Here's one part of an interview with author Michael Frost that resonates with me and might get you interested...
You’ve also
written about your distaste for “Jesus is my boyfriend” worship songs. Can
Christian music be redeemed through contextual forms of music and meaningful
lyrics?
I really
hope so! But I’m not a musician, so I write about this stuff as a disempowered
critic. I have no ability to change it myself because I can’t write music or
play an instrument. But I’m getting tired of singing love songs to
Jesus-my-boyfriend. And frankly I feel silly when I have to sing songs so
sentimental and cloying they could have been written for a 1990s boy band. As
much as I’m loath to admit it these days, I’m not ‘in love with Jesus’ (for
some people this might sound like blasphemy). But let’s be honest, I love my
three daughters more deeply than I could ever imagine loving anyone, but I have
never fallen in love with them. My love for them transcends the exciting,
heady, temporary feelings of romantic love. Likewise with Jesus. I love him and
am completely in his debt. But I’m not head over heals in romantic love with
him. So it’s not singing that I don’t like. It’s the kind of singing that I’m
expected to engage in. As much as this romanticising of worship bothers me,
even more disturbing is the recent trend of singing worship songs in which I
have to pledge my unfaltering devotion and service to him. You know, the
‘Jesus, I will never let you go...’ type song. In these songs I have to declare
that I will follow him to the ends of the earth and that I will praise him all
my days. In one sense, there’s nothing wrong with making such promises to God.
The Psalmist does so on occasion. But frankly, I’m so much more comfortable
with singing about the fact that Jesus has promised that he will never let me
go. My promises seem hollow and unreliable. It’s God’s promises to me in Christ
that are solid, reliable and unfaltering.
I sorely
wish Christian musicians would write songs that help to sustain us as exiles,
as foreigners in a forbidding country. We need songs that strengthen our
resolve and inspire us to act. Not silly loves songs to Jesus.
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