The Tyranny of the Contemporary

A year or two back, Al Mohler gave a talk at one of the conferences he regularly speaks at which he titled, The Tyranny of the Contemporary.  He had many good points (as usual), but a couple were especially relevant to our culture today, and particularly to this part of the country.  One of these points was about how we are told that the gospel is offensive to folks today, and that this is a new problem.  Funny.  I think the New Testament writers made clear that this problem existed two thousand years ago, and Christian leaders since that time have continually reinforced the idea that the gospel was offensive to non-regenerate folks ever since.

Another point that Dr. Mohler made was in regard to the idea of full churches and empty preaching.  At least in the Southern Baptist denomination (in which I participate), this is true to some degree.  We measure pastoral success by baptisms, giving levels, and above all, attendance levels.  One will often hear pastors and laypersons alike asking each other at state or regional meetings how 'big' their church is.  "Whatcha runnin' these days?" is a common question.  I've never been asked how deep the church is.  Just how big.  Maybe it happens, but not when I've been listening.  And on top of that we keep reading about how we are losing our youth to secularism.  As Michael Horton puts it, we are not only not reaching the lost, we are losing the reached.  I won't say this is completely due to poor preaching and the abandonment of the gospel in preaching, but I'd be willing to bet some lunch money a good statistician could find a fairly strong correlation between these things.

Dr. Mohler also talks about the universality of these issues.  Citing John 6, he notes that 'seekers' never seek what ought to be sought and needs to be found.  He reminds us that after Jesus fed the five thousand, those in attendance looked not for spiritual truth from the source of this miracle, but rather they looked for more food.  Physical food.  Bread.  Not the bread of life.

And people say the offense of the gospel is a new problem?

So in response, we look to new ideas and programs to try and outfox the problems.  We look to contemporary technologies, contemporary worship styles, contemporary dress and mannerisms, contemporary programs, contemporary advertising campaigns, contemporary church names, and on and on it goes.  But where'd the gospel go?  I don't recall Paul saying anywhere that contemporary ideas were the power of God unto salvation, but we certainly tend to live like he did.

Every time we are tempted to buy into a new idea about anything, we ought to run it past Romans 1:16-17 four or seven times just to make sure we are keeping the main thing, the main thing.


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Chronological Snobbery (and How to Fix It)

I remember the day, though not the date, when I heard my church was going to break into 'traditional' and 'contemporary' worship services.  I was a member of a vibrant, growing church in the St. Louis area at the time, and was serving as a deacon.  The change was announced to us at a deacons' meeting.  I remember feeling that something wasn't quite right, but I was still a fairly young Christian at the time (at least, I was immature in my faith) and I didn't want to make waves, so I didn't ask any questions.

Boy were my gut feelings right.

The gospel-focused experts now call this divided approach to congregations, 'Chronological Snobbery'.  Tullian Tchividjian (who I've blogged about before) posted a fascinating blog on this topic today.  He says about his church, "For many years Coral Ridge had two very distinct worship services–one contemporary and one traditional. The result was the unintentional development of two different churches under one roof. It wasn’t healthy."

In every church I've been a part of that had divided the congregation by musical preference (age, in fact), I've seen the same signs of unhealthiness.  (In fact, none of the churches I've joined since that first one have had anything other than this same chronological issue.)  I've learned to call it 'age segregation' because the word 'snobbery' is insulting to people even when it is deserved, and even though it is a C. S. Lewis term.  The age segregation causes a loss for both young and old, but most especially for the young.  We are clearly instructed in scripture to ensure that the young and old are integrated in our churches (see Titus 2:3-5 for example).  We throw this out when we age-segregate our congregations.

We also deny the power of the gospel when we do this.  Tullian continues, "You see, when we separate people according to something as trivial as musical preferences, we evidence a fundamental failure to comprehend the heart of the gospel. We’re not only feeding toxic tribalism; we’re also saying the gospel can’t successfully bring these two different groups together. It’s a declaration of doubt about the unifying power of God’s gospel.  Generational appeal in worship is an admission that the gospel is powerless to join together what man has separated."


Why would we as a church want to make such a powerful anti-gospel statement by feeding our own desires about music style?  To avoid the chronological snobbery, we should look both ways, backwards, to the past to see the shoulders on which we stand, and around us now, to see the value in contemporary ways to worship and glorify God, so we can all as one look forward to the hope that is ours in Christ.  We need to take the best of the old, the best of the new, and continue to worship and glorify God together as we proclaim the gospel to the nations; and we certainly need to not neglect meeting together, as is the habit of some, but to encourage each other, across all age groups (and any other false division we can think of), all the more as we see the Day approaching (Heb 10:24-25).

I encourage you to go read Tullian's blog in full.

Why 'Contemporary' as a Criterion is Not Helpful

"Why are there not signs outside churches that read: “Theologically Significant Worship,” or “Worship Appropriate to a Meeting between God and His Assembled People,” or “Worship That Is Literarily Apt and Thoughtful”? Why do the signs say “Contemporary Worship,” as though that criterion were itself worthy of promoting?"

That quote comes from the introduction to, "Why Johnny Can't Sing Hymns" by T. David Gordon (can be found HERE).

It is an interesting thought...we put the term 'contemporary' on a lot of things without regard to what it means, and more importantly, what it doesn't mean. It's not just our music either. Historically, we used quite a few criteria for selecting our hymns, and in the same vein, our worship content. Gordon submits these criteria as historically important to the church-

> theologically orthodox lyrics
> theologically significant lyrics
> literarily apt and thoughful lyrics
> lyrics and music appropriate to a meeting between God and his people
> well-written music with regard to melody, harmony, rhythm, and form
> musical setting appropriate to the literary form

Then he says, appropriately, that only an arrogant generation could imagine that it could possibly replace and surpass (and render obsolete) all previous hymns with a new body of music. I agree.

We should seek to evaluate the worth of our music not with the label of 'new' or 'old' but with the consideration that it is gospel-centered and appropriate to the meeting of God and his people. Some contemporary music does these things well (consider, "In Christ Alone" for example). Some traditional music does not (consider, "The Savior is Waiting" as a classic example of B.A.D. traditional music). Even the idea of mixing contemporary music with traditional music (the so-called blended worship style) is a bad idea of the content is wishy-washy and not gospel-focused and God-glorifying (and yes, I have a problem with singing 'Jesus is your boyfriend' songs in worship...it is not God-glorifying but rather self-glorifying).

If you want to hear some good stuff, go HERE and listen to some samples of the T4G 08 conference music. I bought the CD, and I love it, along with my kids. That's how a worship service should sound.