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That Saved a WHAT Like Me??? – Church Music and Deconstruction

That Saved a WHAT Like Me??? – Church Music and Deconstruction

Last updated on: May 1, 2022 at 7:34 am by Gregory T. Smith

That Saved a WHAT Like Me??? – Church Music and Deconstruction 2022-05-01T07:34:42-08:00 Gregory T. Smith

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Many people going through faith deconstruction say they have difficulty with hymns and worship music. The church needs to be more thoughtful about the songs we sing. Here are a few kinds of songs that would be better off, left out of the hymnal or the video projection:

Image by GemmaRay23 from Pixabay

Bloody Songs

Many of the songs we sing in church are more fit for a butcher shop than a house of worship. Songs like “Are You Washed in the Blood?” make me wonder whether Christians have stopped to ask what they’re singing. We must as ourselves if non-Christians visiting the church might be repulsed by that kind of imagery (which Jesus himself never used). I never realized until I pastored my first church, how many bloody hymns we sing. How about this one…

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins,
and sinners plunged beneath the flood all their guilty stains.

That’s like “Are You Washed in the Blood” on steroids! Or what about, “Alas, and Did My Savior Bleed,” or “There is Power in the Blood?” So much of the language we use in church is bathed in blood! This can be hard to stomach for some churchgoers. If you were raised with it, you’ve probably never thought about it. But once you start to deconstruct, you become aware of how violent some of our music is.

Violent Songs

When I was young, it seemed perfectly natural that we sang songs about battle. Because it’s what I was raised with, it felt normal. But how would the Prince of Peace really feel about verses like…

“Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.
Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe;
Forward into battle, see his banners go!”

Here’s another. “The Battle Belongs to the Lord” by Collins and Owens says:

In heavenly armor we’ll enter the land
The battle belongs to the Lord
No weapon that’s fashioned against us shall stand
The battle belongs to the Lord

Refrain: We sing glory, honor
Power and strength to the Lord
We sing glory, honor
Power and strength to the Lord

When the power of darkness comes in like a flood
The battle belongs to the Lord
He’s raised up a standard, the power of His blood
The battle belongs to the Lord…

When your enemy presses in hard do not fear
The battle belongs to the Lord
Take courage my friend, your redemption is near
The battle belongs to the Lord

Proponents of religious songs with violent lyrics say, “These are about spiritual warfare, not physical fights. They don’t advocate violence.” While they’re right, and while the casual reader can find a few verses about spiritual warfare, most violence in the Bible is quite literal. And some church songs are about actual, physical violence:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored
He have loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword
His truth is marching on

In an era of school and church shootings, gay-bashing, religious terrorism, and ecclesiastically supported war—do we really need songs that glorify violence of any kind? Whether that’s violence against each other or violent wrath from God—these songs potentially traumatize people who have come to church as a safe haven. People who deconstruct their faith to find Jesus as the Prince of Peace often develop difficulty with violent songs in church. So why not eliminate them altogether?

Nationalistic Songs

Why do American hymnals have an entire section of nationalistic songs? Some of them aren’t even hymns, but simply patriotic anthems. Let’s ask ourselves what place these songs have in the Church. If Church is all about Jesus, why are we singing about our allegiance to the state when we’re in the house of God? If we say we want to have inclusive congregations, why do we exclude people who are not citizens by singing patriotic songs in church? I can’t count the number of times non-citizens shifted awkwardly on national holidays when my music director chose nationalistic music.

While nationalistic hymns are a big deal in the US, this isn’t just an American phenomenon. “God Save the Queen” is the national anthem of the United Kingdom. Its lyrics, quite religious in nature, pray in verse two:

O Lord our God arise,
Scatter our enemies,
And make them fall!
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On Thee our hopes we fix,
God save us all!

Of course, not all nationalistic songs are violent in nature. As an American Transplant to the True North, I’ve come to appreciate the religious lyrics of “O Canada!”

Ruler Supreme, who hearest humble prayer,
Hold our dominion within Thy loving care.
Help us to find, O God, in Thee
A lasting, rich reward,
As waiting for the Better Day,
We ever stand on guard.

This lyric asks for God’s loving providence and protection, without praying for violence to be done upon enemies. Neither does it proclaim one country to be better than another country. Still, I must question the appropriateness of national songs in the church at all. Certainly, we are all citizens of some country—but ultimately our citizenship is in heaven.

Racist Songs

I’m not suggesting that the church intentionally sings racist songs. Neither am I suggesting that songwriters have intentionally communicated racist ideas. But we must be careful about singing songs with lyrics like, “Whiter than snow, yes, whiter than snow. Now wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” Blogger Anneli Loepp Thiessen says that when White Evangelicals sing “Amazing Grace, My Chains are Gone,” it references slavery outside their cultural experience and is heard much differently by BIPOC folks. And when the church sings Zack Williams’ “A Slave to Nothing,” it has a different feeling to the Black and Indigenous population than it has to White people. Beyond this, I have personally cringed when in Southern White churches I have heard soloists sing Black spirituals while affecting the accent of antebellum plantation workers. The Church needs to do better.

Worm Theology

Some of the songs we sing communicate an anthropology that says we are nothing but miserable worms. For example, “Alas and did my Savior bleed and did my sovereign die. Would he devote that sacred head to such a worm as I?” Even beautiful songs like “Amazing Grace” contribute to this misunderstanding of our position in God’s eyes*. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me”* may have fit Isaac Watts to a tee as he contemplated his own slave-trading past. But if the songs that you regularly sing testify to your wretchedness, unworthiness, and depravity, maybe you need to rethink your music. We are not wretches, unworthy of salvation. God loved us so much that God saved us and promised to never let us go. Does that sound like a wretch to you? We must be careful of the songs that we sing, and the messages they communicate with their beautifully toxic words.

Theories of Atonement

If you’re deconstructing, you’ll quickly find that some of your favorite songs have a theology that you now find unconscionable. Some of these have to do with theories of atonement that you can no longer accept. Like the blood songs that are all about the penal substitutionary atonement, where “Nothing But the Blood of Jesus” can wash away my sin. Or the similar satisfaction theory of atonement, where “on that cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.” Or songs that support the ransom theory, where “Jesus Paid it All,” as if Satan could be more powerful than God, and held us for a ransom that Jesus paid. Many of the songs we sing contain lyrics that we’ve come to view as antithetical to the goodness of God.

Oh, Be Careful, Little Ears, What You Hear

Many of us remember the children’s song that says, “Oh, be careful, little ears, what you hear. Oh, be careful, little ears, what you hear. For the Father up above is looking down in love. Oh, be careful, little ears, what you hear.” We must be careful what songs we sing in church because our children will hear them. And by them, they will form their perspective of God. People normally can’t tell you what the pastor preached on last Sunday, but they can tell you the favorite song they sang. They don’t remember more than a handful of sermons that they have heard over their lifetime, yet they sing word for word along with the congregation, choir, or music on the radio. Music goes deep, penetrating the soul. The message of music matters.

If you’re going through deconstruction, you may have noticed many of these songs that no longer fit your new spiritual perspective. At one time, I felt like most Christian music either sounded hollow or completely turned me off. Then, one person said something that rescued sacred song for me. I’ll tell you what that was, next time.

Next time, we’ll look at what you can do to save church music for yourself and for those you love. We’ll discuss different ways churches can approach the theology of their music, and how they can do better. I hope you’ll join me.

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