Pop Goes the Liturgy
“it [sic] think it would be awesome to hear rap in [the] worship service, especially if the context calls for it and it communicates the Gospel in a way the community will hear it.”
“I agree 100%. It would be awesome in a worship service. It’s communicating the gospel incarnationally in the cultural context of the community. However, it would need to be in the right context, because some congregations have shallow, exclusive, self-focused worship where their faith is a compartmentalized part of their life outside of the culture to which they belong.”
Modern pop music arguably began with jazz in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Jazz gave way to rock and roll in the 1950s. Rock music evolved quickly into many subgenres over the next few decades. Today’s pop music is dominated by rap. But one thing that remains constant is the fact that there are those who desire to bring pop music into the Divine Service.
Here in Louisiana, Jazz Masses (and even funerals) are popular among Roman Catholics. Among Lutherans in Wisconsin, there are Lutheran churches that conduct Polka Services. And who can forget the pinnacle of Boomer Worship: the Chicago Folk Service? Rumor has it that the CIA had been using it to interrogate suspected terrorists. I don’t believe it, though. Not even the CIA would violate the Geneva Convention so brashly.
Kyrie eleison, indeed!
And then there are the Episcopalians leading the way with the Beatles Mass (complete with John Lennon’s ode to Communism and Atheism: “Imagine.” The Beatles Mass was championed by an ELCA “pastor” named Megan Rohrer, who has recently made headlines by being the first transgender “bishop.” He was formerly one of the pastors at Ebenezer Lutheran Church (Herchurch) in San Francisco, where God is addressed as the goddess, and where the Lord’s Prayer begins “Our Mother.”
For fans of U2, Episcopalian priestess Sarah Dylan Breuer has created a U2charist.
An Episcopal congregation, St. Mary’s - headed up by Mother Kim Culp, lists other services that they have done, including the above-mentioned U2charist and Beatles Mass, a Blue Grass Mass, Coldplay Mass, CASH Mass (featuring Johnny Cash music), and a Stevie Wonder Mass.
Of course, it goes without saying - which means I have to say it because there are always readers looking to tilt at straw men - that pop music is not in and of itself evil. Some of it is, some of it isn’t. It is what it is: entertainment. And it is entertainment that can indeed be thoughtful and intellectually stimulating. I remember many years ago one of our Gottesdienst editors - who is known for his intensity and excitability - waxing eloquent on how Led Zeppelin’s song “No Quarter” reflected themes related to the office of the holy ministry. Some of the early songs by the band Evanescence confessed Christian themes - as the former writer for the band was a Christian. The band Kansas’s Kerry Livgren is a Christian, and many of his compositions reflect the faith. He even fooled the unbeliever and dabbling Satanist Ronnie James Dio to record two songs with him in which the Christian confession is hard to miss: “To Live For the King” and “Mask of the Great Deceiver.” The Christian rock band Skillet gets airplay on secular stations as well. The list goes on.
There is nothing wrong with entertainment. It is a gift of God that brings families and friends closer together and brings joy to our lives. But our sinful flesh often corrupts things that are good, turning them into idols. Satan’s most effective tactics are those which blur the line between good and evil, or perhaps more accurately, introduce the leaven of the common into the loaf of the holy.
Holiness means separation.
Holiness is a wall that divides the divine from the ordinary. Christian worship is holy according to Scripture - that is, unless we have removed Exodus and Leviticus from the canon. God Himself teaches us about worship, how He would fill out His PIF if He were on the LCMS roster. There is indeed time in our daily lives for singing the glory of God “with trumpet sound… with lute and harp…. with tambourine and dance… with strings and pipe… with sounding cymbals” and “with loud clashing cymbals” - as we sing in Psalm 150. But then there are those times when God comes to us in His most holy presence, such as when Moses found himself at the burning bush, or Isaiah stood in the throne-room of God, the high priest’s entry into the Holy of Holies, and our Lord’s miraculous presence with us in His body and blood.
Can you imagine Moses holding up a lighter and screaming “Freebird!” when God revealed His name to him and told him to remove his sandals? Can you imagine Isaiah freestyling a hip-hop beat when the seraph approached him “having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar”? Can you imagine the high priest cheerfully whistling a hippy folk song while coming into proximity with the Ark of the Covenant on the Day of Atonement?
The reality is that we have lost touch with what holiness means. Most people would probably say that it means “being good” - however that is defined, whether by not drinking or dancing or playing cards, or by being appropriately politically-correct, sensitive, and concerned with “social justice.” And how often do we Lutherans take the Sacrament of the Altar for granted? How often do we fail to appreciate that a miracle happens at our altars? Of course, when pastors conduct the liturgy in a pedestrian or even slovenly way, when they behave like stand-up comedians or clowns, and when our churches schedule Sundays to not have the sacrament and then justify it because “it’s a lot of work for the volunteers” (I actually heard that as an explanation for deviating from our confessional standard of every-Sunday communion) - who can blame our laity for not considering the Divine Service to be a miracle?
And if it isn’t a real manifestation of God coming to us, why bother? Or to put it in the words of Flannery O’Connor, “If it’s only a symbol, to hell with it.” And when the people lose faith in what the plain Words of Institution teach us, that is when pastors and congregations (and even some in our hierarchy) turn to gimmicks, to rock and roll, rap, dancing, and other entertainments to hold the attention of the parishioners, to gin up emotion, and to “get the butts in the pews” with the kinds of things that draws a crowd in a stadium or concert hall.
We must not discount the power of entertainment, especially pop music. I have had several parishioners leave my congregation and join one of our local non-denominational churches that has a pop band and a stage instead of hymns and an altar. These former parishioners outright told me that they like the music better. There were no theological considerations driving them, no crisis of whether or not what we teach is true. One said, “I gotta have a beat to move my feet.” One parishioner - whom I had baptized along with her daughter - said that her daughter enjoyed “fun church” instead of our Divine Service. But in gaining entertainment, what did they give up? In other words, what was the cost of this Sunday morning rock show? These churches do not confess Baptismal regeneration. And for them, the Lord’s Supper (so-called) is indeed only a symbol. There is no confession and absolution. The giving up of these means through which God works miraculously in our lives was, to them, a price worth paying for a beat to move one’s feet.
In our culture, entertainment is king. It is our drug of choice. It is our 24-7 companion. It gives us the dopamine we need to get through life in these gray and latter days. It is as addictive as crack cocaine, but even easier to acquire. Even our news programs are entertainment. Our schools are entertainment. TV screens adorn the walls of our doctor’s offices, airports, banks, restaurants, auto-repair shops, and our phones. Why shouldn’t our churches likewise have screens on the sanctuary walls? Why shouldn’t our church services also be entertainment? If we are entertained 24-7, 365, why should there be a single hour on Sunday morning in which we aren’t being entertained?
At the heart of the matter, this is a First Commandment issue.
As George Thorogood famously posed the question - albeit with bad grammar: “Who do you love?”