. Then, I will be sure to close with some pertinent questions. So, stick around, kids!

Back in the 1990s–give or take a year or two before the rapture–I remember engaging a Christian radio program when I lived in Pennsylvania. The speaker had this remarkable voice filled with the sophistication of someone trained rhetorically under the best. He hailed from a town about an hour from where I was called Ligonier.

I kept tuning in every night, retiring early to ensure I was ready with a notebook before Robert Charles Sproul came on the scene heralded by “Sinfonia” from Handel’s Messiah. The whole thing was sublime, and coupled with Sproul’s elegance of delivery, it was theologically seductive, and I didn’t even know what “reformed” was at the time.

Part of my intrigue with Sproul was not only the gravitas of his delivery but the way he symphonically engaged the arts, theology, and culture–all three pieces ending with a major key of excellence. My wife and I spent some time attending his congregation in Sanford, and the sobering reality of the worship took my understanding of music to a whole new level.

I grew up thinking that music was preferential, a box of chocolate wherein you get what you get and hope for the best. If you want to feel young again and receive a double portion of the Spirit, then you visit your local mega-church with all the excellence of audio recording and a fine assembly of musicians to lead the way. And, in most cases, their voices can easily guide the whole song. It is like a monastery led by professional cantors. I do not minimize their work. It is well done unto the Lord.

In other cases, if you grew up with St. Fannie Crosby, then there is a pre-determined holy 25 classics that can be played repeatedly by your sweet pianist with all her flowery glory. When you sing those songs, you come to the garden alone and leave walking with Jesus. There is a certain addiction to those classics that is hard to erase in our evangelical culture.

I had the distinct privilege of being a part of both cultures, first as a singer in the congregation my father pastored in Brazil, which was a potpourri of highly emotional choruses with a blend of old hymns. Then, later in my Christian life, I had the joy of leading music at a Presbyterian Church using the RUF selection, which was hymns put into contemporary tunes.

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On June 26, 2023 By In Music

The Shape of Sola Musica

In the 19th century, the evangelist Charles Finney, known for creating the invitational system, changed how music was done in Church. Music was no longer in praise of God but a way of drawing people to the front to make public professions. This model was adopted in the United States and is very much prominent today.

Music, for Finney, was utilitarian. “How can I draw people to God through their emotions and tears?” Rather than “How can we adore the Triune God?” There is a fundamental difference.

One recent theologian was perplexed by how modern Americans read their Bibles. Instead of asking, “What does the text mean?” we ask, “What does it mean to me?” We have become self-interpreters. We have become infatuated with the way something affects us. And if it doesn’t fit my style, then I will find something else. We have divided the evangelical church into “Traditional vs. Contemporary.” In other words, if you are between the age of 20-45, you are encouraged to visit our contemporary service, and if you are older, please attend our traditional service at 11.

We have segregated the evangelical church into preferences. Now there are things preferential in the Church: the color of chairs, curtains, bagels, etc. But worship must be regulated according to God’s holy word.

When the contemporary church asks: “Why do our children suddenly decide to worship elsewhere when they are older instead of mom and dad’s church?” The answer is that we have segregated our children for so long that they logically want to be separated from us.

History is made up of happy major chords and sad minor chords. It is a story of joy and sorrow. Therefore, our music must reflect not just exuberance but also the deep anguish of Scriptures. Biblical, Church music should be reverential, joyful, exuberant, shout-worthy, mournful, lamentable, and war-like. Music dresses us in priestly garments (Eph. 6:10-20).

It ought to shape our way of thinking about everything. Church music ought to appeal to you and your children. In Psalm 8, God says from the mouths of infants, I have declared my praise. You should sing a hymn and then say, “I am more aware of who God is because of what I have just sung.” You should have Psalms 2, 98, and 110 going through your minds as you work from Monday through Friday. They communicate God’s plans for his people and how he promises to deliver his people from evil.

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On May 7, 2023 By In Culture, Music

The Coronation of King Charles III and its Holy Other

The coronation of King Charles III offered many layers of discussion before and after. While many decry its splendor because it offers ceremonialisms mixed with apathy and a buffet of English religious nominalism, I found it to be a compelling piece of beauty, an objective art form of an ancient era.

Moreover, it added symbolic elements to a modernized un-symbolic world that everyday English citizens may have forgotten or act as if it belongs in grandmother’s wardrobe. But even if the attendees do not understand the meaning of using olives harvested from the Mount of Olives or St. Edward’s Staff, it is irrelevant to me. What is relevant is that throughout the ceremony, from the processional to the recessional, the world saw, and those present experienced, something entirely other.

There was more than mere pomp and pride in the coronation; there was an enchanted world presented to a disenchanted people. The entire ceremony, decorated with Scriptural references and substantive vows, provided a marvelous array of heavenly touches that puts most in the United States at odds with its grandeur.

We are stimulated towards sameness in our evangelical culture. We want the worship of the resurrected Messiah to share identical features to our daily experiences. We want expressive individualism reigning at the yacht club and worship. We wish to be moved by the same incense in our kitchen and bedroom areas. But worship is holy other. We may live in different zones, but the culture of worship is like a powerful coronation re-enactment descending from heaven by the power of the Spirit. The fragrance of the altar (Exodus 20) should challenge our weekly experiences by preferring heaven above earthly rhythms.

To come to worship and expect the same realities will dictate our distaste for something so extraordinary as the coronation of a King. We may not appreciate the carefully practiced liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer. Still, we should find the other-worldly nature of that coronation a glimpse into the festival day when we shall see our true King crowned Lord of all; when death is finally finished. Then, the processional that inaugurates eternity will be far greater and far more numerous, and infinitely glorious.

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On December 29, 2022 By In Culture, Music, Theology, Worship

Christmas Carols: Simeon’s Song

Death is not a subject we normally think about this time of year. We are in the Christmas season in which the new life of the infant, Jesus, is celebrated. The New Year is a few days away, and it is a time of new beginnings. The promise of new life in the birth of Jesus and that sense of a fresh start in the new year focuses our attention on life. But just as the shadow of the cross hung over the manger and the infant, so our own mortality casts a shadow on all of these new beginnings. Death is inevitable no matter how many new beginnings we have in this life.

I’m not trying to dampen your spirits and dull your celebrations, but death plays its role in our Christmas celebration. What I call the final Christmas Carol in Luke’s Gospel, the Song of Simeon, is surrounded by and shot through with the realities of death; Simeon’s death, the death of Jesus, and even a form of death for Mary.

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On December 21, 2022 By In Culture, Music, Theology, Worship

Christmas Carols: Gloria in Excelsis Deo

The soprano solo begins with an unadorned recitative (that is, a melodic speaking that is essentially rhythmically free): “There were shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.” As the narrative moves forward, the accompaniment increases with a sweet but driving rhythm, building to the place where “suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying.” Then, majestically, the chorus joins in singing, “Glory to God, glory to God in the highest!” From that point on, voices sing in harmony and answer one another with the Gloria in Excelsis Deo, the song of the angels when they announce the birth of Jesus. In his Messiah, Handel captures well the mood and glory of the scene. When performed well, the sound that surrounds you and strikes your body with its power, tuning your whole being to its message, is rapturous.

As glorious as a well-performed Messiah is, it must be a dim reflection of what the shepherds heard that night when the angelic armies, the throne-chariot of God, sang the Gloria for the first time. Nevertheless, as dim as the earthly reflection might be, the angelic warriors were drafting earthly warriors to take up this song with them. The church has done so by including the Gloria in Excelsis in its historic liturgies for many occasions. We continue to sing the angelic war song because we continue to fight for that peace which is the aim of the song.

The song is brief, but it is pregnant with meaning. The song is composed with parallels that help us to understand its message. “Glory” is parallelled with “peace,” “highest” is paralleled with “earth,” and “God” is paralleled with “favored men” or “men with whom he is well pleased.”

“Glory to God” is not synonymous with “praise God,” though it certainly includes that. The angels are proclaiming the glory of God, and the glory of God is the manifestation of his life; it is the radiance of his character; it is the expressed fullness of all that he is and does. When paralleled with “peace,” the angelic choir is proclaiming the way God himself lives. God’s glory is manifested in peace. This peace is the full, joyful, healthy life that is shared among the members of the Godhead and those in heaven. God lives eternally at peace as Father, Son, and Spirit, and the aim of the creation project is to bring the earth to enjoy the fullness of this peace. The angels are prayerfully singing that God’s peace will be realized on earth as it is in heaven.

This peace of God will come to those whom God favors or those with whom he is well-pleased. These favored ones, the shepherds, Mary, Elizabeth, Zechariah, and others like them who hunger and thirst after righteousness–for God to set things right in the world–will be the recipients of this peace.

This peace will only come at the end of conflict because the present evil powers who despise God’s peace will not go down without a fight. With our King, we, the armies of God, will fight. The fight is not conventional fleshly warfare. “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly but are powerful in God to the pulling down of strongholds” (2Cor 10.3-4). One of our weapons is to join the song of the heavenly armies. As David drove away the evil spirits through music (1Sm 16.23), so we, through singing with the angelic armies, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace with favored men,” will advance the line against our enemy to eventually bring about the peace of which we sing.

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On December 15, 2022 By In Culture, Music, Theology, Worship

Christmas Carols: The Benedictus

Is Zechariah confused? What is singing about in Luke 1: a political, sociological, national deliverance, or a spiritual deliverance? On the one hand, he prophesies about “being saved from our enemies and all who hate us,” and on the other hand he speaks about John giving the “knowledge of salvation in the forgiveness of sins.” Maybe Zechariah is still trapped in the thinking that the Messiah would come as a military leader to deliver Israel. But wait, he also speaks about the forgiveness of sins. Can it be both?

Zechariah’s song resonates with the song of Moses after Israel’s exodus from Egypt. Words such as “visited,” “redeemed,” and “remember” all have echoes of the Exodus. Phrases such as being “saved from our enemies” and being “delivered from the hand of our enemies that we might serve him without fear” all point to Zechariah understanding what is happening with the birth of his son and of Jesus as being a new exodus.

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On December 8, 2022 By In Music, Theology, Worship

Christmas Carols: The Magnificat

In the beginning there was God and nothing else. Then Word carried by Spirit begins to pulse in harmonious tones into the nothingness. A world outside of God himself begins to appear. The song sung by the Triune God creates and begins to shape the world. As each element in the cosmos comes into being through this song, the song continues to reverberate in each created thing’s existence. The morning stars created by the song echo back and enhance the song as they become millions of voices (cf. Job 38.7). Mountains and hills, raised from their watery darkness, break forth into singing as they emerge. The trees that spring from the earth clap their hands (cf. Isa 55.12). Sea creatures, birds, and land animals all take up the song and sing the song of their Creator. Then the song shapes the dust of the earth into the form of a man and breathes the song into him. And when the woman is created from the man, the song is then sung in praise to God for the woman.

God is musical. God is a singer. His speech is glorified, and his glory cloud is made up of angelic hosts who surround him with music. The prophet Zephaniah says that he exults over us with loud singing (Zeph 3.17). Is it any wonder why, then, from the beginning of our existence, music and singing have been so prevalent? We are images of the Great Musician. His song, his image, vibrates through every fiber of our being. We are intended to continue this song, continuing to shape and create the world in harmony with God.

But the music in us has become discordant and distorted. Sin has intoned its own tune that is completely out of harmony with the song that is still in the creation. Those who love the old song, the original song, lament the dissonance and long for a new song that will bring in a new creation. That new song begins to be heard in the opening chapters of the Gospel of Luke. First Elizabeth. Then Mary. Then Zechariah. Then the angels. Then Simeon.

The presence of singing is not merely the exuberance of a few individuals (though they are rightfully exuberant). The songs indicate that the old discordant creation is not only getting its song back, but it is getting a new and greater song that will resound throughout the rest of time until the song of earth and heaven become one song.

Mary’s song contains some of the first notes of the new creation. The song is being sung into a world that is upside down. The wrong people are on the thrones of the earth ruling in unrighteousness. The wicked are exalted while the righteous are lowly. The wicked are rich and full, prospering from sinful structures, while the righteous are poor in spirit and hungering and thirsting after righteousness.

But as the song begins to be sung by a young, Jewish, virgin lady, echoing the brooding song of the Spirit that hovered over her to create Salvation in her womb, things are changing. The long-awaited promises given to Abraham that his seed would inherit the world (cf. Rom 4.13) are present, even though immature.

The song will grow louder as the Spirit gathers more singers. The new creation will emerge. Where there are thorns the cypress tree will grow. The myrtle shall grow and overtake the briers. The mountains and the hills will once again sing with joy and the trees of the woods will clap their hands (cf. Isa 55.12-13).

As the darkness continues to be pushed back by the light in this Advent season and throughout the course of history, continue to sing the songs of the Lamb, empowered by and in harmony with the Spirit. New creation is growing by the Spirit who empowers our song. Sing on!

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On November 30, 2022 By In Culture, Music, Politics, Theology

Christmas Carols: Hannah’s Song

You might think that a previously barren woman who was giving up her three-year-old son to the service of the Tabernacle, only to see him once a year from this time forward, would be mourning her loss and maybe even trying to renege on her vow. But that is not what we see with Hannah. Her heart, bursting with joy, sings a song that picks up melodies from the past and will echo one thousand years into the future as it is taken up by Mary, the mother of our Lord. Hannah is in the Spirit of Christmas a millennium before the birth of Christ Jesus.

Hannah’s exuberance is not grounded in what we find in many popular or even Christian Christmas songs. Her joy is not in the sentiment of memories of family, friends, and romantic interests of the past or present. She is not gushing over being with family at this special time of year. Indeed, she is leaving her son, the son that was the answer to her prayer, because this is her part in God’s grand mission. She is exulting in the true Spirit of Christmas: the fact that God is exalting his faithful people through the crushing of our enemies. The world is upside down because it is being ruled by the serpent and his seed is being set right through the fruit of the resurrected womb of a woman. There is no hint of calling a “Christmas truce” with God’s enemies. This is war, and the birth of this miracle child means that God is fully engaged. Hannah, for one, is quite excited about it. She’s all in with God’s mission for the world.

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