Journeys In Between

Jesus, I'm NOT in Love with You

Wow, I just discovered John Stackhouse, an author whom I admire greatly, has a blog over at http://stackblog.wordpress.com. I think this will soon be on my favourites list.

I was searching for the lyrics of a worship love song that I got a bee in my bonnet about over the weekend when I found his critique of worship love songs and realized he had already done a superb job of it. Here it is:

One of the blights upon the hymnological landscape today is the continued presence of what we can fairly call the "love song to Jesus" genre. It's been around as long as there has been Christian pop music - and even earlier, depending on what you make of sentimental gospel songs in the nineteenth century, eighteenth-century revivalist hymns, and especially a lot of the mystical poetry-cum-lyrics of certain medieval saints.

Today our congregation was asked to sing, "Jesus, I'm in love with you" - a line that shows up, in one permutation or another, in several songs that occur frequently in our worship leaders' rotation.

Well, I didn't sing it. It's wrong, and I try not to sing wrong lyrics.

First, I'm not in love with Jesus. The locution "in love with" is one I reserve for one person only: my wife. I love my sons, I love my siblings and parents, I love my friends, I love my country, I love my brothers and sisters in Christ, and I love God. But I'm not "in love" with any of them. And I daresay most of the rest of us use this phrase in exactly the same, highly-restrictive way.

Second, it gives me the homoerotic creeps to declare that I am "in love with" another man. And I don't apologize for saying so. A gender lens is interesting here, for a lot of men feel as I do (many have told me so), while many (not all) women seem to love telling Jesus that they are in love with him. I saw them, swaying with closed eyes and waving hands in the air this morning, singing exactly that. Maybe, indeed, they are in love with Jesus. But they shouldn't be.

For the third point to make is a theological one. Jesus is not your boyfriend, not your fiance, and not your eventual husband.

By God's grace, Christians get to enjoy a wide range of relationships with Jesus. We are described in the New Testament variously as Jesus' slaves, Jesus' servants, Jesus co-workers, Jesus' friends, and even Jesus' brothers and sisters. Since the plural form of each of these is used, it is correct then for me to say, "I am Jesus' slave, servant, co-worker," etc.

But the New Testament never calls Christians Jesus' fiancees or his brides. Instead, it is the Church collectively, and only the Church as a whole, that relates to Jesus this way - just as individual Israelites did not relate to Yhwh as so many spouses, but only the nation of Israel as nation was his beloved bride.

So I'm not singing to Jesus that I'm in love with him, because I'm not. I love him, and I aspire to loving him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. But I do not aspire to being in love with him, and I'm sure he understands.

I wish our worship leaders and songwriters did, too.

Although for shear impact you just can't go past Southpark's take on this with the "Faith + 1" album. I think every worship leader and song writer should be forced to watch it and wince.

And if that wasn't enough of an inditement, it seems even Matt Redman is beginning to doubt the wisdom of whole worship love song thing.

Ah, now I remember, the song was "Arms of Love". I was sitting there thinking, yuck, if I substituted "Saviour" and "Jesus" for "Baby" and played it on Mix FM who would have known it was supposed to be Christian? I will demonstrate with some simple substitution:

I sing a simple song of love
To my [Baby], to my [Baby].
I'm grateful for the things You've done,
My loving [Baby], my precious [Baby].

My heart is glad that [y]ou've called me [y]our own.
There's no place I'd rather be than

In [y]our arms of love,
In [y]our arms of love.
Holding me still, holding me near,
In [y]our arms of love.

Homoerotic creeps ... and theological shudders. It was ironic that the sermon was about food offered to idols. That's food I definitely can't touch.

Hymn hmmm

I couldn't help laughing at this hymn translation.

Hat tip to Bob Hyatt

An Arabic Christmas Carol (Byzantine Hymn of the Nativity)

I always enjoy experiencing the Christmas traditions of other cultures. This video features a Byzantine hymn chanted by Reader Nader Hajjar, Ottawa. I found it best just to sit back and listen, referring to the lyrics at intervals, but with my attention mostly just on the chant itself. Let yourself be drawn into the middle eastern atmosphere of this hymn and reflect on how the message of God's birth transcends cultures.

I Saw What I Saw

Inspired by a trip to Rwanda, this song by Sara Groves asks, what do I know of love?

Worship Teams

I am just wondering,
    what if we all stopped calling church bands, "worship teams",
        and just called them music teams
shouldn't all ministry be worship?

Alternatively, to help people think
    why don't we just start calling all ministry teams, "worship teams"
        try out some semiotic jujitsu in other words
and confuse the hell out of everyone till they catch on?

Make music with whatever you do; sometimes use instruments.

Rapture

Interesting window into how some people perceive Christianity in this song "Rapture" by Hurt and also in the related discussions over the lyrics at SongMeanings.

The song appears to be about forbidden love, restrictive religion, and the potentially awful consequences that can happen when they collide. Completely unsound theologically, yet there are plenty of un-theologically sound Christians out there peeving people off. So this probably expresses well the anger many feel. The question is how to respond.

Missional Worship Music

So what might missional worship music look like? Andy has been running with the conversation on missional worship we kicked off here at Journeys In Between a little while back and has posted some lyrics he has written over at http://notyetfinished.blogspot.com. I have also added a few comments there that have come out of more recent thinking. I am thinking this is a conversation we definitely need to spend some time working through.

Check the video out as well, I've been thinking again of maybe trying some video blogging myself since finding an old camera stand.

Lyrics to Christian contemporary music

I have been thinking maybe I should think about ending my fast with contemporary Christian music.

I was so burnt out before, just sick of all the cliched lyrics, the 'you make me feel so good' lyrics, the 'me, me, me, me, me' lyrics, that I just put my guitar down altogether. Just been wordlessly banging on djembe drums in the meantime. For a long time now.

But in that space I have enjoyed a song or two on occasion, and after putting on some fresh strings on the guitar last week ... I am just wondering ... maybe I should start digging for some deeper songs? Songs that are more thoroughly grounded in a missional perspective, in a Kingdom of God perspective, in a love in action perspective. Worship songs that are more, well, sacrificial. Christian songs I could actually imaging Christ singing.

So if any of you can point me in the direction of some lyrics to Christian contemporary music that fits that description I am all ears. What are your favourites?

Christian Music from around the World

I was checking out some world Christian music this evening and came across an interesting collection of South Asian Christian tracks here.

They are in various languages, including Hindi and Punjabi, and, beyond stimulating my eclectic interests, I personally found them thought provoking because we have a lot of Hindi and Punjabi speakers in our area, some of whom are friends. Hmmm, thoughts of "alternative worship" of a different sort to what normally goes by that name in emerging church circles stirs up.

Anyway, the tracks are different to say the least and, to my ears, of varying quality, but I thought I would share them.

Actually, I want to let you in on something more; I have been having this idea grow over the last few weeks of trying to do something similar for Christian music as I have already done for Christian art. Of drawing together one of the worlds largest collections of truly alternative Christian music. Just as I have tried to deconstruct stereotyped images of Jesus with my art collection, I would like to deconstruct stereotyped perceptions of Christian music with an archive of downloadable music and music videos.

In line with this I would be interested in hearing what fires peoples imagination. Haunting Celtic tunes? Colourful Indian music? Harmonious African singing? Edgy Metal, Punk and Goth tracks? Relaxing Ambient track? Is there anything unusual you've come across in your journey?

My Chemical Wedding: Maiden and Beast tie the knot

I was just reading over at Wild Hunt Blog that there is a new film coming out about Aleister Crowley that has been written by Iron Maiden lead singer Bruce Dickinson. For my friends without an occult background, Aleister Crowley is the most famous occultist in recent history and was the infant terrible of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn before he bailed and started his own magickal tradition, Thelema.

In recent decades Crowley has been the inspiration for a number of musicians, including Jimmy Page of Led Zep, Jim Morrison of The Doors and most notably Ozzy Osbourne with his song, "Mr Crowley", so this move by Bruce is hardly out of character for heavy rockers, but I groan at the potential "I told you so, its all devil's music" this is likely to elicit from some quarters. Not that I'm condoning this, I just think such attacks on musical genres are grossly oversimplistic. And I think its Crowley's experimentations with Tantra that grabbed their attention as much as anything else.

Anyway, the movie is entitled "Chemical Wedding" and is scheduled for release in 2008.