Surely You Can Work a Little Harder…

Some of us need to work harder than we do. Students fool themselves, thinking they are “studying” when they are just hanging out with their friends with open books in front of them. Professors think they are working when they are merely chatting with colleagues or fussing about some minor matter of campus politics. Pastors think they are working when they are having yet another breakfast or coffee meeting with somebody in their parish simply because they are with somebody in their parish — even if the conversation seems to accomplish very little.

Many of us, however, work harder than we should. For whatever reason, and there are a lot of possible reasons, we are pushing ourselves beyond the limits of our mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health.

Can God Be Trusted? A Second Chance to Respond to That Question

Every once in a while, a book gets a second chance. Usually books have a year or maybe two to “make it,” and if they don’t sell well, they disappear. Others sell well enough to stay in print, but never break out of the market sector in which they have made their way.

I’m grateful that Oxford University Press published Can God Be Trusted? Faith and the Challenge of Evil in 1998. It was my second book and a radical departure from my first one, Canadian Evangelicalism in the Twentieth Century: An Introduction to Its Character (University of Toronto Press, 1993). That second book helped to earn me my last promotion (to Professor, at the University of Manitoba) and to get me my current job at Regent College.

But the book didn’t connect with a lot of people who might have been glad to know about it—or, at least, so I have been told by readers who happened upon it over the last decade. Because it was an OUP book, Christian stores and online sites mostly didn’t feature it. I’d speak at Christian conferences, and the book tables wouldn’t have it because those running them didn’t do business with OUP.

The Bus Wars

We all now know about the city bus ad campaigns, first started in Britain by secularists who encouraged readers that “There’s probably no God, so stop worrying and just enjoy your life.”

Here in Vancouver, our local Translink board has forbidden secular humanists from blessing our region with their own version of it. Translink has ruled that their message falls under this regulation:

“No advertisement will be accepted which promotes or opposes a specific theology or religious ethic, point of view, policy or action.”

The secular humanists are appealing this decision, outraged to be lumped in with the religions they so devoutly oppose. But the Translink board is in line with, among other authorities, the Supreme Court of the United States, which has for several decades recognized secular humanism as functionally a religion—and we professors of the academic study of religion would agree. That is, whatever ideology constitutes the center of concern for an individual or group is de facto a religion. So the Translink board is right to forbid the secular humanists from mounting their ad campaign if the board is not willing to let other religious groups do the same.

And Now It’s Time to Be Quiet

After all the excitement generated by my last two posts, it’s time for something completely different. One correspondent sent along the following note:

“What about the disappearance of the musical language of silence? It seems to me that a problematic aspect of our modern context is over-stimulation and a resulting loss of the language of silence, which I believe is part of what has robbed much music—and the spoken word—of their power. I lead contemplative services which include a lot of music, but I feel the silence which is practised as part of that service makes it so much more powerful. It’s a sign of the times when two minutes of real silence is experienced as threatening.”

Chris Tomlin’s Worship Songs: We Have Got to Do Better

Since I have been complaining about loud music in church, I’ll stay in the groove and complain now about bad lyrics in church. And I have a particular songwriter in mind, probably the most popular one nowadays, to stand in for all the rest.

There’s no doubt that Chris Tomlin can write “hook-y” tunes. Many of them stay with you after church, even if you want them badly to go away.

And why would you want them to go away? Partly because some of them are musical clichés. Alas, I lack the technological ability to argue this case using musical samples via this blog. So I’ll have to settle for what I can talk about here: the frequently discomfiting lyrics.

Memo to Worship Bands: Turn It Down, Please!

That’s the original title of the piece I’ve published in Christianity Today of late. When you’re done reading it, please comment below–and also check out the comments (some of them a little, um, straightforward) on the CT site.

Can you hear me? You can? I’m sorry if I am shouting, but I have just spent half an hour in a church service with a typical worship band, and my ears are ringing. I’m sure to be fine in a minute. Or hour. Or day—I hope.

Why does everything every Christian musician performs nowadays seem to require high amplification?

I was at a Christian camp not long ago where we gathered to sing around a bonfire. Guitars appeared, but just before I could get nostalgic and suggest we sing “Pass It On,” the microphone stands appeared, too. Apparently three guitars for 40 people were not enough. No, they had to be amplified.

I am not 110 years old, friends. I grew up in the 1970s with fuzz boxes, stacks of Marshall amplifiers, and heavy metal bands loud enough to take on Boeing 747s and win. I have played in worship bands for more than 30 years, and like lots of juice running through my Roland keyboard or Fender bass or Godin guitar. Furthermore, I’m a middle-aged man and my hearing is supposed to be fading. But even I find almost every worship band in every church I visit to be too loud—not just a little bit loud, but uncomfortably, even painfully, loud.

So here are five reasons for everyone to turn it down a notch—or maybe three or four notches.

Does TV Simply Preclude Good Preaching?

The news this week is that the struggle between Robert Schuller père et fils continues to diminish the ministry that has made them both famous. Donations and viewer numbers are dropping and it is not clear that the long-running “Hour of Power” will have the fortitude to last another year.

All over America, in fact, televangelism seems to be in trouble — at least among the big boys. And that trouble likely won’t trouble most readers of this blog, since I daresay most of you aren’t big fans of television preaching anyway.

But as the old lions pass off the scene and either put their sons in charge (or, in the case of Canadian David Mainse, their daughter) or dismiss them from their roles as heirs apparent, we might pause to consider this question: Has there ever been any really good preaching on television?