Wednesday, April 02, 2008

How shall I sing that Majesty?

My sabbatical ends this Sunday, and I will no doubt be asked to provide magazine articles once more. Here's one that I've prepared for some of my critics. Thanks to Ed Pacht for his thoughts on the matter.

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Those of you who see me in Church will notice that I do not sing when the hymns are from the Mission Praise song book. It's quite reasonable that I should be questioned as to why I don't join in with these congregational songs and I do owe an explanation why.


I do take my hymn singing very seriously, after all singing praise to Our God is fully Biblical. Indeed the Bible is riddled with poems and songs and references to singing hymns en masse. So clearly congregational singing is part of our heritage and everyone in the congregation ought to sing as best as they can in order to offer praise to God as one body of Christ.


If I'm saying that everyone must sing congregational hymns, then why am I behaving like the hypocrite by not doing so? If our taste in music is not important and we should sing regardless of whether we "like" the music or not, then surely I am in the wrong by closing my mouth whilst everyone else's is open.


You see, I don't refuse to sing on the grounds of taste, but on the grounds of theology. As I say, I take my hymn singing very seriously, and the first consideration that needs to be made is answering the question "what is this hymn saying to God, to the people around and to me?"


Take this little song


I'm accepted, I’m forgiven,
I am fathered by the true and living God.
I’m accepted, no condemnation,
I am loved by the true and living God.

There’s no guilt or fear as I draw near
To the Saviour and Creator of the world.
There is joy and peace
As I release my worship to You, O Lord.

321 in Mission Praise.

It seems quite simple and harmless, but it's just wrong in its understanding of God. It contains bad theology that is contrary to our Anglican beliefs.


Let's take it apart.


I'm accepted, I'm forgiven: This first line suffers from a significant lack of detail about how we are accepted and forgiven by God. I am only accepted in the eyes of God if I have fully confessed my sins, fully repented and I am fully prepared to follow Christ in my life and in proper regard with the Sacraments. Taken as it is written, that first line could be guilty of the sin of presumption. It says nothing about the sorrow for our sins that we need to have and perhaps it also encourages us not to worry about our guilt.


I am fathered by the true and living God: This line could be sung by so many folk who claim to be Christians but are not, such as the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses.


I'm accepted, no condemnation: Repetition does not make any statement more true.


I am loved by the true and living God: Everyone is loved by God, including those who are not Christian, including those who do not believe in God, and also including those who are on the pathway to Hell because of their lack of repentance.


There’s no guilt or fear as I draw near To the Saviour and Creator of the world:

Who is worthy of approaching God? As C.S. Lewis remarks in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe:

"Is he safe?" "Safe?" said Mr. Beaver... "Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."

If we have no fear of God, then clearly we have not understood, nor wanted to understand, Who He is. The fact that we are permitted to approach is testament to Christ's humanity. To say that we can approach Christ with any less fear is Arian, meaning that we do not appreciate His power as God.


There is joy and peace As I release my worship to You, O Lord: An interesting phrase, but does it actually mean anything? How is my worship of God constrained, and how my I release it? Am I keeping it a prisoner? If I do not praise God willingly then my body praises him regardless. Compare this with St Luke 19:37-40.


Finally, what is the most common word used in this song? The answer is "I" - I'm accepted, I'm forgiven, I'm fathered, I am loved." Rather egotistical this song, isn't it? Can this be a song to praise the same God who said, "if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily , and follow me"? At Mass, we come together to praise God as a body forgetting ourselves ("though we are many, we are one body because we all share in one bread"). The only thing that we must do as individuals is confess our own sins - "I confess that I have sinned" - and confess our faith - "I believe in one God." Isn't it God Whom we are to praise? How does a song which focuses on "me" praise God?

This song is more concerned with soothing our consciences than praising and learning about God.

We really do need to think about what we're singing and saying in Church otherwise we can really make some terrible mistakes.


But this isn't the only thing that Mission Praise does. It changes the words of hymns to make them more "understandable" to people singing. In doing so, it changes their meaning, and changes our ability to find the truth of God within their words. This is true to some extent with all hymn books, but Mission Praise likes to chop and change for convenience such as the last verse of Crown Him with many Crowns (MP 109, AMNS 147) in which two verses have been cut and wedged together. Also the last verse of Christ is made the sure foundation (MP 73, AMNS 332 part 2) has been altered to make it easier to understand but in doing so omits crucial Anglican understanding of the Holy Trinity (consubstantial is not the same as "one in power" co-eternal is not the same as "one in glory").

In short, I do not trust Mission Praise to preserve traditional Anglican teaching, and because it is necessary for every Christian to follow the traditional teaching of the Church and because I don't have time to check the theology of every hymn and song at Mass, I cannot bring myself to sing from this book. It isn't because it's not to my taste, it's because it's not what any thinking Christian believes. I hope this answers the questions of my practices.

3 comments:

axegrinder said...

W,

I love the reason, theology, and collegial tone. I started leaving a comment but it started snowballing and ended up being 900+ words. Below is a link to what turned from a comment here into a post/rant on my blog.

Isn't that how our acquaintance began? You responding to something I had written?

Hymns vs. Praise and Worship Music

One note that is not in my post: I disagree that forgetting ourselves is a part of worship. I think a nuance would be helpful. We see ourselves in the proper context. I think that you say this. I am nitpicking a bit because I think that using the word "forget" can lead people into some places where they should not go. Our Lord says, "This is MY body broken for YOU."

Interesting to me that I started rereading Colin Gunton's "The One, The Three and The Many" last night. He makes the very point that we must be careful not to lose the one for the many or sacrifice the many for the one. Only in the Three Persons of the Trinity can we ever hope to navigate these tricky waters.

Thanks for the provocative words,

Jason K

Warwickensis said...

Jason,

great to hear from you, and thanks for this article on your blog. Clearly we are singing from the same hymnsheet.

I noted your comment on forgetting oneself, and understand what you mean. Perhaps I need to be clearer in what I say.

What essentially I mean is that we become theocentric rather than egocentric in our worship.

Interestingly, what you say - "This is my body broke for you" - is not the best illustration for what you say.

In Latin, 1 Cor xi.24 says
hoc est corpus meum pro vobis
and in Greek
touto mou estin to soma to huper humon.
Note that we have vobis and humon both designating the plural you. There is no sense of individuality in this verse at all.

However, I'm being picky, because we agree in our understanding. We receive Christ as individuals to be part of the Church. Thus our worship is governed according to the way Christ wants it, but He meets each one of us as we are.

Forgive my pickiness. Thanks for continuing to drop by, and supporting my little blog.

poetreader said...

I'm flattered at being referenced as some sort of authority. I'm not, just an aging and cantankerous autodidact. Thanks, and thanks for the clarity with which you rendered my thoughts here.

on the matter of individuality, the Liturgy does indeed contain both the individual and the collective voices ("I" and "we), held, perhaps unconsciously, in careful balance. The older and more traditional hymnals do likewise and successfully supplement the Liturgy whole keepong the same theological balance. The old "Gospel songbooks" and the contemproary "Praise and Worship" books, on the other hand, have skewed the mix strongly toward the individualistic, and are apparently intentional in avoidung the corporate.

I see myself as being known individually by my Savior, being called individually to follow Him,
navong an individual self-offering to present Him, but as being called to follow and to offer while consciously a part of a far greater "We" - the Church. Of my singing does not reflect this balance, my singing is, at best, inadequate to the praise of God, or, at worst, an expression of a sinful and hyposcitical pride.

ed