Worship Wars

One of the basic features of church life in the US today is the proliferation of worship and music forms.

This, in turn, has caused many severe conflicts both within individual congregations and whole denominations.

Most books and articles about recent worship trends tend to fall into one of two broad categories. ‘Contemporary Worship’ (hereafter CW) advocates often make rather sweeping statements, such as ‘pipe organs and choirs will never reach people today’. ‘Historic Worship’ (hereafter HW) advocates often speak similarly about how incorrigibly corrupt popular music and culture is, and how they make contemporary worship completely unacceptable.

Contemporary worship: CW plugging in?

One CW advocate writes vividly that we must ‘plug in’ our worship to three power sources: ‘the sound system, the Holy Spirit, and contemporary culture’. But several problems attend the promotion of strictly contemporary worship.

First, some popular music does have severe limitations for worship. Critics of popular culture argue that much of it is the product of mass-produced commercial interests. As such, it is often marked by sentimentality, a lack of artistry, sameness, and individualism in a way that traditional folk art was not.

Second, when we ignore historic tradition we break our solidarity with Christians of the past. Part of the richness of our identity as Christians is that we are saved into a historic people. An unwillingness to consult tradition is not in keeping with either Christian humility or Christian community. Nor is it a thoughtful response to the postmodern rootlessness which now leads so many to seek connection to ancient ways and peoples.

Finally, any worship that is strictly contemporary will become ‘dated’ very, very quickly. Also, it will necessarily be gauged to a very narrow ‘market niche’. When Peter Wagner says we should ‘plug in’ to contemporary culture, which contemporary culture does he mean? White, black, Latin, urban, suburban, ‘Boomer,’ or ‘GenX’ contemporary culture? Just ten years ago, Willow Creek’s contemporary services were considered to be ‘cutting edge’. Today, most younger adults find them dated and ‘hokey’.

Hidden (but not well!) in the arguments of contemporary worship enthusiasts is the assumption that culture is basically neutral. Thus there is no reason why we cannot wholly adapt our worship to any particular cultural form. But worship that is not rooted in any particular historic tradition will often lack the critical distance to critique and avoid the excesses and distorted, sinful elements of the particular surrounding, present culture.

Historic worship: HW pulling out?

HW advocates, on the other hand, are strictly ‘high culture’ promoters, who defend themselves from charges of elitism by arguing that modern pop music is inferior to traditional folk art. But problems also attend the promotion of strictly traditional, historic worship.

First, HW advocates cannot really dodge the charge of cultural elitism. A realistic look at the Christian music arising from the grassroots folk cultures of Latin America, Africa, and Asia (not commercially produced pop music centres) reveals many of the characteristics of contemporary praise and worship music — simple and accessible tunes, driving beat, repetitive words, and emphasis on experience. In the US, an emphasis on strictly high culture music and art will probably only appeal to college-educated elites.

Second, any proponent of ‘historic’ worship will have to answer the question — ‘whose’ history?

Much of what is called ‘traditional’ worship is rooted in northern European culture. While strict CW advocates bind worship too heavily to one present culture, strict HW advocates bind it too heavily to a past culture. Do we really believe that the 16th century Northern European approach to emotional expression and music (incarnate in the Reformation tradition) was completely biblically informed and must be preserved?

Hidden (but not well!) in the arguments of traditional worship advocates is the assumption that certain historic forms are more pure, biblical, and untainted by human cultural accretions. Those who argue against cultural relativism must also remember the essential relativity of all traditions. Just as it is a lack of humility to disdain tradition, it is also a lack of humility to elevate any particular tradition or culture’s way of doing worship. A refusal to adapt a tradition to new realities may come under Jesus’s condemnation of making our favourite human culture into an idol, equal to the Scripture in normativity (Mark 7.8-9). While CW advocates do not seem to recognise the sin in all cultures, the HW advocates do not seem to recognise the amount of (common) grace in all cultures.

Bible, tradition, and culture

At this point, the reader will anticipate that I am about to unveil some grand ‘Third Way’ between two extremes. Indeed, many posit a third approach called ‘blended’ worship. Unfortunately, for many people ‘blended’ worship consists of a simple, wooden 50-50 division between contemporary songs and traditional hymns. This is often quite jarring and unhelpful. It is more of a political compromise than the result of reflection about your community’s culture and your church’s tradition. It is not as simple as that.

My major complaint is that both sides are equally simplistic in the process by which they shape their worship.

CW advocates consult a) the Bible and b) contemporary culture, while HW advocates consult a) the Bible and b) historic tradition. But we forge worship best when we consult a) the Bible, b) the cultural context of our community, and c) the historic tradition of our church. The result of this more complex process will not be simply a single, third ‘middle way’. There are at least nine worship traditions in Protestantism alone.

It is extremely important to follow this more complex approach. The Bible simply does not give us enough details to shape an entire worship service. When the Bible calls us to sing God’s praises, we are not given the tunes or the rhythm. We are not told how repetitive the lyrics are to be or not to be, nor how emotionally intense the singing should be. When we are commanded to do corporate prayer, we are not told whether those prayers should be written, unison prayers or extemporary prayers. So to give any concrete form to our worship, we must ‘fill in the blanks’ that the Bible leaves open. When we do so, we will have to draw on a) tradition, b) the needs, capacities and cultural sensibilities of our people, and c) our own personal preferences. Though we cannot avoid drawing on our own preferences, this should never be the driving force (cf. Romans 15.1-3). Thus, if we fail to do the hard work of consulting both tradition and culture, we will — wittingly or unwittingly — just tailor music to please ourselves.

A solution: evangelistic worship — two models, with problems

The most thoughtful members of the Seeker Friendly Service (SFC) movement (championed by Willow Creek in Illinois) agree that the straight ‘seeker service’ is not really worship and, therefore, new believers are brought out of the seeker service into a weekly worship service for believers. The critics, on the other hand, generally see the worship service as the place for renewing and edifying believers who then go out into the world to do evangelism. The two models then, seem to be:

Seeker service (evangelism) —> Worship service (edification)
Worship service (edification) —> World (evangelism)

There are pragmatic problems with both models. The SFC model is financially very expensive and it is hard to assimilate new Christians out of seeker services into real worship services. And if the main worship service is very oriented toward seekers, the Christians often feel under-fed. On the other hand the critics cannot avoid the charge that they are not proposing any alternative to the current evangelistically-ineffective church. One critic is very typical when he writes: ‘While we [the seeker-friendly church] try to entice the world to come to church to hear the gospel, the New Testament proclaims a powerful church worshipping God going out into the world in order to reach the lost (cf. Acts of the Apostles). True revivals have historically proved ... that a revived and healthy church reaches a dying and lost world through its own awakened people’. This view says, ‘evangelism will take care of itself as long as we have great worship’. But the history of revivals also shows us innovations in outreach.

The Great Awakening was marked by two men who were remarkable innovators — George Whitefield in evangelism and John Wesley in organisation. Many criticise seeker services because they are ‘not worship’ and contain many elements of ‘entertainment’. Often they call us to look, instead, at the revivals of the past. But they do not criticise George Whitefield for attracting huge crowds to his own ‘seeker programmes’. He drew people into open air meetings with a kind of preaching that was unparalleled at the time in its popular appeal — his humour, his stories, his dramatically acted-out illustrations, and his astounding oratorical gifts drew tens of thousands. At the time he was labelled an ‘entertainer’. His meetings were not worship, nor did they replace worship, but they were certainly critical to the revival.

They provided Christians with a remarkable place to do friendship evangelism. His meetings were all over the city on virtually every day of the week. Whitefield’s evangelism was enormously aggressive and passionate. His preaching was racy and popular yet pointed toward the transcendent and holy God. Yet his public meetings shared many of the characteristics (and criticisms) of seeker services today.

Whitefield and Wesley did not be-come instruments of revival by simply being great expository preachers and renewing historic worship.

My main problem with the two models, however, is theological. They both assume that worship cannot be highly evangelistic. I want to show that this is a false premise. Churches would do best to make their ‘main course’ an evangelistic worship service, supplemented by both a) numerous, variegated, creative, even daily (but not weekly) seeker-focussed events, and b) intense meetings for Bible study and corporate prayer for revival and renewal.

Theological basis

God commanded Israel to invite the nations to join in declaring his glory. Zion is to be the centre of world-winning worship (Isaiah 2.2-4, 56.6-8; Psalm 102.18). Psalm 105 is a direct command to believers to engage in evangelistic worship. The Psalmist challenges them to ‘make known among the nations what he has done’ (v.1.) How? ‘Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of his wonderful acts’ (v.2). Thus believers are continually told to sing and praise God before the unbelieving nations. (See also Psalm 47.1; 100.1-5.) God is to be praised before all the nations and, as he is praised by his people, the nations are summoned and called to join in song.

Peter tells a Gentile church: ‘But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light’ (1 Peter 2.9). This shows us that the church is challenged to the same witness that Israel was called to — evangelistic worship. There is, however, a key difference: in the Old Testament, the centre of world-winning worship was Mount Zion, but now, wherever we worship Jesus in spirit and in truth (John 4.21-26), we have come to the heavenly Zion (Hebrews 12.18-24). In other words, the risen Lord now sends his people out singing his praises in mission, calling the nations to join both saints and angels in heavenly doxology. Jesus himself stands in the midst of the re-deemed and leads us in the singing of God’s praises (Hebrews 2.12), even as God stands over his redeemed and sings over us in joy (Zephaniah 2.17).

Biblical cases

A look at both Acts chapter 2 and 1 Corinthians 14.24-25 will teach us the following:

1. Non-believers are expected to be present in Christian worship. In Acts 2 it happens by word-of-mouth excitement. In 1 Corinthians 14 it is probably the result of personal invitation by Christian friends. But Paul in 14.23 expects both ‘unbelievers’ and ‘the unlearned’ (literally ‘a seeker’ — ‘one who does not understand’) to be present in worship.

2. Non-believers must find the praise of Christians to be comprehensible. In Acts 2 it happens by miraculous divine intervention. In 1 Corinthians 14 it happens by human design and effort. But it cannot be missed that Paul directly tells a local congregation to adapt its worship because of the presence of unbelievers. It is a false dichotomy to insist that if we are seeking to please God we must not ask what the unchurched feel or think about our worship.

3. Non-believers can fall under conviction and be converted through comprehensible worship. In 1 Corinthians 14 it happens during the service, but in Acts 2 it is supplemented by ‘after meetings’ and follow-up evangelism. God wants the world to overhear us worshipping him. God directs his people not to simply worship, but to sing his praises ‘before the nations’. We are not to simply communicate the gospel to them, but celebrate the gospel before them.

Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York, considers tensions between historic and contemporary worship in our churches

Contemporary worship: CW plugging in?

Historic worship: HW pulling out?

Bible, tradition, and culture

Theological basis

Biblical cases

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