Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Men and worship

Worship songs and men's repsonse thereto have been bouncing around in my head. On Sundays, I see less than 2/3's of our men actively engaged in "worship," a word that has in modern day come to mean more "singing" than anything else.

To lay my cards out, I think that many of today's choruses are effeminate (see my post, "The Effeminization of Worship" below). Because of this feminacy, men are shrinking from worship or ceasing to attend worship services. Choruses, to be certain, are not alone. There are songs in the hymnal that fall prey to this issue as well, but the higher incidence is in the CCM module adopted by most evangelical churches today.

One song that pretty much typifies my angst is "Jesus, Lover of My Soul." Ugh! Here's a few of the lyrics, "Jesus, Lover of My Soul. Jesus, I will never let you go...I love you, I need you...My savior, my closest friend, I will worship you until the very end." There's a lot of frustration for me in there. First, what man do you know that wants to sing the words, "I love you, I need you" set to the cadence of a top 40 ballad to a male deity?! Men don't like that; so they disengage - conciously or subconciously. Second, most men don't think they need anything or anyone. They don't ask direction, let alone ask for need for their eternal souls. This may not be the right approach to salvation, but it's a fact that we must acknowledge whem ministering to men. Third, "my closest friend?" That's not what men call their "buddies." Fishin' buddy, huntin' buddy, my pal, my "boy" - never my closest friend. It's subtle, but it's a descriptor more commonly ascribed to the female gender. Finally, "I will worship you until the very end." Uh-oh! If men are this apathetic now in worship, do you think it excites them to consider that they might be doing this for all eternity? I don't think so.

There is some good in CCM music, but it is few and far between. We need to get more music that consults the Psalter for inspiration. Many of the Psalms are "flowery" and highly emotional and, therefore, more feminine. However, there are, as I'm sure you know, many different types of Psalms. There are the Royal Psalms which talk about the majesty and power of God, Psalms that record David's confessions, Psalms that essentially teach the doctrine of the faith, Psalms of judgment, Psalms where the writer Pleads for mercy or deliverance, and those Psalms that are simply filled with praise. It seems that those who do solicit songs based on the Psalms usually pull from the last category of Psalms, and leave out many of the others. And even in the more "flowery" ones the more "manly" parts are left out.

For example, let's take Psalm 8.

1 O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
above the heavens.

2 From the lips of children and infants
you have ordained praise
because of your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.


This is where most songwriters stop. The focus is on the praise, on the adulation, and the ascribing of glory to our God. Nothing wrong with that, but it is, certainly, incomplete. Oh, and v. 2, if any of it is used, it will quote the first two lines, but leave out the part about avenging and enemies. That's judgment, a more masculine quality. But, isn't it juxtaposed against the praise of babes? When did you last see that in a CCM chorus?

3 When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,


Here the modern songwriter picks up again, includes a bit about how awesome God's creation is, how pretty, how lovely, and how it was started by him. But they leave out....

4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?


This requires self-examination and sincere reflection. That's not often in the modern praise chorus.

5 You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.


Crowned with glory and honor?! That's pride! That's status! Not something to be sung in a church preaching on humility!

6 You made him ruler over the works of your hands;
you put everything under his feet:

7 all flocks and herds,
and the beasts of the field,

8 the birds of the air,
and the fish of the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.


Ruler? Manager? Forager? Hunter? Farmer? Steward? Aren't these talking about many 'manly' characteristics? The modern songwriter doesn't often include these words. If they do, the focus of the song is more on the buccolic, or couched in a way that suggests that man needs to get along with animals like the quintessential lion and lamb. Why not teach the men and boys of our congregations that not only is it ok to be a manager, here's how to understand your managerial role: God put you in charge; therefore, do it well, b/c you answer to him.

9 O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!


Back to the likeable language. But did you notice the in between? See how wonderfully balanced this Psalm is? Even though this Psalm is well-balanced, what song is going through your head right now? I wager it is that chorus, "O Lord our Lord, how ma-jes-tic is your na-ame in all the Earth....Ohoooo Lord, our Lord, we magnify your na-hame, Prince of Pe-heace, Mighty God, Oh-ho Lo-ord God almi-highty!" (The hyphens are the breath/slides I remember from the Amy Grant version of the song). Maybe that's a different Psalm, but why not include the verses that are in between verse 1 and verse 9 of Psalm 8 in another, new rendition?

Others are like unto it as well. Psalm 149 spends the first 5 verses commanding the people to Praise God for this or that, to rejoice, to make music with instruments, to (gasp!) dance, to be humble. But the bottom half of the Psalm says this:

6 May the praise of God be in their mouths
and a double-edged sword in their hands,

7 to inflict vengeance on the nations
and punishment on the peoples,

8 to bind their kings with fetters,
their nobles with shackles of iron,

9 to carry out the sentence written against them.
This is the glory of all his saints.
Praise the LORD.


WOW!!! God wants to use my voice like a double-edged sword?! He wants to use me to inflict vengeance and punishment? To shackle kings and nobles? And you mean to tell me it's to the glory of God AND part of praise to the Lord to execute his just sentence on sin?!!! WHOOO-BOY!! This is the Christian equivalent of giving a boy a G.I. Joe during a worship service! It says to him that it is ok to have the indignation at sin, it's all right to use your voice and your actions to stand strongly against the most popular rulers of your day in the name of God. In other words, those strong, innately driven emotions of power and strength that the world says that you need to pacify or else your a chauvenist are actually encouraged by God and viewed as a part of praising him. Those innate passions must be focused into doing the work of God. Doing so allows the flame to burn as fuel for the kingdom of God without putting a wet blanket on their essential maleness.

I think those are some good examples and there are more -- there are 150 Psalms!! Then, you can look at Proverbs too, Song of Songs, Ecclesiates for similar content. Look at what the leaders in the OT did when the vanquished an enemy -- they wrote a Psalm praising God for his justice. There's just so much fodder for good, quality worship music! Please, just use it! The men of our congregations need it!

The point, of course, is that the focus has been only on those "flowery" Psalters (or portions thereof), and not on the powerful images of our salvation! That's unbalanced. Combine, as David and others did, the flowery with the powerful and you have one amazing worship service that will really challenge a man, not lull him to sleep and submission.

In Defense of Life

Ok, I couldn't resist writing on this topic. And, it's quite timely. In fact, though rare, I have to tell you that I have something in common with a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Woo-woo!

Irishwoman Betty Williams won the NPP for circulating a petition demanding an end to the ravages of the war in Northern Ireland. It was her brutal descriptions of the violence and the sympathetic portrayal of human suffering - especially the children - in times of war that won her the accolade of the sons and daughters of Nobel. All this from a former receptionist turned CEO of a major nonprofit whose goal it is to be the voice for children. Oh wait. That was supposed to be political voice for children. Hmmm.

As she was visiting Austrialia the other day she addressed a roomful of children and their teachers, The Australian records her words, "It's our duty as human beings, whatever age we are, to become the protectors of human life." Wow! I agree. That makes me feel great, knowing that I see eye to eye with a Nobel Laureate. I think I'll send my donation to Oslo right....huh....what's that? There's more?

Apparently, Ms. Williams, in her Irish brogue also questioned her own non-violence: "I have a very hard time with this word 'non-violence', because I don't believe that I am non-violent." Hmmm, what was her award for? Peace? Huh?! Continuing she said, "I don't know how I ever got a Nobel Peace Prize, because when I see children die the anger in me is just beyond belief." Well, that's not so bad, it angers me too. I don't like seeing it and I despise that sin has had that effect on our human race.

But this cinched it. Now I know I was wrong. I have nothing in common with a Nobel Laureate after all. For, to thundering applause, shaking the very Brisbane City Hall in which she spoke, Ms. Williams gave word to the virulent, political voice for which she is now committed: "Right now, I would love to kill George Bush." Apparently, her speech writer has spent time working for Al Qaeda and Hizbollah.

I hate the senseless destruction of human life. I stand committed to the proposition that life is sacred, that we must stand for it or find ourselves at risk of being terminated. But here is the fundamental difference between Ms. Williams and me: Whereas Ms. Williams bases her belief in protecting life on the basis of a duty as a human, my conviction to protect innocent life stems from my belief in God and in his command to stand for and against it.

So I can hear the objections now, "Hey, Chief, if you stand so much for life, than why are you ok with war and the death penalty and any other action that takes a life. Shouldn't your God be the one who decides when life ends?" Certainly, if I were simply walking down the streets slashing throats, that would be an offense to God and the dignity of human life. But that's not for what I stand.

I stand to protect innocent life. I give voice to those who have no voice. I stand to execute judgment on those who have intentionally and maliciously taken innocent life. I act to protect life by removing life. It's not contradictory. Babies in the womb have no voice, they are the picture of innocence; I give them their voice and demand that they have dignity as a distinct being, not a wad of flesh attached to a woman's uterus. Capital punishment, to me, is just because that baneful human removed an innocent life and must, therefore, suffer a like consequence - another chance to give voice to the voice that was silenced by the act of the murderer. I support war, especially war that seeks to root out evil, to keep wretched men bent on my destruction from killing me, my family, and my fellow citizens. That is a just reaction to such a careless, cowardly act of taking life in the name of Allah.

Ms. Williams may endeavor to accomplish a good work. But the answer to saving life is not to suggest taking more life, especially the life of a man who has striven to protect our lives. It's interesting to see how blatantly contradictory her words are: "I am a human, I must protect life, I want to take Bush's life."

Christ came so that we might have life and have it more abundantly. He came to take his own life in sacrifice. In other words, he came with the sole intent of killing himself so that he would protect innocent lives, knowing that our lives were not so innocent. He could have addressed a synagogue full of school children and claimed he stood for life and then taken pot shots at the head Levite of his day. But he didn't. He stood for lives drenched in guilt that they might become innocent. What a marvelous contradiction.

For the full article about Ms. Williams, go the The Australian, here.