Self-described post-evangelical (and Methodist worship pastor) Jonathan Aigner wrote on Patheos recently on “8 Reasons the Worship Industry Is Killing Worship”. I both resonated and disagreed with enough of his post that I figure it’s worth a short response.
Aigner’s eight points, with my thoughts interspersed:
1. It’s [sic] sole purpose is to make us feel something.
Aigner says that the worship industry “must engage us on a purely sensory level to find widespread appeal…”
I’ll agree with Aigner here on the overall concept and disagree with him on the breadth of his statements. Does the worship industry rely too heavily on the sensory level to get us engaged? Probably, yeah. But is it affecting us “purely on an emotional level”, as he claims? I won’t go that far.
2. The industry hijacks worship.
“When the mind is disengaged and worship is reduced to an emotional experience,”, says Aigner, “worship descends into narcissistic and self-referential meaninglessness.” This point relies on your accepting his point #1, so given that I’ve only partially granted it, I’m on the fence here, too. When worship music completely disengages the brain and works solely on emotion, I’d agree that it becomes fairly meaningless. But I don’t think that’s happening quite as broadly as he asserts.
3. It says that music IS worship.
Now we’re finding common ground. In our current evangelical mindset, “worship” is too often just the music part of the service, to be joined up with “announcements”, “preaching”, etc. Our thoughtful members would probably nuance the definition if asked, but it’s very easy for anyone, including myself, when leading worship music in the service (see how I just slipped into it there?), to lazily allow just the music to be referred to as “worship”.
4. It’s a derivative of mainstream commercial music.
Yes… but.
As my wife can attest, I have gone off on many a rant about how Christian music so obviously follows mainstream music, just 5 years behind.
Say, for example, when I saw Chris Tomlin’s video of his song “God’s Great Dance Floor” (a concept that I don’t even really want to explore from a theological standpoint, but that’s beside the point), where he matches Coldplay’s Chris Martin in musical style, jacket, and even awkward white-guy dancing.
Or when I realized circa 2012 that DC*Talk’s “Jesus Freak” copied Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” down to the same chord sequence for the intro. (Points to the late Kurt Cobain for at least not adding a rap about a belly jiggling and ‘a typical tattoo green’.)
But on the other hand… all music is derivative. Commercial music just like church music. For every truly groundbreaking artist you will find a dozen knock-offs popping up a few years later. History has a way of preserving the good ones and weeding out the bad ones. So while some music is so derivative of better mainstream versions that you just have to avoid it, being derivative, by itself, isn’t killing us.
5. It perpetuates an awkward contemporary Christian media subculture.
“[Christian worship music] can’t possibly find itself in Bernstein’s five percent because it’s too busy talking about how “Christian” it is, instead of telling the story.
That’ll preach.
6. It spreads bad theology.
I’m sympathetic here, too, but this is not a factor unique to modern church music. Again, history has a way of weeding out the really atrocious stuff, but you will find theological nightmares in classic hymnody, and you will find beautiful pieces of good theology in modern songs.
7. It creates worship superstars
Aigner clarifies that he’s really complaining about the rock star persona many worship artists take on and the fandom that grows from it. And he’s got a decent point. “We the church become an audience. Groupies. Screaming teenagers for Jesus.” Yep.
That being said, when I hear “worship superstars”, my first thoughts run along the lines of Charles Wesley, Fanny Crosby, Isaac Watts, J.S. Bach… We all have our superstars. The modern ones just have to deal with the modern trappings of celebrity that go along with fandom in this culture.
8. It’s made music into a substitute Eucharist.
Here’s where I think Aigner has a point that’s well worth considering - not necessarily as much for how it critiques our value of the music as it does our value of the Eucharist. I’ll quote him at length:
Most evangelicals, along with the mainline Protestants who are looking to commercial Christian music as an institutional life preserver, use music as if it were a sacrament. Through their music, they allow themselves to be carried away on an emotional level into a perceived sensory connection with the divine. Music is their bread and wine. Don’t believe me? Try telling your church, your pastor even, that we should make a switch. Let’s have Communion ever week, and music once a month (or where I come from, once a quarter). It probably won’t go over well.
That point hits home in my third-Sunday-of-odd-numbered-months-practicing church.
Overall, I appreciate Aigner and people in his camp pushing us toward theological excellence, away from the celebrity worship culture, and toward the Eucharist. On the whole, though, his discussion points might still need some work.