Christian Hip-hop to Replace Hymns?

World Magazine had an interesting article yesterday. Over all, I was disappointed with the direction taken by the article.  Rather than trying to approach the issue fairly, the discussion was prejudiced from the first sentence:

If you are looking for theologically saturated Christian music that has the greatest potential for widespread appeal, your best option may be Christian hip-hop.

"Potential for widespread appeal" should never be our primary criterion.  Fidelity to what Scripture commands or teaches in principle must always come first, and rarely is that approach popular.

Oddly, the implied question "What music is most popular?" is paired with the question "What form of contemporary music today has the most theological content?"  Or, to put it another way, "Isn't a song that uses more Bible words better than a song that uses less?" The first question implies "CCM has failed [for evangelism/edification]; what will work better now?", which is rather blatantly pragmatic.  Admittedly, the second is an important question: is more Bible in our music better?  But perhaps a more basic question is "How does God expect me to use and receive music?"  Should my focus be on music I enjoy or listen to when alone, or on music in the context of my local church?  Or some combination of both?

One key factor in answering those questions is the relative uniqueness of our current situation.  With many people in our congregations possessing iPods, internet access everywhere, and enough extra money to buy recorded music (CDs, MP3s, and so on), accessibility and personalization of music is possible to an unprecedented degree.

Contrast that to the early church, where no recorded music was available for personal enjoyment or edification throughout the week; in all likelihood, the only Christian music they would have experienced or participated in was in the weekly worship service.  For that matter, consider the situation even in the past century; individuals having nearly immediate access to thousands of songs is a very recent phenomenon.

The author asserts:

It is important to keep in mind that Christian hip-hop, unlike other contemporary genres, generally is not intended for use during corporate worship, so rejecting its appropriateness for the liturgy is not relevant.

However, we cannot entirely divorce what we do at home or on our own time from what we do at church.  The two settings are different and our range of activities will be different, but I am still the same person, so what I do in the one setting will affect to some degree what I do in the other.

Does the Bible discuss specifically me listening to music at home?  Not really, as is to be expected if this is a recent development. But, the Bible has clear principles about the use of music by the church, which is a good starting point for informing the discussion.

The Scriptural precedent for using music to edify other Christians is primarily found in Ephesians 5:15-21 and Colossians 3:12-17.  While the text does not explicitly say that such edification is to only take place when the congregation is gathered, it does seem to be a direct verbal process between believers who are part of the same congregation.  This is implied from Paul writing these epistles to specific congregations, as well as the "one another" language Paul uses frequently in his epistles to describe person-to-person ministry in the church setting.

Since we live in an age of digital proximity and personal distance, what does application of those passages look like for us?

First, participating in congregational edification has priority.  The Bible does not forbid my being edified at home or outside of church by music produced by other Christians I will never meet, but I need to be participating in worship and mutual edification in the gathered assembly of my local congregation.

Second, supporting my local congregation has priority.  If I'm spending all my money on buying songs from other Christians or professing Christian musicians, and I fail to support the work of my local church, I am failing in responsibilities directly commanded by God (e.g. 1 Timothy 5:18; 2 Corinthians 9:7).  This holds true of other things as well - buying Christian books, attending seminars, and supporting parachurch ministries may be a legitimate use of my money, but not until my pastor and his family are provided for and my church is equipped financially to do their work well.

Returning to the article, here is a major premise the author is making:

Could Christian hip-hop simply be the “ugly” music of our era?

Earlier, he answered the question in a way that implies that what is "ugly" is completely relative to when and where you live. 

Dr. David Koyzis, in his book Political Visions and Illusions, highlights this ignorance by noting, “Many conservatives dislike ‘pop’ or ‘rock’ music and prefer, say, the baroque pieces of Bach or Telemann. . . . The very label ‘baroque’ was used in a derogatory fashion by conservatives of that day to describe what they felt to be ugly music.” Today many hail the “ugly” church music set to baroque as the height of Christian music and a form that should be normative today.

Or, he snidely implies that applying some form of the regulative principle is merely a personal preference:

For example, in Christian traditions that sing only the Psalms without instrumental accompaniment, the worst thing for them would be to sing praise to God using lyrics not directly from the Bible and to pollute music offered to God with instruments like a pipe organ.

As an aside, lumping all those who oppose the use of hip-hop into a category with people like David Stewart at Jesus-is-Savior.com is an easy out.

But even with the deep theological content found in much of Christian hip-hop, many evangelicals view it as an inappropriate medium for Christian music. This objection reveals some level of ignorance about the historical development of Christian music.

While it is true that perceptions of appropriate instruments and music styles have changed over the years, we should not then assume there are no objective or absolute standards of beauty.  Sometimes music is perceived as ugly because it is different.  Sometimes it is perceived as ugly because it is ugly, and time will not change that perception for the thoughtful Christian. 


Perhaps some biblical principles for determining objective beauty can be explored further at another time, with Philippians 4:8 as a starting point, as well as the question of whether using more Bible words equates to a better song.

The Glory Due His Name: Review and Related Thoughts

I've been doing some study on the topic of worship recently. Part of that study involved reading The Glory Due His Name: What God Says About Worship by Gary Reimers, part of the BJU Seminary faculty.

Having finished the book a few weeks back, I believe that Dr. Reimers made some helpful points.  For example, he described five key aspects of proper worship in a service: preparation, praise, prayer, presentation (i.e. the offering), and preaching.  These categories were supported from Scripture and carefully explained.

The more intriguing section to me was the second half of the book, which addressed wrong forms of worship.  The first part of that section (Chapter 2) involved exegesis of Exodus 20:3-6 and similar passages in the Old Testament, which according to Dr. Reimers teach a frightening principle: God will punish your children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren if you insist on worshiping Him in a wrong way.  I still need to think through the implications of this concept, but it seems to be supported fairly well by contextual and exegetical evidence.

Connected with the above principle, in third and final chapter of the book, Dr. Reimers evaluated the consequences of wrong worship.  What does wrong worship look like?  In other words, "worshipping the right God the wrong way"?  He gives four categories: 1) worship based on imagination (from Exodus 32, the golden calf incident), 2) worship focused on innovation (from Leviticus 10:1-3, where Nadab and Abihu were killed), 3) worship like the world (from Deuteronomy 12:29-32), and 4) worship marketed for convenience (from 1 Kings 12:26-31, where Jereboam started the false worship at Dan/Bethel).

His application of the first category (p. 74) was focused on worshiping God according our conception of Who He is, rather than how the Bible describes Him.  His application of the second category dealt with church marketing approaches and their tendency to assume what is new or different is automatically better.  His application of the third category focused on the use of sanitized rock music by Christians in their worship services.  Finally, the last category was applied in terms of making the main consideration for service times, clothing choices, and similar decisions the convenience or lack thereof for the participants.

I think overall his book was written very well.  I do have some further items to consider in light of his applications of the principles, specifically related to music we use in church.

First, if we should not worship God according to our imagination, then we need to be careful about using songs which do not present a biblical view of God.  For example, singing songs that only present God as love, or more generally, only choosing those kinds of songs to include in our services, will give people a false view of God.

Second, if we should not worship God like the world worships their gods, then yes, we should acknowledge that various rock artists have stated they intended their music to promote sex, drugs, and general immorality.  But we would be wrong to assume that earlier musicians were entirely free of such motives in their works. It's not as though sin was something that began to happen in the 1960s; various musicians and performers in the 1800s participated willingly in the sins of their times, such as adultery and drunkenness.  It would seem reasonable, then, that such themes could have affected their compositions as well.

These are items I need to consider further.

God Is Good...Demonstrated Thoroughly

Randy Alcorn does an admirable job of attempting to vindicate God's goodness, power, and knowledge despite the existence of sin and suffering.  His work thoroughly addresses such topics as the origin of sin, the characteristics of sin today, as well as the consequences of both Adam's sin and our own, and the subsequent effects on health, morality, and all of life.

The best feature of the book are the section headings in each chapter, which help to structure the points Alcorn is making.  Without these headings, the sheer length of the book, and difficulty of the questions addressed, would be overwhelming.  Furthermore, the chapters are short and specific enough to be used in an encyclopedic fashion, as an alternative to reading the entire book.

Alcorn takes a moderately Reformed view of the question of God's goodness, power, and knowledge in terms of the relationship between God's sovereignty and man's responsibility.  Interestingly, and helpfully, Alcorn clearly prioritizes passages which reflect God's perspective on the issues connected with evil and suffering, rather than man's perspective.  His basic conclusion on the issue is that God created the world, knowing and allowing evil and suffering to mar it, in order to fully demonstrate His character and more fully glorify Himself.

Despite a clear theological focus, Alcorn also includes human interest stories and asides which illustrate and involve the reader in thinking through what is at stake in the various topics discussed.

Although lengthy and at times more in-depth than the average church attendee might prefer, Alcorn does an excellent job of presenting an orthodox defense of the character of God, while addressing the heart-rending experiences and frustrations of the grief-stricken Christian who honestly and thoroughly considers the world in which he lives.