It’s not just that we don’t know the old hymns, or the teachings of the church fathers and mothers, the reformers, the pietists or the revivalists anymore in many ways, we are losing touch with what Christians believed just a few decades or even a few years ago.Īnd worse yet, we’ve reached the tipping point, where many have forgotten the teachings of Christ himself, replacing them with Reformed theology, biblical manhood, conservatism, biblical inerrancy or whatever movement happens to have caught our attention. There is a measurable spiritual amnesia among many American people of faith. “It’s a recipe for what Jesus called building your house on a foundation of sand.” And in a day when many Christians understand their faith through song lyrics, social media and their favorite TV news personalities, it’s a recipe for what Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, called building your house on a foundation of sand. For most of us, the Bible verses we do know are little more than just snippets - easy to take out of context, easy for bad actors to misuse, propping up one ideology or another. There’s nothing wrong with new songs, but in a world in which most Christians (including myself) have memorized embarrassingly more song lyrics than Scripture verses, I wonder if the ever-accelerating rotation is contributing to the disconnection so many Christians have from the historic roots of the faith. I still think there’s something beautiful about fresh new expressions of faith, However, as the music of last year quickly gets replaced by the new songs of this month, I’m beginning to wonder if it’s all happening too fast. I spent most of my late teens and early 20s filling church basements and semi-abandoned buildings with a loud and joyful (if not always in tune) noise, before, like many of the other DIY worship warriors my age, finally refining my sound and taking to the bright lights and slick 75-minute productions of megachurch style contemporary worship services. For much of my life, I was on the front lines, armed with my Epiphone SG and my 120-watt Fender amp that could blow your hair off if I cranked it all the way up. I am not trying to rehash the worship wars, and I’m not an anti-CCM guy.
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