Also, to add to your list if helpful, I’m churning through History of Contemporary Praise & Worship by Lester Ruth and Lim Swee Hong. It’s pretty academic and heavily historiographic but very insightful.
Somehow, the “algorithm” or whatever drives notes led me to you.
Such like-minded thoughts. And eery parallel timing. I’m in the middle of an essay series that I’m calling “Big Worship” and you are I are speaking the same language.
As a punk rock kid I grew up rejecting a lot of what CCM had to offer for reasons that were much less nuanced than this article describes. Punk culture bristles at anything that feels corporate…but even then, record labels got their hooks in the pop-punk and ska wave of the early aughts (Relient-K, Supertones).
Hillsong grabbed ahold of that style with Hillsong United and that’s what drew me into “worship culture”. They offered something that felt fresh..but in retrospect, it feels like lipstick on the same old pig.
All that said, great work. Looking forward to reading more of your thoughts on this, and I may need to move this book higher on my “to read” list.
Andrew, what a deep wealth of insight you have here. The socio-politicals were new to me ( although I do not disagree). A shift really happened for me in the past year in my own studies in looking at thoughts of Max and Webber and Eugene Peterson. There’s so much honor and beauty that happens in worship when it’s rooted in the local church and there is space to do the things worship should be leading us to.
Although I recoil every time I see an event or gathering and we hear that “70,0000 records…” ordeal. I think it leads more people to an individualized faith rather than a communal.
I think there’s another side of cultural worship itself where artists are writing songs that feel so special to me and I enjoy seeing these artists. But then it’s like “pay $200 for a seat in the room”. But then that bleeds into corporate gathering. And it makes me sad when we lean into that and drop things like taking communion as a community, liturgy, or some of these practices that are meant to bring a congregation into unity if God and each other. All to say the line feels difficult to straggle as masses drink the “cool-aid” so to speak.
This was incredibly and thoughtfully written! Enjoyed it and Godspeed on in your thesis-writing.
This is really kind of you, thank you. Payne’s book made it really easy to tease out a lot of these observations. The line is very blurry. The tension is real. In the short to medium term future, I don’t think any of that tension will go away, but I do think these kinds of conversations will help us name the problems better so we can walk through it more faithfully.
This is a great analysis of the book. I was looking forward to reading it as I grew up on Larry Norman, Randy Stonehill and the Solid Rock gang that were early "Christian rock" musicians. Their music was hugely important to me in my teen years as a Christian and yes, I can still sing almost all the words to all their songs. I agree with a lot of Payne's critiques about the music and was brokenhearted that most of the Christian musicians that followed Norman seemed to swerve towards being a branch of one party and culture. Even as I was reading, I realized I kind of "knew" this but had also kind of ignored it. All this to say that I saw Payne as mostly negative about the industry without acknowledging that the music also had a hugely positive impact on many kids. A mixed blessing for sure and important, once recognized, that we proactively rethink about the music we use for worship.
Thanks so much for reading and supporting my writing Bethany! Your experience of “knowing” this but not articulating it or even ignoring it is true of many people’s experience with this. I get where your coming from with the mostly negative frame that Payne is using, though I don’t think that is a testament to her personal feelings towards much of the industry she still has many friends in. There is a footnote in the introduction that I think is important to understanding her overall approach in this book. She’s essentially arguing that sociologist/philospher Max Weber’s “Protestant Ethic” is deeply entrenched in what is going on in the industry, which is why it feels so negative. I may do another post in the future unpacking that angle and its relationship to Weber, but I’m doing a little more reading in that area first.
Also, to add to your list if helpful, I’m churning through History of Contemporary Praise & Worship by Lester Ruth and Lim Swee Hong. It’s pretty academic and heavily historiographic but very insightful.
Yes! This is on my list. Anything Lester Ruth in particular is involved in about worship is a must read!
Dude… articles like this are why I love substack.
Somehow, the “algorithm” or whatever drives notes led me to you.
Such like-minded thoughts. And eery parallel timing. I’m in the middle of an essay series that I’m calling “Big Worship” and you are I are speaking the same language.
Keep going. This is worth writing on.
Subscribing to support.
Thanks for reading Kenny, great to connect with you!
Very interesting stuff here.
As a punk rock kid I grew up rejecting a lot of what CCM had to offer for reasons that were much less nuanced than this article describes. Punk culture bristles at anything that feels corporate…but even then, record labels got their hooks in the pop-punk and ska wave of the early aughts (Relient-K, Supertones).
Hillsong grabbed ahold of that style with Hillsong United and that’s what drew me into “worship culture”. They offered something that felt fresh..but in retrospect, it feels like lipstick on the same old pig.
All that said, great work. Looking forward to reading more of your thoughts on this, and I may need to move this book higher on my “to read” list.
Thanks for reading Tim. It is so fascinating to me how the punk scene even got commodified.
Andrew, what a deep wealth of insight you have here. The socio-politicals were new to me ( although I do not disagree). A shift really happened for me in the past year in my own studies in looking at thoughts of Max and Webber and Eugene Peterson. There’s so much honor and beauty that happens in worship when it’s rooted in the local church and there is space to do the things worship should be leading us to.
Although I recoil every time I see an event or gathering and we hear that “70,0000 records…” ordeal. I think it leads more people to an individualized faith rather than a communal.
I think there’s another side of cultural worship itself where artists are writing songs that feel so special to me and I enjoy seeing these artists. But then it’s like “pay $200 for a seat in the room”. But then that bleeds into corporate gathering. And it makes me sad when we lean into that and drop things like taking communion as a community, liturgy, or some of these practices that are meant to bring a congregation into unity if God and each other. All to say the line feels difficult to straggle as masses drink the “cool-aid” so to speak.
This was incredibly and thoughtfully written! Enjoyed it and Godspeed on in your thesis-writing.
This is really kind of you, thank you. Payne’s book made it really easy to tease out a lot of these observations. The line is very blurry. The tension is real. In the short to medium term future, I don’t think any of that tension will go away, but I do think these kinds of conversations will help us name the problems better so we can walk through it more faithfully.
Excellent!
This is a great analysis of the book. I was looking forward to reading it as I grew up on Larry Norman, Randy Stonehill and the Solid Rock gang that were early "Christian rock" musicians. Their music was hugely important to me in my teen years as a Christian and yes, I can still sing almost all the words to all their songs. I agree with a lot of Payne's critiques about the music and was brokenhearted that most of the Christian musicians that followed Norman seemed to swerve towards being a branch of one party and culture. Even as I was reading, I realized I kind of "knew" this but had also kind of ignored it. All this to say that I saw Payne as mostly negative about the industry without acknowledging that the music also had a hugely positive impact on many kids. A mixed blessing for sure and important, once recognized, that we proactively rethink about the music we use for worship.
Thanks so much for reading and supporting my writing Bethany! Your experience of “knowing” this but not articulating it or even ignoring it is true of many people’s experience with this. I get where your coming from with the mostly negative frame that Payne is using, though I don’t think that is a testament to her personal feelings towards much of the industry she still has many friends in. There is a footnote in the introduction that I think is important to understanding her overall approach in this book. She’s essentially arguing that sociologist/philospher Max Weber’s “Protestant Ethic” is deeply entrenched in what is going on in the industry, which is why it feels so negative. I may do another post in the future unpacking that angle and its relationship to Weber, but I’m doing a little more reading in that area first.