Does Anyone Listen to What They're Singing Anymore?!

Okay this might be one of those points that could sound like a small moan ... maybe. But I hope my point will come across. It was prompted by the purchase of the latest Brighton "Together on a Mission" worship CD - "Salvation's Song: 2008 Live worship from TOAM & Mobilise". It's always hard to listen to a live worship CD and "connect" to the sense of worship there when you weren't actually at the conference yourself. I always find Newfrontiers live worship CD's the easiest to try though - because I've been to more conferences than not, I can imagine pretty well what it was like. But would I rave about it? Because you've probably figured out I am one of those people who can't be lukewarm about anything - I love it or I hate it! Whereas this CD - I'm lukewarm. I love some of the songs (more later) ... I always love Lou Fellingham and Simon Brading's wonderful worship leading ... but ... I don't have the memories to bring it to life!

The one song that has confused me somewhat is Lou Fellingham's recent; "Once I was dead to You (Promised land)". And here's where the whole "hymnody" musing arose. The song (while sang beautifully by herself and the gathered thousands) has the line in it:

"Through Your suffering, I’m forgiven, Pressing onward to the promised land ... His name is Jesus, sent from Heaven, To take us homeward to the promised land".

I have to ask - why did the Fellinghams chose the words "Promised Land" to describe what they clearly mean as heaven? Because in doing so they have abandoned a clear fundamental restorationist type of Old Testament teaching (absolutely central to Ern Baxter's Dales Bible Week 1977 series) and have adopted a more popular but misguided conservative evangelical type - seen in hymns every now and then. Essentially that teaching - as Lou Fellingham sings - is that the "Promised Land" is a spiritual type of heaven and our eternal rest.

But as C H Spurgeon asks:

"It has generally been considered, that the passage of the Jordan by the Israelites is typical of death, and that Canaan is a fitting representation of heaven. We believe that in some sense it is true, and we do fondly cherish the household words of those hymns which describe our passing through Jordan's billows, and landing safe on Canaan's side; but we do think that the allegory does not hold, and that Jordan is not a fair exhibition of death, nor the land of Canaan a fair picture of the sweet land beyond the swelling flood which the Christian gains after death.

For mark you, after the children of Israel had entered into Canaan, they had to fight with their enemies. It was a land filled with foes. Every city they entered they had to take by storm, unless a miracle dismantled it. They were warriors, even in the land of Canaan, fighting for their own inheritance; ...

But when we cross the river of death we shall have no foes to fight, no enemies to encounter. Heaven is a place already prepared for us; out of it the evil ones have long ago been driven; there brethren shall await us with pleasing faces, kind hands shall clasp ours, and loving words shall alone be heard. The shout of war shall ne'er be raised by us in heaven; we shall throw our swords away, and the scabbards with them. No battles with warriors there, no plains besoaked with blood, no hills where robbers dwell, no inhabitants with chariots of iron.

It is "a land flowing with milk and honey;" and it dreams not of the foeman of Canaan of old. We think the church has lost the beauty of Scripture, in taking Jordan to mean death, and that a far fuller meaning is the true allegory to be connected with it".

Does it really matter you may ask? It's "poetic license" and it makes the song sound nice. Well how about I give another example from the more cessationist side of things before drawing my conclusions.

I remember shortly before I left my home church in Dunstable, the new pastor (and successor to Dr Stanley Jebb) was receiving rave reviews from most of the congregation mainly because he was choosing "lively choruses" during the worship - whereas for the last few years in Dunstable, the worship had been restricted to hymns. But I was rather staggered when he proceeded to preach a sermon from 1 and 2 Samuel about Saul prophecying with the prophets - and drew an application from that, that the gift of prophecy did not and could not exist today ... and closed and asked us to stand and sing; "I Hear the Sound of Rustling"!

For those who are not aware of the chorus - "I Hear the Sound of Rustling" was a very popular chorus that was sung during the Charismatic Movement at the Dales and Downs and our own Anglia Bible Weeks. The lyrics included a charismatic theology (that the new pastor of my home church had just spent half an hour trying to dismantle!) including words like this;

"The Spirit of the Lord has come down on the earth

The church that seemed in slumber has now risen from its knees
And dry bones are responding with the fruits of new birth ...

And all around the world the body waits expectantly

The promise of the Father is now ready to fall

The watchmen on the tower all exhort us to prepare

And the church responds-a people who will answer the call

And this is not a phase which is passing

It's the start of an age that is to come ...

A body now prepared by God and ready for war

The prompting of the Spirit is our word of command

We rise, a mighty army, at the bidding of the Lord

The devils see and fear, for their time is at hand ...".

I personally love the song! But there again - I believe fervently in restoration! Why on earth were we singing that chorus after an essentially cessationist sermon in a reformed evangelical functionally cessationist church?! Can that be called "poetic license" too?

And here again we come back to my problem. Are we really listening to what we are singing? One of my favourite historical books charting the Charismatic Movement (or more accurately the Restorationist Movement) is by Professor Andrew Walker and is called; "Restoring the Kingdom". Professor Walker made the point that in his opinion Graham Kendrick was probably the most influential "theologian" of charismatic life in the United Kingdom - purely through his choruses and his songs. So on the one hand songs DO matter! But then on the other - do they?

I must state my profound admiration for SGM and in particular Bob Kauflin at this point. I've made no secret of the fact that I have many problems with some of their ecclesiology. But thanks to songwriters like Bob Kauflin - SGM are 100% consistent in what they believe and in what they sing. I could be wrong but I doubt you will find an SGM-written song promoting a theological viewpoint that they don't believe in. I remember years back Mark Altrogge wrote a number of restorationist songs (because we sang some of them back in Dunstable in the days before I had even heard of C J Mahaney or Larry Tomczak!). I doubt they are sung anymore in SGM circles - and again I applaud the consistency with the changes in theology.

So back to the song that started this "moan" - Lou Fellinghams; "Promised Land". I suppose in the grand scheme of Kingdom New Covenant life - it really doesn't matter whether I sing a song about heaven being like the Promised Land or not. But I think C H Spurgeon has got the ultimate and final point. Are there going to be giants in heaven with cities to take? I sincerely hope not - if Scripture is to be believed. So why then are we singing about it? Does it signify a drift away from Newfrontiers traditional restorationist beliefs or is it really as simple as the line fitted the song quite well? Or does no one really care?!