This is not your grandfather’s “contemporary worship”: hippie boomers with acoustic guitars singing the cringe Chicago Folk Service, or the “praise band” performing the emetic “Shine, Jesus, Shine.” Nor are they even like the terrible mashups of the Beatles and U2.

Today’s “contemporary worship” is even worse.

This piece explains why “every hit worship song sounds the same.” It is worth a read. It points out that nearly every modern “worship song” comes from Bethel, Hillsong, and Elevation. We can also add Jesus Culture to that list.

These megachurches have a bizarre theology called the New Apostolic Reformation, which not only teaches “speaking in tongues” and other elements of the so-called Pentecostal churches, but also that God has restored the offices of prophet and apostle. Music is essentially their sacrament. There are also occult elements of this religion that are incompatible with the Christian faith.

An interesting book explaining this is Counterfeit Kingdom: The Dangers of New Revelation, New Prophets, and New Age Practices in the Church by Holly Pivek and Douglas Geivett.

Sadly, LCMS churches are even using these “worship songs.” And even if individual songs do not teach heresy, if these songs are licensed, our churches pay money to these false teachers to pay for the privilege of using these songs. If this playlist is accurate, the 2022 LCMS National Youth Gathering included some of these songs.

One of the findings of the study is:

Those songs become one of the primary ways of connecting with God — rather than prayer or sacraments or other rituals. Because of their market success, these churches have changed the spiritual practices and sometimes even the theology of congregations from many traditions.

“The industry itself becomes this invisible hand,” he said. “We don’t name the theology of praise and worship — we just assume it. And we use this kind of song repertoire to reinforce it.”

The study did not look specifically at the lyrics of the most popular songs. Baker did say she’s looking at those lyrics for a different project and found a few trends. For example, she said, few of the most popular songs talk about the cross or salvation.

Dear reader, if you looked and listened to some of these links, you need some soul bleach.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!