As I grow older I believe I have become more aware, that the evolving general culture, including the Christian, is interpreted by the majority of persons as progressive over previous cultures. One is pushed in that direction by the remarks made of the boring previous ways of culture, and neglect of the former in making better life. It has been said that one would rather be guilty of a crime than to be a bore. My critique here is partly moderated by the words of Job that God may take away, the understanding of the aged. (12:20) Even Billy Graham, at ninety years of age and one of the most eminent of evangelical leaders ever, said that the current culture had passed him by.
Persons in the entertainment industry are rewarded for their talents, their lives as individualists, their popularity in the general society, and their general style applied to public habit. For me, they often represent dysfunction that is sometimes related to drugs, noisiness that has little to do with talent, shallow substance shown in the narrowness of expression and disrespect of others in personal grooming, and general representation related to family meaning. The story might well be expanded. Some of this style has spilled over into church services. Of the several churches I have visited recently more than half included worship teams that were poorly dressed, poorly coached, too self-aware, and sometimes caught up in a kind of banality and repetition that is passed to the people as worshipful. In several instances the congregation stopped singing unsure about where the leaders were in the lyrics and music. Coordination was sometimes poor. The projected words were sometimes colored gibberish. Spelling in the overheads appeared here and there with errors. Voices and instruments were near cacophony. Defenses of the volume excess were presumed biblical. (The multiplication of electronics does not appear in biblical prophecy.) One might wish for better attention to vocal nobility for language in both hymnody and spoken word.
Something has been lost, not because that something lacked substance, but because it was seen as old or passe`. Generally, new is preferred and attracts a larger crowd. Acknowledged, and it has always been so. As once the church formed the general pattern of culture, let us say, in music – the public church currently owes more to the Beatles and Rock music than the greats of sacred music. The Beatles once compared their adulation from the public to that afforded to Jesus – perhaps greater. One tends to be sympathetic with Thomas Howard, graduate of one of my alma maters, eminent among evangelical Christian institutions, and he a son of a family of evangelical Christian achievers. He embraced Catholicism in his later years, and wrote from his adopted orientation: . . . evangelicalism has changed drastically, having bought about completely into a jazzy, breathtakingly contemporary ambience, registered almost completely in their hymnody which is now limited to praise songs in place of the immensely rich, 500-year-old-treasury of hymns which were Protestantism’s greatest glory. Elders remain prayerful knowing that Christ will care for his Church, and that Christians should be supportive of what is available if the church ministry is Christ centered and biblically oriented. We pray for that. And, we believe that Christians ought to be always searching for effective worship. During my lifetime the focus on worship has gained somewhat in celebration, but faded in worship and prayer. In an effort to save the solemnity of the pace of worship and prayer many churches now schedule periods during the weeks for deeper involvement. Often these events are not well attended. The approach appears to be adapted from secular culture rather than spiritual creativity. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020