Yes - this is perhaps an overly provocative title, certainly not one you'd expect to be posted on a Christian blog. But one of the contributing factors in the so-called worship wars of the evangelical church is the unwritten assumption that one should delight in worship. Now there is a sense in which this is to be affirmed and promoted. Unfortunately, that sense is at a level and depth which not too many evangelicals think about, let alone experience.
This level of worship, of course, is not something reserved for an hour on Sunday mornings. It is something that flows out of one all the time. This is the level at which there is to be delight; and delight is to be sought as the essence of worship. Not because delight in itself is inherently good, but because the Object in which one takes delight is.
Yet, even here delight is not constant because there are, even in the most saintly of souls, times of holy fear, times of trembling at His word. But this is an apprehension that leads us to repentance and then on to rejoicing.
But what most evangelicals think of as worship is the hour spent in the auditorium on Sunday mornings. That is usually narrowed to the act of singing - maybe further narrowed to the style or type of music which is used. And it is assumed that one should delight in this facet of the service. One should thoroughly enjoy the music. This is so axiomatic that it is more often than not viewed as the thing which will attract new people and outmoded music, conversely, is said to be antithetical to church growth.
Here, I must say that I am aware of the arguments of contextualization - that music in church can be thought of as an artifact of culture, like language, and we need to present the gospel (and worship) in a way that our culture understands. It would be artificial for instance if suburban, white, upper middle-class congregations in the American Midwest employed music - say from the hill country of south east Asia with forms, tones, and scale completely alien to the Western ear (and vise versa).
Yet even in America there are so many types of music that it would be difficult to find one that everyone "likes" or relates to. But this brings me to my point. Even when we think of worship in narrow terms as the music used during the service, the axiom that one must delight in or enjoy the music in order to worship is utterly false. In fact there is value when one hates the music being employed.
Writing to a friend C.S. Lewis confessed, "I naturally loathe nearly all hymns [but] the face, and life, of the charwoman in the next pew who revels in them, teach me that good taste in poetry or music are not necessary to salvation" (the emphasis on loathe his!). This loathing of his is not to be understood in terms of the popular evangelical dichotomy between hymns and choruses, with Lewis siding with the latter. He states his reasons as based on literary taste.
But there is something else in Lewis's statement that hints to us that these same hymns were not an impediment but even a help to him in worship - "the charwoman... who revels in them." In his essay On Church Music, he proposes the idea of putting up with music that one doesn't' enjoy, understand, or appreciate simply because there are brethren present who do; and/or, though the music might not do much for you God may enjoy it. Now there's a novel thought!
In the modern hymns vs. choruses (traditional vs. contemporary) debate imagine each party assenting to the other's music in church out of love for the other. In this case Lewis says, "Church music will have been a means of grace; not the music they have liked but the music they have disliked. They have both offered, sacrificed, their taste in the fullest sense."
What would this look like in the life of American evangelical churches? Well, it would seem that having services with one type of music would be contrary to this spirit. Why? Though we pay lip service to the dictum "It's not about me," we then insist upon and create worship services where it is all about me! The music, the messages, the programs, the decor, etc. must all appeal to me. The way evangelicalism goes about things I never have to say "No" to my self (Self in the Pauline sense of fallen flesh); I always get what pleases me; I always get my way. This goes not just for so-called contemporary churches but also for traditional ones which employ highly refined, even classical forms of music. Those of more sophisticated tastes never have to sully themselves listening to steel guitar or bongo drums.
It would seem like a blended service, where a variety of types and styles of music are employed is best. But someone might object that this is adopting the shopping mall where everyone's tastes are pleased. But why not rather look at it as providing something to annoy the musical tastes of some of the people some of the time; but which provides them an opportunity to acquiesce to it out of love for those in the pew next to them who do love it. Now that would seem to be a service in which God delights!
