By contrast, CWM’s most popular songs generally emphasize God’s presence as a currently felt reality. These songs celebrate God’s presence in lavish, unmitigated terms. Consider the third verse of Jason Ingram’s anthem, “Forever Reign”: “You are here, You are here, in Your presence I’m made whole.” Other songs locate God’s presence in the individual believer rather than the gathered community. Marie Barnett’s minimalist chorus, “Breathe,” begins with the words, “This is the air I breathe: Your holy presence living in me.”
This same trend shows up even in new adaptations of the classics—chief among them Chris Tomlin’s “Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone),” which is an adaptation of John Newton’s 1779 hymn “Faith’s Review and Expectation,” which we all know as “Amazing Grace.”As seen from his original title (“Expectation”), Newton highlighted the future orientation of the faith (e.g., “When we’ve been there ten thousand years…”). Tomlin, however, alters Newton’s chronological emphasis by eliminating Newton’s strongest anticipatory (“not yet”) verse: “Through many dangers, toils, and snares I have already come. ‘Tis grace that brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.” What did he replace such a time-tested verse with? A chorus that celebrates the current, subjective experience of the faith: “My chains are gone; I’ve been set free; My God, my Savior has ransomed me.”
But there’s something even more subtle going on here. Here’s how Newton ends his hymn: “The earth shall soon dissolve like snow, the sun forbear to shine; But God who called me here below, will be forever mine.” Tomlin adapts Newton’s future-oriented lyric to emphasize the current reality of God’s presence. He repeats this line—“will be forever mine”—in what’s called a “tag.” But as Tomlin does this, he shifts verb tenses so that God’s presence changes from a future, “not-yet” expectation to a present-day, “already” experience. Newton’s “will be forever mine” becomes Tomlin’s “you are forever mine.”
To be fair, CWM does sing about—albeit briefly—the age to come. Generally speaking, it highlights the universality of praise. In another popular song, Tomlin writes, “And all will see how great, How great is our God.” Ingram extends the metaphor beyond the praise of people to the praise of the entire created order: “You are Lord, All creation will proclaim.” What will believers be doing in the age to come? According to the most often sung songs in Contemporary Worship Music, believers will be doing exactly what they’re doing now—praising God and enjoying his presence.
There are certainly examples of CWM richly portraying the future orientation of the Christian faith, but the rhetorical accent of popular contemporary songs focuses on God’s presence and our experience of it in the here-and-now. While some find it easy to indulge in wholesale rejection of the CWM genre, wiser critics investigate the forces that lead churches to immanentize their heavenly language and only sing about heaven as a present experience.
WHY THE CHANGE?
This shift in emphasis among American hymnody is too substantial to attribute to a single influence. So let me focus on three: certain strands of Pentecostalism, juvenilization, and commercialization.
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