Category: Worship Music

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Church News Worship Music

Theological Song Review: More Like Jesus

Church worship trends in one of two directions. Either it progresses towards higher, God-pleasing, more exclusive worship practice and proclamation, or it moves towards more generalized, ecumenical, and man-pleasing practice. The God of the Bible and his gospel are exclusive, and the more specific the identity, works, and majesty of the Lord, the higher and more God-honoring the worship. While we may experience good feelings and should be edified by our participation, bringing a sacrifice of praise that glorifies the true God for who He truly is must be the main priority of our worship gathering. The material brought into the worship gathering is a prime indicator of the standards, seriousness, and direction of a church’s worship, and (as we’ve discussed before) the visible church’s worship practice continues to suffer from a stage-3, man-focused cancer.

The song More Like Jesus was featured on the 2018 Passion album Whole Heart and was written by Passion City Church pastor Kristian Stanfill, along with Hillsong mainstays Brooke and Scott Ligertwood and fellow Passion leader Brett Younker. Before we start, it should be noted that, logically, there are two ways worshipers seek to be more like Jesus. One is to conform ourselves to Christ. The other is to attempt to conform Christ to us. Sadly, the latter makes an appearance in this song.

Note: For a full explanation of the rubric and a primer on our scoring methodology, click here.

The banner image from the song’s listing at passionmusic.com

Doctrinal Fidelity and Clarity: The song opens with the line, “You came to the world you created, trading your crown for a cross” – an immediate Christological error. Jesus did not lose his crown of glory or any part of his divine kingship as part of the incarnation (John 10:30, Hebrews 2:9). This kind of reduction of the worshipped Christ to primarily man is a typical fixture of modern worship music, as a dragging down of Christ to the level of the worshiper opens the door for a self-focused, self-validated lyrical framework and encourages a more emotional, romantic, experience-seeking worship experience. The same mischaracterization is seen in the phrase, “counting your status as nothing” (an apparent reference to Philippians 2:6-7), which implies a loss of deity status rather than Christ setting aside his heavenly privileges as part of his sovereign purpose in the incarnation.

While much of the song is technically correct in terms of doctrine, nearly every lyric requires additional context and explanation to be identifiably Christian. The lyric “this world is dying to know who You are” is biblically incorrect, as “dying” for something is a phrase implying a desire for that thing, and scripture teaches that apart from conversion, the world does not desire Jesus (Romans 3:11). Additionally, there is a salvific difference between knowing who Jesus is (Romans 1:19-20) and truly knowing Jesus (John 10:27). 15/25.

Doctrinal Specificity: While the lyrics allude to some scriptural truth (Jesus as a servant, can’t live without Jesus), most of the song bears the typical generic emotionality of wide-appealing worship music. The sin of man and salvation are predictably characterized as Jesus putting the icing on the cake of the believer’s life rather than saving it from judgment and destruction. “Your innocent life paid the cost” gets close to the specific gospel message, although what the cost is remains unidentified. “Change me like only you can” and “You’ve shown us the way to your heart” are similarly vague, leaving worshipers the option of seeing these as referring to salvation, sanctification, or some mishmash of the two. 10/20.

Focus: The focus of the song starts on Christ (although not a faithful description of Him), but quickly shifts to a focus on and elevation of the general, emotionally-framed needs and acts of the worshiper (“covering me with your love,” “my heart in your hands”). The song seems to focus on sanctification more than salvation (“make me more like Jesus”), but makes no attempt to identify specific scriptural components of sanctification (repentance, obedience, knowing God more through knowledge) and instead employs emotional generalities (“take everything,” “you’ve shown us the way to Your heart”). 10/20.

Video still from the beginning of the music video. No words yet.

Association: Passion Conferences have been around since 1997, and it’s safe to say the organization is the progenitor of the modern praise and worship conference scene. The movement was started by Louie Giglio of Passion City Church in Atlanta, a church that has played host to a who’s who parade of false teachers including Francis Chan, Christine Caine, Carl Lentz, and Judah Smith. Giglio’s preaching downplays the eternal consequences of sin and repentance and has long been soft on the biblical teaching on homosexuality and gender. He has partnered with nearly every big name in ecumenical big-market “Christianity,” including Brian Houston, Andy Stanley (his childhood friend), and Steven Furtick (who similarly teaches Giglio’s little gods heresy). The 2022 Passion Conference featured Gateway Church prosperity praise leaders Cody Carnes and Kari Jobe, Christine Caine, Levi Lusko, and wokester David Platt.

Most worshipers likely won’t know about these associations even as the bad doctrine floating around such a hive of scum and villainy seems to have made its way into the song’s doctrine. 10/20.

Video still from the beginning of the music video. Still no words have been spoken.

Musical Value: The slow 6/8 is a good choice for an acoustic guitar-led ballad. The instrumentation and arrangement are formulaic but easy to sing even as the first verse and chorus are an octave down from the rest of the song in order to build energy. These guys are great songwriters in the modern praise-and-worship genre. 15/15.

Total Score: 60/100. The song barely makes it into the PG, Pastoral Guidance Suggested category, and narrowly avoids automatic disqualification in the doctrinal and associational areas. The associational danger is not quite at the same level as Elevation tunes (although churches would be justified in avoiding it on this basis), yet the doctrinal vagueness necessitates strong surrounding context in the worship service (teaching, announcing) to provide clarity. In other words, the song cannot stand on its own. There are better choices out there, of course.

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News Worship Music

Theological Song Review: This Is Our God

Released on January 13, 2023 as the lead single from an upcoming studio album, Phil Wickham’s “This is Our God” peaked at #7 on Billboard’s US Christian Songs chart in April 2023. The song was co-written with Maverick City Music’s Brandon Lake, Pat Barrett, and Elevation Church’s Stephen Furtick.

Note: For a full explanation of the rubric and a primer on our scoring methodology, click here.

It bears repeating that the CCM industry is just that: an industry. It is often assumed by more discerning Christians that Hillsong, Elevation, Bethel, and every other big-name church movement or worship artist is on the warpath trying to infiltrate solid churches with bad doctrine. And yes, these movements peddle bad doctrine. Their “pastors” preach all kinds of prosperity gospel, self-centered, psychologized self-help garbage passed off as true Christian teaching. But in terms of their musical enterprises, the (at best) watered-down content of the music itself is generally not a Trojan horse of falsehood for the purpose of changing what your church believes. In fact, these movements couldn’t care less what your church truly believes as long as their songs find a place in your Sunday rotation. They simply want to increase the money flowing to their organizations and their influence in the larger spiritual marketplace. Doctrinal specificity is narrow and exclusive – the opposite of the broad appeal needed to sell lots of music. Thus, popular songs are written to be empty vessels for a broad, theologically stunted, and self-actualized audience to project their personal desires onto. The most successful songs leave plenty of room for the worshiper to insert their preferences, yet stay Christian-y enough to not trip the alarm bells of doctrinally-concerned Bible believers. The worship artists that are able to lower the doctrinal bar to the level right before vagueness turns into nonsense have successfully crafted the opium of the modern evangelical, and can look forward to their song being played in true churches, false ones, and everywhere in between.

Back to “This is Our God”:

Doctrinal Fidelity and Clarity: The song contains no false teaching, but it does have some clarity issues. While Jesus’s rescue of sinners and his conquering of death are essential truths clearly proclaimed in the lyrics, it is not made clear that the “prison we couldn’t escape” and the “mountains that stood in our way” are not supposed to be our temporal struggles but rather us being dead in our trespasses and sins. The nature of the “fear that took our breath away” in combination with our “weak faith” is similarly open-ended. The bridge does note that Jesus “pulled me out of that grave” and “paid for all of our sin” – a welcome and important specificity that reminds us that there was a price to be paid for violation of God’s perfect standard of righteousness – although it is interesting that the rescue is personal (me) while the sin is less specific (our sin). In this instance, self-focus would be welcome (“Who paid for all of my sin”). 20/25.

Doctrinal Specificity: The CCM tropes of “giants,” “mountains,” “walls,” and other such metaphors being used as one-level abstractions for biblical concepts like “sin,” “death,” and “shame” have become so ubiquitous that one would think songwriters would come up with something new. Yet not only is this not true in “This is Our God,” but Phil Wickham helpfully writes the abstraction process into the lyrics for those uninitiated about how these songs are written. The first lyric, “Remember those walls that we called sin and shame?” flips the comparative upside down, as in truth sin and shame are the realities Wickham is calling “walls” and “prisons.” Of course, walls – like prisons, giants, or mountains – are not the fault of the worshiper, and “This is Our God” generally avoids characterizing us as guilty or responsible for the deadly situation Jesus saved us from. 10/20.

Focus: It would be rhetorically troublesome to call a song “This is Our God,” and then spend the whole song in the first person, and fortunately Wickham writes the lyrics in the second. The lyrics consistently point to Jesus and what Jesus has done for us, leaving little room for the “Jesus is my boyfriend” subjectivity that often comes with vague, personal testimony worship songs. The “God is worship-worthy because I declare Him to be” trap has been avoided in this song. 20/20.

Association: “This is Our God” would have made it into the “PG” (Pastoral Guidance Suggested) category if not for the verifiable false teacher Steven Furtick being one of the songwriters (a credit we suspect is there for the eventual purpose of seeing a 7-minute version of the song on the next Elevation Worship album). See this review of “Do it Again” for the disqualifying issues with Furtick. Having an easily-verifiable false teacher as one of the songwriters is the essence of dangerous association.

Sadly, Phil Wickham (whose parents were part of the Jesus Movement band Parable) has been willing to partner with anyone calling themselves “Christian,” – Hillsong, Elevation, Joyce Meyer, the Mormon-funded The Chosen series, and Roman Catholics are fair game for cooperation for Wickham. As history has shown, he is just as likely to write and release a “Jesus is my Boyfriend” song (like 2016’s The Secret Place) than a theologically solid one. And his rising popularity will only encourage his music to become more ecumenical and generic. 0/20.

Comment from the lyric video for Phil Wickham’s “The Secret Place”

Musical Value: To say that we could stack “This is Our God” right on top of 2018’s “Great Things” and 2020’s “Battle Belongs” and they would meld into each other is barely an exaggeration. In fact, if “This is Our God” was released a few months later, we might have assumed that Steven Furtick had asked ChatGPT, “Write a Phil Wickham single.” The by-the-numbers composition and arrangement are attractive enough from a musical standpoint, and being as formulaic as a worship song gets is exactly what the people want. 5/15.

Final Score: 55/100. It would have made it if not for the inexcusable associational baggage. Any worship leader or artist willing to partner with Joyce Meyer and co-write with Steven Furtick simply cannot be trusted, and the associational danger is enough to avoid this song (and sadly Phil Wickham) entirely.

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News Worship Music

Theological Song Review: The Lord Is My Salvation

Worship duo Shane and Shane released “Hymns, Vol. 1” in 2018, covering classic and modern worship hymns in a live setting, including the tune, “The Lord is My Salvation” from the 2016 Getty album “Facing a Task Unfinished”. The Musical Value section of this review will be in reference to the Shane and Shane treatment.

Note: For a full explanation of the rubric and a primer on our scoring methodology, click here.

Doctrinal Fidelity and Clarity: The song is personal testimony, inspired by Psalm 27, where David asks the rhetorical questions, “Whom shall I fear?” and “Of whom shall I be afraid?” The lyrical refrain comes directly from Psalm 27:1, and the rest of the lyrics provide poetic support such as the metaphorical comparison between the “raging sea” and being “safe on this solid ground” (Matt. 7:24-27). While the song makes plentiful use of imagery and metaphor like other Getty hymns the lyrics mostly have direct scriptural correlations. 25/25.

Doctrinal Specificity: The opening lyric notes that it is God that reaches for us, not the other way around. The chorus rightly and specifically notes that it is my debt that he paid and that Jesus secures the victory – it is his and not mine primarily. The only iffy lyric is found in verse two, where God’s strength is described as “helping me scale these walls” – a lyric that would benefit from context indicating more explicitly what walls we are scaling. 15/20.

Focus: While the song is written from a personal perspective, the lyrics are careful not to frame God’s worthiness in terms of the adjudication of the worshiper. In other words, as opposed to lyrics that say, “God is great and worthy to be praised because I say he is,” the power and worthiness of God are true with or without me. The bridge is a simple recitation that glory goes to God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – not me. At no point is God described in merely human terms like what is found in so many other songs (such as his love being reckless or the suggestion that the miraculous work of salvation is still an ongoing battle subject to failure). 18/20.

Association: Shane and Shane (like nearly every publishing songwriter and Christian music artist) can be found performing or recording with artists across the Christian spectrum (good and bad). Yet they are not primarily associated with a heretical church movement like Hillsong, Bethel, or Elevation. The Gettys generally associate with orthodox churches and pastors, and have a reputation for writing songs that are good alternatives to the vast array of garbage that passes for worship music these days. As with most musical artists, they are relatively tolerant and non-confrontational in their public interactions but are not known to partner with obviously heretical churches or movements. 15/20.

Musical Value: The composition strikes a good balance between singability and musical interest. A few borrowed chords in the bridge (look it up if you’re interested) break up what might otherwise be a by-the-numbers chord structure. Shane and Shane add some nice pop flair to the more traditional Getty version (both are well done). The song is appropriately accessible for the congregation. 15/15.

Total score: 88/100. It is not a coincidence that another Getty song made the cut. When songwriters and artists are relatively careful (although not perfect) with their associations, and they pull lyrics, context, and framework from the Bible, they tend to produce solid content for corporate worship.

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bad theology News Worship Music

Bad Stuff to Good Stuff: Theological Song Review of Graves Into Gardens

For readers who have seen prior theological song reviews here at Protestia, it may seem like most reviews result in a failing score. This is true – most do fail. This is because we insist on a high doctrinal standard for extra-biblical materials, and because the current state of affairs in Christian music is one where the contemporary Christian music industry has shifted its focus almost entirely to corporate worship. These reviews are specifically with regard to a song’s suitability for corporate worship. We will be endeavoring to highlight some worship service-worthy songs, but I’m afraid they will be few and far between.

The song Graves into Gardens was part of Elevation Worship’s live album of the same name, released in May, 2020. The song was certified platinum by the RIAA, won Billboard’s Top Christian Song of 2021, and the Gospel Music Association Dove Award for Worship Recorded Song of the Year.

Note: For a full explanation of the rubric and a primer on our scoring methodology, click here.

Doctrinal Fidelity and Clarity: The prosperity gospel that the song promotes was admitted by Chris Brown of Elevation Worship in an interview in 2020. Brown said that the song was sourced from a Steven Furtick sermon entitled “The Mystery of Potential,” in which (according to Brown) Furtick taught that the miracle in 2 Kings 13 showed that, “Elisha still had a resurrection miracle left in his bones.” Brown said, “God is still in the business of bringing dead things back to life. If we’ll trust God even with the seemingly dead areas of our lives, if we’ll believe in the power of God, if we’ll declare resurrection power over everything we sow, nothing will be wasted.

Brown does not mention the resurrection miracle of salvation, instead he indicates that in the same way resurrection was in Elisha, believers can “declare resurrection power” so that God will apparently not allow the “dead areas of our lives” to be wasted. Yet the miracle of the resurrection of the dead man who touched Elisha’s bones was done to indicate that God’s visible and miraculous power was uniquely attached to his chosen prophet Elisha (a type of Christ), not an indication that we have some sort of “resurrection power” we can apply to whatever area of our life we are dissatisfied with. The account of this miracle in 2 Kings 13 is no more evidence of the general “name it and claim it” taught by Steven Furtick than the resurrection of Christ Himself. Any connection between the song lyrics and the Bible that is beyond mere platitude is unfortunately a clear twisting of the applied passages. 5/25.

Doctrinal Specificity: The song is a masterclass in fill-in-the-blank worship. The chorus is more repetitive and non-specific than any song in rotation at K-Love, preferring to replace any one of dozens of specific adjectives the Bible uses to describe God (holy, righteous, perfect, etc.) with the sophomoric “better.”

The final chorus section might as well be out of a book of Mad Libs, where a worshipper could replace “you turn graves into gardens” with any other generally positive and negative nouns. “You turn bad stuff to good stuff” would function just as well. Almost as if to mock CCM’s use of this formula, the song uses “graves into gardens” (nonsensical since plants easily grow on top of buried bodies) and “seas into highways” (while likely a reference to crossing the red sea, both places of speedy travel). 5/20.

Focus: The focus of the song is predictably about the worshipper, not God, and the lyrics are full of self-referential phrases (“I searched,” My failures and flaws,” “put me back together”) and generic, fill-in-the-meaning phrases (“every desire is now satisfied here in your love,” “there’s not a place Your mercy and grace won’t find me again”) that are typical of worship songs written to have the widest possible appeal. References to God are there, but God’s praiseworthiness is cast as dependent on his utility to the worshipper, not because he is worthy no matter what. 5/20.

Association: (Copied from prior Elevation song review) Elevation Church vision caster Steven Furtick is a narcissistic, anti-Trinitarian heretic. Aside from his disqualifying association with modalist heretics like T.D. Jakes and prosperity hucksters like Joel Osteen, Furtick’s own teaching is replete with false doctrine. Furtick teaches his own brand of the prosperity gospel, in which he struts around in super expensive clothing while consistently minimizing Jesus and elevating (no pun intended) mankind to a quasi-god status. This false doctrine was made painfully obvious in May of 2021 when Furtick screamed “I am God Almighty!” and the end of a crazy, man-exalting sermon rant.

Having an easily-verifiable false teacher as one of the songwriters is the essence of dangerous association. 0/20.

Musical Value: The southern gospel shuffled waltz is written with genre-typical chordal call-and-response between the tonic and the subdominant (1 and 4 chords), which fits well in a wide array of church settings. It is a perfect musical setting for the personal testimony angle of the lyrics. In a non-corporate worship setting (album, concert), many of the lyrical objections to the song become less of a concern, as album songs have a different purpose than the corporate declaration and teaching that characterizes songs used in gathered worship. 15/15.

Total Score: 30/100. Scoring a zero in the association category is automatically disqualifying. Remember, these reviews are about a song’s suitability for use in corporate worship. Apart from the associational danger and the fact that revenue from the song’s monetization feeds a false church, the song itself (like many modern praise songs) would not be nearly as problematic outside the corporate worship context. Yet ironically it needs the corporate worship context with it’s juvenile modern standard of unspecificity to justify its existence, as the simplicity of the composition would likely render the song unpalatable next to popular secular music.

The characterization of supernatural miracles (parting the Red Sea) with God’s working through providence (getting that job you want) is both biblically and spiritually abusive. Modern songwriters count on mature believers who hear their songs to see solid theology in between the lines, while allowing the immature or lost to read their own desires into the same lyrics.

God works his sovereignty in everything, and we give thanks in and out of season. Resurrection as it applies to us is about Christ’s miraculous resurrection that secures ours, not about any and all temporal concerns of life.

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bad theology Worship Music

Theological Song Review: Firm Foundation by The Belonging Co. Ft. Cody Carnes – 35/100.

The song “Firm Foundation” was released in 2021 by The Belonging Co. (Cody Carnes and Kari Jobe’s “worship collective”) as a single. The Belonging Co. describes itself as a “church movement” that has “become known as a place to find freedom, breakthrough, and healing through God’s Word, His presence and worship.”

Note: For a full explanation of the rubric and a primer on our scoring methodology, click here.

Doctrinal Fidelity and Clarity: On a cursory listen, the song is mainly faithful to biblical doctrine. The lyrics are written around Matthew 7:24-27, where Jesus describes the difference between the house built on the sands of false belief and false hope (leading to eternal destruction) versus the house built on the rock of Christ (enduring to the end). The believing Christian will read between the lines, seeing the true faithfulness of Christ in lines like “He’s faithful through generations” and “I’m standing strong in you.” Unfortunately, the lost person or less mature believer will find plenty of opportunities to graft their own meaning on what Jesus’ faithfulness is to them, and especially what Jesus never letting them down is supposed to mean. 15/25.

Doctrinal Specificity: Despite regular references to the imagery of the house built on Jesus, the song never addresses anything specific about Jesus other than general faithfulness. This unspecificity, unfortunately, allows listeners/worshipers to insert their own meaning into what Christ’s faithfulness means – is it faithfulness to save from our sins, or might it be faithfulness to take care of whatever temporal issue concerns us at the moment? The song makes no distinction and doubles down with the lyrical self-focus typical of a Carnes song. 10/20.

Focus: As with so many popular modern praise songs, the lyrical point of view is first person, focusing on my role in my relationship with God. The song starts off with “my foundation,” my decisions, and the chorus characterizes God’s faithfulness as valid because of my perseverant decision. Out of the 28 lyrical lines in the song, 19 are self-referencing. No line in the song mentions “us” or the people of God in any way – strange for a song clearly written for corporate worship. Carnes basically gives himself credit for what should be credited to God. 5/20.

No lyrics have even been sung.

Association: Cody Carnes and his wife Kari Jobe are in partnership with Gateway Church, a seeker-sensitive megachurch that promotes New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) false doctrine. See more here.

The Belonging Co. is a charismatic “church” in Nashville that ordains female “pastors” and offers this neuchurch description: We desire encounter over entertainment, intimacy over industry, presence over presentation, people over position, and Jesus over everything.

Huh?

This is yet another unfortunate church-band combo organization that mixes (no pun intended) church and music industry together to form a kind of “emotion club” for spiritual consumers. 0/20.

Two fake pastors.

Musical Value: There is a reason that contemporary Christian praise and worship music has the reputation of being the easiest, cheapest, cookie-cutter music in the world. Because it is. And when called out for its cheap formulaic nature, the answer is usually that the music is a vehicle for the meaning of the song. The problem is that the lyrics are similarly vapid. Look at most modern worship lyrics apart from their musical context, and they look like they were generated by the Random Christian Phrase Machine™ rather than any effort to express glorious theological truth about God.

This is no less true with “Firm Foundation,” which uses the exact same repetitive tropes as every other emotionally manipulative repetition fest churned out by the brainless CCM machine, ready to give hand-raising drones the Jesus fix they have clearly become addicted to. The musical execution is clean and professional, although there is no instrumental or vocal virtuosity whatsoever. 5/15.

Total Score: 35/100. Seriously, stop playing this garbage. God deserves so much better than this.

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Worship Music

Theological Song Review: Do It Again by Elevation Worship

Do It Again by Elevation Worship was released in February of 2018 on the album There is a Cloud, but earlier versions were heard back in 2016. Like most Elevation Worship songs, Steven Furtick is one of the songwriters, and this song was written with Chris Brown, Mack Brock, and CCM mainstay Matt Redman.

Note: For a full explanation of the rubric and a primer on our scoring methodology, click here.

Doctrinal Fidelity and Clarity: The song is written from the personal perspective of the worshipper. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, it does present the challenge of avoiding subjective and emotional verbiage in place of what should be grounded, powerful, and doctrinal truth. Unfortunately, the narrative presented is one where the worshipper is characterized as on the verge of losing God’s providence.

The song opens up with seeming disappointment in God’s plan (“I thought by now they’d fall”), and lines like “I’m still in your hands” and “Jesus you’re still enough, keep me within your love,” imply a shaky relationship with God that requires constant renewal rather than the Christ-won eternal security promised to believers. The line, “You’ve never failed me yet” implies the possibility of God’s failure.

The ironically-labeled “confidence” of the chorus and belief in seeing God “do it again” seems much less confident than it should considering God’s true power and providence – the inevitable result of generalizing every statement about God. There is no direct false teaching in the lyrics, but the rhetorical closing of the distance between God’s power and ours is consistent with Steven Furtick’s consistent God-minimizing teaching (more on this in the association section). At a minimum, the lyrics are intentionally vague. 15/25.

Doctrinal Specificity: Do it Again bears signature Elevation Worship lyrical vagueness. Yet there are some discernable markers of Elevation theology (discussed above). While worshippers may assign salvation to the “battle” in verse one, the “promise” and the “confidence” in the chorus, overt Gospel proclamation is simply missing. This leaves the door wide open for a worshipper to insert anything their heart desires into the position of the battle that is won, the promise made by God, and which personal mountain God will again move for them. Want the mountain of your financial difficulties moved? How about the mountain of a physical ailment or broken relationship? All can be a promise of God if you proclaim it with enough belief (“I believe I’ll see you do it again”) – consistent with the prosperity gospel lifestyle, associations, and teachings of songwriter Steven Furtick. 12/20.

Focus: This song is generally (and no doubt purposefully) unfocused. Biblical doctrines are as generalized as possible, and the song is at least half focused on the worshipper. This would be less problematic if any of the statements in the song were doctrinally specific, but in the context of the wide-open meaning of the lyrics, the self-focus encourages worshippers to look inward.

The line “you have never failed me yet,” while referring to God, places Him in a rhetorically subordinate role where God’s worthiness seems to be based on his not failing the worshipper in a general sense. 10/20.

Association: Elevation Church vision caster Steven Furtick is a narcissistic, anti-Trinitarian heretic. Aside from his disqualifying association with modalist heretics like T.D. Jakes and prosperity hucksters like Joel Osteen, Furtick’s own teaching is replete with false doctrine. Furtick teaches his own brand of the prosperity gospel, in which he struts around in super expensive clothing while consistently minimizing Jesus and elevating (no pun intended) mankind to a quasi-god status. This false doctrine was made painfully obvious in May of 2021 when Furtick screamed “I am God Almighty!” and the end of a crazy, man-exalting sermon rant.

Having an easily-verifiable false teacher as one of the songwriters is the essence of dangerous association. 0/20.

Musical Value: There is some decent musical composition employed in this song. The keys break before the “I’ve seen you move” build is a nice variation from the usual formula. The “do it again” chorus is a bit repetitive, but it’s not beaten into the ground. As is typical, the arrangement features all the modern praise band signatures from soft pads, ethereal piano, and floor tom-built musical building into the last chorus. It is a shame that the lyrics are so lame and that the song comes from a heretical movement. 13/15.

Total Score: 50/100. Scoring a zero in the association category is automatically disqualifying (remember, you can always sing something else), but shrinking God’s certainty and generalizing what could easily have been specific biblical truth is enough to disqualify this song for corporate worship with or without Steven Furtick.

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Worship Music

Theological Song Review: What a Beautiful Name

What a Beautiful Name was released by Hillsong Worship on January 6th, 2017, and won two dove awards in 2017 and the 2018 Grammy for Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song.

Note: For a full explanation of the rubric and a primer on our scoring methodology, click here.

Doctrinal Fidelity and Clarity: The song opens up with truth about Christ – that He has eternally existed as God. The next line states, “Your hidden glory in creation, now revealed in you our Christ.” Songwriter Ben Fielding explained that the line took its inspiration from Colossians 1:26, writing, “The mysteries of our infinitely beautiful and glorious God, once hidden for generations, have now been revealed through Jesus.” Yet in 1:26 of his letter to the Colossians, Paul does not describe a “hidden glory in creation,” but once-mysterious doctrines about Christ now given to the church, especially the mystery of Christ in us (verse 27), the incarnation of Christ (Col. 2:2), and the unity in Christ between Jew and Gentile (Eph 3:4-5). So while mysterious doctrines are now understood and brought to completion in Christ, there is no indication that God hid His glory in creation. Rather, Romans 1:20 teaches that God’s power and divinity are known through creation even by the lost: “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” This modification may seem like an inconsequential change except that it lines up with Hillsong’s Pentecostal belief that special, hidden mysteries can be revealed to us through the practice of sign gifts like speaking in tongues or divine healing, and that baptism of the Holy Spirit happens after and apart from salvation. Many will likely dismiss my taking issue here, but it is a doctrinal error nonetheless.

The line in the song that created the most controversy follows: “You didn’t want heaven without us, so Jesus you brought heaven down.” While it is true that God’s dispositional will is that none perish (2 Peter 3:9), it is biblically clear that in His sovereignty God indeed does want heaven without some people (Matthew 7:13, Jude 1:4). This verse implies that God’s will in salvation is somehow related to how wonderful we are, but the Bible teaches the wretched and undeserving truth about mankind. Again, songwriter Ben Fielding makes this error worse by adding context about the second verse from his friend Glenn Packiam, who stated, “Heaven– God’s space– and earth– human space– were one. But sin fractured the union of heaven and earth. The beauty of the Gospel is that God’s solution was not to come down from heaven to airlift us out of earth, but rather to bring heaven down to earth in such a way that it would renew everything.” The Bible teaches nowhere that heaven and earth were ever one, nor that Christ’s first coming and salvific work on the cross “renewed everything.” These ideas betray the prosperity gospel taught by the Hillsong movement.

After one of the most repetitive choruses to make it into a modern praise song (which will be addressed shortly), the song’s bridge is largely straight Bible truth and I find myself wishing its lyrics had found their way into the chorus in some fashion. 17/25.

Doctrinal Specificity: It is clear from the lyrics that the song is addressing the Jesus of scripture, and verses refer specifically to attributes of Jesus including his bodily resurrection and preexistence. This would make it difficult to sing for those not claiming Jesus.

It is good that the song refers to the sin of the worshipper (“My sin was great”), although sin is not fully characterized as something that is the fault of the sinner. The chorus’ line “nothing compares to this” is weirdly emotional and non-specific. Nothing compares to what? 12/20.

Focus: The song remains focused on Jesus, or at least on the name of Jesus. The worshiper is not the validator of anything claimed about God, except for the self-focused line about God’s apparent heavenly loneliness. 16/20.

Association: The list of unbiblical beliefs and practices by Hillsong Church is a mile long. They embrace Word of Faith heresy, prosperity gospel, relative silence on LGBTQ sin, and violate the Bible by ordaining women to the pastorate. More recently, Hillsong has found itself embroiled in scandal as Hillsong New York pastor Carl Lentz was found to be a rampant sexual abuser and adulterer and “Global Senior Pastor” Brian Houston is about to be put on trial for concealing his father’s reported sexual abuse of children. 5 points because apparently neither Lentz nor Houston helped write the song. 5/20.

Musical Value: There is nothing special about the music underpinning this song, but the composition works the standard verse-chorus-building bridge-big chorus formula to capable effect. The chorus is quite repetitive and offers very little in the way of meaning beyond “Jesus is good” (as true as this is). 12/15.

Total score: 62/100. Not only are there better songs out there in terms of doctrine, the Hillsong label has become indefensible for even those willing to ignore their aberrant doctrine. The 5/20 association score disqualifies this song for recommendation.

Categories
Worship Music

Theological Song Review: Rejoice by Keith and Kristyn Getty and Rend Collective – 82/100

Album cover from Keith and Kristyn Getty’s album “Christ Our Hope in Life and Death”

This tune and its album (Christ Our Hope In Life And Death) was released very recently, and the song is at the top of praisecharts.com’s “Top New Praise and Worship Songs.”

Note: For a full explanation of the rubric and a primer on our scoring methodology, click here.

Doctrinal Fidelity and Clarity: Taking its cue from Philippians 4:4, every phrase in this song can be directly traced back to the Bible. While the overall song is a general expression of praise, phrases like “We gather in His goodness, a family of grace” and “His peace will fall upon us to guard our hearts and minds, in Christ who reigns eternal the Shepherd of our lives” make reference to specific doctrinal teaching on the nature of the church as the Body of Christ and Jesus as a protecting Shepherd who provides true peace for his flock. While references to fire and spiritual benefits “falling” on believers are common phraseology in charismatic circles and lyrics “His peace will fall upon us” and “The hope that burns within us” could possibly be winking at charismatics, in the context of a plain reading of Philippians 4:7 the lyrics are generally sound. 20/25.

Doctrinal Specificity: The song is a general proclamation of praise, but does contain specific references to Christ reigning, God as the giver of life, and references our call to proclaim the works of the Lord. The lyrics are not as descriptive and poetic as many older hymns, nor are they generalized and emotionalized like so many recently-composed worship songs. The particulars of salvation are not referenced, but specifying Christ and New Testament teachings positively identifies the object of worship to be the God of the Bible. 17/20.

Focus: God is certainly the focus of the song, and in no way is validated by the personal experience or feelings of the worshipper. The only first-person reference in the entire song is “I am sure we have every reason to praise the Lord,” which is an expression of assurance in God rather than validation of Him by the worshipper. 20/20. 

Association: The Gettys generally associate with orthodox churches and pastors, and have a reputation for writing songs that are good alternatives to the vast array of garbage that passes for worship music these days. As with most musical artists, they are relatively tolerant and non-confrontational in their public interactions but are not known to partner with obviously heretical churches or movements. Rend Collective has partnered with artists and movements that have known theological errors like Kari Jobe and IHOP, and Rend’s lead singer Chris Llewellyn recently deleted a post where he said that “calling a trans woman a man is hateful,” which demonstrates problems with Llewellyn’s understanding of both God’s created order and the biblical command to not bear false witness. His error does not manifest in the song, however. 10/20.

Musical Value: “Rejoice” is an upbeat waltz, typical for Irish songwriters. The melody is accessible and the chord structure is standard. The arrangement tastefully drops a measure at the end of the chorus into the interlude which provides a nice variation. Interludes have shout-style “oh” melodies, but these are not overused. There are no mindlessly repeating phrases or breakdown-buildup sections for the purpose of manufacturing an emotional response. Great arrangement for corporate worship. 15/15.

Total score: 82/100. If you like it, sing it.

Bonus: Practice applying this rubric to David’s song here:

Categories
Worship Music

Theological Song Review: Forever and Amen by Cody Carnes, Kari Jobe – 20/100

Album cover from Cody Carnes’ album God is Good!

This tune was released with the rest of the album God is Good! (Live) on September 30, 2022.

Note: For a full explanation of the rubric and a primer on our scoring methodology, click here.

Doctrinal Fidelity and Clarity: The song opens with a “version” of the Lord’s prayer – notably modifying Christ’s prayer that “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” to simply state, “Your Kingdom as it is in heaven, let it be on earth the same,” a statement that aligns with the “Kingdom Now” theology found in the New Apostolic Reformation teaching of Carnes’ and Jobe’s Gateway Church. Jesus’ prayer to “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” is later modified to become “deliver us again,” removing the context of temptation and instead alluding to the idea that the delivery spoken of is a perpetual occurrence – quite possibly occurring as God progressively regains control over the world (a “Kingdom Now” idea), before the chorus (and song title) which is simply a repeated and contextless “forever and amen.” Modifying scripture to say something other than what it says is sinful and disqualifying for any worship song. 5/25.

Doctrinal Specificity: Unfortunately, when a song is generally non-specific but the specifics that are there twist what the Bible teaches, it renders the specificity analysis rather moot. Even the NAR-typical, mindless repetition of the sometimes-included doxology “Yours is the kingdom, Yours is the power, Yours is the glory” is completely absent of any specific context and seems only useful in stirring the crowd to emotional heights in the comically-long live rendition of the song. 5/20.

Focus: Focus is similarly hard to analyze as the lyrics are primarily out of context and repeated ad nauseam. But it is safe to say that the focus of the song – especially in context of the marathon-length rendition – is on creating an emotional release for the worshipper. While “our Father” is mentioned, His utility is validated by his response to us (“when we pray, you long to hear it, you love to bless it”). When God’s actions are mentioned, they are mischaracterized. The focus of the song is clearly on the experience of the worship participant rather than God. 5/20.

Association: To say Cody Carnes and Kari Jobe have troublesome associations is putting it mildly. In fact, we consider anyone associating with them to be troublesome. They come out of Robert Morris’ NAR-promoting, seeker-sensitive Gateway Church. Jobe is famous for teaching through her song “Forever” that Jesus descended into hell for a fight with Satan – a heretical belief that denies that Christ paid the price on the cross. She is also known for her sexualization of Jesus in song lyrics, like her song The More I Seek You, where she sings, “Lay back against you and breathe, feel your heart beat, this love is so deep, it’s more than I can stand.” Gross. 0/20.

Musical Value: The composition bears all the musical signatures of a modern, disposable musical vehicle utilized for mind-numbing repetition. While the use of 1-4-2-5 (verse) and 4-5-6-5 (chorus) chord sequences are not in and of themselves problematic (and are used in hundreds of songs), the ridiculous overuse of the 4-2-6 build under the “Yours” repeats are strikingly similar to the “lose yourself” repetitions of techno kids on ecstasy or weed-smoking jam band fans that will blissfully listen to the same musical phrase over and over in a mindless, emotion-informed trance. In short, the music doesn’t matter. The chords and melodies could be just about anything to serve the purposes of this song. 5/15.

Total score: 20/100. Avoid this garbage like the plague.

Bonus: Practice applying this rubric on a David song here:

Categories
Op-Ed Worship Music

Discerning Praise and Worship – A Primer

Knowing that I’m a musician, many readers of Protestia and followers/supporters of Protestia Tonight have asked me how I approach the selection of worship music from a biblical perspective. In response, I’d like to humbly offer my rating system for figuring out if a given song belongs in your church service. There are other websites that offer similar analyses, but frankly, I have found them far too tolerant considering churches don’t need any particular song. First, some context.

The Megachurch Takeover

Worship music is extra-biblical. Songs are notes, rhythms, and often lyrics not found in scripture. Of course, this does not mean that there is anything sinful or wrong with songs in general, but scripture does instruct us to sing songs that are spiritual (Col. 3:16). We sing Psalms (worship songs written under the inspiration of the Spirit that are part of scripture), hymns (which often contain scripture, and should contain rich doctrinal truth), and spiritual songs. Spiritual songs may be more general, but should be characterized by the promotion of those things that are true, honorable, just, lovely, commendable, excellent, or worthy of praise (Philippians 4:8) – again, informed by scripture.

While the singing of Psalms faces no scriptural challenge (as they are scripture) and most long-accepted hymns enjoy wide acceptance (although a few present some doctrinal or associational difficulty), modern music technology has presented a vast array of new challenges to the Church. This modern technology includes recording, easier and cheaper music production and the internet becoming the sole distribution channel for musical products.

Churches of the market-driven, seeker-sensitive variety quickly realized the power of music to aid their marketing efforts, and many developed in-house, professional writing, recording, and distribution operations to capitalize on the music industry’s paradigm shift. Music could now be recorded cheaply and distributed instantaneously, and (as with so many other products) the church was a ripe market. The relatively-niche market for Christian recording artists (once largely separate from the music used in church worship) was quickly taken over by church music ministries recording and producing cheap, emotional songs under the “worship” label. These songs were created not for the purpose of selling albums to Christian customers, but to be used in church worship services. People had stopped buying music, and streaming royalties remained low, but churches continued to license music through CCLI for Sunday morning.

Aside from the revenue generated through licensing, mega-church ministries that had their own music production and distribution arms enjoy an attractional, and professional feather in the cap that signals to the wider Christian world that they are the real deal. Additionally, music has a way of leading people to let their doctrinal guard down, and accept teachings that would likely draw opposition if taught directly from the pulpit.

Christian recording artists, unable to compete against the unassailable certification of holiness granted to “church bands,” jumped on the bandwagon and started producing worship songs and albums as well. The ironic result was that the tapestry of “spiritual songs” that was on the verge of blossoming a couple of decades ago gave way to a homogeneous, cheap, sound-alike Christian music industry. Questionable doctrine now came in a church-sanitized package on Sunday morning. Artistry had been replaced with generic praise bands singing emotionally manipulative, universalized, and generic lyrics over music that was cheap, basic, and disposable.

The Current Landscape

Yet there is a remnant. There are Christian music artists writing songs that exalt God’s truth using music that is artistically crafted rather than comprised of the same four chords that make up every Phil Wickham, Elevation Worship, Hillsong, or Bethel tune blasted from evangelical sound systems on Sundays. And of course, we have the Psalms – which are often put to new music yet contain inspired truth. Classic hymns of the faith are re-produced or rearranged musically.

Yet seemingly every day a new, disposable Christian praise tune is released and is quickly promoted on lowest-common-denominator Christian music outlets. K-Love Kathy quickly goes from undiscerningly blasting it in her Toyota Sienna to sharing it with her girlfriends at the weekly Priscilla Shirer “bible” study. Soon, the tune catches the ear of the worship pastor or leader (who is no doubt aware that the hipster church down the street is using it) and he follows suit – using the same tune to raise the hands, close the eyes, and bend the emotions of his emotion-addicted congregation.

Discerning Songs

And so we find ourselves asking: By what standard should a church determine which music is praise-worthy, which music should be off-limits, and what should be the approach to music that may be in the middle? Christian liberty is an important biblical doctrine, and there are many choices that fall into the category of being “permissible, but not beneficial” (1 Corinthians 6:12). In this spirit, and under the plain logic that there is an opportunity cost with every song used in Christian worship (every time one song is used, another is not), I humbly suggest the following biblical rating system designed to analyze the value, fidelity, and risk of singing a given song in corporate worship.

Many of these principles can be used when deciding what a believer might listen to at home or privately, but this application will be for the purpose of selecting music for corporate worship. Note that I am not rating the artist per se (several standards would be stricter if the artist were a pastor, for example) – I am rating the songs. For example, if the artist has a troublesome theological belief that doesn’t manifest in the song itself or create an obvious or undeniable reproachful association, this may not be enough to disqualify the song itself.

The Rubric

Songs will be rated on a 100-point scale, scored by the following:

Doctrinal Fidelity and Clarity – 25 points. Is biblical doctrine consistent throughout the song? Are the nature, works, and character of God described in the lyrics consistent with scripture? How are the Gospel and salvation characterized? Are there phrases commonly employed within false teaching being used? 

Doctrinal Specificity – 20 points. Are the lyrics specific enough to positively describe the true Christ rather than a generalized God? Do the lyrics positively exclude false versions of Jesus? Would anything prevent followers of other religions from singing this song? Would lost people be able to sing this song without any issues?

Focus – 20 points. Does the song rhetorically place the focus on God or man? Is God being praised apart from the individual experience of the worshipper, or is He characterized as praiseworthy by the approval of the worshipper?

Association – 20 points. Is the song written by or primarily associated with a heretical, false, or troublesome church movement? Would using the song in church reasonably be seen as a tacit endorsement of a false church or false gospel? Does the primary songwriter or artist associated with the song partner with false ministries or teachers?

Musical Value – 15 points. Is the song using the same musical structure as every other praise song? Does it employ repetition as an emotional device and/or a replacement for lyrical content? Is it arranged in an artistically unique way, or could the melody and lyrics be easily replaced with another song?

Songs will receive a raw score indicating overall appropriateness for a worship service, but a loss of more than 10 points in a doctrinal category or association will result in an automatic non-recommendation. The “musical value” category is obviously the most subjective, but also includes consideration of low-value techniques like phrase repetition and emotionally manipulative musical devices.

Three Categories

80-100: Safe for Sunday. If you like it, program it.

50-79: Pastoral Guidance Suggested. This song may be used, but prayerfully consider choosing something else and be ready with an explanation if questioned about why the song is being used despite its issues.

0-49: Pick Something Else. These songs have no business being used in a church worship service. Stay away.

We will continually update the category of analyzed songs as a resource for pastors and church members to use as a handy guide when presented with a song they are unfamiliar with.

Bonus: Practice applying this rubric to a David song here: