Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, is the largest congregation in America having over 40,000 who attend the 16,800 seat nondenominational Christian mega church. From their base at Lakewood, Pastor Joel Osteen and wife Victoria preach an upbeat message to a worldwide audience of 200 million. The essence of their message can be found in Osteen’s best-selling book Your Best Life Now.
Too many times we get stuck in a rut, thinking we’ve reached our limits. But God wants us to constantly be increasing, to be rising to new heights. He wants to increase you in his wisdom and help you make better decisions. God wants to increase you financially, by giving you promotions, fresh ideas, and creativity.”[1]
In other words, God wants you to be happy; it’s all about you. Therefore, it was not surprising that an undated video clip began circulating in August 2014 which captured Ms. Osteen, with her husband standing close behind and nodding his approval, admonishing the congregation that the purpose and intent of obedience to God and worship was to make the people happy.
I just want to encourage every one of us to realize when we obey God, we’re not doing it for God—I mean, that’s one way to look at it—we’re doing it for ourselves, because God takes pleasure when we’re happy. That’s the thing that gives Him the greatest joy…
So, I want you to know this morning: Just do good for your own self. Do good because God wants you to be happy…When you come to church, when you worship Him, you’re not doing it for God really. You’re doing it for yourself, because that’s what makes God happy. Amen?[2]
But is the primary purpose of obedience and worship of God to make people happy in this life? A quick survey of several scriptures quoted in the previous chapter says otherwise. For the born-again Christian, this life is about cross bearing, dying to self, living the resurrection life, and following Christ’s example. Cross bearing and dying to self may not fit the world’s image of happiness but it will result in eternal happiness as we commune with God forever.
A biblical perspective on worship
Both the Old and New Testaments have a number of things to say about worship.
Worship is commanded: “O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker.” [Psalm 95:5. KJV]
Worship is to accompany our best offering–our first fruits: “Give the Lord the glory due unto his name: bring an offering, and come before him: worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.” [1 Chronicles 16:29. KJV]
Worship requires a right attitude: “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” [John 4:24. KJV]
If we teach the doctrines of men, we worship in vain: “Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” [Matthew 15:7-9. KJV]
We must be vigilant that our worship does not turn to idolatry: “Take heed to yourselves that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them.” [Deuteronomy 11:16. KJV] “I am the Lord; that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.” [Isaiah 42:8. KJV]
Although not a comprehensive examination of the church’s worship of God, His commands and expectations are clearly revealed in these verses. Worship of God is not optional for the Christian, and it is not about making us happy. Our worship is rejected if we worship with the wrong attitude, we teach man’s doctrines, and is in vain when it accompanies an offering of less than our first fruits. True worship is an expression of our love, adoration, reverence, respect, devotion, and praise of God. Can much of what we see in many evangelical churches of today come close to this description of true worship?
Entertainment disguised as worship
Francis Schaeffer has said that God uses different ways in different moments of history, but he cautions that this freedom to use various ways in accomplishing His work has limits.[3] The Church Growth movement and particularly the Purpose Driven techniques and methods espoused by Rick Warren have gone far outside acceptable limits in their worship services. One of those ways the Church Growth movement has crossed the line is the manner in which they have incorporated man’s ideas in marketing God to the unchurched—the consumer. The unchurched seekers are the target market and must be given what they want. And what attracts them is entertainment. Entertainment is now disguised as worship. As a result, seeker-sensitive churches are incorporating world-centered entertainment designed for and directed at the seeker-consumer instead of being Christ-centered worship directed toward God.
In Chapter 26 it was noted that Warren and the other Church Growth advocates have committed a fundamental error that underlies the entire concept of the Church Growth movement. They have wrongly redirected the purpose of preaching and weekly church gatherings from being primarily focused on the body of Christ to weekly seeker-sensitive services aimed at the unchurched. Similarly, they have redirected the worship service toward the unchurched seeker as opposed to worship that is directed to God. The truth of this statement could not be more strongly validated than through the words of Victoria Osteen, “When you come to church, when you worship Him, you’re not doing it for God really. You’re doing it for yourself, because that’s what makes God happy.” [emphasis added]
Chapter 13 of Warren’s The Purpose Driven Church is titled “Worship Can Be a Witness.” He states that “Everything we do in our weekend services is based on twelve deeply held convictions.” These convictions all center on the various elements of worship such as “style” of worship, witnessing, seeker expectations, and seeker understanding.[4] What he does not talk about is what the Bible says about worship. In Chapter 15, “Selecting Your Music,” Warren states that the church must match its music to the kind of people God wants your church to reach. But where in the Bible does it say that churches should specialize in the type of sinner they wish to reach?
Several quotes expose Warren’s faulty beliefs about music in the church.
Music is the primary communicator of values to the younger generation. If we don’t use contemporary music to spread godly values, Satan will have unchallenged access to an entire generation. Music is a force that cannot be ignored.
I reject the idea that music styles can be judged as either “good” or “bad” music. Who decides this? The kind of music you like is determined by your background and culture.
Churches need to admit that no particular style of music is “sacred.” What makes a song sacred is its message. Music is nothing more than an arrangement of notes and rhythms; it’s the words that make a song spiritual.[5] [emphasis in original]
On one page Warren writes that music is the primary communicator of values to the younger generation. He contradicts himself on the next page when he says that music is nothing more than an arrangement of notes and rhythms, it’s the words that make a song spiritual. Style is immaterial and only words matter. Let’s examine these statements in greater detail.
This author visited a mega church style service at which one of my wife’s school students was being baptized. Before the baptismal service, we had to “endure” the worship service conducted by a writhing twenty-something in skin-tight attire backed by five guitars players. It was only after the service we learned that because the rock-styled music was so loud the church routinely provided ear plugs at the entrance of the sanctuary for people that can’t endure the noise level. I can honestly report that during the entire worship production I did not recognize any words of the songs and certainly had no clue as to their messages. If words make the song spiritual and the message makes it sacred as Warren intones, I and most others in the building received nothing spiritual or sacred from the worship service that evening.
Music and song are chief expressions in a church’s communal worship of God. When music and songs that mirror the world are brought into the house of God and presented as worship, what distinguishes these from worldly entertainment and true worship of the living God? Is it words alone? The Old Testament had much to say about defiling God’s house, and things that defile included much more than words. “But they set their abominations in the house, which is called by my name, to defile it.” [Jeremiah 32:34. KJV]
A substantial portion of the music of Warren’s church and many others following the Church Growth model is centered on rock music. Writing thirty years ago, the late David Wilkerson delivered a devastating indictment of rock music. He began with a quotation from the second book of the Chronicles.
“And the Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and said unto him, I have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place to myself for a house of sacrifice.” [2 Chronicles 7:12. KJV]
Every time a child of God preaches, prays, praises, or sings—he is bringing a sacrificial offering unto the Lord. Every Christian concert or record is an offering unto the Lord.
What has this to do with rock music in the church? How can it apply to Christians who perform or listen to it? It should be obvious. In worship or praise, our Father will not receive, but rather He will furiously reject any offering that is polluted or spotted in the least bit.
I hear sincere Christians say, “Satan doesn’t own music. It belongs to God. The music doesn’t matter as long as the words are right.” Dead wrong! The devil owns all music that is ungodly and evil. And Satan had all the right words when he tempted Christ. The Israelites dancing around the golden calf had all the right words. Were they not singing, “This is the god that brought us out of Egypt”? Same people, same words—but their god had changed. It is much more than holy, intelligent words. Satan has always spoken in temptation with accurate words mingled with a lot of Scripture, and so has every angel of light who has come to deceive.[6]
Wilkerson wrote that rock music can’t be defined or judged on technicalities because it is primarily a soul and spirit matter. The line between satanically inspired punk or heavy metal rock and other forms of popular music cannot be drawn by legalistic rules—it is a matter of spirit and truth.[7] But spirit and truth receive little attention in many Church Growth/Purpose Driven churches as they compete for the best musical hook to snare the seeker surfing the church scene. This is not a condemnation of all non-sacred music. There is much music in the world, although not sacred music intended for worship, which is not ungodly or evil in and of itself. However, even when “non-spiritual” popular music passes the spirit and truth test, it still doesn’t belong in God’s house of sacrifice.
Even in non-Christian circles, the evils of certain types of music are recognized and condemned in terms far more powerful than used by David Wilkerson. One of those voices was Robert H. Bork who wrote Slouching Towards Gomorrah – Modern Liberalism and American Decline. In 1987 Bork, a Constitutional originalist, was nominated by President Ronald Reagan for the U.S. Supreme Court. An intense and orchestrated campaign by liberals in government, the media, Hollywood, and the American Civil Liberties Union viciously attacked Bork and eventually scuttled the nomination through a sustained flood of lies and distortions.
Bork’s book argues that the forces of modern liberalism have brought the nation to the brink of disaster. He states that the nation’s only hope is to recognize and understand the problem which must be coupled with a will to resist. Along with the collapse of popular culture and a general weakening of intellect, he also cites “trouble in religion.”[8]
Bork wrote that in keeping with the themes of liberalism and its progress in the 1960s, popular entertainment embraced the hedonistic concept of the unconstrained self. The importance of self was expressed in the music of the era—rock ’n’ roll which evolved into hard rock[9] and its various iterations such as punk, heavy metal, acid, and rap. Bork quoted Michael Bywater who wrote of the modern music industry.
[The music industry] has somehow reduced humanity’s greatest achievement—a near-universal language of pure transcendence—into a knuckle-dragging sub-pidgin of grunts and snarls, capable of fully expressing only the more pointless forms of violence and the more brutal forms of sex.[10]
Bork contended that the rock music business clearly understood that a large part of the appeal of rock music to the young was its subversion of authority through its incoherence and primitive regression.[11] Rock ‘n’ roll was the rebellious cadence to which many in the Boomer generation and their liberal elders marched.
Recall that Warren wrote, “Music is the primary communicator of values to the younger generation.” Whether or not it is the primary communicator of values is debatable, but Warren is correct insofar as he means it is an important communicator of values. And here we speak not just of the words that communicate values; it is the whole package in which the words are wrapped. When people think of rock music, it is not the music of Pat Boone’s “April Love” of the 1950s but the music of the 1960s and thereafter beginning with the Beatles who proclaimed themselves to be more popular than Jesus Christ. It is the music of drugs, sex, rebellion, and the autonomous self. And that is the message of rock music which still communicates the values of much of the rebellious Boomer generation to the present day. It has no place in the lives of the followers of Christ, and it certainly has no place in the house of God.
Ravi Zacharias wrote, “The lesson from history is that sanctity within the temple ultimately defines life outside the temple, and without the former, life becomes profane. Just as reverence is the heart of worship, profanity is at the heart of evil.”[12] Zacharias was speaking of worship in the larger sense of living a Godly, holy life. But if applicable in the larger sense, it is also applicable to corporate worship. There is certainly no sense of reverence in the type of rock music discussed above. Regardless of the change of words, it is not sacred or secular but profane.
Richard M. Weaver wrote that, “…it is admitted that what man expresses in music dear to him he will most certainly express in his social practices.”[13] One need only look at the social practices that have grown over the last half century as rock music became the anthem of popular culture. In every facet of American life including much of the church, there has been a decline of the sacred and a breakdown of what it means to be a civilized and moral society.
Larry G. Johnson
Sources:
[1] Ross Douthat, Bad Religion, (New York: Free Press, 2012), p. 183, quoting Joel Osteen from Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential, (New York: Time Warner, 2004), p. 5.
[2] Heather Clark, ‘Do Good for Your Own Self’: Osteen Says Obedience, Worship ‘Not for God’, Christian News Network, August 28, 2015. http://christiannews.net/2014/08/28/do-good-for-your-own-self-osteen-says-obedience-worship-not-for-god-video/ (accessed December 18, 2015).
[3] Francis Schaeffer, “Interview with Francis & Edith Schaeffer – God’s Leading in L’Abri & Our Lives,” How Then Should We Live? DVD – Gospel Communications International, Inc., (Worchester, Pennsylvania: Vision Video, 1977).
[4] Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1995), pp. 239-249.
[5] Ibid., pp. 280-281.
[6] David Wilkerson, Set the Trumpet to Thy Mouth,” (Lindale, Texas: World Challenge, Inc., 1985), pp. 98-100.
[7] Ibid., pp. 92-93.
[8] Robert H. Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah – Modern Liberalism and American Decline, (New York: Regan Books, 1996), Cover flap.
[9] Ibid., pp. 125-126.
[10] Ibid., p. 124.
[11] Ibid., pp. 23-24.
[12] Ravi Zacharias, Deliver Us From Evil, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 1997), p. 155.
[13] Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1948), p. 87.
