The theme of this three part series is that reverence for God and the things that represent His person and presence are dead or near death in many American churches and the lives of Christians who profess to be a part of the body of Christ. The church is being called to recognize and take actions to remedy this loss of reverence.
It is through these things which represent God’s person and presence that Satan often attacks the church—the sanctuary, worship, and music. In Part II it was noted that the American church is making two serious mistakes with regard to music in worship. There has been a loss of sacredness in worship music and that worship has been humanized and redirected toward man and away from God. But the corrupting influence of worldly music in the church goes much deeper than these two issues and will be examined in Part III.
Music – Adoration of God or the anthem of rebellion
Without question music is the driving force in corporate worship and is of such importance that it must be addressed separately. Little more can be said in this section other than to repeat some of the thoughts expressed in Evangelical Winter – Restoring New Testament Christianity.[1]
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 worldly music from music that is 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]
Rick Warren is typical of those in the Church Growth movement who believe that the style of music is immaterial and that it is the message (words) that makes it “sacred.”[2]
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 also 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.[3] [emphasis in original]
Writing over thirty years ago, the late David Wilkerson delivered a devastating indictment of rock music which destroys Warren’s contention that the style of music does not matter.
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.[4]
A substantial portion of the music in Warren’s church and many others following the Church Growth model is centered on rock music. Unlike Warren who says that it’s just the lyrics that matter, 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.[5]
But spirit and truth receive scant attention in many Church Growth/Purpose Driven churches as they compete for the best musical hook to snare the seeker surfing the church scene. Warren and others in the Church Growth movement have forgotten that God’s house is a house of sacrifice. “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] God will reject any offering that is polluted or spotted in the least bit and that includes music and song.
This is not a condemnation of all non-sacred music. There is much music in the world 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.
In Part I it was noted that a great contributor to the decline in reverence was a loss of respect for authority and hierarchy in the general culture. There is a strong causal link between the general culture’s rebellion against authority and rock music.
Judge Robert Bork in his book Slouching Towards Gomorrah – Modern Liberalism and American Decline 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[6] 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.[7]
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.[8] Rock ‘n’ roll was the rebellious cadence to which many in the Boomer generation and their liberal elders marched. So too are many in today’s evangelical churches.
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 meant that music 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. The message of rock ‘n’ roll music still communicates the attitudes and 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.” Zacharias was speaking of worship in the larger sense of living a Godly, holy life.[9] [emphasis added] 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 words, it is not sacred 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.”[10] 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.
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In every facet of American life, there has been a decline of the sacred and a breakdown of what it means to be a civilized and moral society. The church must be included in those institutions in decline. One of the reasons for the decline of the sacred is the death of reverence for God and those things pertaining to His person and presence. Without reverence for God and the things of God, the church will also die.
Larry G. Johnson
[1] Larry G. Johnson, Evangelical Winter – Restoring New Testament Christianity, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2016), pp.221-225.
[2] Rick Warren, The Purpose Drive Church, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1995), p. 281.
[3] Ibid., pp. 280-281.
[4] David Wilkerson, Set the Trumpet to Thy Mouth – Hosea 8:1,” (Lindale, Texas: World
Challenge, Inc., 1985), pp. 99-100.
[5] Ibid., pp. 92-93.
[6] Robert H. Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah, (New York: Regan Books, 1996), pp. 125-126.
[7] Ibid., p. 124.
[8] Ibid., pp. 23-24.
[9] Ravi Zacharias, Deliver Us From Evil, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 1997), p. 15.
[10] Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1948, 1984), p. 87.
