Project Update 1

I am beginning to come to the limit of my own knowledge in the area of Christian worship, which simply means I have more reading to do. Furthermore, in an attempt to reduce editing down the road, I have begun to tailor my articles to parallel future chapters in the book I hope to write on this subject. At the very least it should make things a little more organized, although some stuff you’ve already heard might end up being repeated.

I have a stockpile of books yet to read and study through. Some focus on history, others on the theology of corporate worship, others on the state of the church, and others on, yes, actual hymns.

Currently I am about halfway through T. David Gordon’s book Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns: How Pop Culture Rewrote the Hymnal. It is a wonderful resource on sacred music within the Christian tradition, to include how and why it sounds different from our contemporary style. Whereas I have focused on why our contemporary style doesn’t work, Gordon focuses on why the very idea of adapting a different style of worship is misguided. Throughout history, Christian music has sounded notably different than its surrounding pagan styles of music—up until a scarce 50 years ago. While that in itself causes concern, the author sets up a well thought out argument as to why exactly this isn’t a good thing. I would recommend this book for anyone as it is easy to read and short and concise.

My reading list includes Leon Podle’s The Church Impotent, which I am hoping will shed some light on areas within corporate worship which embraces aspects of the culture where it should be rejecting them. I will no doubt also find some good applications of what this does to the church’s effectiveness within the culture.

Ann Douglas’s The Feminization of American Culture will also be a wonderful resource—where America slipped off into feminism and how it did so is something I’m looking forward to getting a better handle on. I’m especially looking forward to uncovering the implications of the Second Great Awakening in this book.

Another good one that I’ve skimmed through is The War Between the States: America’s Uncivil War. A few authors have collaborated to get this one published, and let’s just say that I’m glad I got myself a hard copy before it’s made illegal. While it mostly focuses on the Civil War (sorry, War Between the States), a significant part of the book is why the war had the cultural momentum to occur in the first place. While our war for independence from Britain is sometimes called the Revolutionary war, it was far from revolutionary—the British crown didn’t have the guts to protect us from the English Parliament, and we suddenly had to fend for ourselves against them. Nothing culturally significant occurred. The war between the states, however, was actually a revolutionary war. Pagan ideologies and greed had come to a head, and after a bloody conflict encompassing years, the southern states were forced to submit to a tyrannical federal government. Before and afterwards, this had huge implications upon the church. This is an all-around informative book, and it’ll probably get me a little riled up.

The Lord’s Service by Jeff Meyers has been recommended to me on getting a good biblical grasp of covenant renewal worship. While it appears to be on the headier side, I think it will help me get some needed biblical support.

A Course on Biblical Worship by James B. Jordan. I’ve got a deal of respect for this guy in the first place, though the scriptural connections he makes tends to make me scratch my head at times. I’m sure it will be informative.

2,000 years of Christ’s Power by Nick Needham. I’m on Volume IV at the moment, and it is obvious that this will be a tremendous resource on church history in general.

Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin will also be good—maybe not the entire thing, but I’m sure he has some good thoughts on worship somewhere in there.

Musical Instruments in Worship by Philip Kayser has been great thus far. I’m most of the way through it. While Kayser has a more open view of the application of musical instruments and the contemporary style, I greatly appreciate his rebuttal against the idea that instruments in Christian worship are prohibited.

Any other book I’m recommended by Somebody. Let me know if you have a book recommendation and I’ll see about getting my hands on it.

There are obviously many good books written on this topic, but I have not seen many published arguments for how all of the above material applies to what type and what style of worship should be used—to include what instruments are used and how one directs the singing. I’ve come across churches with solid theology and strong talking points on all of the right units of reformed belief. But what I see lacking is an understanding of why the classical, traditional style of Christian worship should be pursued and sought after. The application of solid theology to solid practice is something which I do not see commonly done within the reformed evangelical church in America.

I believe this is because we are seeing a reformation of sorts across the country. As the tares have grown up, the wheat field has realized that it has some catching up to do if it wants any sunlight. Many traditionalist, fundamentalist baptist churches have become reformed baptist. Many individuals have moved from some vague Christianity to reformed baptist to paedobaptist reformed postmillenial, theonomic monsters who don’t trust the government and who enjoy reading thick books on theology and church history. Much of this has occurred within the past 20 years as our culture has continued to backslide, and while it is true that many churches have disappeared into oblivion, being absorbed by the almighty State, there are many churches left who are in the process of seeking reformation, repentance, and revival—starting (as it should) with their own selves. Thus we have churches which are in the position to graduate from the milky nothing that we are currently singing and return to the straight bourbon and steak that our forefathers enjoyed—or maybe it’s wine and steak.

Lots of reading ahead for me—I will post articles as I get things in my head. They will likely follow a few several different formats going forward. I’ll likely be writing on short topics of new things I come across, as well as longer chapter formats, and updates such as these. Thanks for making it this far—check out the about section here to see how you can further support this project.