Church lite vs. artistic and spiritual depth

Yesterday I mentioned that during his time at Liberty University Kevin Roose joined the choir of Thomas Road church in order to understand Jerry Falwell and his theology. He often wrote of the novelty and uplifting nature of those services he attended. However, he also noted a certain level of ambivalence about the experience:

"...there's almost too much stimulation. The stage lights, the one hundred-decibel praise songs, the bright purple choir robes, the tempestuous bellowing of Dr. Falwell - it's an hour-long assult on the senses...It's Church Lite - entertaining but unsubstantial...And once the novelty wears off, once the music becomes familiar and the motions of praise become pro forma and mechanized, you start to relaize that all the technological glitz and material extravagance doesn't necessarily add up to a spiritual experience."

This excerpt points out, as I've often argued, that much contemporary church music lacks the depth of meaning and purpose that can be found in our best hymns. Too much Christian rock is like a musical sugar rush - a simple lyric repeated over and over that can get stuck in the listener's mind, but ultimately conveys little meaning.

Contrast that with some lines from the ELW. The well-known hymn "Holy God, We Praise Your Name" (ELW 414) gives an introduction the doctrine of the trinity:

Holy Father, Holy Son,
Holy Spirit, three we name you,
Though in essence only one;
Undivided God we claim you
And, adoring, bend the knee
While we own the mystery.

Many Lutheran hymns also quote or paraphrase key passages of scripture. For instance, the great Easter hymn "Christ the Lord is Risen Today!" (ELW 373) refers to 1 Corinthians 15:55 in its fourth verse:

Lives again our glorious king!
Where, O death, is now your sting?
Once he died our souls to save;
Where your victory, O grave?

These texts and tunes are both simple and profound, easily learnable but worthy of reflection. They can enliven our spirit during the service, and also sustain our faith for a lifetime.

Local book review

I recently finished reading Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University by Kevin Roose. It's the story of how Roose took a semester off from his studies at Brown University to enroll at Liberty University, founded by Jerry Falwell. Roose grew up in northeast Ohio, which doesn't factor into the book much, but there's always something fun about reading a local author - someone you may have passed on the street or who with whom you might share a mutual friend or acquaintance. I'll spend the next couple of days sharing some of my thoughts on the book. I'd love to hear from anyone else who has had the chance to read it.

One of my favorite points is that he strongly makes the case for church music and music participation several times in the book. For one thing, he enrolls in a class where he is required to name the books of the New Testament in order. When he complains to a classmate about how difficult a task it is to memorize, the friend responds that it should be easy: just sing the song! If you made it through Sunday school without learning to sing "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Acts and Letter to the Romans..." then you missed out on one of the great powers of music: to help us memorize basic facts and tenets of faith. That's a simple example, of course, but Luther and other great Lutheran hymn writers set tenets of our faith to music so that we could easily learn and memorize it, and even enjoy that learning.

I also enjoyed the fact that when Roose wants to understand the Thomas Road church and the appeal of Falwell, he doesn't simply attend the weekly service. He joins the choir. Now that is committment to the subject of his study! It shows that getting the most out of church means a full commitment to the experience - the prayers, the music, and the fellowship.

Of course, you can predict that everything doesn't go smoothly when a non-evangelical spends a semester at Liberty University. I'll get into more of the book in my next few entries, but I want to encourage you to check it out as an intriguing summer read and a meditation on faith.

Book review

The New York Times recently published a review of Robert Wright's new book The Evolution of God. I've put it on my potential reading list, but I think it's number 3,428 on that list. It might be a while. So for now I'm simply reading reviews and second hand accounts as something to think about.

Wright's premise that God has "evolved" is prima facie heretical, of course, but our understanding has evolved, our religious practices and tolerances have changed, and of course our church music has been altered over the years.

I was thinking of two particular instances at Bethany. First, Pastor gave a sermon on the use of the word "father" in the Creed's first article. There is one word that we certainly understand differently today than the ancient Israelites, or even than our parents' and grandparents' generation. The fact that Mr. Mom is a cliche catch phrase demonstrates the chasm of connotation from even such trite fare as "Leave it to Beaver." In popular culture, father has gone from an all-knowing, benevolent dictator of the household who vanished daily for a mysterious "office job" to a kinder, gentler (perhaps too often bemused and fumbling) presence in the home. What should the metaphor of God as father mean to us today? Father as we see it today or as it was meant 50 years ago? Or 2,000 years ago?

We've also been discussing contemporary music, of course, and this week's service music stands in stark contrast to each other. Wednesday night we'll hear Buxtehude and Bach, while on Sunday we'll hear Aaron Copland and PDQ Bach, a transition from the 17th century to the 21st.

The book and its premise are meant to be controversial, but I hope people use that controversy to spark creative, deeper thinking and insightful discussions about the changing nature of religion and society today. If the title makes its way onto your nightstand, be sure to let me know what you think about it.