This conversation about contextualizing worship got my attention, especially as our church is booking the group Aradhna for a missions festival in March, aimed at reaching the Indian community.
Aradhna sings Christian bhajans which, if you did not know the Hindi language (and that too very intimately and often scholarly), would strike you as being no different than any other bhajan sung at a Hindu temple. I'm excited about the group, having listened to fusion music composed by friends as well as famous bands like Mahavishnu, and discontent that much Christian music seems to be content just following well-trodden musical paths. Beyond this fact, I'm truly unable to actually worship God using bhajans for personal devotions. The best way a person like me, used to Western hymns, choruses and instruments (with some Indian instrumentation thrown in, as Caedmon's Call does), could engage Aradhna's music is to listen and enjoy for the music itself.
I can certainly envision a group of people raised in the Hindu tradition, say in Varanasi, who should be able to enjoy and worship Christ with Christian bhajan-singing. Similarly, Christian Carnatic music should appeal to those raised to appreciate its beauty and who are intimately familiar with the language the hymn is sung in. For reasons historical and contemporary (such as the conducive nature of Western hymns for congregational involvement), urban Indian Christians like me cannot be easily reached by sich indegenization, especially in a rapidly changing culture.
How well will Aradhna be received in Chicago? They will surely praise Aradhna as a talented and musically sensitive group. I also hope that people will be drawn to the lyrics by the Spirit of God. In an urban community raised on Bollywood and pop music, I'm not sure if they will be able to worship in that style. It's time we re-thought the meaning of 'culture', and adapted ourselves more naturally to the zeitgeist.
In any case I think music has dominated worship so much we have begun to forget that it is only one of the aspects of worship. At Wheaton College Church the service sheet urges the congregation not to applaud the musicians as all the glory needs to go to God. Besides the music is structured so that it doesn't take up the time required for other aspects of the service. I have been part of churches in India though, in which the vast majority of the services was singing choruses, repeated for maximum effect, that the term 'worship' itself actually meant the music! Surely an unfortunate development. But that is fodder for another, later post!
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Pleasure and Power
Doug O'Donnell who is on the pastoral staff at our church (College Church at Wheaton, IL) gave us a sermon a few months ago entitled 'Thankful to God, Living in the Light of Christ's Return'. A thought he shared with us then came from the movie 'Prince of Egypt' which depicts the Biblical Exodus from Egypt, the climactic scene of which features the Israelites crossing the Red Sea and breaking into a superficial song about "freedom at last". Doug proceeded to say that his Irish grandmother would have called it 'Musha' or Rubbish! For, he said, the Exodus was hardly about freedom in that sense. It was about servitude. You either serve the world/flesh/devil troika or you serve God. Servitude to God is indeed freedom in the truest sense, which is why the Apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 1 applauds the Thessalonicans for turning away idols to serve the living and true God.
The Bible uses terms like 'serve', 'work of faith' and labour to show a change of heart in believers towards receiving Jesus.
In my own life there are times when I sin and do not want to face God although it has been made very clear all through that my best response is to turn back to him. I see a similar tendency in our daughter Emma when she disobeys- the hardest thing is to say sorry and keep her accounts short, though we have done our best to help her do it. Why does this happen? I suspect it's because we want to call our soul our own. The rebellion at Eden took place not because Adam and Eve wanted to switch their loyalties from God to the Troika of Evil mentioned earlier, but because they wanted to strike out on their own. And alas, as every human being knows, there is no such thing as striking out on one's own. Sin brings guilt, shame, rebellion, a hardened heart and enslavement. Argue as we might that it is all a conditioning of the mind, the most determined among us cannot break free from the compelling thought that objective morals exist and that something in us demands that we acknowledge and comply.
Ravi Zacharias once said when man becomes the measure of all things, we either slip into megalomania or erotomania- the love of power or the love of pleasure. He also mentioned that when man becomes the measure of all things, it will not be a generic Mankind, but a certain man- Hugh Hefner or Adolf Hitler. Our nature is to thirst for freedom but to work towards autonomy and then discover that autonomy is not really freedom at all. Truly, a certain Man is indeed the measure of all things- Jesus Christ, to whom we must all some day bow our knees and confess His name as Lord.
The Bible uses terms like 'serve', 'work of faith' and labour to show a change of heart in believers towards receiving Jesus.
In my own life there are times when I sin and do not want to face God although it has been made very clear all through that my best response is to turn back to him. I see a similar tendency in our daughter Emma when she disobeys- the hardest thing is to say sorry and keep her accounts short, though we have done our best to help her do it. Why does this happen? I suspect it's because we want to call our soul our own. The rebellion at Eden took place not because Adam and Eve wanted to switch their loyalties from God to the Troika of Evil mentioned earlier, but because they wanted to strike out on their own. And alas, as every human being knows, there is no such thing as striking out on one's own. Sin brings guilt, shame, rebellion, a hardened heart and enslavement. Argue as we might that it is all a conditioning of the mind, the most determined among us cannot break free from the compelling thought that objective morals exist and that something in us demands that we acknowledge and comply.
Ravi Zacharias once said when man becomes the measure of all things, we either slip into megalomania or erotomania- the love of power or the love of pleasure. He also mentioned that when man becomes the measure of all things, it will not be a generic Mankind, but a certain man- Hugh Hefner or Adolf Hitler. Our nature is to thirst for freedom but to work towards autonomy and then discover that autonomy is not really freedom at all. Truly, a certain Man is indeed the measure of all things- Jesus Christ, to whom we must all some day bow our knees and confess His name as Lord.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Morning Devotion
Some time in 1995 I read this poem in my friend's 'Streams in the Desert' devotional. As I came to know the Lord in that year and I was graduating from college in a few months, I scribbled this and other such poems and hymns into whatever pieces of paper I could find- to serve as sustenance in Delhi and the great unknown future into which I was headed.
Yesterday I was rummaging through a box and came across this poem. I remember well the first time I read it- in early 1996, probably January or February, during my devotions. It seemed to sum up the day's devotions and carry with it my thoughts of how it is for us to know that God abides with us. Here it is in my now favourite font. The poem is 'Still, Still With Thee' by Harriet Beecher Stowe :
Yesterday I was rummaging through a box and came across this poem. I remember well the first time I read it- in early 1996, probably January or February, during my devotions. It seemed to sum up the day's devotions and carry with it my thoughts of how it is for us to know that God abides with us. Here it is in my now favourite font. The poem is 'Still, Still With Thee' by Harriet Beecher Stowe :
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Grace Abounding
Who can deny something so familiar to human experience as evil when one hears like this one, in which an Alabama dad threw 4 kids into a river after an argument with his wife? We dissect and diagnose sickness in these cases, and not sin. In extreme cases we pardon a killer on the grounds of mental instability- the infamous insanity plea. And in some cases, pardon is the only realistic response to a condition as terrible as that. Shouldn't it make one wonder, that with the evidence of so much evil in human beings and as those more honest will say, in themselves, the claims of Jesus Christ make sense?
How much does it take to shock us into believing that evil exists, and that good education, upbringing, normal childhood, prosperity and health have never proven to be antidotes to it? If evil is only sickness and not sin, then shouldn't our legal system be redefined to pardon one and all? Insanity is not the only sickness in such a case- jealousies, arrogance, sexual perversion and other sinful behaviour could all be attributed to sickness that could be (we hope) cured with education and counseling.
Atheists point to the evil abounding in this world in the form of natural disasters, wars (motivated by religion or irreligion not withstanding) and social evils such as hunger, poverty, the caste system and bigotry as if they were evidence of God's inexistence or absence from the course of our lives. On the contrary, when one hears incidents like this one, don't they stir our hearts to know that we too have been prompted to less maleficent, but sinful enough, behaviours in the heat of the argument? Don't we perceive the stirrings of evil within us? Is there any more clear evidence to point us to the one who gives us forgiveness and a new life? Is there any other cure for this sin? No exile to a mountaintop or escapist meditation technique will help.
As the Scripture says, where sin abounded, grace abounded much more (from Romans 5:20). Who can wash away my sin? Nothing indeed, but the blood of Jesus.
How much does it take to shock us into believing that evil exists, and that good education, upbringing, normal childhood, prosperity and health have never proven to be antidotes to it? If evil is only sickness and not sin, then shouldn't our legal system be redefined to pardon one and all? Insanity is not the only sickness in such a case- jealousies, arrogance, sexual perversion and other sinful behaviour could all be attributed to sickness that could be (we hope) cured with education and counseling.
Atheists point to the evil abounding in this world in the form of natural disasters, wars (motivated by religion or irreligion not withstanding) and social evils such as hunger, poverty, the caste system and bigotry as if they were evidence of God's inexistence or absence from the course of our lives. On the contrary, when one hears incidents like this one, don't they stir our hearts to know that we too have been prompted to less maleficent, but sinful enough, behaviours in the heat of the argument? Don't we perceive the stirrings of evil within us? Is there any more clear evidence to point us to the one who gives us forgiveness and a new life? Is there any other cure for this sin? No exile to a mountaintop or escapist meditation technique will help.
As the Scripture says, where sin abounded, grace abounded much more (from Romans 5:20). Who can wash away my sin? Nothing indeed, but the blood of Jesus.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Resolution for 2008
Sometimes I see
How the brave new world arrives
And I see how it thrives
In the ashes of our lives
Oh yes, man is a fool
And he thinks hell be okay
Dragging on, feet of clay
Never knowing he's astray
Keeps on going anyway.
Happy New Year! Happy New Year!
May we all have a vision now and then
Of a world where every neighbour is a friend
Happy New Year! Happy New Year!
May we all have our hopes, our will to try.
If we dont we might as well lay down and die,
You and I.
So sang the Swedish group Abba at the end of 1980, looking with resignation to whatever may turn up, even to a possible Genghis Khan at the end of '89.
To the Lord of all time, what is a decade, anyway? To those of us in the physical world and are believers, this is a pilgrimage, often a desert, a wilderness, at other times a battlefield and sometimes a place where glimpses of what is to be transports us into unspeakable joy. But as creatures of eternity stranded in time we groan with the weight of passing time and our own failures, resolving to do better, falling, bruising ourselves and being healed and restored. In times of tragedy, wrestling with what we believe, and indeed, who we really are.
Having broken so many resolutions along the way, may I record here of another resolution to submit to God's grace: an active and resurgent prayerlife under every circumstance. If hope in Christ is not wishful thinking but a deposit of what is yet to be, then may I hope with all of me to commune with the Lord actively and long, every day of my life in every situation.
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