If this guy showed up at my doorstep, I'd kiss him.  On the cheek.  In a brotherly sort of way.  With my wife watching.  And my elders praying.

The rapper is Shai Linne, whose blog called "Lyrical Theology" shows that hip-hop and Christian thought/worship aren't antithetical.  These videos conjure several stream-of-consciousness observations:

• Check out the cool way the medium of rap allows for creative twist on a traditional "call and response"...that's ancient future liturgy at its finest!
• Check out how into it the whiteys are (hey, I'm a whitey...I can say it).  Hip-hop worship doesn't have to be only for the African-Americans.
• Check out the glimpse of the eschaton--when people of every tribe, tongue, and nation, will be gathered together worshiping around the throne.  Some people would look at that video and say that it's appalling, even blasphemous.  I say: that worship is more heavenly than a lot of the stuff out there.
• Check out the generous spirit of some seriously gifted artists.  In video #1, you've got an amazingly talented singer and artist, Brooks Ritter, on the far right on the stage.  That guy has a golden voice.  And yet, he's open enough to clap and dance and join in an art form from a different world than his own.  In video #2, the guy in the glasses in the back is Mike Cosper.  That guy is a phenomenal guitarist...and yet, he gives it up for Shai Linne.

As I was growing up, my dad always said (probably tongue in cheek) that rap wasn't music.  I disagreed then, and I disagree now.  Like any art form, you have to understand its rules and paradigms.  Then you discover, as is the case for a lot of things which people broad brush as "not art," that there are expressions within the art form that excel and expressions which fail.  There's good rock and bad rock.  There's good hip-hop and bad hip-hop.  There's good contrapuntal writing and bad contrapuntal writing.  Of course there are transcendent, objective aesthetic values rooted in the being of God, but we must also account for the fact that there is a "relativism" to aesthetics that bids us understand a piece of art within its context.  What are the "rules" of a given art form? And how does a given artist interact with those rules?  Those are the kinds of questions we must ask in our evaluation.  If we did, I think we might find a more generous church toward seemingly "deviant" expressions such as hip-hop in the context of worship.

First, OT Israel's struggle against their physical enemies (neighboring pagan nation-states such as Philistia, Ammon, Moab, etc.) was not purely physical warfare.  As Danny Carroll, my OT prof, would frequently point out as we walked through OT historical narrative, many times as a nation-state would go out to war, they would invoke their deity and perhaps even carry it (or its symbol) into the battlefield.  Israel had the ark as its symbol, and, as Dr. Carroll would say, they'd bring "God in a box" out into the fight on occasion.  In a real sense, when nation-state would fight nation-state, it was "my god vs. your god," and the victor could claim the superiority of their deity.  Was this all just primitive superstition?  Of course not.  God does enter the fray and proves Himself time and again.  Israel's physical warfare was spiritual warfare.

Second, individuals in the OT claimed struggle against physical enemies, but the Scriptures are quick to acknowledge a spiritual component even there.  Remember, for instance, Psalm 18; the heading of which acknowledges that its context was David's fleeing the hand of Saul.  David says, in an earthly sense, that he was saved from his enemies (v 3, the physical component).  But that salvation came about because God arose, flared his nostrils, came down, and went to work (vv 8-9, the spiritual component).  If that is not satisfactory, know that part of Saul's enemy-hood was because "an evil spirit" would come upon him (1 Sam 16). 

So, as many have noted, the line between earth and heaven is not so easily divisible, and perhaps it is our post-Darwin, naturalistic bent that makes us draw distinctions which are too sharp, causing us to lob accusations that applying OT physical war to our context of spiritual war is unwarranted allegorical interpretation of Scripture.

This morning, God spoke to me through the astonishing events during King Jehoshaphat's reign, recorded in 2 Chronicles 20.  What is eye-opening about this passage is that God brought together two seemingly disparate acts--corporate worship and war:

"As they began to sing and praise, the LORD set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who were invading Judah, and they were defeated.  The men of Ammon and Moab rose up against the men from Mount Seir to destroy and annihilate them.  After they finished slaughtering the men from Seir, they helped to destroy one another.  When the men of Judah came to the place that overlooks the desert and looked toward the vast army, they saw only dead bodies lying on the ground; no one had escaped."  (2 Chronicles 20:22-24)

Earlier in the passage, we read of Jehoshaphat's fear put to ease by a prophetic word from Jahaziel, who told him, basically, "Just stand here and watch how God will totally destroy your enemies."  Jehoshaphat, however, did more than "just stand there."  He ordered a worship service (20:21).  And the Scriptures are clear to point out that it was "as they began to sing and praise" that God defeated their enemies.

We modern-day Christians have real enemies today.  We've got physical ones and spiritual ones.  How can we wage war?  Corporate worship, baby.  In a previous post, I relayed Doug Wilson's comparison of the Maori ritual of "Haka"--taunting the enemy before battle--to Christian corporate worship.  Because of passages like the one above, I'm becoming more convinced that our primary battle-strategy, beyond spiritual disciplines, personal piety, and mission work, is simply to worship together, regularly and ongoingly.

(I don't want to blast the company.  I just got this email from a popular liturgical supplier.  I honestly kept looking for the punchline.  There wasn't one.)

Unified worship is a step toward Gospel-centered maturity, and perhaps Coral Ridge is ready and ripe for this.  I, for one, know that at the point when my church added a “contemporary” service (relatively late in the early 2000s), the thought of uniform, unified, "blended" worship would have driven a knife into the heart of our community.  The only way to move forward without totally killing the church was to do what we did.  The question still remains: Should we have done it?

Here’s a case of a stark difference between doing what is ideal (which Tullian argued well for) and doing what is wise.  Perhaps, for Coral Ridge, the former and the latter had arrived at a point of convergence.  For Cherry Creek in Denver, choosing the ideal would have been very unwise, as it would have been our demise.

I know that Coral Ridge went through a lot of wrestling to come to this conclusion.  However, as persuasively as Tullian argues, I still think there’s room for differing approaches.  One can be Gospel-centered and Gospel-driven with the split-service approach.  Perhaps, though, the stakes are higher, and a church needs to work a bit more intentionally to remain unified.  I attempt to argue along these lines in my essay, “Two Services: Why?”

If I'm honest, though, our split-service model is a burr under my saddle that has never quite stopped itching.  Bravo, Coral Ridge.  May God grant you success in your new step of faith.



“Worship is fundamentally a series of actions. We sing, we pray, we praise, we confess, we cry out to God.  But none of our actions would mean much if God did not act as well…In fact, we could not worship at all if God did not invite us and enable us to do so…This is why the view of worship in which we are the actors, so to speak, and God is the audience—a view attributed to the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard—is not quite adequate.  It’s a good way to counter our tendency to make leaders the actors and the congregation the audience.  But maybe we need to get rid of the theater metaphor altogether.  Worship is a dialogic encounter, a loving conversation between God and the people of God.” 
- Debra Rienstra and Ron Rienstra, Worship Words (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009), 44. 

This is a fair check.  I often have reminded my congregation that they are not "watching" me or any of the other worship leaders as spectators at a concert or couch potatoes in front of a TV screen.  I have said, "God is the audience of our praise."  I still think in our entertainment-saturated culture that this is an appropriate reminder for people who, with Pavlovian immediacy, tend to zone out become passive during worship.  Still, the Rienstras are right.  Theater is not the best metaphor, and perhaps it's not even a helpful one.  Worship truly is a dialogical encounter with God.  Perhaps some better metaphors are (on the stately side) a town celebration of a King or (on the intimate side) a cup of coffee with a friend.  The main point is that God Himself is not passive in worship.  He's an active participant.  He's speaking, giving, ministering, feeding, calling, convicting, preaching, healing.  In fact, He's the initiating party in all worship-encounters.  Even more to the point, apart from God's active involvement in worship, worship would cease to happen.  It would be like planning a dance party for the "residents" at a cemetary.  God must act.  God must call.  God must revive. 

The David Crowder Band is hosting a Church Music Conference at Baylor University in Waco, TX, September 30-October 2.  This is exciting on many levels.  I’m pumped to see the name of a Friday breakout workshop: “A New Old Vision for Worship – Liturgical Spirituality for Post-Modern-Semi-Reformed-Hipsters.”

Here's what is truely exciting: more signs of the subversive growth of influence of the hymns movement are on the horizon.  The David Crowder Band (for those who didn’t know) is THE name in modern worship.  Of course, they’re a performance band.  Of course, their most recent records really haven’t been “worship albums.”  Still, Crowder emerged out of the flagship modern worship movement—Passion—and is still tethered to it.  Therefore, this event with Crowder is significant.  Who’s on the roster?  You’d never know from the up-front promotion, but tucked in more detailed advertising, we hear of two names:

The Welcome Wagon

BiFrost Arts

Check out their music some time.  The first thing you notice is that, in the rock genre, they are the polar opposite of Crowder—under-produced, anti-digital, pitchy, lo-fi, quirky, indie, pop-orchestral…Sufjan Stephens-esque.  The second thing you notice is that the text-material for their songs are either old church hymns or songs which are bathed in the thought and life of historic hymnody.

But actually…this isn’t such a far leap from Crowder.  Much of Crowder’s material beyond the radio-friendly hits leans in a direction that shows that the treasure-troll-haired singer appreciates music akin to what BiFrost and the Wagon are doing.

But more is going on here than mere musical appreciation.  People often think that all modern worship has sold out to novelty with no sense of connection to the historic songs of the church.  It’s just not true.  The Passion movement put out Hymns: Ancient and Modern, and littering all of Crowder’s material are hymns as old as the Greek “Phos Hilaron” and as new as “Heaven Came Down.”  Make no mistake.  Crowder loves him some hymns.   And Crowder is obviously appreciating artists like BiFrost Arts and The Welcome Wagon, not only for their musical innovations, but for their textual focus.

Still, this goes even deeper.  The Welcome Wagon and BiFrost Arts are not only intermingled with one another, but they are wedded with the heavy-hitters in the hymns movement—Indelible Grace.  Derek Webb and Sandra McCracken’s connection and collaboration with these two groups are case in point.  They’ve got denominational ties, too: Welcome Wagon’s leader is Vito Aiuto, an ordained PCA minister; Kevin Twit of Indelible Grace is ordained in that denomination, as well.  Many of the artists associated with both groups are PCA die-hards.

All this to say: We have the hymns movement, perhaps for the first time, being welcomed in to a bona fide mainstream evangelical worship event.  Just like Indelible Grace’s Ryman Hymnsing, this is a moment to plant a flag in the sand as a marker of the growing influence of the grass roots hymns movement.  Thank God.

****

An old farmer went to the city one weekend and attended the big city church.  He came home and his wife asked him how it was.
     "Well" said the farmer, "it was good.  They did something different, however.  They sang praise choruses instead of hymns."
     "Praise choruses?" said his wife. "What are those?"
     "Oh, they're OK.  They are sort of like hymns, only different," said the farmer.
     "Well, what's the difference?" asked his wife.
     The farmer said, "Well, it's like this--If I were to say to you 'Marthe, the cows are in the corn'--well, that would be a hymn.  If on the other hand, I were to say to you:

     'Martha, Martha, Martha
     Oh Martha, MARTHA, MARTHA,
     the cows, the big cows, the brown cows, the black cows,
     the white cows, the black and white cows,
     the COWS, COWS, COWS
     are in the corn,
     are in the corn, are in the corn, are in the corn,
     the CORN, CORN, CORN.'

     Then, if I were to repeat the whole thing two or three times, well, that would be a praise chorus."
     The next weekend, his nephew, a yougn, new Christian from the city, came to visit and attended the local church of the small town.  He went home and his wife asked him how it was.  "Well," said the young man, "it was good.  They did something different however.  They sang hymns instead of regular songs."
     "Hymns?" asked his wife.  "What are those?"
     "Oh, they're OK.  They are sort of like regular songs, only different," said the young man.
     "Well, what's the difference?"
     The young man said, "Well, it's like this--If I were to say to you 'Martha, the cows are in the corn'--well, that would be a regular song.  If on the other hand, I were to say to you:

     'Oh Martha, dear Martha, hear thou my cry
     Inclinest thine ear to the words of my mouth
     Turn thou thy whole wondrous ear by and by
     To the righteous, inimitable, glorious truth.

     'For the way of the animals who can explain
     There in their heads is no shadow of sense
     Hearkenest they in God's sun or His rain
     Unless from the mild, tempting corn they are fenced.

     'Yea those cows in glad bovine, rebellious delight
     Have broke free their shackles, their warm pens eschewed
     Then goaded by minions of darkness and night
     They all my mild Chilliwack sweet corn have chewed.

     'So look to the bright shining day by and by
     Where all foul corruptions of earth are reborn
     Where no vicious animals make my soul cry
     And I no longer see those foul cows in the corn.'

     "Then if I were to do only verses one, three and four and do a key change on the last verse, well that would be a hymn."

(Source: Debra Rienstra and Ron Rienstra, Worship Words: Discipling Language for Faithful Ministry [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009], 78-79.  They reference this being a widespread internet fable which has been circulated in various forms, and whose origin is unknown.)

Don took a much needed sabbatical in 2009, and in his months off he attended a wide variety of churches in the Denver Metro area--Catholic, Anglican, Greek Orthodox, Evangelical, etc.  He came away from his experiences with this stunning observation: He heard more reading of Scripture in the Catholic service than he did in the Evangelical worship service.  More generally, the churches whose worship was characterized by a higher liturgy always had more Scripture read, prayed, and sung than in the low-church evangelical environments.  Furthermore, as a friend pointed out yesterday, even the "non-Scriptural" readings (e.g. prayers or responsive readings), are filled with Scripture quotation, Scripture allusion, or language and ideas that are obviously bathed in the words of the "hallowed page." 

Contrast this with the typical evangelical low-church liturgy: a block of songs, announcements, the offering, the sermon, and a closing song.  Apart from the worship leader pausing in the middle of the song set to read a passage of Scripture, or apart from the songs themselves containing Scriptural statements or quotations, there's not much room for Scripture reading without some subversive, creative liturgy-bending.  Thankfully, more and more evangelical churches are seeing this.  The reality remains, however, that one can attend an evangelical church service and they may very well hear very little Scripture read.  

As Don pointed out in his comparison of his Catholic and evangelical experiences, there is a huge historical irony in all of this.  It was the proto-evangelicals (the Protestants) who criticized the de-valuing of the Scriptures by the Catholics during the time of the Reformation.  And here we are, 400 years later, struggling with fluffy preaching and straining to fit Scripture into our sacred "worship experience."  Meanwhile, our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters faithfully walk through their lectionary, receiving a steady diet of the whole counsel of God. 

This should make us appreciate the merits of high liturgy.  It is bathed in and allows space for Scripture to speak in multi-faceted ways.  Personally, I am on a quest to prove that one can infuse high church elements into low church liturgy without sacrificing what many people prize about "modern worship"--flow, continuity, passion, etc.  I don't know that I've achieved my goal, but far be it from us to think that Scripture reading falls in the category of a mere "high church element."  Scripture reading is a transcendent category all to itself.  I don't just want to hear Scripture reading prior to the sermon.  I want to hear God's voice at the start, calling me into worship.  I want to hear His voice at the end, blessing me and sending me forth.  And I want to hear Him in the middle, sustaining my weak mind and feeble spirit. 

My dissenters said yesterday that high liturgy doesn't necessitate a devaluing of preaching, and I agree.  But the generalization still holds true: high liturgy can tend toward lower emphasis on preaching.  By the same token, lower liturgy can tend toward devaluing the raw power of Scripture reading.  And these are claims made based on existential observation, as opposed to philosophical investigation of the foundations of either liturgical expression.