free variable

There were a number of fine comments on my last post, which consisted of a link to a Touchstone article. I’ll address as many of these as I can here; this post is long, but hopefully not too scattered. If you aren’t interested in the theology stuff I post, you may wish to read no more.

Hutchens is clearly writing a polemic; as such, his tone may be counterproductive (to say the least, apparently) for those who aren’t inclined to agree with him. Furthermore, while I believe I agree with the main points of the article, I also find the “humorous” anecdotes and fixation on inferring offense to be cringe-inducing distractions from these points. In any case, perhaps I should avoid using “great” as shorthand for “provocative and interesting, but potentially problematic.”

In any case, Peter’s characterization of the article is on target, and, in my opinion, points to a path to negotiating it. Andrea and I discussed the piece a lot tonight trying to figure out why I appreciated it and she didn’t; we came to an understanding similar to Peter’s outline, but I wouldn’t have said it as clearly or as concisely. There are two strains operating in Hutchens’ argument: the “feminization” of churches (it is still not fully clear to me what this means, but it is important to note that, for cultural conservatives [presumably including Hutchens], “feminist” is used to signify something other than “the radical notion that women are people”) and the dilution of worship, theology, and practice. He draws a correlation between the two, but the causal link is not immediately apparent from his anecdotes. Is the young woman whom he is perceiving as an overtly (or covertly) sexualized performer really choosing this avocation as a rebellion against the Scriptural notion of male headship of a family, or is she trying to use a God-given talent to serve the worship needs of the congregation? Is she rejecting her part of the complementary roles that spouses play in a Christian marriage, or is she simply trying to glorify God?

There is, of course, a lot of benign middle ground between the poles here — contemporary worship ensembles in which I’ve been involved (yes, you heard it here first; save this page before it’s redacted!) have included a number of well-meaning people who simply loved to perform music.

Frankly, speaking as someone who is allergic to politicized academic disciplines, my eyes generally glaze over when anyone — no matter which side of the aisle she or he is on — starts using words like “feminized”. Therefore, I probably didn’t read the article as critically as I could have — my main concern was in its criticisms of affective worship. (As an aside, I can’t recall the last time, if ever, that I was improperly driven to lust by church music. Rage, yes. Lust, no.) Unfortunately for my credibility, I manage to include three separate strands in my brief commentary on the Hutchens piece: the (potential) lack of congregational participation, the spiritually dangerous verse produced by contemporary hymn-writers, and the fuzzy doctrine propagated by those whose living subsists in selling their ecclesiastical music to the widest possible audience. I didn’t develop any of these at all, and to make matters worse, I could have stuck with the anti-affective worship tack and had a much clearer path!

Perhaps this doesn’t adequately address the concerns Tiffany and Andrea have about the apparent (and I do mean &8220;apparent&8221;) misogyny of this article; for this I am sorry. We can, of course, resume that part of this conversation when we figure out what Hutchens means by some of these things. (I am loathe to impute malice where obscurity or misunderstanding can provide a possible explanation.)

I must admit that some of Hutchens’ assertions are confusing even to me, as one who would probably find many general principles of “what worship should be” in common with him. So, he finds “sexualized,” affective contemporary worship offensive, and traces its roots to hymns like “In the Garden”? (In my opinion, it is a fine hymn, from a tradition that produced many fine hymns.) Tiffany asks if he would have such a problem with Donne, Teresa of Avila, and so on; I doubt he would, but feel unqualified to speculate. Given the aesthetic taste implied elsewhere in this article, I am inclined to ask a similar question: Would he level a similar criticism at pietistic worship of the 18th century? I find similar “sexualized” verse in one of Bach’s most well-known cantatas, BWV 140 (text from Walter F. Bischof’s Bach Cantatas page):

Soul: Mein Freund ist mein,

Jesus: Und ich bin dein,

Both: Die Liebe soll nichts scheiden.

Soul: Ich will mit dir in Himmels Rosen weiden,

Jesus: Du sollst mit mir in Himmels Rosen weiden,

Both: Da Freude die Fülle, da Wonne wird sein.

The soprano and bass soloists, when they sing together, sing in parallel thirds. Any undergraduate music history student will tell you what that would “mean” were it to appear in a comic opera; I assume that my readers don’t need me to spell it out. The point, though, is that the believer’s soul has become one with Christ, never to be separated. The whole cantata, like the chorale upon which it is based, describes the matrimonial relationship between Christ and the church (text and translation). Of course, there is scriptural and traditional warrant for this theme in Christian art. What I think is worth examining is whether or not contemporary pietistic or affective worship styles differ essentially or merely in degree from, as an example, the works of Bach.

Contemporary Christian music (both liturgical and commercial) raises an interesting question w.r.t. pietistic affect. If we are assuming that contemporary Christian music is a tool for evangelism to the unchurched, in order to reach them in a style, as Tiffany says, that is “meaningful to the participants,” and yet acknowledging the inevitable failure of “trying to express the ‘immortal invisible God only wise…,’” we must admit that the contemporary pop love ballad — a trivializing, sentimental depiction of an ephemeral relationship — is a poor model for the marriage of Christ and the Church. I see two interconnected problems: first, that we lack the sorts of analogies from popular culture to adequately express the Gospel message (to be appropriately “seeker-sensitive”), and second, that we run the risk of suborning medium-message confusion. The latter of these two is endemic to all worship styles, whether traditional or contemporary; one need only examine the occasional (and well-documented) mass exodus from coffeehouse agnosticism to Eastern Orthodoxy by disaffected hipsters to see an example of “the beauty of ancient worship” drawing people in who may or may not get the actual message. (Frankly, any religious tradition in which any academic or presbyter might publicly renounce the Enlightenment is beautiful a priori, even if they use the Divine Liturgy of St. Right Said Fred.)

It is getting late, and I will have to save my larger disagreements with affective and contemporary worship for another time. (To cut to the chase, it is not an aesthetic problem; I have no difficulty imagining a group of Christian musicians armed with drum kits and guitars performing functional — in the best sense — worship music.) However, I think I can sketch out an argument at least against using affective worship as a tool for evangelism, if at all.

Before I begin arranging my pebbles, let me briefly lay a shaky foundation. I believe that piety and theology are inseparable. Piety motivates theology (as Kierkegaard’s hypothetical beloved motivates the lover to attempt to read the inscrutable letter), and theology informs and directs piety. I also believe that the mystical — the experiences somewhere on the spectrum from “mere” peace that passes all understanding to Hildegard-style ecstatic encounters of the divine — can be a part of the Christian life. Finally, I believe that experience-driven, affective worship, like decision theology and hierarchical church polity, risks placing something other than Christ as the object of faith. (Furthermore, affective worship invites the sort of continual increase — and despair — of the Kierkegaardian aesthete.) If these presuppositions are problematic, then it shall all be downhill from here, I’m afraid.

The first problem with affective worship is that it attempts to create an emotional response through sentimentality or other accidents of presentation. If we do this to evangelize, I’m afraid, then we’ve already lost. The emotional response one gets from truly seeing the juxtaposition of one’s total fallenness and slavery with Christ’s redemptive work and the freedom it has enabled for us is far greater than one could ever obtain from mere human art. Sin, unfortunately, is either an aesthetic or substantial “no-no” in contemporary Christian music, and without sin, there can be no Gospel. I suppose that my cry for “theology” could be answered even by “Law and Gospel;” I am not concerned whether or not my hymns make an adequate argument against, say, the monophysite view of the Incarnation, but I do want them to tell me who Christ is, what He did, and why I need Him. If there is no theology, though, if the music does not instruct — if “Christianity” becomes mere participation in a community that sings psalms, hymns, and/or spiritual songs as in season — then there is no evangelism, for there is no evangel.

The second problem is with the nature of piety and emotional affect. Piety is an expression of emotions that are already there; one cannot pull up one’s bootstraps into the faith that inspires piety by imitating pietistic responses. (Whether or not such “imitation” could serve as a potential catalyst for the work of the Spirit is, of course, not for me to decide!) The problem with attempts to engage in such bootstrapping is that they are doomed to failure: Is Christ only present when two or three are emoting in his name? Furthermore, it seems awfully easy (for those new to the flock as well as those with prior experience with Christ) to confuse the emotional response of, say, a high-energy rock concert with that of true Christian peace. If the object of faith could become the way one feels while singing, then missions are in dire trouble indeed.

It seems that there’s an interesting parallel between the “acting-pious-as-piety” (as I’ve uncharitably characterized it) and the “liturgical movement” (à la infamous charlatan Odo Casel) and its notion of participating in Christ’s work through ritual actions. Any takers on this clearance item in the fire-sale of ideas?

I’m afraid that’s all I have for tonight. Thanks for reading and writing. I will leave for another day a discussion of what I identify as the (apparently) systematic avoidance of theology by contemporary worship composers. As I’ve pointed out earlier (here and here), the contemporary hymnal used by some Lutherans, With One Voice, has no “Justification” hymns. “The doctrine upon which the church stands or falls,” indeed.