u/TheRealBibleBoy

Let me preface by saying I am attending a nondenominational/evangelical church. Modern worship, especially in evangelical/nondenominational spheres of church has many common themes which I find problematic. My primary concerns are lyrical concerns, and “Seeker sensitive” concerns.

Many worship songs sing false hopes, or falsehoods, and use God’s name to sponsor them. I am not the first one to point out that in the past few years worship teams have been obsessed with singing songs about how God is going to break down the walls of Jericho in our lives. It’s a fantastical idea. The story of Jericho is most certainly one to be admired, and God should be praised for it, but applying it to our life is where the problem gets made.

“My Jericho is coming down My victory is coming now” - “Jericho” first pentecostal church of north little rock

Lyrics like these I find quite problematic. This is a nice sentiment, but it could very easily be false. Who told you that YOUR jericho is coming down? Who told you, that you know your jericho? What appears like Jericho to you, may not be a problem in God’s eyes. Have you not read the story of Jericho? Before the walls came down, one generation of israel had sinned against God, and they had to wander in the wilderness for 40 years.

How do you know, that you’re entering Jericho, and not just wandering? The answer is, you probably don’t. If your “worship” consists of speaking falsehoods over yourself, and slapping God’s name on it, then it falls short of what true worship should be.

Many people might interpret “My Jericho” as a tragic event happening. Imagine you’ve got a sick relative, and you’re singing about how God is going to knock down your Jericho (heal the person) and he doesn’t. You made a statement about what God is going to do, and he didn’t do it. In John chapter 4, we’re told to worship in spirit and in truth. Focus on the “truth” aspect. Worship divorced from truth is incomplete. Too many worship songs attribute actions to God that he may or may not take. 

We should make worship songs on these topics

1. What God has done/who he is.
2. The power of God.
3. The Holiness of God.
4. The sovereignty of God.

I’m not saying it’s bad to sing about what God can do for your life, but I think we should try to stay away from singing about what we think God will do, and focus on what he can do if we’re going to sing about future miracles. 

Perhaps instead of singing about how God is going to decimate each and every problem in our life (he’s not) we should sing about how God is powerful, just, and caring, and therefore we need not worry.

God’s word tells us that we need not worry for those very reasons, but God’s word does not tell us that he’s going to “break down all of our Jericho’s” or something.

Another massive fault that I identify is the “seeker-friendly” nature of worship. At church people will say things like “Worship wasn’t that good today” or “I liked worship last week better”

We aren’t worshipping you bro!!! 

The fact that we feel as though we are in a position to complain about how we felt about a particular instance of worship says alot about how we’ve been taught to view worship. The only reason the worship wouldnn’t be good, is because you didn’t do it in spirit and in truth, as Our Lord tells us to in John chapter 4. 

I understand that not all music is going to be equally appealing to your ears, but if that’s one of your primary concerns you have absolutely lost the point. 

Worship is for God, not for you. It would be nice if all worship songs appealed to us on an equal level, but they don’t. The songs should not be for you, they are for God. The modern worship experience seems tailored towards the congregants instead of towards Our Lord. The job of a modern worship leader is to make sure the congregation enjoys worship. That’s why they choose the songs they do. They ask “which songs elicit the best reaction from the audience.”

The question is rarely “What form of worship is most pleasing to God?”. Seriously, if you’re a worship leader, when was the last time someone in one of your meetings asked a question like that? 

God clearly has ways that he would like to be worshipped. He’d like to be addressed as though he is holy because he is holy. The entire book of leviticus preaches this point to us. Just because the law has been fulfilled does not mean we can approach God as being any less holy. Being our friend, and being available does not negate his holiness. God has intentions for worship.

In the new testament, the greek word for worship is “proskuneo” which literally translates to “prostrate” it means to bow. There is nothing about bowing that is seeker sensitive, the bow is entirely for the one bowed to, not for the one bowing. We cannot forget this posture in our worship.

We must worship in spirit, and truth.

This post is a response to a post made by u/pazuzil.

My case, is that an alien intervention does not explain the data that we observe, as well as a divine intervention would. Intelligent alien life is statistically likely because the universe is massive.

This is what I argue against

Premise 1: Advanced aliens could have technology that looks supernatural to ancient humans.

Premise 2: Jesus’ miracles could have been advanced technology, not actual violations of physics

.Premise 3: Aliens may have created Christianity to guide humanity morally and prevent self-destruction.

**Premise 4:**Ancient people interpreted advanced beings and technology as “God” and “miracles” because they lacked modern concepts.

**Premise 5:**The rise of Christianity shows something unusual happened around Jesus.

**Premise 6:**The alien explanation only requires advanced life and advanced physics, not a supernatural realm.

**Conclusion:**Therefore, the alien hypothesis is argued to be a simpler explanation than Christianity.

I grant the first premise, hypothetical aliens could indeed have technology that appears super natural.

I think Premise 2 is so incredibly speculative, that it's meaningless. "there is a natural means by which Christ could've rose from the dead, as opposed to a miraculous one". Due to the "hard problem of consciousness" I find it very hard to grant that there is a natural means by which Jesus could maintain the same consciousness through a ressurection, thus I do not grant this premise, and even If I did, it doesn't get us very far.

Premise 3: I grant that this is hypothetically possible, but we're getting really bold here.

Premise 4-6: granted.

The problem isn't with the premesis, as much as it is with the conclusion.

"If we use Occam’s Razor (the idea that the simplest answer is usually the right one) the alien hypothesis wins because it doesn't require us to believe in a magical spirit world; it just requires a version of the physics and life we already know exist."

This is what the alien theory must presuppose: Intelligent aliens exist, they became vastly advanced, they reached Earth, they interacted with humans secretly, they staged miracles, They manipulated history and religion, they specifically created Christianity, they left no clear evidence of themselves.

it also raises questions like: "How did the aliens come about? Why do they have near-god-like abilities? why trust their moral system? why would they want worship framed around God?"

Occam’s Razor does not mean “the explanation with less supernatural content wins.” It means the explanation that requires the fewest unsupported assumptions wins.

a very similar kind of evidence that you use for the existence of aliens, also applies to God.

You say "Since the universe is incredibly vast, mathematically, it makes sense that life arises somewhere" you use this argument from probability, but theists use a very similar argument. We make the argument from "fine tuning" "Since the laws of the universe are incredibly specific to the permission of life, it appears this was done intentionally". We both make the same sort of appeal to multitude, and probability to reach our conclusions based on the patterns we observe in the world.

Your appeal to the Razor, only reveals a bias towards naturalism, the assumption that a naturalistic explanation is by nature more likely than a supernatural one.