Over thirty years ago, the great philosopher Paul McCartney asked, “What’s wrong with silly love songs?”Having given this over three decades of serious consideration (OK, at least several months), I have Sir McCartney’s answer.
It depends.
If you want to fill the world with silly love songs, there’s nothing wrong with that.But if you want to fill the church with them, I say, “Stop it!”
Tune into your “get you through your day” Christian music station and you will hear grown men, whining like love sick puppies, “Nothing else can take your place, or feel the warmth of your embrace.”Who are they singing to? The One who holds the universe together by the power of His word, or a chick?
Take the Quiz
Here are six phrases from six contemporary songs.Can you pick which phrases belong to secular songs and which to the sacred?
1. All I need to do is just be me, being in love with you.
2. My world stops spinning round, without you.
3.I never want to leave; I want to stay in your warm embrace.
4. I’m lost in love.
5.Now and forever, together and all that I feel, here's my love for you.
6. You say you love me just as I am.
The first three are from a popular Christian band called Big Daddy Weave, the second half are from Air Supply.
More and more of our Christian music is sounding one note: Jesus loves you soooooo much.Do I doubt for a second that Jesus loves His children? Nope, but it depends on what your definition of “love” is.
God “agape” loves His children.Agape love is not an emotions based, warm and fuzzy kind of love.Agape love is a self sacrificing, “I will help you despite how I feel” love.
William Tyndale was the first translator to use the word “love” for agape.Prior to the 16th century, the word “charity” best described agape.Leaving that debate aside, since Tyndale’s time, the English definition for love has expanded.Our modern day use of love ranges from a love for an object to physical love/sex (eros love).I love that new car.I love that girl.I love that God.That God loves me.
Not only do we use “love” in romantic ways to sing about God, we have added other romantic phrases to our Christian music repertoire: hold me, embrace me, feel you, need you.This criticism is not new, in fact, it has existed since Godly men began endeavoring to sing anything but the Psalms.
John Wesley considered an “amatory phrase” to be language that was more feelings based love than self-sacrificing agape love.John deleted “Jesus, Lover of My Soul” from one of his brother Charles’ collections because it was too romantic sounding.
Amatory Phrasing
Not only are musicians guilty of writing amatory phrases, but they are singing with amatory phrasing.Christian men sing with such romantic longing and neediness it makes me want to scream, “Man up!”
Christian women are singing with such throaty breathiness you would think they had just run from their home to the studio.To whom exactly are they singing? Brad Pitt or the Savior?
There are two consequences to this “Jesus is my boyfriend/girlfriend” music.Needy, emotional women continue to need more counseling, self help books and conferences where they can spread their wings and soar.Men simply are not showing up for church.It is my belief they simply can’t stand the mood manipulating worship times designed to help them “feel the Lord’s embrace.”
Musical Mermaids
Without theology in music, we are offering fluff that will not comfort when bridges collapse and test reports are negative.Songwriters could provide true hope if they would write about the sovereignty of God rather than crying about “how safe I feel when Jesus is holding me.”
Charles Spurgeon had the same criticism of “Hymns for Heart and Voice” published in 1855.He condemned the hymns as being “little better than mermaids, nice to look at but dangerous because they cannot deliver what they promise.”
Is there anything wrong with being reminded that our God is our help from ages past?Of course not, the Psalms are loaded with promises of God’s comfort.But unlike the Psalms (and theology based hymns), contemporary music is void of the reason why we should not worry.We do not worry because someone purrs that we shouldn’t fret, but because God is our shelter in the stormy blast and our eternal home.Our comfort comes from knowledge, not caterwauling.
If you enjoy a silly love song now and then, knock yourself out.But leave them where they belong, in the world or in the bedroom, not in the church.
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The title to the article has a modicum of truth, however before Christ embraced me as a son He had to slam me over the head with the crowbar of the Law.
Many of today CCM artists are by-products of pathetic churches that puke health-and -wealth New Age drivel and are indistinguishable from secular musicians.
Give me the lyrics to "Amazing Grace" any day to remind me from whence I came and the spiritual sickness from which my Saviour healed me.
I challenge any CCM prima donna to write any lyrics so theologically deep and profound.
BTW to all you CCM artists out there here's a reminder: Your Dove Awards won't amount to much in the day of judgement. As the angel told John in The Revelation: Worship God. Click here to reply to this post
Tough Men, Weak Women, and Music Style.
Posted On: 12/08/07 02:26:51 AM
Age 45, CANADA
I think the article makes some very good points. There are many songs that have poor theology. I agree that there should be difference between love songs about “boyfriend/girlfriend” relationship and our love relationship with God.
But this guy mixes truth with a whole lot of nonsense. In fact, there is so much nonsense in this article that in my eyes in invalidates his good points.
Some comments follow.
Mike.
“grown men, whining like love sick puppies”
Why does he say whining? Is that his perception of particular contemporary music styles?
“Christian men sing with such romantic longing and neediness it makes me want to scream, “Man up!”
The author probably drives a muscle car and he hates Celine Dion. Needy, romantic men are broken. Real men don’t eat quiche. Does he have this same “tough” view of God?
“The One who holds the universe together by the power of His word”
In his opinion, there is no way God the Father, as the perfect (tough) Male, could be very emotional. God drives a Diesel V8 Dodge RAM truck with tandem wheels.
“Christian women are singing with such throaty breathiness”
Oh yes. He is complaining about musical styles that he dislikes. This goes to the heart of his opinions.
I have little time for people when they attack based on musical style.
“...or a chick?”
I think most people find that word offensive. Either this is his view of women, or he is just pushing buttons.
Actually, I’m guessing it may be a bit of both.
“Needy, emotional women continue to need more counseling, self help books and conferences”
Ah, he does have problematic views of women. He thinks they are weak, easily broken. Too unmanly.
“Men simply are not showing up for church.”
Yes, Men are more likely to drop from attending church. But I wonder, is this because emotionally needy chicks are manipulating them through music? I think Men not showing up for church has been true in many past eras, not just 2007. I do think that some men are looking for a different mix of music style than they find at their church. But I think it is style of music; I don’t think it has as much to with substance of topic in the lyrics. But ultimately, I think other big issues are at play to keep them away.
“Agape love is not an emotions based...”
I’m not trained enough in this to know if this is true? Does God only have agape love for us? Is Agape as limited as he says? He says Agape is more like “I will help you despite how I feel”. Is that really all the bible says about God’s love for us? Is God not emotionally a loving god? Is his version of love more like charity than what we would call love today? Anyway, I think church music is probably just reflecting the image of God’s love that we have been taught from the time we are kids. If the music is wrong to use the word love, I think it is because the church is wrong. Jesus loves the little children. The writer states that we have more meanings for the word “love”. Then he goes on the assume that phrases like “hold me, embrace me” are romantic love – “boyfriend/girlfriend” as he says. But if God is our Father, then doesn’t he have some love like a parental love? Can’t I hold or embrace my children without it becoming a boyfriend/girlfriend kind of love?
The Quiz is cute. But he’s taking quotes out of context. And I bet there have been many popular hymns and Christian songs past that had stupid little phrases in them. Hopefully the better content survives and “fluff” goes away.
“contemporary music is void of the reason why we should not worry”
I could say all hymns are old fashioned and passe, with old english that is meaningless to people born after 1970.
But you can’t paint all songs of a particular era with the same brush.
“but they are singing with amatory phrasing”
There’s that music style thing again.
“caterwauling”
Definition: to utter long wailing cries.
This guy clearly hates some contemporary music styles. Click here to reply to this post
Re: Jesus Just Wants to Give You a Hug?
Posted On: 12/04/07 09:22:35 PM
Age 38, KY
Interesting to read this article just a couple of days after being upset by the music selection by the local church. Sunday a small singing group sang "All You Need is Love" by John Lennon. You know the lyrics "love, love, love..". I could not imagine using any song by Christian hater John Lennon who only supported love that suited him. This is a Southern Baptist church. How quickly they forget that Souther Baptist did not accept is fake apology for these words he uttered in 1966: "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink.... I don't know what will go first, rock 'n' roll or Christianity. We're more popular than Jesus now. Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."
We need to be more careful in the music we are using. The last thing we need is to turn another young person onto John Lennon vibe. Keep secular music out of the church. The "religious" music is getting bad enough. Click here to reply to this post
Re: Jesus Just Wants to Give You a Hug?
Posted On: 11/30/07 12:01:40 AM
Age 20, NV
Todd, I understand what you're saying, but you've got a lot of error here. Don't forget that the Church IS the Bride of Christ. The Purtians, Spurgeon, etc. all saw the Song of Solomon as typographical for Christ and the Church. Just look at Samuel Rutherford as one example. “They are happy forevermore who are over head and ears in the love of Christ, and know no sickness but love-sickness for Christ, and feel no pain but the pain of an absent and hidden Well-beloved.”
A problem with evangelicals is that to avoid the world’s definition of love, we’ve darted in the opposite direction and pretend that God's love doesn't have feeling. But if you read the old writers, you’ll find they rarely if ever would say that God’s love is simply sacrificial giving and nothing else. Look at John 3:35 and John 5:20. In chapter 3, the apostle uses the word ἀγαπάω (agapaō). In 5:20 he uses φιλέω (phileō). As you can see, there is absolutely no contextual difference between the two passages and the usage of "love."
In the Septuagint, in 2 Samuel 13 where Amnon rapes Tamar, the text says he had ἀγαπάω (agapaō) love for her. How is rape self-sacrificial love? In 2 Timothy 4:10 and 1 John 2:15, where the context is a love for EVIL, the word used is again ἀγαπάω (agapaō).
(Thanks to Dr. D.A. Carson in his book The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God for these examples)
A proper exegesis reveals that ἀγαπάω (agapaō) love is NOT just sacrifice, giving, or commitment to someone’s well-being. "Charity" is an incorrect translation of the word. God's love does, it MUST, include emotion.
I will close with a reference. More than a century ago the Reformed theologian Dr. Charles Hodge said this:
“Love in us includes complacency and delight in its object, with the desire of possession and communion. The schoolmen, and often the philosophical theologians, tell us that there is no feeling in God. This, they say, would imply passivity, or susceptibility of impression from without, which it is assumed is incompatible with the nature of God
…
Here again we have to choose between a mere philosophical speculation and the clear testimony of the Bible, and of our own moral and religious nature. Love of necessity involves feeling, and if 429there be no feeling in God, there can be no love. That He produces happiness is no proof of love. The earth does that unconsciously and without design. Men often render others happy from vanity, from fear, or from caprice. Unless the production of happiness can be referred, not only to a conscious intention, but to a purpose dictated by kind feeling, it is no proof of benevolence. And unless the children of God are the objects of his complacency and delight, they are not the objects of his love. He may be cold, insensible, indifferent, or even unconscious; He ceases to be God in the sense of the Bible, and in the sense in which we need a God, unless He can love as well as know and act.
…
We must believe that God is love in the sense in which that word comes home to every human heart. The Scriptures do not mock us when they say, “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.” (Ps. ciii. 13.) He meant what He said when He proclaimed Himself as “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth.” (Ex. xxxiv. 6.) “Beloved,” says the Apostle, “let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation con our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” (1 John iv. 7-1l.) The word love has the same sense throughout this passage. God is love; and love in Him is, in all that is essential to its nature, what love is in us. Herein we do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.”
Source: See book citation and sources cited by Hodge at CCEL.
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/hodge/theology1.iv.v.xiii.html Click here to reply to this post
Re: Re: Jesus Just Wants to Give You a Hug?
Posted On: 11/30/07 10:56:31 AM
Age 47, MO
Brother:
Outstanding post, thank you for your insight. I don't want to take away from what you wrote but would like to reiterate the importance of Todd's writing. The culture today is feeling oriented because morals are subjective. If morals were concrete then feelings would be an accurate determinate of a right heart. One could be filled with love and go to war, one could be filled with love and be angry at the same time. One could weep for a loved one, as Jesus did, and yet intentionally delay a rescue.
However, today emotion is not based on God's morals but on sensory perseption. Thus we weep at baby seals being clubbed for a fur coat and do not weep for abortion. We love to go to cry movies and yet hate to watch a documentary. We enjoy self pitty and hate charity work. We love to mourn and grieve and hate hard work.
As always, we have Spirit directed and self directed. Spirit directed is decisive, cunning, and giving. Self directed is selfish for its own sake. In a divorce court, the woman gets the kids because she is the first to cry, thus deemed the victim, think about it. Bottom line, emotion is not love if not giving. John Click here to reply to this post
Re: Re: Re: Jesus Just Wants to Give You a Hug?
Posted On: 12/01/07 10:04:54 PM
Age 20, NV
I agree with that. I did not intend to say that love is just feeling or emotion, per se, as we seem to know those words in our culture. Feelings come and go, whereas true love is not fickle like that. People can feel and not have love, but they can also give & sacrifice and not have love (cf. 1 Corinthians 13:3).
Genuine love is DEMONSTRATED by giving (John 3:16). Feelings alone can be deceptive. I just was pointing out that we all, by nature, know what love is. Even the wordlings who misdefine it know deeply within their fallen spirits what genuine love is; some remnant of that truth is left, and I think that's what Dr. Hodge was getting at. So my point was that it's a mistake to say that God's love is just giving WITHOUT emotion. His people, seen as elect in and accepted in the Beloved (Ephesians 1:6) for Christ's sake, are also His beloved (Colossians 3:12; John 17:23), His children, His Bride, His Church. Genuine love is "emotion" that is demonstrated by action. We give obedience to God because we love Him (John 14:15), our obedience being the demonstration to God that He has our hearts for Himself. God gave His Son as proof of His love to us. The late Dr. D.G. Barnhouse once described worship as "love that gives upward." God loved us simply because He chose to (Deuteronomy 7:7-8), and the goal of His love is that angels and men would worship Him, that is, love Him in return. As the Puritan Thomas Shepard once said, "Consider it is nothing else but love the Lord looks for, or cares for. Love looks for nothing but love, (Prov. 8:17,) and this is the end of all election, to be holy before him in love; and, mark it, if it be a stayed love that constrains thee to him, you can not wrong him. As if you come and persuade one to murder his child, he can not; so if persuaded to despise, O, bowels of heartbreaking love. 2 Cor. 5: And surely it is admirable love. What if it were thy goods, thy Isaac to be sacrificed, thy body to be burned, it was nothing; but he desires only love, only thy heart, which has forged so much villany against him. Let him never be called upon, or professed, if not worthy of this. After all, is this all? Yes, no portion he cares for; and when he has this, he has all. Wonder at this, O angels!" (end quote)
God bless. Click here to reply to this post
Re: Re: Re: Re: Jesus Just Wants to Give You a Hug?
Posted On: 12/05/07 12:28:13 PM
Age 47, MO
Friend:
It is hard to respond to you because all the words you write does nothing but confuse your point and lose the reader. Therefore I will pull one quote and respond to that. You wrote: "Genuine love is "emotion" that is demonstrated by action." I completely disagree. Genuine love is Christ because love is a characteristic of God. Agape love is sacrificial giving which is the manifestation of Christ in our lives. Therefore, true love for a Christian, is obedience to Christ. To die to self and be alive in Christ is the Christian life. Emotion has nothing to do with it. Emotion only serves to quicken the heart to action. However, one can have the resolve to act sacrificially and this may or may not have resulted from emotion. To equate emotion with love or hate is to make emotion the force of action. No friend, Love or Hate is the force, not the emotion, again reinforcing the arguement that they originate in Christ or Satan. So again, emotion ONLY serves to quicken the heart, Jesus NEVER operated from emotion but truth. John Click here to reply to this post
Re: Re: Re: Re: Jesus Just Wants to Give You a Hug?
Posted On: 12/06/07 12:48:13 PM
Age 20, NV
I can respect where you're coming from, brother, and this is basically why I tried to be careful and say that I am NOT stating love is just sappy feeling. God is love by nature in the triunal sense, i.e., the Father, Son and Spirit loving one another. Because Jesus is the Father's "Beloved," being a term of endearment, the Scipture tells us that we, in Christ, have become God's beloved, too. My problem with Todd's defintion of love can be summarized by his statement: "Agape love is a self sacrificing, “I will help you despite how I feel” love."
In one respect that is true, though I think it more refers to us as imperfect humans in a fallen world and how we must love even though we may feel contrary. But to delete "feeling" from love all-around would be a mistake. In Heaven, there will be nothing to induce false feelings. God sees us as wrapped in Christ. He does not look down upon us and say, "Well, you really ticked me off, but I'll help you anyway even though I don't feel like it."
That is not the way the Scripture presents God's love. It is because He sees us in Christ, perfected through Him, that we are actually dear to Him, like a child to his father or a bride to her groom (Scripture uses both comparisons).
If love is nothing more than sacrifice or helping people, they wouldn't be distinct in the Scripture (cf. 1 Cor 13:3), and Paul wouldn't have prayed about our ability to know that love as he did (Eph 3:17-19). The Lord doesn't want obedience apart from our passion and love for Him. He wants our obedience and worship BECAUSE of that love. Technically, a legalist can obey Christ and still have no love for Christ. But we were created and redeemed to be in a loving relationship with God, and to worship Him in that love. Click here to reply to this post
Amen!
Posted On: 12/07/07 01:24:02 AM
Age 47, MO
Hey friend: I've enjoyed this conversation and respect your POV. You made your points well and I think we both totally agree with one another. However, I will have to reread Todd's article to see where exactly he is coming from. If memory serves me right, his point is that the church is focussed on the emotion of experiencing God without the knowledge of knowing God. To that, I think we both agree is problematic and a grave eternal danger. Brother, keep the faith, Bless God. John Click here to reply to this post
Re: Jesus Just Wants to Give You a Hug?
Posted On: 11/29/07 09:29:41 AM
Age 64, TX
Right on target. "Feelings" was a nice song and feelings are a part of musical worship BUT it "ain't" the main thing. I'm going to have a tough time going up a spiritual "D-Day" experience on feelings.
I also think our God is big enough to see through the cotton candy.
Jesus didn't endure the cross on feelings and it's not the pablum He wants to give us to get through the tough times. Click here to reply to this post
Now that we have that out of the way
Posted On: 11/29/07 12:05:42 AM
Age 50, MD
Nail. Head. Direct Hit.
Now that we have the insipid and drippy nature of contemporary Christian music out in the open and most everyone agrees that it's emotional pablum, can we address the pop-centric musical ineptitude exhibited in contemporary Christian music?
Just 'cause someone can hit a note and speak words in prolonged talking (singing) doesn't mean the music is worth listening to.
Most of it isn't.
Sadly, bad music and meaningless lyrics seem to define popular Christian music. But that's the way it's been for decades.
I have a theory. Everybody's gonna be really shocked when we get to hear how the saints and angels priase Him in heaven.
Unfortunately, praise to the King is not the goal of contemporary Christian music. The goal of contemporary Christian music is to grab a slice of that demographic musical market.
You keep accepting tripe, you'll keep getting tripe.
I've been pretty much music-free for three decades. One or two songs by one or two bands does not a musical library make. I have concluded that it is better to abstain than to partake of junk. Silence, in this case, truly is golden.
And nobody tells me to turn down the radio. Click here to reply to this post
Re: Jesus Just Wants to Give You a Hug?
Posted On: 11/28/07 08:45:11 PM
Age 56, GA
I agree that there are too many songs that you don't know who you are singing to(unless you are singing it in church then you can assume it is Jesus), songs that are emotion based and songs lacking in sound doctrine. Hymns or choruses with truth reiterated will continue to be a blessing in life's joys and sorrows. After all, feelings are changeable, but truth is not. Click here to reply to this post
Re: Jesus Just Wants to Give You a Hug?
Posted On: 11/28/07 07:53:45 PM
Age 21, CA
I agree. I am sick of wimpy music. Apparently so is the Vatican as the Pope has gone back to Gregorian chants instead of "love love love".
I think it just shows what level maturity people are at. Those that look at God as a boyfriend / girlfriend are not seeing God for what He really is. God is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Not your "lover." Click here to reply to this post
Re: Re: Jesus Just Wants to Give You a Hug?
Posted On: 12/02/07 03:52:44 PM
Age 47, MO
Not only is Jesus not our "lover," Jesus is the love. He is I AM. He is what love is, so for us to love is to reflect Jesus. Jesus said if you remain in me, I'll remain in you. I am sick of Christians seeking the gifts of Christ, the tools in the shed and shunning the Gift giver- the true gift! We do this because we like to define love to our liking- blessings, joy, moving worship, etc.- but it makes a weak Christian and a lopsided Christ. We need to get back to Christ and worship in Spirit and in Truth. John Click here to reply to this post
Re: Jesus Just Wants to Give You a Hug?
Posted On: 11/28/07 05:56:48 PM
Age 47, TX
THANK YOU! If I want to go to a concert, I will go to a concert. I do not go to church to be entertained. I go to church to be equipped, so that I may live in the love of Jesus every day. The song service is (or at least, it should be) a part of the worship service that everyone can participate in. We can hold a hymnal, and see the deep, spiritual, theological words of the beautiful, classic hymns. We can have an intimate, personal experience holding the hymnal and singing the songs, or even just reading the words.
I do not want to go to a "show". Put away the screen, and let the music of true hymns help to equip the saints to live the lives God wants them to live. Let the hymns strengthen, comfort, and help them. Sing the choruses at home while you are washing the dishes or raking the lawn.
Thank you for having the courage to stand up and give some reasons why the corruption of the music in churches today is wrong. If we compromise in the music of the worship service, where else will we compromise? There is nothing wrong with feelings, but love is not based on feelings. We are to focus on agape love, which loves because it is the right thing to do, and which wants the best for the loved one. Click here to reply to this post
Re: Jesus Just Wants to Give You a Hug?
Posted On: 11/28/07 05:11:06 PM
Age 27, NJ
Amen Todd! Loved it! Couldn't agree more. I'm Joel the poet for the Revolution Poem on youtube which Tiffany Gelpi, my friend and co-laborer in the Gospel, forwarded to you. Perhaps you didn't recieve it due to your busy schedule, anyway, just know I love and support what you guys (you, Ray And Kirk) are doing for the LORD. It's awesome! Keep it up. Your impacting and changing lives daily. As Winston Churchill so eloquently put it, "Never, never, never, never,... give up. Love ya' Todd I feel like I want a hug from Jesus?... LOL... Just kidding LOL :-) Click here to reply to this post
