[+/-] Three Worship Songs I Hate

I figured it's time I ranted about Christian worship songs. Some of them I like, of course, but there are others that I loath. In the interest of brevity, I'll mention only the three that are most irksome to me at the moment. I've been trapped in a church service with each of these recently.

I can feel you flowing through me
Holy Spirit come and fill me up
Come and fill me up

Love and mercy fill my senses
I am thirsty for your presence Lord
Come and fill me up
Lord let your mercy wash away
All of my sin
Fill me completely with your love
Once again

I need you
I want you
I love your presence
I need you
I want you
I love your presence

The opening line is enough to condemn this song in my mind, but what really gets me is not the claims of physical sensations of God's presence, but how it flip-flops between "I feel God's presence" and "God please come" lines. How can you follow "I can feel you flowing through me" with "Come and fill me up"? To me, this amounts to admitting that the former sentiments were untrue (or at best, premature), which makes it sound like the whole song is an effort to simultaneously coax God into revealing himself and (in case God is uncooperative) brainwash yourself into believing that you can feel God's presence. At any rate, the whole focus of the song seems to be our desire to experience pleasurable sensations. This isn't worship, it's spiritual drug-abuse. And speaking of brainwashing:

Is it true today that when people pray
Cloudless skies will break
Kings and queens will shake
Yes it's true and I believe it
I'm living for you

Is it true today that when people pray
We'll see dead men rise
And the blind set free
Yes it's true and I believe it
I'm living for you

I'm gonna be a history maker in this land
I'm gonna be a speaker of truth to all mankind
I'm gonna stand, I'm gonna run
Into your arms, into your arms again
Into your arms, into your arms again

Well it's true today that when people stand
With the fire of God, and the truth in hand
We'll see miracles, we'll see angels sing
We'll see broken hearts making history
Yes it's true and I believe it
We're living for you

Is it actually true today that prayer can raise the dead? Is it? THEN WHY ARE WE SINGING ABOUT IT? Maybe I'm making too big a deal out of this. I feel a little like the hyperbole police. It just bugs me that we willingly, passionately, joyously sing stuff that we would find ludicrous if not set to music. It's clear that this song is pure pep, and as such probably should not be taken too seriously, but I don't like seeing people getting comfortable saying whatever the church expects them to say without scrutiny. And finally:

All who are thirsty
All who are weak
Come to the fountain
Dip your heart in the stream of life
Let the pain and the sorrow
Be washed away
In the waves of his mercy
As deep cries out to deep
(we sing)

Come Lord Jesus come

Holy Spirit come

This song drives me crazy. Pain and sorrow cannot be simply "washed away". Not by choice, and not by request. This is the worst kind of lie that Christians tell because it belittles people's pain. It's so condescending, like saying "Just quit clinging to your heartache!" as if people feel pain by choice, as if they need to be coaxed into letting God heal them. "Hey, person in pain, have you considered praying about it? Have you considered asking God to give you life?" Has it occurred to you, song-singer, the damage that this kind of tripe can cause? I can only assume that you've personally experienced the kind of pain-washing you're singing about (and if this is the case, I'm glad for you) and you assume that what worked for you will work for everyone else. Open your eyes.

What really bothers me about worship songs is how you can get a whole church-load of people to sing without blinking something that they would never say to another person, or tolerate from the pulpit. Imagine how people would react if I stood up in church and said "Isn't it wonderful how we all have a physical sensation of God's presence?" or "Bob's Grandma passed away yesterday. Let's all pray that she'll be raised from the dead." or "God will take away all your pain and sorrow right now if you just ask him to." Why do you sing stuff you don't believe? Or do you disagree with my assessments of these songs?

(Slightly off topic, but too good not to link to.)

[+/-] Things I Thought this Week

This will be random.

I'm reading Soul Survivor by Phillip Yancy. It's good. He talks about some really interesting people, especially Gandhi, about whom I knew very little. Gandhi is my new hero.

It's good that I'm not counseling. In some ways I wish I was, just because pounding nails isn't very stretching, but I know that I couldn't do a lot of the things that would be expected of me as a counselor, not the least of which is singing certain songs. Some Christian music is really awesome, but some of it is disgusting.

I'm reminded that I have far greater control over my emotions than I like to think. Under most circumstances I can dismiss anger, jealousy or infatuation through conscious choice. This is very cool.

Sometimes I think I'm not much more heretical than most of my friends. Often I'll tell someone about my newest divergence from orthodoxy only to see them nod in agreement. I think the biggest difference between me and many of the people who are happily counseling and preaching at camps is that I'm up-front and vocal about my unorthodoxy, and most people just keep their mouths shut.

I have no idea what I'd say to a kid if one were to ask me a about a spiritual issue on which my view diverges from my church's. I don't think it's entirely healthy (or entirely possible) for a young kid to think the way I do. To be blunt and truthful about my beliefs with an 8 year old would be irresponsible. But I'd feel like a liar if I fed them some Church doctrine I completely disbelieve. I like the idea that we're not obligated to always tell "the truth" but rather to say what is beneficial to the hearer at that specific point in time. I suppose the problem is I have no idea what that might be. I guess I'll have to sort that out before I become I father.

The idea of relationship with God amuses me to no end. It used to drive me crazy, but now it mostly seems comical. Imagine having a relationship with a being whose very existence is a matter of debate! (I don't mean that to sound condescending to those who do have such a relationship. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying the whole thing strikes me as funny.)

Next week I'm doing maintenance again. I'm not particularly looking forward to it, but I'm certainly not dreading it either. It will be good.

And now I am tired. And now I am going to bed.

[+/-] Off to Camp

I'll be leaving for camp soon. I don't know how much I'll be home over the summer - for the most part just on weekends, if anything. It feels a little strange to be doing no counseling (basically I'll be on maintenance and dishes), a result of being deemed too unorthodox to talk to kids. The camp where I spent the majority of the last two summers doesn't even want me as a chore boy.

I'm not at all angry or resentful about this. It's not that I love counseling so much (in fact I usually find it quite challenging and discouraging) and it's not that I think I'm too good to wash dishes or pound nails, because I often enjoy that kind of work, but I can't shake this feeling that the church views me as some kind of spiritual invalid, with nothing to offer but my body. I don't mean that the Christians I know think of me that way. (Well, maybe they do - how could I know? But they're nice about it.) But I'm feeling more and more like the church has little use for me, or like I don't belong in the church.

At the risk of repeating myself, I have no complaints about my Christian friends, my church leadership, or the people at my camps. Believe me, if I had a problem with them I'd talk to them about it, not whine about them in my blog. My people are great people, but we're different. Our beliefs are different, our mindsets are different, our goals are different. It's not that they won't let me counsel, it's that I couldn't counsel. I couldn't do what would be expected of me. I couldn't say what they want me to say. We're just different.

My church has a communion service every Sunday morning in which anyone can stand up and talk about anything, so long as it's related somehow to Jesus and the whole atonement thing. Sometimes I love this service, because people can be real and share what they're thinking about stuff, but other times I don't understand what people are saying. I'm trying to articulate what kinds of things I don't get, and I think it's basically anything about Christianity having a practical impact on our lives. (Our lives, mind you. I have no problem with someone saying "Becoming a Christian changed my life in this or that way." But I have a hard time with "Isn't it wonderful how we [collectively, as Christians] are different in this or that way!") If there's one thing I've learned about Christianity, it's that it affects people differently.

I suppose the problem with Christianity is that you can only really be a Christian if your beliefs and experiences fall within certain parameters. I guess everything's like that, right? The difference is that Christianity thinks it's for everyone, or to put it another way, it thinks everyone's beliefs and experiences can be defined in it's own particular way. Depending on which Christian circles you move in, you may be able to get "in" to a certain point while still being a quite different, but you'll never totally fit.

It's like hanging around with a group of people who have all known each other for years. They may be great people, they may know how to have a good time, they may be deep and real, they may do a good job of including you and making you feel welcome, and yet they'll always have a deeper connection between each other that you don't have, and you'll always feel like a bit of an outsider with them.

I've gotten fairly good at fitting in. I don't try to hide my differences, but I try not to shove them in people's faces either. I'm used to checking up with whatever ministries I'm in to be sure they're aware of who I am and are ok with me doing what I do. I speak in communion service when I can and I try to keep my mouth shut when I deem my thoughts too radical. I do my best to encourage and help others in their Christian lives even when I can't relate to them. And it hurts me to express discontent with my little Christian world because I dearly love these people and I believe they love me too. My friends are good friends, and I always hate to see any of them go. I'm not sure what I'm saying here. Maybe I don't need to get out of the circles I'm in so much as I need to get into new ones. I want to connect with a broader range of people and find places to serve where my convictions and beliefs aren't a hindrance.

I don't know how I'll do this. I might go searching for a crazy-liberal church or a secular place to volunteer or something like that. Maybe I'll become really outgoing at school and make lots of philosopher friends. Or maybe I'll do nothing.

Anyhow, I think what I meant to say in this post is that I'll be going off to camp tomorrow. I'll be back now and then, mostly on weekends, but I don't know how much blogging and stuff I'll get in. Hopefully I'll be able to do weekly updates like I did last year.

A couple more things:

Now seems like a good time to plug bloglines.com. Sign up (It's easy! It's free!) and they'll notify you each time a blog you read has new content. This has the twofold benefit of saving you the need to check various blogs for new posts and boosting my ego when the subscribers number above my blog goes up.

In the middle of writing this post I came across an article on leavingfundamentalism.org which addresses precisely this topic. If you're interested, here she is.