Music, Art, and Worship

So here's a practical question relating to the design of worship experiences.  When it comes to the type of music played in a worship service, should popular songs, written and sung by secular artists, be permitted in the lineup?  Not an easy question.  I know people on both sides of the issue who would go to the mat on this one.  There are some people I've encountered recently who strongly oppose the use of secular music during a worship service.  And I suppose I can understand that.  In fact if you had asked me 4 or 5 years ago, I probably would have opposed the use of popular secular music in a worship service in MOST cases too.  I'll give you 3 reasons why I opposed it then, before I tell you how I changed my position more recently:

1.  4 years ago, I would have told you that popular, secular music is for performance, not worship.  Worship, by it's nature, in some way needs to be participatory for the people.  In other words, what I saw in the use of secular songs was a theological shift where it was no longer the congregation performing worship for God as our audience, but rather worship bands performing entertainment for the congregation as the audience.  Therefore, because secular, popular music was not designed to be participatory in the way that praise music or hymns were designed, it felt decidedly out of place to include them in an environment of worship.

2.  I also would have argued that secular music is often inappropriately misused by some churches when they choose a song that sounds as though it's related to something Christian, spiritual, or worshipful, when the artist who authored the song actually intended something totally different.  From my Seminary Biblical interpretation classes, I learned the importance of trying to discover the original author's intent before deciding what a passage of Scripture meant.  I figured the same principle should apply to the use of music.  If the author intended that a song was meant in a certain way when he wrote it, then to perform it in a way he did not intend seemed disingenuous to both the author and to God.  Who are we to take a love song written by a musician about his girlfriend and plug it in as a worship song we sing about our love for God?  Something just seemed a little "off" about it.

3.  And maybe the most important criticism I had of this type of worship selection was that I felt the motivation behind it had less to do with honoring God in the most genuine way possible and more to do with looking cool.  I realized there may have been some evangelism benefits to that type of style, but really . . . to me it seemed more like an attempt at impressing people, not glorifying God. 

But as I said, I have changed some of my thoughts on this subject to the point where I now actively search for good secular music to use in conjunction with our services at Waterfront rather than avoid them like the plague.  How did I change my mind?

1.  First, I don't believe (and I don't think anybody does) that popular, secular music should replace praise music.  I think there should definitely be music in a worship service with which people can participate and worship together.  The question is, "Is there a place for the other to be included alongside praise music, but used for a different worshipful purpose?" 

2.  Which leads me to my second point . . . Popular, secular music may be performance-driven rather than participatory, but so what?  Are we so narrow-minded to believe that the only way that worship happens is when groups of people are singing together?  Can't worship happen when I'm sitting quietly in a field?  Can't worship happen when I observe a beautiful painting that hits on some special aspect of God's truth?  Can't worship happen when I read a beautiful piece of poetry?  So why can't I worship as I listen to a beautiful song performed beautifully?  This is what I've decided:  Good art (whether it's a praise song, secular song, Christian artist, or whatever) is good worship.  Of course the difficult question then becomes, how do you decide what "good art" is?  I had that conversation several years ago with a friend of mine named Alan Schantz, the dean of music at Colorado Christian University in Lakewood, Colorado.  He told me good art has 2 basic attribute  . . .

-  Truth . . . Is the art's music communicating something that is true?  It can be a truth about the nature of God as we often get in religious music, or it can be a truth about the destructive nature of sin, or selfishness, or desire as we often more appropriately see in secular music.    

-  Beauty . . . Beauty is pretty subjective I suppose, but some inherent standards that we use to determine beauty that you may not be aware of are continuity (a piece of music with no clear rhythm often feels awkward) and an element of surprise.

Using these criterion, Alan went through the entire song of "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen and showed me why he believed it was one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written.  Bohemian Rhapsody is a song that expresses poignant truths about sin and justice, and surprising changes in rhythm and style yet a strong continuity throughout.  Of course, I liked the song because I always imagined Dana Carvey and Mike Myers headbanging to it in Wayne's World the Movie, but I suppose there's that whole truth and beauty thing too . . . :)

Sooooooo . . . back to the point.  If it's true that good art is good worship, and good art is something that expresses beauty and truth, then perhaps when organizing a worship service, it is a more important criterion to determine how beautiful or truthful the element is, not how participatory or performance-based the element is. . . A piece of art can be a performance but still be truthful and beautiful, and as an audience I can still worship God through that medium.  It's simply a different exercise.

3.  But this leads me to my third, more controversial point.  I'm not sure that WE, as an audience, should feel constrained by the original intent of a song's author.  When an author originally wrote a piece of music he may have had one thing in mind or one situation, or one person, but I believe it is limiting to the art and limiting to what God can do through art to say that such music cannot be reinterpreted, redefined and redeemed for other purposes.  I stumbled across this line of thinking when I watched a concert television show featuring the 90s band, Pearl Jam.  Peal Jam was singing all of their classic grunge hits, and then band leader Eddie Vedder would sit on the stage and take questions from the audience and interact with the people there.  It was pretty cool.

Somehow Eddie got onto the subject of his song "Alive."  It's one of my favorite Pearl Jam songs.  He wrote the song about a time in his life when he was 13 years old and his mother told him that the person he thought was his father was not his real father, and his real father had just passed away before Eddie ever had a chance to get to know him.  This revelation stirred all kinds of teen angst in Eddie leading in part to the 1990s grunge movement, singing the famous flannel-clad chorus line "Oooooh I'm still alive!"  It was meant to be a song of regret . . . He's alive while his dad's dead, and they never had the chance to meet.

But then Eddie said something interesting . . .  He said as he performed that song one night many years later, he found himself listening to the way his audience responded to the tune.  When they sang the chorus, "Ooooooh, I'm still alive!" they didn't sing it out of regret.  They were singing it as a ballad of triumph and thankfulness.  For them, it meant . . . that they were alive . . . and that's a good thing!  And Eddie said he realized then that the audience had redeemed this song and made it a song of hope, not one of misery.    

And that's when I realized . . . We as the art observer get to decide what a piece of art IS and what it SAYS.  There's no concrete singularity to art.  The artist or author is not the only one who has a say in the message of his art.  Once that art is out of his/her mouth or off his page, it is out of his hands and it belongs to everyone, including God.  And that's part of what makes it beautiful.  That's part of the way God peaks through every piece of art. 

So is it permissible to use a song for worship that was never intended by the song's author to be used in that way?  I think it depends on the situation, but in general, yes; because there's an autonomy to art, and a sovereignty to God that goes way beyond and above any of that other stuff.

I know there is much more to the decision-making process for these things than what's represented here, but I hope this progresses the conversation a bit.  I think the biggest issue on which I would continually like to check my own gut concerns my motives when choosing these songs.  I think choosing a popular song because it's popular and you hope it will impress people is the wrong motive.  Choosing a song because it's beautiful, and it represents the truth and beauty of God in a unique way is what we try to do.  As always, I hope I'm doing it right, and I rely on God's grace where I fail.   

Comments

[Wendy]

Hey Dave,
I enjoyed reading this and agree wholeheartedly. Sometimes I'm not necessarily drawn to the contemporary praise songs on the radio, but often there are secular songs that express praise or truth that I do enjoy. Go listen to Incubus "drive". One of my favorites.
W