Self-Indulgent Worship

[eliskimo]

"The heart of the battle over worship is this: our worship practices are separated from our call to justice and, worse, foster the self-indulgent tendencies of our culture rather than nurturing the self-sacrificing life of the kingdom of God."

"The fallout of false worship distorts our sense of God, ourselves and others, leading to injustice and

Comments

[camillofan]

I read the article, and indeed you might have imagined that I would be interested in something like that. As the writer seems to, I absolutely find contemporary worship to be extraordinarily self-indulgent, and I have contended that it grows self-indulgent Christians. However, I also believe it's no good pretending that Christians in the wealthy West weren't perfectly capable of being perfectly self-indulgent before.

How is the very real problem he outlines a liturgical problem, as opposed to being a more general problem in the life of the church (that may be reinforced by our "it's about people feeling comfortable" worship-style ethic)? If, for instance he feels in retrospect that his sermon on Psalm 27 didn't get to the heart of the matter, and didn't challenge his congregation to worry about more than how to find a parking spot in a crowded mega-church lot, that's not something he can lay at the door of the worship team.

I think that much of the preaching that goes out each week to middle-class American Christians does tend to baby them. We are encouraged to look to the Lord for solidarity in the pettiest of suffering (e.g., the worries of bill-paying, when the bills being paid are for gratuitous luxury items) rather than to reorder our lives and to give away all our extra cloaks, as it were. I, among the pettiest of all, need to be so challenged! But the fact that I'm not is not something I think I can fairly blame on my favorite whipping boy, contemporary worship.

I have lumped the two problems together-- short-sighted, comfortable Christians and shallow, tradition-denying worship services-- when going off on one of my rants about not wanting to be an evangelical anymore. But, unless I've misread the article, I don't think that's what this author is doing.

I'm also not sure what sort of remedy he would advocate. Thoughts?

[eliskimo]

I think part of it ties into what I was reading the last time I posted about worship (http://eliskimo.livejournal.com/163388.html). It was an excerpt from Shane Hipps' book The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture:

"Perhaps this is because we mistakenly believe that to acknowledge suffering might mean we are ungrateful or lacking in faith. More likely it is because grief is an inefficient and unpleasant emotion that conflicts with the efficient and entertaining biases of today's culture."

We don't like to acknowledging suffering *at all* - but if we don't acknowledge it, it is as good as pretending it doesn't exist, which in turn fails to prepare us for any hardship. So, not finding a parking space becomes A Big Deal when it shouldn't be.

When I posted the excerpts from the other article back in June, forest_lady commented, "Christians ... are supposed to be happy or at least profoundly grateful once baptised because their succour and refuge is certain and promised," which is true, but upon reflection, I think one can be grateful and joyful (perhaps a deeper emotion than just "happy") and acknowledge sin & suffering at the same time. So the liturgical problem may be that in our quest for rejoicing, we have made joy into a shallow emotion - which in turn is both symptom & cause of other issues.

True, he cannot lay the missed target in his preaching at the door of the worship team, but we as "contemporary" evangelicals have already effectively separted the "worship" aspect of our services from the "preaching/teaching" and "communion" elements and that might be a contributing factor. I often feel that our services (and my recent church shopping has shown me that this is a problem not limited to the Restoration Movement, but definately prevelant there) are put together like a lego structure - yes, it's one continguous hour, but the lines are readily seen. This is a liturgical problem. Churches that openly follow a liturgical structure I find more integrated. It may, of course, be an illusion - I could be being blinded by my desire for structure - but I don't think so, at least not completely.

Corporate confession or the use of a Kyrie, readings from each section of Scripture (OT, Psalms, Gospel & NT) that take the congregation through the entire Bible in the course of either a year or four years, prayer time that is both integrated with the communion service and specifically aims to pray "for the whole people of God according to their needs"; all these things (IMO) add up to make a liturgy that *can be* less indulgent.

I'm not sure what the remedy is either, but I'm curious to read the rest of his book and see what else he has to say.

[eliskimo]

Also, since you and I share some concerns, I thought I might also point you at this post of mine:
http://eliskimo.livejournal.com/85134.html