Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Worship or American Idol-atry? — Jon Gabriel
My wife and I have dragged our daughters to many churches over the past several years. We’ve enjoyed most of the sermons, congregations, programs and pastors, and my wife has liked most of the music. As for me, I’ve pretty much given up on finding any worship music that doesn’t drive me a bit batty.
For background, I’m a plain-old Christian, sans denomination, though I have enjoyed Lutheran, Baptist, Anglican, Reformed and other congregations over the years. Most of the churches I’ve attended are evangelical, with several that would fit into the “megachurch” category. Most have offered inspiring teaching with solid, if not terribly deep, theology. But the music… oh heavens, the music.
My family tires of my weekly critique of modern church music and architecture, so I figured it was time to inflict it upon a larger audience. (You’re welcome, readers.)
My experience is in the pew not the pulpit, but church music (“worship music” in evangelical parlance) should direct the congregation’s focus to God, not the performers. Too often, I can think of nothing but the guitarist’s hair, the drummer’s kit or the singer’s oversouling.
This weekend, I (shockingly) was enjoying the second song at the Easter service. Sure, it was far too loud, but I was ignoring the band, singing along with the steady meter and focusing on God. All of a sudden I was singing by myself — the leader had veered into some spontaneous arrangement that showcased her unique vocal stylings. The song’s lyrics were still on the screen, but the congregation was lost. Since I could no longer follow along, I just quietly watched her performance, which was followed by extended applause.
This seems less like worship and more like an audition for American Idol. And I hate that show. (Besides, God’s not down with the whole idolatry thing.)
I won’t mention the specific church since this is standard among evangelical megachurches. I assume that most of the musicians have the best of intentions and are probably fine Christians. But week after week, these mini rock concerts grind at my soul. Am I the only one?
This modern version of “worship” also is reflected in church architecture. Many older churches placed a choir loft and an organ way in the back. This genius design prevents the congregation from being distracted by the musicians at the same time it prevents showboating performers. Instead, everyone in attendance has their eyes fixed forward and above, right where they belong.
Consider the opposite end of a traditional church: you have an altar, pulpit, maybe a baptismal, but the eye is directed upwards via the steep ceiling to the towering cross and the heavens above. Contemporary church architecture is wide and low, directing everyone’s attention to the speakers and performers on the main stage.
What once was vertical is now horizontal. Instead of looking to God, we’re staring at his ministers along with their elaborate Power Points. That works for a TED talk, but not for worship.
“Get off my lawn!” he cried. My complaints are not mere curmudgeonry. I love strange, loud music that scares my cat and austere modernist architecture that scares my wife. But when I want to celebrate musicians I go to a concert. At church, I don’t want to applaud singers, celebrate a pastor or focus on myself; I want to worship God. Is that too much to ask?
Published in General
You are not alone!
There’s a tension between trying to find something new and fresh and choosing something everyone knows so that everyone can join together in worship (which is the point anyway).
I find it slightly ironic that the worship band at our “modern” service tends to do more familiar songs than the worship team at our “less modern” service.
Hope for the future of US Catholic liturgical worship music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFU2zrPrCO4&feature=player_embedded
I just caught this thread and it would take hours for me to interact with the theology behind what is wrong with so much of the ethos behind the “good intentions” of what goes on in most evangelical (and even liberal churches) when it comes to just worship music, let alone worship in general.
So let me just get my curmudgeonly thoughts out of the way.
The two verses which inform my musically selections and my whole doctrine of worship:
Deuteronomy 12:32 and John 4:24.
I should also preface any further comment by saying that I come from a Presbyterian tradition that eschews musical instruments entirely (a cappella worship) and only sings metered selections of the Book of Psalms and that I happen to agree with that older tradition as being biblical and theologically correct.
I go to an Evangelical Christian church and I love everything about it but the music. Most contemporary Christian music, with a few exceptional songs, is just not very good. I agree with some of their other complaints on this thread. The volume, the look-at-me over vocalizing and the concert style applause and behavior. Truth be told, my favorite style of praise music is a soul/gospel choir like the Reverend James Cleveland.
Definitely agree!
I remember singing the Pange Lingua at church when I was in grade school. It’s not something you get over.
My grammar is pretty awful in my post above, not sure what I was doing at the time and why I didn’t fix it before posting. (Though I do wonder why I cannot edit it now).
I think the choir loft is a tremendous tool for keeping music more substantial in theme and theology. Adopting the architecture of a concert hall can leave the music more like entertainment than worship.
The choir loft leaves the congregation staring forward (either at stained glass, an altar or a pulpit). In the absence of seeing the singers perform, our thoughts aren’t as easily filled with images or shallow absurdities.
The choir loft also tends to create an atmosphere of the congregation singing together about God. The stage creates an atmosphere like any other secular performance. The performers seem to be singing TO the audience.
The time isn’t always right for “shouting with joy.” So-called “worship music” is spiritually monotonal. There’s awe, reflection, sadness, wonder, penitence, gratitude, and many more moods of worship. There is a vast literature of church music that hits these other notes. What a shame megachurches have rejected it for banal choruses and top-40 wannabes.
RCD, makes an excellent point about church architecture.
Thanks for the reference CJS
Before I read this in your post, I thought this very same thing: long gone are the days when the music from a worship service emanated from the choir loft, out of sight, in the rear of the church.
Christians have nothing to complain about; at least their worship music has led to great things like soul and gospel. The majority of synagogue music (which is a cappela, at least in Orthodox services on the Sabbath and Holidays) is absolutely dreadful; the rule is that any Jew passionate about G-d must be utterly tone deaf, and anyone who can sing has no interest in the religion.
Don’t get me started on Jewish pop music, the great scourge of our age…
Is this the Exultet you are talking about?
This setting doesn’t seem that difficult to me. The range isn’t extreme, and it doesn’t require exceptional vocal agility. I can’t see why a priest or deacon couldn’t do it.
It takes a full octave, and takes vocal flexibility, as well as a strong sense of pitch, to do well. He makes it sound easy because he’s so good at it. Most clergy I’ve met would struggle.
And yet Jews have contributed the vast majority of the standards in the great American songbook. Practically every songwriter in the famed Tin Pan Alley was Jewish (with the exception of Cole Porter). Culturally speaking, Jews are fount of great music. Why then is synagogue music not awesome? Interesting.
As Crocodile Dundee might say: That’s not that vocally demanding. This is vocally demanding.
Or this:
Heh, I sometimes warm up on the coloratura passages from “Der Hölle Rache”, though I don’t have the stamina to perform the whole piece in concert. But I have some talent for singing, which I’ve worked to develop.
Priests don’t typically become priests because they can sing well. Some people just aren’t very musical, and even otherwise musical people may not have the pipes for singing (my dad, a virtuoso clarinetist, certainly didn’t). What’s vocally demanding for these people is different from what’s vocally demanding for professional singers.
Agree that Damrau is awesome, though!
I don’t really know the difference between melody and harmony or meter or structure but I do like my music to rhyme. My church sings contemporary songs and most of them are fine. I visited my son’s church however and was appalled at how many of the songs they were singing had no real rhythm with the words awkwardly forced into the music. It doesn’t have to be a simple nursery rhyme but shouldn’t there be some structure?
Must have been Matt Redman songs.*
[Matt Redman fans, please take this in the spirit of levity. My dislike of Matt Redman songs is a running joke with our worship director who likes to inform me every time he’s slipping one into a service. “You might want to skip church this week” he’ll tell me . . .”]
But there are so many great Hanukkah songs. Such as…”Dredel, Dredel, Dredel” and…”Dredel, Dredel, Dredel”.
/sarcasm off
It seems unfair that the great Jewish songwriters were pressed into service to write terrific Christmas songs.
I guess I’m somewhat spoiled by my (Greek Orthodox) parish priest and deacon. Both have decent, if not professional grade, singing voices. It seems odd to me that someone who just couldn’t sing would want to be a priest. There are many ways of serving God that don’t require one to sing.
I read somewhere that Damrau has retired the Queen of the Night from her repertoire. I guess a steady regimen of singing “Der Hölle Rache” will wear anyone’s voice down.
Amen.
As a teenager in the early 60’s, I played the music for mass on weekdays in a small town. When no choir members showed up . . . I’d run to the sacristy and beg Father Buscher to say a low mass. He sent me back to the choir loft to play and sing the mass, alone. I’ll never forget old Linus Allerding’s booming voice joining mine from the pews below. Perhaps the angels wept, but I will never forget those times or the music. Kyrie eleison.
This Mendelssohn choral piece, using text from Psalm 40, is one of my favorites.
What a glorious experience to have sung it at your Easter service!