Singing Theology
So earlier today I was doing that whole sing/dance/abandon all dignity thing with Aidan in the nearly futile attempt to entertain him (i.e. keep him from screaming). The iPod was in and I was going with whatever song shuffled through – mindlessly singing words I’ve heard dozens of times. So after “I Kissed a Girl” and “Carry on My Wayward Son” (seriously apropos for babies…) I launched into Jars of Clay’s version of “I’ll Fly Away.” I was halfway through the song doing the chubby baby leg disco when I thought – “I love this song, I know it by heart, but I don’t affirm this eschatology.”
Now growing up I always heard the lecture in church that one shouldn’t lie in song. You know the whole “don’t tell God you love him and want to give your life to him unless you really mean it.” Just because the words are powerpointing across the screen and everyone is singing doesn’t give you license to lie to God. Over the last few years I took that sort of idea to heart, but pushed it beyond the personal spiritual application to a theological level. If I had an issue with the theology or message of a song, I just wouldn’t sing it. And in all truth it surprised me how many hymns and praise choruses had me shutting my mouth for one line or another. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t want to lie, but that I didn’t want to be compelled or manipulated into affirming things I didn’t believe just because everyone was doing it.
What amused me today was that while I had no problem belting out the lyrics to “I Kissed a Girl” or “Puff the Magic Dragon” (although I have never kissed a girl or frolicked with a dragon), being untrue to myself theologically did bother me. I am not a dualist eagerly awaiting the day I can leave this mortal life and escape to God’s celestial shores. I don’t buy that theology, but, I realized, as with the other songs I can affirm a certain story. The song’s origin in the story of slaves seeking a joyous end to a harsh and oppressive life makes sense and is something I can affirm. It becomes about telling the story of particular theology in its historical context.
Affirming and celebrating those particulars in such ways is part of my journey of the moment. Overcoming the sour taste leftover from those particulars being pushed as absolutes is a harder endeavour. But primarily I’m enough of a pragmatist these days that whatever calms the baby gets affirmed in my book – so I just kept on singing.
julieclawson(at)gmail(dot)com 
Julie,
I, too, find myself not singing a lot of lines (and sometimes whole songs) because of the theology being put forth. I’ve never heard the “don’t lie” lecture, so there’s a part of me that can try to live into the sentiments that I don’t quite have the faith for at the moment. But I appreciate your point about the song’s story — certainly the context makes “I’ll fly away” something I could sing. My five-year-old’s favorite goodnight song is “Swing Low Sweet Chariot,” which has similar eschatology and background, and I really will feel better singing it after reading your post. But with so many contemporary songs, there isn’t a story — not even much of a connection with the biblical story. It’s all “I feel good when I worship” or “Please come make me feel good” with the occasional “You’re awesome because you make me feel good.” Appropriate for soothing a fussy baby, perhaps, but I kind of choke on it Sunday mornings.
hey julie
i’m for any song that helps a baby be happy. okay, maybe not death metal. (maybe i’m thinking that because my 20 year old son has embraced death metal as his favorite music right now. i am now officially old.)
but i’m with you – i can’t say “i will sing of your love forever” to god – not because it’s not a nice song, but because it’s not true, even on my best days. so i struggle with that. i’m lucky because at journey we on purpose don’t sing a praise song or hymn if its theology isn’t consistent with what we feel is true. but hell that’s hard. i don’t think i like every word in any hymn … but i don’t mind singing every beatles or u2 song, and a lot of the time, i have no idea what they’re even talking about.