Popular culture and worship

by koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Popular culture is drama, TV, CD music, lights, rhythm, agonizing screaming, laughter, tension and relieve for the audience or listener. It is color, it is fashion, it is the human at his best, good and bad.

Satan is an angel that went against God and took one third of the heavenly angels with him. He led Adam and Eve into sin by temptation and since then is a mastermind in popular culture.

Popular culture is one of the instruments of Satan to carry people to their place of temptation and to support and assist them until they sin.

Worship belongs to God and He instituted it. He has a right to like a certain style of worship and others not. His blueprint for worship is the Bible.

Can my feelings be a guide as to how I should worship Him? Feelings do play a role in worship, since it is not all feeling-less. Feelings cannot be the norm for deciding whether worship is right or wrong. Just because I was very excited at a meeting and thought I am near God at that event, does not make that event now the norm that will make all people feel near God.

My feelings are subjective and one needs the objective data of the Bible to tell us what and how of worship.

Sons of Eli

Due to Eli's permissiveness, his sons brought in foreign culture into the worship of God. Popular culture of their day was used, discography, dancing, choreography, rhythm, videos, words and music and light effects in all colors to bring in "foreign fires" in the temple.

Was God happy with it? No. He said that to Samuel when He called him.

Absence of the use of theater or drama and side-effects in worship of the Bible

Think of it. The Greeks and Romans built theaters in every city in Palestine but nowhere in the whole Bible do we read that Paul built a theater to evangelize the Greeks or a theater in Rome to evangelize the Romans. Popular culture do not have a role to play in the Bible for the transmission of the message and Word of God.

Rhetorical preaching

Yet, the Bible is not absent in rhetorical preaching. Choosing words that are effective for preaching,  almost like poems, are very common in the Bible. Repetition is used in all its forms to create an effect that will be good for the reader or listener. The Bible is not against good homiletics. A good preacher is one that can use words effectively. The whole Bible has many examples of powerful preachers. But not popular culture as medium. Only words. How about words and music? Music was not used to mesmerize the listeners and subdue their wills by their feelings and excitements.

Substituting worship with popular culture

When the youth substitute popular culture: keyboard music, electrical guitars, drums, rhythm, dance, light effects, tension, noisiness, amplifiers to force a message on the audience, then the soft task of the Holy Spirit is interrupted.

The Spirit of God does not and cannot work through these mediums to touch the hearts of people. The Spirit is not interested in a crying person touched by good music or good songs or mass hysteria, but the Spirit do encourage crying when the Spirit touch the heart of the person in a quiet atmosphere.

Swinging the arms in the air and screaming "halleluia" or laughing does not set up worship for God. It is used as tools to control the audience by the presenter. He wants them all to focus or be quiet and follow his instructions. Swinging their hands gives him a sense that they are all listening to him and enjoying what he presents.

The Spirit of God weighs the heart and sees the mind.

Center of our worship

The center of our worship lies not in our feelings, says Edward Heppenstall in chapter 4 of his book, Christ our High Priest. It is not subjective but objective in the Word of God and in the function of Jesus in heaven on our behalf. Not my excitement but the merits of Christ on my behalf is important.

Dear God

Worshipping you is allowing Your Spirit to speak softly to my mind while reading your Bible and listening to preaching from it. Guard that no noise or amplifier will be used by Satan to force a single view on my thinking with overwhelming noise of bright lights or human screaming. In Jesus name, Amen.