Rick Warren Hosting a Presidential Discussion

Tomorrow night Rick Warren is going to be hosting a presidential discussion at Saddleback. It doesn’t sound like it’s going to be a debate. Rather what will happen is Pastor Rick is going to have a set of questions that each candidate will have opportunity to answer, uninterrupted, and apparently neither candidate will hear their opponent’s answers. McCain and Obama will both receive approximately 50 minutes. I’m actually intrigued by this whole event. To my knowledge, this is a first in presidential elections, and a first for an evangelical church. What I would advise you to do is not just listen to their answers, but listen to the types of questions which Pastor Rick asks. For this event, I am just as interested to see what Rick Warren has to say, as I am about the two candidates. Rick Warren is viewed now on a national level, maybe a world level. His leadership as an evangelical will send waves through the evangelical world (actually he already has) in the wake of this event. We should watch all three of them with a cautious eye.

For more information on the event, you can visit the website for the event. The forum will be broadcast on CNN, Fox News. The broadcast begins at 6:00 PM Mountain Time.

Contemporary vs. Traditional

You might ask yourself, “Why is Shane writing about this?” Right. There are many articles out there about this topic. Thankfully, this is not a point of contention at Emmanuel. But I had a conversation with a friend the other morning while drinking coffee at Bean There. He prefers traditional worship environments and we had a conversation about worship style this morning. From the start, I should say that I grew up in a traditional church; I can worship with ease in a traditional environment. My preference, though, is a contemporary environment. But there is nothing inherently wrong with either style. That being said, I have this to say about the “worship wars” that have been happening in churches across the country over the last 20 years.

The whole argument, first off, is ridiculous. Why are we having this debate within the church when it is a simple matter of preference? I found myself getting angry when I was speaking with my friend. Not because I disagreed with him and thought he was absolutely incorrect. I was angry that this debate was even happening. There are people dying and going to hell everyday, and the church is expending energy on arguing over hymns or contemporary worship! We should all – on both sides of the debate – gain a little perspective on this.

Now that I’ve said that, let me address the following two points that hymn lovers throw at contemporary lovers:

• The sound is too worldly.
• The lyrics are too shallow.

Did you know that these very criticisms have been launched at every wave of new music within the church for at least the last 300 years? That means that at some point all of the hymns that we have today have received these same criticisms. Almost every song in the hymnal was considered “contemporary” when it was written. Contemporary simply means “of the present time.” So when one says a song is contemporary it simply means that it is written in a style that is consistent with other pieces of music written in that given time period. Most of the hymns that we cherish so dearly, when they were written, had a similar sound and feel to the popular music of the time. So the accusation that todays contemporary worship music sounds too worldly and are too shallow lyrically is to be expected, and from a certain point of view, is the initiation into the grand library of songs that has been written throughout the history of the Christian church. Even “Amazing Grace” had to suffer a similar passage into the canon of hymns and spiritual songs we currently enjoy.

Honestly, I don’t hear contemporary lovers make accusations against hymns very often, but when I do hear one it usually has to do with how droopy and boring they are. Allow me to address two points that contemporary lovers throw at hymn lovers:

• The songs are droopy and boring.
• They were written 200 years ago and I don’t understand them.

First of all, “droopy and boring” is such a subjective way of describing hymns that I have trouble defending against those terms. Who decides what constitutes “droopy and boring?” For the sake of argument I’ll assume they mean the style in which they are played musically. You cannot judge a song by the instrumentalists who play it, nor by the worship environment in which it is sung. Admittedly, if the pianist is playing poorly, it is hard to appreciate the lyrics of any song, but what tends to happen is hymns get lumped into one big pile of “songs for old people” and do not get fairly judged by their content. Hymns have a richness of theology, not only because of their words, but because of the heart of the people who wrote them. Many of our hymns were written by people who endured suffering we cannot imagine, or who faced persecution that we have never experienced. We would do well to study and learn, not just the meaning of the lyrics, but the stories of the songs and their authors. A failure to understand a hymn simply due to the old language is not the fault of the hymn itself, but of the person who refuses to try.

Obviously I have not addressed every issue that is raised with traditional and contemporary music. I don’t have enough time or space to do so. Christians on both sides of the aisle need to let go of their preconceived notions about hymns and contemporary worship. There are indeed shallow praise choruses out there – “Every move I make I make in You. You make me move Jesus”. But there are also shallow hymns – “Blessed be the name, blessed be the name, blessed be the name of the Lord”. When it comes down to which one is better, the answer is, “Why does it matter?” Both are legitimate expressions of worship, both come from hearts that love Jesus, neither should be abandoned. Here at Emmanuel we are contemporary, we have not abandoned hymns and I can say with confidence that our people have a love for both, and it makes my job a lot easier!

Happy New Year!