The impossible dream of contemporary worship (Sunday Reflections for August 8, 2010)

 I must have been in 5th or 6th grade when our church had its first “folk service.” I remember using mimeographed copies of the then new Chicago Folk Service, developed by an avant-garde Lutheran congregation in the Lincoln Park. I don’t know if the adults actually liked it but, since they were happy to see “the kids” doing something in church, the service continued to be used a couple times annually through my high school years.

The 1960s began a journey of worship experimentation that continues to this day. It’s been a bumpy road. Churches of all kinds have seen a parade of new worship books, liturgies and worship styles, some denominationally sanctioned but many not. Conflicts over worship formats became so intense they were dubbed the “worship wars.” The friction has abated somewhat because churches feel more free to do their own thing. Even official worship resources now include considerable variety (e.g. Evangelical Lutheran Worship’s TEN settings of the communion liturgy). There is no one way to do worship anymore.

The elusive holy grail of worship reform during these decades has been to make worship contemporary. Much of the conflict during this time, however, has been due to the fact that no one can agree what contemporary worship means. Those wanting to keep the traditional liturgical format thought it was enough to update its language and musical style. Others have wanted to make more radical changes to the worship experience. Many congregations (perhaps most) have tried to find a middle ground and ended up with a schizophrenic blend of worship styles (with Emergent Christianity being the most recent example). Whatever their choices, few churches feel the matter is settled or that they’ve arrived at their liturgical destination. It’s all still very much up in the air.

I think the contemporary worship arguments have gone in circles because there are actually bigger issues underneath that never get fully identified, if they’re recognized at all. The vagueness of the term “contemporary” is one indication that we aren’t sure what the objective really is. The folk service movement, for example, began when churches were at the height of their popularity. They weren’t done to keep or attract members, as the motivation for worship change often is today. Rather they represented the impact popular culture was having on the church. They were also signs that even bigger changes were coming.

Since the 1960s, churches have basically been chasing after popular culture. It’s a race they never seem to win. In regards to music, for example, contemporary church liturgy or songs rarely rise above average in quality and often are mediocre or worse. The problem is not lack of talented composers or performers. Rather, it’s a misunderstanding of contemporary music.

Popular music, gathering steam in the 1920s and 30s, exploded after World War II. Radio, TV and the invention of the LP put music and musicians in front of everyone. With the arrival of rock and roll, music became one of the primary means for personal expression, especially for teens and young adults. Elvis, the Beetles, Michael Jackson, mega-concerts, the IPod and the internet have caused this relentless tidal wave to inundate everything.

Contemporary worship misunderstands pop music in thinking it is a style that can be laid as a veneer over traditional Christian theological content. The affect is not unlike how you feel when your favorite rock anthem gets used as the theme song of a TV commercial. There’s a nails-on-chalkboard disconnect and a sense some rule is being broken: “Nooooo! THAT’S not what that song is about!”

The reality is that pop music, like all of pop culture, is about a break with the past and with tradition. That includes, of course, Christianity and the church which dominated Western culture for well over a thousand years. The break began with artists, musicians and writers in the Enlightenment but they mostly related to the educated elite. It was 20th century “pop” culture that enabled the mass population to experience this creative and intellectual independence for themselves.

The church’s pursuit of “contemporary worship” has been a chase after a mirage—it evaporates whenever the church thinks it’s found it. For worship to be genuinely contemporary would mean not just changes in style but changes in substance, as well. What’s needed, in short, is the creation of “pop religion.” And that’s actually happening already.

What I said last week about contemporary art is also true of contemporary music. Musicians also explore questions of meaning, beauty, human relationships, community, and transcendence. This pursuit of spiritual meaning and values in the arts parallels the growing popularity of personal spiritualities. This “pop religion” then includes the whole array of options for personal spiritual expression, beliefs and practices—as well as the option for developing new ones.

The church’s problem with this, of course, is that none of it is church-centered. In fact, there is no institutional center. It’s “pop”—personal and individual. This is not to say the church can’t have a role or contribute something of value. It just can’t be in charge and that’s going to be hard to swallow. Can there be a Christianity that isn’t church-centered, where the church isn't in control? It’s an idea that may take some getting used to but we probably should because it seems to be happening anyway.

“Contemporary worship” then is a kind of oxymoron—a self-contradiction. The problem isn’t the contemporary part—it’s the worship. One of the primary insights of modern culture is that holiness, the sacred, is not something “out there” but is all around us, permeating life and the world. Thus you don’t need to set aside a special place and time to commune with it—any moment or place can be and is sacred.

And so, increasingly worship is nostalgic, a connection with the past. That isn’t bad or without value. But it does mean that as memory of that past recedes, fewer and fewer people will find it meaningful—which, of course, is already happening. All this can be distressing until we realize how ambivalent the Bible itself is about institutional religion. Some of its most biting words of condemnation are for temples and priests. And rather than theological symbols, Jesus seemed to draw more inspiration from everyday things like flowers, birds, widows and squabbling brothers—just the kind of things you might put into a song.