The Church Sung What?

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast making Theology Central. Good morning everyone. It is Monday, July the first, twenty twenty four. It is currently nine twenty seven am Central time. I apologize that is completely incorrect. Right, let me start over and say that again. Good morning everyone. It is Monday, July the first, twenty twenty four. It is currently nine thirty seven am Central time, and I'm coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. You see, if I wasn't live, I could have just I could have realized that the time was wrong and just continued because nobody would know what time I was actually recording it. But when you're live on the air and you say it's nine twenty seven, when it's actually nine thirty, people listening to you going he doesn't know how to tell time. He doesn't even know how to tell time. And I'm supposed to listen to him about theology and scripture and Christianity and church history. I'm not going to listen to a thing. He says. He can't even get the time right. So to verify, to just make sure to double down. Good morning everyone.

1:23 It is Monday, July the first, twenty twenty four, and now it is currently nine thirty eight am Central time, and I'm still coming to you live from the Theology Central Studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now, what I need you to do is forget what day it is. I need you to forget what time it is, and I need you to imagine the following scenario. Let's say it was yesterday, which was Sunday, right, So it was Sunday morning. You got in your car, you drove to your church. You got out of your car, you walked into the church. You're greeting everyone. Hey, how are you doing, How are you doing, how are the kids doing, how's that job going? Hey?

2:09 Is your grandmother you know, feeling better? Oh? How's this going? Oh it's been hot lately. Okay, you're just doing the normal talk, you know, you go around, shaking hands, talking, you know. Oh, how's everyone going? Okay, it's great. Finally you find your seat, the pastor welcomes everyone. Good morning everyone, thank you for being here at such and such church. We're gonna begin this morning's worship service with the following hymn. So take your hymn book and turn to page, stand and sing. And as soon as everyone starts singing, you know, man, people really love this song. People. People are singing it with with such you know, they are singing it strongly, they are singing it loudly. They are proud of this song. They really really love this song.

3:00 And you're like, oh, this is great. And then all of a sudden you like, wait a minute, Wait a minute, Wait a minute. This song was written by a person who was a Jewish agnostic who was also a part of the Freemasons. In fact, his daughter wrote the following about him, and I quote, this is a This is from a book written by the daughter of this man who wrote this song that you may have sung in church yesterday. In our scenario, you sung this song in church yesterday. This is what she wrote about her father who wrote this song. Are you ready? Here we go this and I quote all three of us would share our father's agnosticism and sidestep our husband's faiths. If I can picture my father, the non believer, it is listening to the reading, learning just like me, for he had long ago forgotten the story. Pleased that this is what my mother and I are doing. His own daughter referred to him as a non believer. His own daughter referred to his agnosticism.

4:09 So he is a Jewish agnostic who was a freemason. But yet here's your church. They're all singing the song and everyone seems to really love it, and they are loud, and you're like, wait, why why is everyone one? So they love this song so much? And then as you start thinking about it, well, this song is is really less philological and it's more patriotic. In fact, this song is very patriotic. But yet it was written by a Jewish agnostic who was a freemason, who is own daughter referred to as a non believer. So you see, what do I do? What do? It's patriotic? Oh, but it's written by someone who's an agnostic and a freemason. What do I do? What do I do?

4:56 What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? What do we do? Should it bother you? Now? But it's so patriotic, it's so great about America? What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? What do you think? Are you okay with it? Does it bother you. Are you happy with it? Are you proud to sing it? Do you overlook that it's basically it's written by a non believer. Does that even matter to you? Does it even matter to you in any way, shape or form. Let me put forth this question. What should be some basic requirements for what is sung in church? What should be a basic requirement for the song sung in your church?

5:45 At the very minimum, should they be written by a believer or at least someone who professes to be a believer. Would that be a basic requirement? I mean, can I mean? And if you say, well, no, it doesn't necessarily have to be written by a believer. It can be written by an unbeliever. Okay, So then where does it? So are basically where you're saying, well, as long as the words are okay, I don't really care if they're a believer or an unbeliever. Is that the way it works? And should the song be more thiological? Or is it okay that the song is more patriotic? What is the basic requirements? Because I will see some people yell and scream about what sung in church?

6:27 Right some if some church brings in a secular song, maybe by the beatles or something. No, that's horrible, that's ungodly. Well wait a minute, you're singing a song written by a Jewish agnostic who is a freemason, who his daughter, his daughter referred to him as an unbeliever. I don't know, maybe, just maybe we want to consider this. Now. I'm going to tell you the song that I'm referring to and just a minute, well, let me explain how we got here. For our sermons two point zero app sermon challenge for the next two weeks, what you're supposed to do is you only are to listen to live webcast. That's it. You open up the sermon's two point oh app or you go to bit it out sermonaudio dot com, you go to the webcast section and you only listen to what is live. Now, if you start listening and you're gonna be distracted, you can hit follow that broadcaster and when that message shows up in your feed, you can finish listening to it there. But the goal is to try to listen only live webcast. That's what we're gonna do for two weeks.

7:33 And I told you yesterday that I was a little that once I went live to kind of lay out the challenge that I kind of realized what am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? Because We've got the fourth of July holiday coming up? And I'm like, oh no. And then I'm like, Okay, well, you know, one of the things we're going to see in week one is we're going to see how much patriotism has infiltrated the American Church, how much patriotism and politics has entered the American Church. And I believe, in many ways corrupted the American Church because the church is not supposed to be patriotic unless you're being patriotic towards the Kingdom of God, towards your citizenship in heaven. Christianity transcend national identity. The church is there not to promote love for a country, unless you're talking about the heavenly country. Unless you're talking about the Kingdom of God. The church is not pro a country. It's pro the Kingdom of God. It's pro Heaven. It's pro where my citizenship is. It's pro Christ. That's what the church is supposed to be about. You're not national identity. But yet the church in many cases, many churches having a big American flag and the sanctuary I don't understand why church Christians allow that. Why that has nothing to do with Christianity zero, not a thing to do with Christianity. And if you can bring in symbolism into the sanctuary that doesn't refer to Christianity, then why is it that you can allow that but you won't allow this or this

9:05 or this or this or this. The sanctuary should be there to point people to Christ, not to your country. I don't even think there should be an American flag on the property. There should be if any so called symbolism should be pointing to Christ, should be pointing to the things of God, not to anything else. So I already have an issue with it. But I knew this is going to be a problem. I knew. I was like, Oh, this is going to be this is going to be bad. But okay, So yesterday we listened to a live webcast and we talked about do you understand what you read? I think that was an interesting discussion, all right, you know, I mean I kind of went to the webcast, the webcast that I looked at last night. I mean it was just kind of I mean, there was nothing overly dramatic about it, but we talked about it. Okay, it was good. I think the discussion was somewhat worthwhile. I always have a hard time being able to determine if what I did was good or bad, but I think it was an interesting conversation. Maybe it went a little long, maybe you think I was a little repetitive, but I think overall was pretty good. So then I woke up early this morning and I'm like, okay, let me see what live webcast is going on. So I opened it up. In fact, I have it right here. I did a screenshot of it. It was a Baptist church, Stanley Heights Baptist Church. They had nineteen total viewers. I think this started around six or seven in the morning. I don't know exactly what time. And the scripture they had, at least on the kind of

10:39 the thumbs the screenshot that I have, if you continue in my word, then you are my disciples, indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. And I'm like, okay, I wonder, okay, that looks interesting. So I hit play and they were singing. Now when I at first I wasn't paying attention because I was thinking, well, wait a minute, this is okay, this must be the beginning of the service. So I got plenty of time. I can, you know, start getting ready for the day, not really paying any attention because you know, it's the beginning of the worship service. I'm going to focus primarily on the sermon obviously, right. So I wasn't paying attention, and then all of a sudden, I realized what they were singing, and I'm like, wait a minute. And then I kind of looked at the stage and I'm like, I think that person's wearing like a military uniform.

11:26 I'm like, oh boy, okay, what is happening? What is happening? And then I'm like, wait a minute. They're singing God Bless America. I'm like, what is happening here? What is happening? They're singing God Bless America. I'm like, this can't be happened. I'm like no, no, no, no, no, no, no no no no no no. Well then that was their concluding him. They ended their worship service by singing God Bless America. And I'm like, this is this is questionable because God Bless America was written by Irvin Berlin, a Jewish American composer, and this was and this during World War One in nineteen eighteen, and later revised in nineteen thirty eight before World War Two. So it was written in nineteen eighteen and then later revised in nineteen thirty eight. Well, it's a patriotic song expressing loved for the United States. It isn't specifically a Christian hymn, even though it is found and I think I found on a loose one site four different hymnals have it in it. I think at least four.

12:37 Now I would have to continue to do research. I was looking because you know, some hymn books and some churches have an entire section of patriotic songs, which is just insane. Why are there patriotic songs and a hymnal. The hymno is supposed to lead us to worship and focus on God, not on our nation. But okay, I get all confused, all right. So, even according to one source, it's not a Christian hymn. The lyrics invote God's blessing on America, but they don't adhere to any particular religious doctrine. I kind of know why, considering the man who wrote it wasn't agnostic and his own daughter referred to him as a non believer. Instead, the song serves as a heartfelt expression of patriotism and hope for the nation.

13:24 Notably, it was popularized by singer Kate Smith and has become an enduring part of American culture. It's an enduring part of American culture. Has nothing to do with Christianity. It's patriotism. It's not theology. It's patriotism. It's not Christianity. But I looked up, you know a lot of information about you know, the writer of the song. And I'm not even going to refer to it as a hymn, because even though it shows up in hymn books, it's a song. And yeah, I mean he was, according to at least I think two sources, Freemason. He also belonged to some lodge he's referred to as Jewish, described as being agnostic. And again the quote from his daughter who wrote a book describing her life and a little bit about him. All three of us would share our father's agnosticism and sidestep our husband's faith. If I can picture my father the non believer, it is listening to the reading, learning just like me, for he had long ago forgotten the story. Please that this is the way my mother and I that this is what my mother and I are doing. Now, he was Jewish, he married a woman who was Catholic, so even if he had any connection to Christianity would be Catholicism. So now did you have agnosticism,

15:00 you have freemason, you have Catholicism and church. This is being sung in a Baptist church. Now look at that. Look that's okay. I'm not even gonna argue whether it's right or wrong to do. So what I'm going to argue is then be consistent. Then don't say, well, we can't sing this or we can't sing Why if you're going to allow a song that is put together by an agnostic who any connection to Christianity was Catholicism, and who his own daughter referred to as a non believer, if that's going to be what you allow, then don't sit there and criticize what other churches seeing. Look, my thing here is about the consistency. I don't look, I'm not even if you want to sing it for your patriotic worship service where you worship America, then by all means, go worship America and commit your idolatry. I don't care. I'm not even gonna I'm not even gonna judge you to criticize it. But then don't turn around and yell at some other church because oh, they use contemporary music or they're using rock music, or they stop it. Once you want you open the door, then you've got to let whatever walks through walks through. And you can't then just say, well, no, we can do this, but you can't. We can sing this even though it's not even by a Christian, and if it's not even written from a Christian perspective because the man was an agnostic. If we can do that, then you can't go judge them for having music because you don't like that. No, you can't do that. Once you open the door, then all bets are off. All bets are off. So now,

16:37 how many times have you been in church? Or it gets around the fourth of July and the song letter's like, let's sing God Bless America? Or what other patriotic songs are sung? What other patriotic songs are sung in your church? Come on? What other ones? Are you okay with it? Who are they written by? Again, I'm worried about I'm focusing on the case people are gonna misinterpret this. Right, you want to sing it, do whatever you want. I don't care. The issue is, then don't start pointing your fingers at everyone else because well I don't like that they do. You know what church produced that song? That songs from this church and I don't agree with their theology. Well, at least it's a church that believes in and God and Jesus. Okay, right, you may think the church is, so don't be condemning them because they're singing a song from a church that you disagree with theologically, But at least it's Christian versus you singing a song written by someone who wasn't even a Christian. Like, come on, now, don't you see the inconsistency there? So my thing is, if you're going to do this, then by all means you gotta let everyone else. Then you can't really regulate it anymore. And then this gets down to the regulative and normative principle. We've talked about those principles so many times. How churches uprate. Many churches say they hold to the regulative principle,

18:07 then they'll slide right over to the normative principle. And then some people are in the normative principle, they'll slide back over to the regulative principle. I think ultimately churches do exactly what they want to do, or they'll do exactly what the people will allow them to do. Now, I hope, I wish when when they upload the message, I'm assuming it's just going to be the sermon. I don't know if they'll maybe they'll maybe when we listen to the actual message, we'll get some idea of what was going on that I know what was happening in the church because I saw the video. It was some kind of I don't know what it was. Who knows what it was. Maybe we'll get a better idea of exactly what was going on.

18:49 But the point is whether whatever was going on there really is irrelevant. It's not even about that church. It's just about the issue that we know is happening will be happening between now mh and next Sunday, because because we're going to have the fourth of July week, the fourth of July holiday, which is I believe what Thursday, so you know, Wednesday night services are going to be probably heavily patriotic, and then Sunday probably we'll still have some patriotism left over if not go full blown patriotic And where where's what? What's the guiding principle here is it? Does theology trump patriotism or does patriotism trump theology?

19:30 What? What is the driving force? Now? I think it should be theology and not patriotism. I think when we walk into a church, it's not about America. It's not about Canada, it's not about Russia, it's not about whatever country. It's not about China. It's it's it's our national identity is irrelevant. It's about worshiping Christ. So I obviously am critical of the patriotism in church, but I'm more what I'm more, and I'm really trying to drive this point home. My main issue is just the inconsistency.

20:18 If a church does certain things, all pastors will lose their mind. Can that's worldly, that has no place in the church. That's ungodly. How they're turning the church into a circus and it's flushly and it's worldly. No, no, no. And the next thing you know, we got American flags all over the place, or waving America. I'm proud to be an America. Next thing you know, it's all, and he's like, wait a minute, wait a minute, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're condemning that you're bringing all this stuff in that has no place in the church. There's no scripture that would even in any way indicate that's what you're supposed to be doing. Now again, I'm relying more on the regulative principle with the normative principle, like, well, unless you can give me a scripture that actually condemns it, And I think maybe I don't know if I can give one that would specifically condemn it, but I think there's some principles that would guide what we do. But okay, I would probably slide back over into a regulative principle where I can only do in the church what is clearly commanded in scripture. Are clearly giving an example of That's why my church, you know, we didn't do all the stuff most churches do.

21:22 There was no fun, food, games, activities, there was none that we came to church to Sunday school with an hour of teaching Sunday morning, an hour of teaching Wednesday Sunday night, an hour of teaching Wednesday night, an hour of teaching. That's it. There was no activities. There was no events. That's what we did. And if anybody wanted any other kind of event, they could plan it on their own. And it happened outside of the church, not sanctioned by the church or or sponsored or funded by the church, because the church's job is the teaching of God's word, not all of this other nonsense. But that's because I hold to a strong, strong, strong, strong, strong belief in the regulative principle. But when it comes to what is sung, if a song is patriotic, then it no longer matters if the person was even a believer, doesn't even matter if the person was agnostic or connected to possible Catholicism, or as his own daughter referred to him as, as a non believer. None of that he was a freemason, None of that even matters. I mean, if it doesn't matter, that's okay. Like I'm cool with you, right, Like I mean, I disagree, and I would not go to your church doing all that patriotic stuff. I would get up and walk out, right. I wouldn't have anything to do with it. But that's cool that you do, right, that's awesome you do you. But my thing would be if you're going to do that. You can't really criticize anybody else for what they do.

23:03 So what do you think? Come on, what do you think what should be a basic requirement for what is sung in church? I don't even want to give you. I want you to tell me what you think the basic requirement should be. Where's that line? Where is the line of what can or cannot be sung? Some people will focus on the musical style, right, cannot have a drum, cannot have certain backb The emphasis cannot be on the two and four. It has to be on the one and three. We can get it, you know. Musical structure. It can't be too loud, It can't be this instrument. Okay, it can't be this. Some will say, well, it can't be a secular song, it has to be a really well but wait a minute, it isn't God Bless America? Is that really not? Is that a religious song or is it more of a secular song? Since it was put it was put together, it was more about patriotism than it was God. It utilized some of the religious fervor of the time, but it was written by someone who is a non believer. So like, yeah, I don't you know, Oh, so do we have to classify that as secular? Like we could get into a debate, so like, but what would be the basic requirements? All I'm saying is whatever you set up is the requirement, then you have to follow it, even if that excludes songs from your own worship service. You can't then make an allowance for this for your worship service where you're not making an allowance for other people. So what are the basic requirements? And how do you handle it? If your church has a big patriotic whatever this coming

24:36 week up to next till this coming Sunday, how do you handle it? Are you just like, hey, that's just what we do. Do you draw a line? Do you say nope? Do you say I'm just gonna skip you guys do your thing? Or what do you do? Do you love it? Some of you may love it. You may show up carrying fifteen American flags and all your kids wearing an American flag T shirt and you're like Erica, American, American, American, American, America, America, America, and you you love it, and that's fine, just just got it. All I'm saying is you gotta be consistent. You gotta be consistent. And I think once you open that door, it's really hard than to tell everyone else that they they they can't do that. Now, what would be interesting? Now if I if I had the I had a large church, and if I had like a national platform. I know what I'm gonna say. I know this is probably my sinful, fleshly nature, my rebellious nature. But if I had like one of the like a big webcast or a big television show where you know everyone's going to see my church service, you know, all of them that they'll have their sanctuaries decked out in American flags and it'll be America, America America. Right. I would love if I had that? Would I would call the church together and like in privates area, guys, we're gonna do a social experiment a right, since everyone

26:08 allows all of this other stuff, in this pro patriotism stuff, we're just gonna see what the reaction is gonna be. So next Sunday we're gonna have the entire church decked out in the Chinese flag. It's gonna be all pro China. We're gonna see God blessed China. We're going to rewrite the words so God Bless America to God blessed China. It's gonna be China's the best China, China, China, China, China, Thank you Lord for the for China. And we're just gonna go all in on China and we're gonna find out how people will react. I wonder how people would react. What do you think. I My feelings is it would be absolute outrage. They would be furious. And I'm like, why if you can make it about God bless America, I can't make it about God blessed China. Can I?

27:00 I can make it God Bless Syria, God Bless Iran, God bless Iraq? Right, you can't, God bless Saudi Arabia? Come on, right? Can I just make it about any country? Now? We sing songs of praise to those countries. Basically, I know what people say, you just need to get out of this country. You know, considering I served, you know, in the United States military for my in my entire adult life, and I now disabled vet because of what happened in to him in the military, I think maybe you should just back off and stop telling me I need to leave the country. I always I hate that if I say anything negative like dot no, just leave the doors open for you.

27:47 Okay, Well, I think I uh, you know, I think I have earned my right to stay right here. I think I've earned my right. Okay. I served in the United States Military. Okay, I think I earned my right. It wasn't a four year I would have been into twenty years and made it, you know what, eighteen nineteen active duty into what happened, and then you know, you almost die. You kind of got no choice, right. So, I don't know. I know it's a controversial thing, and I know that that's not what the webcast was. Well, I take it back, I don't know what the webcast was about. It may have been about patriotism. It may have been all patriotism, patriotism all day, every day. It may have been patriotism, patriotism, patriotism. I could be horribly wrong. I don't know so, but that's why I'm saying I'm not going to make it about them. They provided me the song. I looked up all the facts about the song and go, well, they're not the And then I looked up a couple of websites about keeping track of how many hymn how many hymn books. This song appears, and I think I think at least one source had it at least four different hymn books, probably more. And a lot of times what people do when they their patriotic services, they'll just put the words up on the screen, right, and they want to have it a hymn book, and like, hey, just look to the screen and you know it. You love it.

29:08 It's about our country. Everyone stand and sing loud and proud because we are here this morning, Oh no, to worship God. But we're gonna really, it's gonna sound like we're really here to exalt our idol, our national identity. So I know it's gonna be hard for some of you, but forget patriotism. That's why I started it this way. Forget patriotism for a moment, just those basic facts. You're in church, they're singing a song, and immediately realize, we wait a minute. This song's not even written by a believer. It's written by a Jewish agnostic. His own daughter refer to him as a non believer. He married a Catholic, so if he has any connection to Christianity, it's Catholicism. And he was also a freemason. Should any of that even matter? Or or now some people say that you're being nitpicky, you're straining out a nat what you're swallowing a camel kind of concept. Do you think that's do you think that's being unreasonable?

30:12 Because I've seen some major criticism of songs by Bethel Church, right song criticism about songs from Hillsong. I can go through what Passion Church. I think, Uh, there's only four or five mega churches really that kind of control most of the music sung in many modern day churches. I've heard. I've heard all kinds of criticism about that. I've heard I've seen churches yell and scream about churches having a more contemporary service and they yell and scream about that, or they're bringing in certain music from certain artists and they will yell and scream about that. And it's like, well, wait a minute, where where what? What is the issue is? Like what I just don't understand where the line is. It just seems like, well the line, you know what the line is is people sing what they want to sing, and they can always justify what they sing while condemning what other people seeing and not following any agreed upon requirements. So what are the requirements. I would love to get your thoughts. You can email me News I F at yahoo dot com. That's news I F at yahoo dot com. It's July the first, the whole week, the whole next two weeks. It's all about live webcast on the Sermon's two point zero app. I think I see where we're going to be. What's going to be happening this week. We're going to see how much patriotism has entered into the American church. I think in that sense, it's going to be a fascinating experiment, even though that wasn't my goal. My goal was just like, hey, you know what, let's

31:44 spend the week looking at all the webcasts. But I think we're going to see what the webcast. In fact, because many of them are video, you're going to even be able to see how the church is decorated. And it's not going to be based off liturgy. It's not going to be based off the liturgical calendar. It's going to be based off well, patriotism, and you'll have to decide how you feel about it. This is not about you liking America or even loving America. This is about what the church is supposed to be and what the church is supposed to do, and that's being consistent and what we say the standards are. Now, we're inconsistent in every area of our lives. So I'm not surprised that we're inconsistent in how we do church because inconsistency is a part of who we are because of our sinful natures. But it is something that we have to look at. I got to look at all the inconsistency in my own life, but we also have to look at the inconsistency and how it manifests itself and how churches do things.

32:45 Now you get I'm gonna hopefully we'll get a lot of just feedback when you're looking at the webcast, what do you see? What do you? What do you? How much? It's not even about criticizing again, I think people are going to misinterpret. It's about just making an acknowledgment. Man, Patriotism is all over the place. Now, how is it handled? Can you can you have a very patriotic service, but to be handled in a much more theologically sound way. Or and then when you're bringing in some of these patriotic songs, are you even does it no longer matter? Like I mean, there's just so many questions here. But that was my That was my experience this morning with the first and I can't even really count that as a webcast I listened to because all I got was the closing hymn, But it just caught me off guard. It was like, wait, what is happening? Because immediately I'm like, I know enough about this song and I know they should raise some questions. News I F Yahoo dot com.

33:46 That's news. I F Yahoo dot com. News I f at yahoo dot com. Thanks for listening, everyone, Have a great day. God bless