I have had some difficulty as of late with those of the, let's say "contemporary" streak in Lutheranism. Of course, the difficulty is not with the people themselves, but with the ideas presented. There is a large stream of thought in the LCMS these days, perhaps even making up the majority, which defends the liturgy as an adiaphoron, in the worst sense of the phrase. Because it is not required or prescribed in scripture, in their view, we are free to do, well, whatever we want to in the service. This has led to the co-opting of pop-Christian songs and the contemporary worship (CoWo) style with a praise band and song leaders up in the front of the auditorium-style church. This, I would argue, is not only an errant view, but is not good for the Christian life (believe it or not, the two often go hand-in-hand).
First, to critique the style generally. An issue with the praise-band-setup in the church is the audiovisual and theological perspectives involved. In those services the priest is often not the leader. This alone is enough to begin the issue, since it confuses the role of the priest and parishioners. The role of a priest in both old and new testaments is to represent God to man and man to God. With the Levitical priesthood, we see this in the teaching of the word to the people, as the prophet Malachi writes, "For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts."(2:7) On the day of atonement, we see the latter, when the High Priest would enter the holy of holies to make atonement on the people's behalf and when he would confess the people's sins to the scapegoat. The same is true of the new testament priesthood, which is called to image Christ, the "one mediator between God and men."(1 Tim 2:5) However, when it is a band rather than a priest leading the service, the line between priest as mediator and laymen as one mediated is broken.
Now is probably a good time to mention the "priesthood of all believers" counterargument. It is true that all Christians are all priests in some capacity, however, there is not one type of priesthood; there is a "priesthood" of all believers and yet not a "presbytery" or "bishopric" of all believers. The people are called to offer "sacrifices of thanksgiving" (Ps. 107:22), but it is the priests who are called to be "stewards of the mysteries of God" (1 Cor 4:1) and those with a "noble task" (1 Tim 3:1). In fact, the pastoral epistles themselves imply a separation between the pastor and the layman, with the priest as one consecrated specifically as one who mediates between God and man as well as guarding the mysteries (Latin: sacramentum) of God. What's more, we see this shown in the nation of Israel. The Levites were a "holy nation," but not every Levite was a priest even though they were in a priestly caste. And the relationship continues into the rest of the nation: priests:Levites as Levites:Israel as Israel:world, and in the New Testament, "Levite" becomes "Christian" and "Israel" becomes "Church." This distinction is also seen as very important to the Lord. In Numbers 16, we see Korah's rebellion, and the complaint is as follows: “You have gone too far! For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?” (16:3) In other words, Korah was defending a "priesthood of all Levites" or a "priesthood of all Hebrews," to the radical extent that all should have the same office as the priests. For this, he and his allies were swallowed up by the earth and were said to "go down alive into Sheol," (16:30) a reversal of Enoch and Elijah and even Christ our Lord's ascension. In that way, Korah functions as one of the first antichrist figures in the scriptures, one who rises up in the Church with many following him and leading them into heresy.
Back to the point at hand, that is not the only issue with the praise band model. For one thing, the placement of the praise band in the front of the church as leaders for those singing produces a different kind of atmosphere than the more traditional modes, sometimes literally for those with smoke machines. In the case of the praise band, the liturgical action of the service is no longer pointed toward the altar or the crucifix but toward those singing. In addition, the inclusion of such a group creates an effect which, in every other context, signifies a silencing of the "audience." When a group or individual comes up . and starts singing towards you, you listen. There was a very simple solution for this, which was used in the cases of many church choirs in the past and today: put them in the back or in the loft or perhaps even leave them to sit with their families. All three have their problems, be it acoustic or liturgical, but in any case, out of sight is better. In fact, what does the choir symbolize in the service? Simply, they are the hosts of angels which sing the Lord's praises eternally, whose song we join in the liturgy. When unseen, the function in the same was as the angels' praises in that we do not see or even necessarily hear the angels themselves, but when we know they are there, the song is richer.
Now for my criticism of using the music in the liturgy: first of all, it is not conducive to this format, it was simply not made to sing along to. This is because the goal of such music is to plunder the goods of modern music for the sake of the gospel, and this is not a bad goal. The issue begins when such music leaves its properly-ordered sphere. This style was meant for concerts, and I would have no problem if it stayed in that arena. I have been to contemporary Christian music concerts and I have heard the Baptist Student Ministries play their music from the stage outside my old dorm. In both cases, I didn't really have a problem with it, and what's more, I even found it encouraging to see Christian behavior in such a public place. However, this concert ought not be mistaken for a church service. Where a concert is for the appreciation of good music and even the thanking of God for such music, a service is there for reception and participation, reception insofar as we receive the grace of God in the Word, the absolution, and the Eucharist and participation in that God's love flows through us by this grace, which allows us to manifest the Lord's will in the world. CoWo seeks to provoke a kind of mystical and hyperspiritualized experience in a person, but not based on the words. The point of music in worship, however, is in the words, which teach us the Word of God, as St. Paul says, "Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God." (Col 3:16) From this passage, we see that we are called to teach each other with our hymnody, and that through this teaching, the word of Christ dwells in us. We ought not neglect the teaching of the church catholic for those taught by other confessions. This is why we don’t use every hymn from other hymnals, though we borrow some from Anglicans that have been doctrinally reviewed. The same is true for those like Bethel, Hillsong, and Elevation who not only have problematic doctrines for Lutherans to confess, but also may even be heretical. Bethel, for example, is involved in the Word of Faith movement and Elevation’s pastor Stephen Furtick confessed something akin to Modalism a few years ago. In that case, I would be very hesitant to include their media in my worship.
Some love to point to the language of “new songs” in the scriptures in support of such a style change. They would argue that the Lord blesses such things since he tells us to sing these new songs, not the old, stuffy hymnody of Christian history. However, this is a poor reading of the texts in question. My favorite of these is Psalm 40, where David sings, “He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord.” Now, we see this new song is not new to the world, it seems. If, for example, I were to play “Jesus loves me, this I know” for a child for the first time, that would be a new song for them, even though it was written in 1859. In fact, many Sundays we will sing a hymn that was written in Latin by monks in the 400s or something, and those too count as new songs. In the same way, the songs sung in Revelation 14 by the saints, this song of Christ’s crowning as king and destruction of the devil, is a new song as well. However, this is also the most primordial song, sung by our God to the devil in Eden when he said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (Gen 3:15) We see here that novelty is not a Christian virtue. It is not good for our songs to be new for newness’ sake, but rather, we are called to repent of our sins and to drown our old works in the waters of baptism so that the new works of Christ in us may bubble up to serve our neighbor.
This, then, is the Christian life. The Christians, like their God, are a timeless people, and this is carried out in the liturgy as well. We sing hymns written 50 years ago just as readily as those written 1600 years ago because, as the Epistle of Barnabas puts it, we Christians live with cloven hooves. Our feet are split, being in the world and yet living in the new creation in Christ, which will be fully revealed on the last day. In the same way, we worship in eternity with our forefathers, proclaiming the liturgy of creation, dancing over the body of Shiva’s destructive dance for the sake of Christ our creator. We, like David, worship freely, unburdened by our garments of mortality, and unlike the Levite of Judges, we do not cut the woman, the church, into pieces of the now and then. Rather, we live with the whole church and proclaim these new songs again and again, repeatedly casting down the crowns of creation to our King.
O Lord, continue to give us the knowledge of you, who was, is, and is to come, and keep our lives safe with you in eternity as we worship you in the echo of your Word in creation. Amen.
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