Contemporary Christian Music

this is a paper that i turned in for my christian thought and culture class...

Contemporary Christian Music: When are Christians Going to Stop Being Assholes?

As worshipping progressed from the traditional style of organs and hymns to the “contemporary” style of acoustic guitars and goatees, it seems that the church has made a natural and needed shift in time but has lost a lot of what it means to worship. This paper is a critique on the new generation of worship music that has swarmed many North American churches, retail stores and iPods. I will not suggest that we revert back to strictly hymns and organs for that would be placing importance on a particular method in a specific time and culture instead of realizing that our vernacular is different than theirs. The main principles that I will discuss can be easily translated to other cultures and other times…and that’s precisely the point. As churches, regardless of location or time in the world, think intentionally about how they will worship, they need to realize that the timeless truth of Jesus Christ will be expressed through different vehicles of time, culture, and language. However, since I am a white American male, I will be focusing on the North American Church that has decided to employ this new worship music that we call “contemporary”. The need for progression and genuine expression of art in our current culture must be coupled with the vital examination of what our intentions are and whom we are truly worshipping. Truth, honesty and integrity must trump cheap tricks and short-lived fads in order to honor and worship God.

Art: Reflecting the Times

Responding to the times and reflecting on any given era sparks a mass suspicion in the minds of a lot of Christians because it might look dangerously close to being shaped by the times.1  One of the big problems we have today is our inability as a church to look at church history as a progression of methods but rather we take what we have today for granted. Marva Dawn states in her book, Reaching Out without Dumbing Down:

“…the idolatry of traditionalism, which causes us to do everything as it’s always been done, to such an extent that worship remains boring and stale.”2 

She goes on to state that the best remedy to this is not throwing everything out. I will whole heartily agree that there are truths in the hymns of Isaac Watts, John and Charles Wesley that we should not throw out just for the sake of being on the “cutting edge”. However, this is where I hate the words “traditional” and “contemporary” when describing the two styles of worship because it implies that the “traditional” was never “contemporary” and this is a foolish mistake. When hymns were first introduced in the 18th century, they were extremely revolutionary and created a completely new standard of worship. They were secular in style, personal and culturally relevant in content, and absolutely shocked the “traditional” form of worship.3   Does this sound familiar? We should not focus the particular vehicle of expression but accept that worship has always been progressing and been a series of experimentations.

Recruitment: First Mistake

This is the starting point to the downfall of our current contemporary movement. Once the purpose of worship is to attract and recruit the unredeemed world then it ceases to become worship. This seems harsh but this needs to be rule number one in every church:

“Worship is easily corrupted when it is treated as a recruitment device, for that shifts its focus from honoring God to pleasing those who profess to honor God.”4

There is a huge difference in honestly honoring God with the worship your church community uses and putting on a face to “win souls”. One is genuine and one is fake and pathetic. The point of worshipping is not to look cool or making people feel good but it is to WORSHIP GOD and ONLY GOD! I will discuss the topic of styles later but first thing is first: worship is not a marketing tool.

Sacred versus Secular: Christian?

Let’s get down to the basics: worship music is “Christian” music, right? The generic consensus of what makes a song sacred has something to do with its content. However, I am going to argue that it is not that simple because just because the name “Jesus” is in the song doesn’t necessarily make it sacred or should be used in worship. Also, what do we do with instrumental music that expresses appropriate responses that words can’t? Many contemporary Christian artists in their quest to be relevant and be “in the world but not of the world” have created a parallel world that mimics the secular world. This “Christian bubble” of a music scene has not produced a Kingdom of God on earth but rather took aspects of the world and retreated to a “safe haven” that is just as full of idols of greed, fame, pride, etc. as the secular music scene.

“Christian pop is the hymnody of idolatry, the self’s worship of the self…[and] it exalts consumption over creation and self-promotion over service.”5  

Frankforter is unrelenting but I will have to agree with him whenever I see those huge Christian concerts and feel more disconnected with God than when I’m listening to a secular artist scream his lungs out about the hopelessness and hatred of life. With one I just see an unoriginal shadow who is ripping off the latest pop star while singing the newest “Christian phrase” and the other I see the honest depiction of a broken man who’s completely frustrated with the world and longing to feel something real. I see the “secular” song more sacred because it reveals the true nature of humans, the lament I have for the world, and the real need for Jesus…and calls me to love and serve.
Equating worship music to the Eucharist will create a safe standard. Bread and wine are just bread and wine unless it’s coupled with the Word. This, I realized, is essential to worship music. Frankforter states,

“A joyful noise is a natural, spontaneous, and appropriate response to the discovery of the reality of the Bible’s God. But it is only a response; it is not the cause of the worshiper’s sense of the divine presence.”6 

I’m not saying that every song from the contemporary music culture is dispensable, but for it to be worship, it needs to be coupled with the Word and to be used as an honest response to that Word.

Production: Accountability

Michelle K. Baker-Wright brings up an important issue of production in her work, Intimacy and Orthodoxy:

“Thus, many over-personalized worship songs are written in isolation, studio recorded, published, and distributed to thousands of churches that will replicate the same cultural and theological paradigms without any discernment process.”7

For the church to appropriately worship, there needs to be in full communication between the artists and the clergy. Artists need to be their own theologian to fully present the character of God. If you focus more on getting the right style than on the words to attract people (re: recruitment), then you will end up having a lifeless jingle that will sound catchy but wont correctly represent the God who you are worshipping.

Themes: Incomplete

As we entered into the modern world, the importance of individuality rose and the affects of this are clearly seen in the lyrics of popular contemporary Christian music. Most critics will agree that the “Me and My Jesus” mentality in the current worship needs to be altered in order to fully honor God. I can’t stress enough of how Marva Dawn is a champion in this area. She states:

“Such worship fosters the basic perspective that faith depends on how well we notice God’s glory, rather than of the gift of God’s revelation that God’s grace enables us to receive.”8 

She explains that the cause of this is the contemporary confusion of praise and “happiness”. Focusing on happiness makes us forget that God’s glory is through Christ’s sacrifice and the suffering of God’s people.9   This sort of repetitive optimism can actually be very spiritually disturbing.

“Only upbeat and happy songs are destructive to worshippers because it denies the realities of doubts concerning God, hiddenness of God, and the feeling of abandonment by God that cloud believers going through difficult times.”10 

The fear of looking weak is a twisted idea of our generation because we need to be reminded that redemption is not through the glory of the church but through the crucified Messiah. Thus, a full range of themes should be incorporated in worship, not by focusing on us, but by proclaiming God’s truth and God’s character. Songs of lament need to make its way to our churches. Songs of frustration should frighten us. Songs of mission should promote service. Songs of the Body of Christ should make us forget the individual. The range of themes should reflect the range of responses we have to the Word. As Marva Dawn puts it:

“Instead of recognizing the inadequacy of worship that teaches only one aspect of our relationship to God, [people in difficult times] blame themselves for inadequate faith.”11 

Style: Inspiring versus Imitating

So far I have said little about the actual style of music that should represent worship and I’ve done this on purpose because when it comes to worship, the methods are temporal and always in reform. The important thing a church needs to realize is:

“Hope lies not in discovering a single program or strategy to be imposed to all churches, but in trusting the power of grace to guide each in discovering how it can best worship with integrity. Worshipers must become explorers who risk forays into uncharted territory.”12 

As Christians, we are the ones that in face of God see the wickedness of life and yet at the same time see the ultimate glory of God. If anyone, we are the ones that know true sorrow and true joy. So, why is it that we have settled for cheap imitations of the world around us? We are the ones that should be inspiring instead of imitating. Do we have such little faith that we feel we need to copy what is popular in the unredeemed world to attract an audience? We need to be innovative and the forerunners of musical talent at the same time respectful of the past. If we find truth in an old hymn, then it would be foolish for us to discount it just because it’s “old".13  My church back home would sometimes take the lyrics of old hymns and put it with contemporary music.14   Style needs to honestly reflect each particular church.15   

Conclusion: Epiklesis

Throughout this paper I have touched on some of the aspects of the contemporary worship movement that need serious reconsideration and as a classic critic, I’ve pointed out the short-comings without offering specific remedies or a qualified 12 step program. The only real answer to church health and proper progression is taking the third person of the Trinity seriously. Truly evoking the Holy Spirit to guide each church will reveal what God’s character is and how each specific church and culture should respond and worship. The worship methods of every community will be vastly different but the lasting substance of worship should be consistent: followers who are being led by the Holy Spirit in creating authentic worship in response to the Word and in the language and style of their cultural identity. Inspiring the unredeemed world with their ability to see the world through the eyes of a true and living God and responding with a wide range of emotions to the complex themes of the Bible.

The church is worshipping the favor of the world and not the Triune God when it turns worship into a marketing tool. This makes us look like snakes instead of honest humans trusting in the Holy Spirit and the Power of the Word. Progression ceases when we have no faith that the Holy Spirit will guide the next generation in honoring God.


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1 Steve Turner, Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts, (Downer’s Grove: IntraVarsity Press, 2001), 93.
2 Marva Dawn, Reaching Out without Dumbing Down, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995), 47.
3 Rob Des Cotes, Contemporary Worship and Our Quest for Intimate Relationship, (Regent College Thesis, 1997), 28-29.
4 A. Daniel Frankforter, Stones for Bread, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), xiii.
5 Ibid., 135.
6 Ibid., 136.
7 Michelle K. Baker-Wright, Intimacy and Orthodoxy, Missiology 35, no. 2 (April 2007): 169-178. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials, EBSCOhost (accessed March 12, 2009), 176.
8 Marva Dawn, Reaching Out without Dumbing Down, 77.
9 Ibid., 87.
10 Ibid., 88-89.
11 Ibid., 89.
12 A. Daniel Frankforter, Stones for Bread, 169.
13 Kara Mandryck, The Convergence Movement in Contemporary Worship, Didaskalia
(Otterburne, Man.) 17, no. 2 (2006): 19-36. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials, EBSCOhost (accessed March 12, 2009), 24.
14 Vintage 21 in Raleigh, NC. The music was written specifically for that hymn to properly match the style and tone of the message with the music...NOT just putting a hymn to a popular song.
15 Imitators will be sniffed out immediately as con-artists.