They are Wrong, We are Right: Worship Wars and Music

Dan Edelen of Cerulean Sanctum has a great post on music, “Calling a Truce in the Worship Wars”. He has noticed and blogged about the fact that in the worship wars, most are content to condemn everyone else’s music. They are right and the whole world is wrong. But should this be our attitude?

He begins his post as follows:

“Over the last year, one topic has arisen on more blogs than any other: proper worship. The tenor of these posts is typically aimed at how to do worship right, with the writer explaining why his/her token method of worship is THE ONLY KIND THAT WORSHIPS GOD IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH. Like so many aspects of the Faith, we’ve turned worship into a tangle of pointing fingers. Rarely do we claim any higher ground than to contend that our higher ground is loftier than someone else’s.”

He goes on to compare the arguments on both sides of the worship war concerning hymns versus modern praise songs. This section is well worth looking at, as he points out some inconsistencies in reasoning–particularly in those who would jump to ban modern worship songs.

He then concludes with these remarks:

“The focus is not on externals, yet so often this is all we can note when we hold our own ways of worshiping up as the only way, while deriding those who worship in ways we don’t understand….Our worship wars are based on cultural trappings more than anything, and that’s too bad because that’s a very narrow slice of reality that we bring to worship. The true worshiper of God is content in all worship environments that are driven by the Holy Spirit. Such a worshiper is equally at home with an a cappella choir, an amplified worship band, a pulse-pounding black gospel group, a classical quartet, or any other musical expression that is fueled by the Holy Spirit….Worshipers with hearts focused on God, worshiping by the Spirit, can sing (and dance) to any kind of music and God will be pleased with their offering….Why do we strain so hard to define what is appropriate? We want to honor God. We want to do the right thing. But the right thing is focusing more on God and less on our methods.”

I encourage you to check out the whole article. It is well worth a short read.

(HT: The Best of the God Blogs)

We need to be very careful not to have a Michal-attitude concerning the music and worship of others. (Mathew Sims of Under Sovereign Grace pointed out this attitude here.)

∼striving for the unity of the faith for the glory of God∼ Eph. 4:3,13 “¢ Rom. 15:5-7