Wow, so there has been a veritable rash of blogging (here and here) on the subject of "contemporary" and "traditional" worship. It may be asked, first of all, as Dave was originally asking, whether what we're talking about is actually worship, or, more to the point, whether what we're discussing regards the entirety of worship. One of the men at our church recently wrote in his Handbook for Worshippers—and I tend to agree—that "to worship is to obey," and, given that broad a definition, we could hardly say that any of our discussions about "contemporary" and "traditional" worship come close to treating this topic as a whole.
This is mostly a semantic argument; we all know what we mean when we say "contemporary worship" or "traditional worship" and we know we aren't talking about all that worship is about. But, I do think it's important to note from the outset that when we are talking about worship, we are primarily talking about an expression of submission to our King, our Lord, who submitted Himself to His Father for the sake of us who were His enemies. (The meaning of the most common Hebrew word for worship, of course, is "prostrate oneself." This is a term borrowed from the political sphere, it denotes the action one performs before one's king.)
So, Brian is quite right to point out that "we have to distinguish between your act of worship and the medium through which it's expressed." And, he is quite right to want to evaluate this "act of worship" in a way other than by means of "the worshiper's immediate emotional response," as he accuses Jason of doing. Ultimately, as evangelicals, we want to say that what matters is the posture of one's heart. Is the worshipper's heart prostrate before God? Is his life laid before his King, ready to do His will? We cannot know this, no matter how earnest the worshipper appears to be, or how staid and subdued his expression might be. The physical manifestation of one's worship does not reveal the character of one's worship.
But we all know that, right? Worship is more than music, and, no matter what kind of manifestation of worship we're talking about (musical or otherwise), we know that judging the heart of the worshipper by the nature of his worship is, at best, meaningless, more likely, damaging. So, the only way to attack the question we're all dying to talk about is from the other direction, namely: what music best facilitates worship? That is, let's assume a worshipper who is earnestly seeking to worship God in song, and then consider what musical form(s) might best facilitate this worship.
The first thing that must be said about this hypothetical, earnest worshipper is that no musical style is going to stand in his way. One of the wisest worshippers with whom I have ever been acquainted, Glenn Kaiser , told me that he treated those who said they couldn't worship with contemporary music and those who said they couldn't worship with traditional music the same way: he told them that if something as silly as musical genre really put an insurmountable barrier between them and true worship, then they had some growing up to do. If worship is about God, then the form should not matter.
I think this is what Luther was getting at when he talked about the Mass (Sunday Service) itself and all its accouterments as being ultimately unnecessary for the true community of believers. Music, sermons, and all the rest would be unnecessary in a true spiritual community in which the believers would feast directly on the Word of God and the Sacrament. Luther's great investment in music and in liturgy in general was one big pastoral concession to the "weak" in his churches.
But, back to reality, as Luther's concessions show, the form does matter. Even for those of us who experience worship-in-song as a fruitful part of our Christian lives, we experience that worship is facilitated by some music more easily than by other music. Why is this so?
My first conviction relevant to this question is that worship is valuable only in as much as it is authentic. My guess is that we will all agree on this point. I have been convinced of this again recently when considering two passages that seem at first to be in conflict (and, interestingly enough, may represent loosely the viewpoints of our two friends). On the one hand, we have David dancing in his underwear so vigorously before the ark in 2 Samuel 6 that his wife, Michal is scandalized. He responds by insisting, "I have danced before the Lord. I will make myself yet more contemptible than this, and I will be abased in my own eyes...” David's jubilant expression of worship is not going to be tempered by his wife's concern for decorum. On the other hand, we have Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees in Matthew 6.1-6, which ends "And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you." Which is it? Are we to worship God boldly before men or quietly in secret? The "conflict" is resolved when we consider that in both cases the concern is that the worship be done authentically. David's dance had to be as it was because that's what was in his heart. Jesus' advice to his disciples in the context of Pharisees who loved to show off, was that they ought to hide when they pray, lest they end up praying for the sake of men seeing them rather than for the sake of their Father alone. Worship must be authentic.
As I see it, the most compelling argument for any form for worship is the extent to which it facilitates this authenticity of expression. The founder of the Vineyard, Kenn Gulliksen, said that the question of what musical genre to employ in worship in their church was not decided based on what would attract the most people (then you're just encouraging people to treat worship as entertainment! Again, Brian and Marva Dawn and so many others are right on this point: how much further could one get from worship as we've described it than entertainment!). Rather, the decision was based on what music would most simply facilitate their authentic expression of worship. Gulliksen remarks, "The question was 'what music do you sing in the shower?' Let's sing how we sing." The original Vineyard church was full of Southern-Californian hippies, so they sang the rock music of their generation. Using this music in their worship was like Luther using vernacular language in his services. I think that's what so-called "contemporary" worship ought to be about: vernacular forms, rather than novel forms.
The important difference is that whereas Luther was concerned that the Mass be conducted in the vernacular for the sake of those hearing the words spoken, vernacular musical forms in worship are properly concerned with the state of those speaking or singing the words. The strength of "contemporary" worship is that when we sing with vernacular musical forms, the words of the songs we sing become our words and the worship of God expressed in them becomes our worship.
Now, what we have just said is relative at at least two levels. The first is obvious. What is the vernacular style of music for one community may not be the vernacular style of music for another. Indeed, this was one of the effects of the Reformation: it was no longer the case that anyone could stroll into any church in the world and immediately understand the language in which worship was conducted. The significance of this ought not be taken lightly. One serious disadvantage of "contemporary" worship is that it tends to further entrench the divisions that already exist between Christian communities along racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic lines. The hymnody of 19th century is, at least among Protestant churches, the "Latin" of our musical genres. It is nearly no one's vernacular musical expression, but it is universally recognized and (to some degree) understood. This is why I have been frequently frustrated at my church's insistence that our musical style for worship is a matter of "who we are." That this is a matter of "who we are" shows that this is a matter of authenticity, but, at the same time, if our musical expression is that of suburban whites, then is "who we are" white? Certainly these issues are present even in "traditional" worshipping communities, but I think the use of vernacular forms and the inevitable question, "whose vernacular form?" exacerbates the issue.
But this line of reasoning is also relative on a whole other level. While explaining the way in which I think contemporary forms work in facilitating worship, I pulled a slight of hand. I jumped straight from "authenticity" to "vernacular" by means of Kenn Gulliksen's question "What do you sing in the shower?" If this doesn't seem like a leap in logic to you, it's likely that you are an American who shares the assumption that completes the logical flow. Authentic ≠ Vernacular. However, in a certain American mindset (especially, perhaps, a Southern Californian mindset) Authentic = Casual = Vernacular. The assumption is that to be authentic and intimate with someone, formality ought to be done away with. A sign of intimacy in our culture tends to be the loosening of formal guidelines regarding speech and dress. This seems almost too obvious to me, at least at first, but even I have to admit that this is an equation that is culturally conditioned. It is entirely conceivable that for someone else Authentic = Ancient = Traditional.
So, I guess my take is that true worship needs to be authentic and that we have to admit that for different folks that's going to mean different things regarding choice of musical style (among other things). What I hope I made clear is that contemporary worship need not be discussed in terms of marketing and mass appeal. The arguments against contemporary worship formulated along these lines are spot on. Rather, I think it's helpful if we return to the impetus for the use of these forms in worship, at least in the Vineyard: a desire for authenticity and intimacy in worship.
P.S. A final caution for those of us in the "contemporary worship" camp: We must be wary lest we, in the spirit of our dubiously-formulated label, fall into a trap Luther pointed out long ago, when he wrote that he had been hesitant to institute liturgical change “because of fickle and fastidious spirits who rush in like unclean swine without faith or reason, and who delight only in novelty and tire of it as quickly.”