Gendered Piety in Christian Worship
Issue 9
We believe that it is not just the lyrics we sing which communicate meaning, but the sound of the music, and how we sing and play it. Music in worship should have as much majesty and beauty as we are able to muster, and it is fitting that it sound different to the music of the world, especially when that music is trite and lacks gravitas.
-Bnonn Tennant
When I was a young lad, Christian radio was part of life. It was in the car, in the house, at church, and playing on a TV at the grandparents’. I was quite familiar with all the popular songs, and I did not mind them. But there was one rather unsettling aspect. Occasionally, a song would play in which my young ears had a very difficult time deciphering whether the main vocalist was a man or a woman. Usually my mother would tell me it was a man, and I would continue to listen, a rather sickening knot winding up in my stomach. Men weren’t supposed to sound like that. They were supposed to sound like, well, men.
The difference and contrast between man and woman is highlighted by God in Genesis 1 and 2 within the first week of the earth’s existence. It is part of His created order, and it is integral to how this world operates. Within the dance of masculine and feminine found in every order of creation, all pointing to the relationship between Christ and His bride the church, there are rules of operation and hierarchies which, if broken, lead only to destruction and despair. Not only are they not allowed to exchange their roles and hierarchies, they are physically and spiritually incapable of doing so (Romans 1:24-27). In our society’s embrace of perverse behavior, including an attempt to exchange our roles in this area, we remain blind in our sin, failing to recognize the outcomes of our departure from God’s established and inerrant word. And in all our trying, we can’t even achieve our goal of reversing God’s created order. We have only achieved a twisted, evil version of it.
This article will operate on the presupposition that the reader already has an understanding of this. For a more complete apologetic for this presupposition, read Masculine Christianity by Zachary Garris, It’s Good to be a Man by Foster and Tennant, and more Scripture.
Unfortunately, as men in the church have in their passivity given up their authority and responsibilities, our society has taken a headlong dive into where this sin leads—the reversal of masculine and feminine roles and sexual perversion. Since our theological understandings have real-world, physical outcomes, we should not be surprised when we see such sins appearing in what we consider regular, everyday activities. One of these, on which we will focus in this article, is how the church has fallen into this sin in its worship through song on Sunday mornings.
This is no laughing matter. When we come before the great white throne in worship to the Most High God every week, along with all the other saints and angelic hosts, we are musically revealing how we honor God—in this case, what we think of His created order. In these times, the church, having become tainted by its secular neighbors, has a woefully low view of the Lord’s created order.
The current state of affairs
It is a sad but true fact that most men find themselves uncomfortable when called upon to sing in church. Why is this? There are many factors, and I would doubt that it is unique to this point in history, but I think that our recent bout of uneasiness among men began to occur during the Second Great Awakening.
The Second Great Awakening, unlike its predecessor, was largely built upon the backs of men who had one goal and one goal only: get people into church—right now. The great mistake in this movement was the idea that if we could only execute a proper tent meeting, we would see mass conversion across the nation. Charles Finney was a significant driving force behind this, and as a result of his practices, other preachers—inspired by his apparent success—adopted his style of preaching. Gone were the days of long-term, organized, weekly covenant renewal. Now the circuit riding preacher or traveling pastor or even the town minister, having adopted the Finney style, would stir up their congregations into a fevered pitch, call them to accept Christ, and move on, leaving behind a deflating balloon.
As a result of this emotional manipulation, many changes began to occur, not the least of which was the idea that in order to be a Godly person, one must be a spiritually aloof person, an emotional and spontaneous person. A change in the style of worship also began to occur. The singing of psalms was dropped in favor of the hymn—after all, the psalms didn’t quite have the emotional grab that many of the contemporary hymns of the day did. Today, we can thank the Second Great Awakening for being one of the first movements of the church to erode our musical heritage. Today, almost nobody sings psalms. In fact, it is a rather unheard-of activity in evangelical Christian circles.
Hand in hand with emotional manipulation becoming commonplace within churches was a more acute focus on specifically marketing to women within the church. This makes sense, as women are more emotionally driven and were therefore more easily persuaded by the modern method of collecting warm bodies to fill pews. Pastors and elders, seeking the approval of strange women, sought to pander to the female side of their congregations. This tendency has since appeared in almost every aspect of the modern church—from preaching against masculine attributes to considerately staying away from touchy subjects to singing highly emotive, feminine songs during worship. Not only is this the result of trying to market the church to women, but it is also the result of over a century’s efforts on the part of the church to turn the Holy Spirit into a vending machine—plug in this style and get this result.
There are many ways in which these tendencies manifest themselves. I will go into detail for several aspects I have noticed, and then I will switch gears and give the positive side of things—what the church should instead be aiming for.
1. The leadership is not masculine
Men are perfectly happy to follow other men—if they see these other men going in promising directions. They are also far more willing to step in line if the line is being headed up confidently and with strength. The two questions men typically ask subconsciously are 1) where are we going? and 2) how likely is it that this guy can get us there?
It is beyond the scope of this article to provide textual, biblical presuppositions that women should not be leading corporate worship. That is a Theology 101 question which has already been thoroughly and adequately handled by many pastors and theologians. So when we say that the leadership is not masculine, I am referring to a church whose worship is directed by a dude who can’t wear the pants like a real man, figuratively and literally speaking.
This can be a problem at any congregation, but non-masculine tendencies usually show up in two types: one is a simple lack of confidence and the other is a deliberate embracing of feminine attributes. Lack of confidence can show up within any congregation, but the embracing of feminine attributes is far more common in churches which utilize the modern contemporary style—since it is far more emotive and therefore feminine than the average song composed in a classical style, and it takes a certain type of person to enjoy leading such a style.
There’s an old saying that there are three sexes—men, women, and church ministers. I think this is still applicable in many places today, but most especially when applied to worship leaders. Within mega churches, it’s not uncommon to see male worship leaders wearing slicked back hair, wide v-necks showing smooth untanned skin, skinny jeans, and shoes which have never seen grass, much less dirt. In more conservative churches, men are usually dressed more appropriately. But like the mega churches, they still occasionally sing in the emotive, high-pitched, lilting, crooning style. In other words, they sing like women. There is no bold, confident, strengthening sound of masculine power behind their voices. Even if the lead singer is confident, he is confident in singing a feminine, emotive style. Ironically, a man who can summon up his inner female to get himself into this position is generally a very soft-spoken, timid man to interact with in real life—that is, life off the stage.
Thus, the answer to question 1 in this section is we are going to castrate ourselves and the answer to question 2 is and it looks like we’re going to do it in front of God, the heavenly host, and our wives. All while we thick-headedly wonder why men have a difficult time singing in church.
2. The lyrics seem to mirror pagan female pop music.
A significant portion of why men don’t sing is because the music itself doesn’t sound masculine. It’s as simple as that. A worship leader can sing many lullabies in a masculine sounding voice, and it would make the congregation as a whole more comfortable singing such nonsense. But there are other factors as well. Modern worship lyrics, generally speaking, are heavily geared towards a feminine mindset. They are soft and emotive, as if a misguided teenage girl wrote a love song to her boyfriend Jesus.
Now let the objections begin. Sure, the church as a whole does play a feminine role. We are the bride of Christ as Ephesians says, the men and women of us, and we should all act accordingly. But what does this mean? How should this play out? Should the men take pointers from fairytale princesses and emasculate ourselves in like manner when we come before the throne of God?
No, obviously not. We relate to Christ in a feminine fashion as His bride, and one of the best ways we can do that is by submitting to His will as our covenant head by obeying His word. Since we love Him, we keep His commandments (John 14:5). And in the word of God, we discover that He made us male and female, that He has different roles for both of us, and that we look, act, speak, and think very differently from one another. This is not only a good thing (as was the rest of the creation), it is a very good thing (Genesis 1:31). In God’s perfect plan, this was how He made us, and he absolutely abhors any attempts we make to discard these distinctions.
In fact, it is an abomination for men to act like women. Exodus 18:22 prohibits men from playing the part of a woman during the sexual act, and Deuteronomy 22:5 takes this prohibition further by saying that even to dress like the opposite sex is an abomination. 1 Corinthians 6:9 should make many evangelical church members squirm when it lumps not just the homosexual but the effeminate next to adulterers and fornicators. It reminds us of Jesus’s statement that it is possible for someone to commit adultery in their very hearts.
Similarly, it is not the homosexual act by itself that condemns us. We should flee from any notion that would begin to take us down that path.
Visibly, effeminate behavior and dressing is the first outward indication of such sins. I am especially appalled today when I hear men speaking like women—there are rare turns of phrase in English that would only appropriately come out of a woman’s mouth, but far more frequently I find men speaking with a thin, soprano lisp or giving sentences a lilting up-turn at the end. The tendency towards female ways of speech doesn’t even stay out of the church.
How can we say that we are adequately following our created order when we are singing songs whose lyrics are blatantly opposed to the way our gender operates? Take this as an example:
Ooh, and at the cross, You beckon me
You draw me gently to my knees
And I am lost for words, so lost in love
I’m sweetly broken, wholly surrendered
(Sweetly Broken, Jeremy Riddle)
Cue the dreamy music and floating sensation. There is no repentance mentioned or hinted at. There is no death before there is resurrection. It is all love and good feels, the complete giving away of oneself to emotional bliss in the arms of Jesus—reminiscent of a fainting princess in the arms of her lover. Is this what God-fearing men should absorb and embody?
Of course, there is the verse “Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-31). This is a very comfortable sounding verse, but it is a far cry from the greasy emotionalism referenced above in the song. Here in Matthew, Christ is calling us to lay aside the worldly burdens we assign ourselves to and instead enslave ourselves to His burden, which is comparatively easy—for it is meaningful, constructive, and not without fruit.
The fact that we are blurring the roles and distinctions between men and women in our secular culture is no laughing matter—Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for the sins we are committing. The fact that the church—even many reformed churches—are playing with such fire within its worship music in the very presence of God should make our hair stand up on end.
3. The style is the musical equivalent of romance novels.
We’ve already mentioned how the lyrics of a modern worship song are often effeminate and emasculating. But the tone and style of the music to accompany such lyrics is equally undesirable. Revisiting the above referenced song “Sweetly Broken” is a good example in how the style of the song reflects the lyrics. For a start, the melody line is set at a rather high pitch—somewhere close to a high tenor or melody an octave low in the average hymn. Now, if it was sung with a masculine roar similar to how high-pitched metrical psalms or hymns are often sung in more robust churches, things wouldn’t be so bad. But the author didn’t intend for it to be sung in this way. It is supposed to be sung in a lilting, soft spoken fashion. How do I know this? Because the author and everyone else I’ve heard sings it this way—as it was designed to be sung.
Even the cadence of the lyrics matches the lilting turns of musical phrase. Here’s a more realistic arrangement of the lyrics, with the pauses matching the breaks in the lyrics.
Ooh, and at the cross, You
beckon me
You draw me gently
to my knees And I am
lost for words, so
lost in love I’m
sweetly broken,
wholly surrendered
Though accusing the rhythm of a song as being androgynous can sound a little extreme, I can at least give credit to the author—he most definitely understood how the rhythm of a song should reflect the notes and the lyrics and the overall feel. He did a good job. In this case, the split sentences give the impression that the singer has such overwhelming emotion going on that he is unable to speak in a cohesive fashion. But it’s still poetic, which makes it work for a song.
This song and almost all others within the modern worship industry closely follow a pattern designed to play up to our human nature and emotional pathways. For instance, the song might start quiet and gradually build throughout. Or (as is the case in the song above) a repeated chorus, very catchy and well written, is sung over and over until a dreamy numbness comes over the congregation. Contrast this to the measured cadence of a typical hymn in the classical style, where the energy of the congregation is what puts feet on the music. If the congregation sings quickly and loudly, a masculine strength is infused into the song. If it sings quietly, the song has a more delicate touch. With our modern styles, the original artist of the song emotionally leads the congregation to who knows where, while in the classical or traditional style, the congregation infuses emotion into the song. The former involves no mastering and channeling of one’s emotions, while the latter does.
And lest I fall into the error of chronological snobbery, might I add here that Fanny Crosby’s writings are full of emotionalism and sentimentalism. While there are exceptions, most of her songs focus on how we feel about God’s grace instead of simply praising God for His grace. They are oriented horizontally instead of vertically and focus on ourselves instead of on God. We can hardly blame her for being a woman and writing like one, but we ourselves can definitely be blamed for allowing her music to have become so popular within our church worship. It’s no wonder that we swallowed our modern style without a second thought—we’ve had the tendency to blindly follow our emotions for a long time now. Nothing new under the sun, after all.
4. The lack of harmony blurs gender roles
Up until the early 1900s, the average congregant harmonizing within Christian worship was commonplace. John Calvin was of the opinion that the church should sing in unison, but the overall fruit of the reformation seems to have been a good solid understanding of how to harmonize. With the advent of our modern style, harmonization has taken a back seat to easy sing-alongs and entertainment.
Harmonization has been dropped for a variety of reasons. They have mostly snowballed from the first reason, which is that most men are rightly not comfortable singing our emotive song selection and therefore don’t sing at all. Interestingly, the women have also lost their enthusiasm to sing—when they don’t have strong men to follow, it’s not fun anymore. Since nobody likes to sing, the modern instruments and style have stepped in to fill the gap. And today, we are stuck with a method of instrumentation and style which is not in itself conducive to harmonization—it’s not the point because no one wants to do it anyway. When secondary supporting instruments became primary leading instruments, 75% of the entire musical legacy of the past 500 years was thrown out the window in favor of one simple melody line (and even that was often tampered with to add style). As a result, men are now forced to stretch their voices to higher ranges in order to keep up with the worship leader emasculating himself in front of everyone. But almost worse than this is that with a higher melody line for the men, women are also stretched out of their range. But most can typically hit the same notes that the men are now required to sing. Because of this, there are often songs in which the church finds itself full of men trying to sing like women and full of women trying to sing like men. It sounds worse than it sounds. It is as if some evil male/female hybrid were filling the church with a single non-gendered voice.
With a contemporary style which does not support masculine singing or harmonization, as well as a congregation which has not been taught by parents and fellow church members, it is not surprising at all that we are losing our musical heritage as we cluelessly look on.
What we should be aiming for
The devil is not scared of a congregation who does not know how to shout its own battle cry. But when men sing like men and women like women (unlike some homosexual sounding blend), we become effective warriors in Christ’s kingdom and dangerous enemies to satan’s attempted rule. But how shall we accomplish this?
1. Masculine leadership
The captain of any craft upon land, water, air, or space has within his leadership position the role of setting the tone. How the crew understands their work—whether they take it seriously, whether they have a good time doing it, and how well they perform it all depends on how the captain’s attitude affects their mindset. A captain who seeks to set no tone is a captain whose crew will be swayed by the more unfortunate aspects of diversity—everyone going their own unguided way.
I have been to churches where the hymns were not bad. Maybe even the choruses and worship songs weren’t that bad. But the lead singer didn’t understand his role in setting the tone of solid, confident masculine worship. Yes, there are women in the congregation. But men are called to lead corporate worship, and men are supposed to follow their lead, and the women follow their own husbands. This is only possible with a strong-voiced man who sounds like a man and who can sing well without emasculating himself. Only then will men be comfortable in following his lead, and only then will women sing clearly within their intended feminine roles—as followers and helpers instead of leaders within the congregation.
There are many complaints about how high-pitched modern worship choruses are written. But I would like to point out that there are many classical metered tunes, applied to numerous psalms and hymns, which are equally high-pitched. The difference is in the style and the execution of that style. Modern worship music, being written with excessive feminine emotion, is sung in a lilting, breathy fashion. On the other hand, Psalms and hymns (not the bad hymns, mind you) are meant to be sung mightily, with great shouts, and with strength.
Most men these days are not required to shout within their professions. There is no hailing a co-worker from across the field or from the top of a neighboring hill. Many blue collar workers today who work in shops or outside with machinery are still required to use the loud side of their voices. But most of our church leaders, tending towards the more mental aspects of the workforce, very infrequently use their “outside voice.” Therefore, they find it difficult to sing with a projecting, strong-winded voice of power—especially when singing on key is required.
If one were to observe a man shouting, he would realize that the pitch of his voice changes to a much higher range. To the best of my knowledge, it is impossible for the average man to shout in a bass rumble. This is how God naturally designed everyone’s voice to work: louder sound requires higher pitch. Within the style of music, this is the case as well. Emphasis and climax is made when the music becomes loud and high. Is is part of how music works. It is also a skill that men of today have lost—partly because they don’t shout every day, partly because our songs do not incorporate it in a masculine fashion, and partly because even if they did, we do not have leaders who encourage such things.
Singing in high pitched voices within church worship takes a deal of precision—otherwise, especially in these times, it can easily devolve into a feminine lilt. But singing higher can actually be done in a masculine fashion—if it has enough projection and power behind the voice.
Though it is a difficult mindset and skill to achieve, we need our men able to sing well. They are the ones who build the music which the women enhance. With a full band of guitars and other secondary instruments playing chords, it is as if the band is patting us on the head and saying “That’s nice and all, but we’ve already built the music today. You may follow along. Please become spiritual and civilized for a moment and just sing whatever you see on the screen.”
2. Biblical, solid lyrics and style
For all the complaining evangelical Christians accomplish regarding bad lyrics within contemporary worship, very few have thought through singing the Psalms, God’s original inspired book of hymns. To most people, it is a book of translated poetry which doesn’t rhyme and doesn’t fit into a meter and sounds clunky. Plus, we don’t live in David’s times and we aren’t plagued by enemies chasing us around mountains. Psalms must have been made so that we could spiritually identify with some of David’s emotional struggles.
On the contrary, Psalms are written to show us the nature of God—what He loves, what He hates, and how He is just and righteous in all His ways and kind in all His deeds. When we steep ourselves in any Scripture, we discover the mind of God. While we can be helped by outside resources such as hymns, let us not forget that scripture is fully adequate on its own to teach us all things (2 Timothy 3:16).
Therefore, if we were to stumble across a hymnbook written by God, most Christians worth their salt would realize its significance and use it as a primary resource for Sunday morning worship. The fact that this has not occurred with God’s hymnbook of Psalms is primarily because we are simple-minded and haven’t yet recognized it as a hymnbook. Imagine the joy it would bring our Creator to have us sing the words He himself has written back to Him.
Surely, at the very least, if we do nothing else, we should be singing Psalms. They should also be the standard by which we compare any other lyrics we bring as an offering before the throne of God. Hymns are not evil in themselves, but we should be fully aware that they are not inspired Scripture, that they are not infallible, and that to sing them without careful evaluation opens us up to singing anti-Biblical lyrics.
To sing solely out of a hymnbook is an extremely shaky foundation on which to stand. It is like preaching solely out of a commentary. Fortunately, many psalters forged in the classical style of Christian worship are available, and many re-printings have taken place in recent years. The Trinity and the Cantus psalter/hymnal have picked psalms from various sources and offer a decent amount of variety. I am very thankful to see an end of the era of the hymnbook—hymns are nice. Let’s keep some good hymns around. But the Psalms should be our starting point and foundation.
3. Harmonization
Why should we harmonize? Calvin thought it ill-advised to harmonize within Christian worship. I’ve been told that harmonization is not accessible, that it is not necessary, that God is just as pleased with our making noise of any sort—be it banging pans together or hollering in a flat monotone. It’s the thought that counts, after all. God looks at the heart, after all. We should focus on more spiritual things, after all.
Reject such sayings as coming from the one who disguises himself as an angel of light. Of course there is an objective standard of beauty, and of course we should be striving to attain to it—realistically, with actual physical implications such as taking time out of the day to practice. God appreciates physical beauty, which is why His creation is beautiful. It is also why He gave detailed instructions for the tabernacle beyond simply making it a tent in which to burn things. The people were instructed as to the colors, the designs, and the types of metal to be used, including who would be authorized to handle the fabricating of the parts. All of this extra attention to detail was done “for beauty and for glory” (Exodus 28:2 and 28:40). Psalm 96:6 reads “Splendor and majesty are before Him, Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.” Revelation is full of descriptions about how God surrounds himself with physical beauty and glory. Therefore, when the church gathered comes before him on the Lord’s day to covenant with Him and offer its praise, then of all times it should be extra cognizant to bring actual beauty with physical implications such as good musical sounds before Him. One of the ways the congregation (and not just instruments) can do this is by carefully using their voices to harmonize with one another.
In addition to sounding beautiful, harmonization makes the worship of the congregation more accessible to a wider range of voices. In a church where harmonization is commonplace, every man, woman, and child is able to sing within a vocal range in which they are relatively comfortable. This should be an intentional pursuit of ours, since the congregation assembled includes men, women, and children (Deuteronomy 31:12, Ezra 10:1, Nehemiah 12:43, Joel 2:14, Ephesians 5:22-6:4, Colossians 3:18-21).
When a wide variety of vocal ranges are available, men and women are more easily allowed to separate themselves into their respective gender roles—that is, women sing high and men sing low. This results in men sounding like men and women sounding like women. Contrast this with the modern style which, as discussed, often composes music in a way that blurs the distinctions between men and women—men sing high, soft notes which pertain to women and women sing low notes which pertain to men. Look no further than Deuteronomy 22:5 to observe God’s opinion on this: “Whoever does these things [cross dressing and the like] is an abomination to the Lord your God.” Strong words. God made us differently—a very good thing—and to destroy this distinction is a very bad thing.
Finally, I would like to add a note on just how well our traditional style of harmonization enhances congregational singing. I do not know how the four part harmony style we have today developed, but likely the church as a body of intelligently singing people slowly slipped into it over the centuries. It fits the average division of human voices within a congregation as if it were designed to do so. To understand this properly, I’ll give a brief explanation of the basic parts.
Soprano (High Female Part)
First on the top of the staff within the treble clef, this is the highest section within the average hymnbook, and it usually carries the melody. It is sung by women who can sing high notes, and it is also usually sung by men one octave down, especially if they don’t know the harmonies or if the song is not conducive to it, such as in a modern worship song. In contemporary worship, only the soprano part is sung, with the exception, occasionally, of—
Alto (Low Female Part)
Second down from Soprano is Alto, about half an octave lower, and it is sung by women with lower voices who can’t reach the high Soprano notes. It is also the only part usually sung (as an afterthought) by the contemporary worship crowd. Listen to any worship song on the radio, and you’ll usually hear some sort of female Alto voice in the background.
Tenor (High Male Part)
At the top of the bass clef, next down from Alto, Tenor is sung by men who can hit the high notes with accuracy, confidence and masculine projection (or some women whose voices have shifted lower as they have grown old).
Bass (Low Male Part)
Sung by most men, bass is the lowest of all at the bottom of the bass clef. It is easily concealed by the other men and by the other parts, so it is a good area in which to learn how to sing parts without having to sing loud and ruin the song with inaccurate notes. It is also usually the simplest part, since creating a low background drone is not very difficult.
With this system, men, women, and children all have choices they can make. Typically there is some sort of stretch involved—none of us have perfect voices—but it brings order, depth, and congregational participation to any song it is applied to.
The average congregation consists of about equal parts men and women, but in my experience it does not consist of an equal division of high and low voices. Roughly 70% of women prefer to stick to more of an alto range, while the other 30% are happy to sing the higher, more piercing notes of Soprano. Similarly, about 85% of men would prefer to hang out in the bass section (though many don’t know how to sing the part and simply take the melody down yet another octave). The other 15% have the ability and range to sing the higher Tenor notes.
This is not an insignificant fact. Higher voices are more piercing and more dominant, meaning that if there were an equal distribution of high and low voices, nobody would be able to discern the Bass or Alto parts. But since God has created a disproportionate number of high and low singers, we enjoy a very balanced, harmonious collection of voices. The higher number of congregants singing Bass and Alto matches quite well with the small number of loud people you can hear on the other side of the room.
Creating a worship style which compromises or switches between masculine strength and feminine emotion is not a goal we should be striving for. We should instead be aiming for a style where men can sing like men and women can sing like women at the same time. This is only possible with masculine leadership, robust lyrics and style, and widespread harmonization. When men lead with confidence, the women will follow with confidence, and this is where the ultimate embodiment of God’s created order regarding gender roles will take place. It is also where the church will sound the most musically adept, courageous, and powerful.
When men actually sing like men and women like women, it puts feet on the words, and the congregation is strengthened to the point where it is able to stand up in the real world against the world and its sinful desires. The church body leaves the doors of the church not asleep, but ready to slay evil. Satan and his demons do not spend time to bother with people who sing the contemporary soft styles featuring smooth guitar chords lulling congregants to sleep, because he knows that soon enough they will indeed be asleep. When they walk out of the church, they wake up as if from a dream and set their minds to return to their normal, real-world tasks, independent of their faith, which they left sleeping at the doors of the church. It’s the people who sing fighting songs with confident, fighting voices and leave the church carrying this confidence with them that he’s concerned about.