When and Why We Stopped Singing about Heaven, and How to Start Again

Just as it’s reductionistic to characterize all strands of, say, Baptist faith, as identical, it can be helpful to recognize the wide variety of belief and practice among charismatics and Pentecostals. Many of these believers possess a rich and nuanced eschatology; many might use the terminology and categories of what’s commonly referred to as “inaugurated eschatology.”

Having noted the wide variety of charismatic thought, it seems significant to identify the disproportionate influence that some streams of Pentecostalism have exerted upon the congregational songs of broader evangelicalism. Which streams have been the most influential? Generally those from “finished work” and “Oneness” Pentecostalism. These Pentecostals assert that Christ’s past accomplishment makes every spiritual benefit currently available to the faith-filled believer. From an evangelical perspective, this should be recognized as an over-realized eschatology, one which can open the door to various forms of harmful theology.

Second, it’s important to note the influence that juvenilization has played upon the North American church in general and CWM in particular. Juvenilized music, as scholars use the term, is music that both aims at younger people and, by that token, caters to their life experiences, desires, and emotional maturity levels. It highlights immediacy, for instance, rather than calling people to perseverance and patience. Because many believers experienced formative moments of faith in high-school and college ministries, these generationally targeted movements unwittingly led to developments in contemporary worship. Over time, these informal worship events soon forged the expectations of an entire generation of worshipers.

It should surprise no one that hymnody forged in contexts aimed at the values and felt needs of young people displays little concern for topics that appeal to older saints. Let me offer but one example: death. CWM rarely mentions death, or at least our death. The topic, when it comes up, usually refers to either Christ’s death or to death being conquered.

In one rare reference to the death of the believer, Matt Redman writes, “The end draws near and my time has come.” This is a good line and reminds us of the older generation of hymns. Yet notice how quickly the song moves on to another, happier subject: “Still my soul will sing Your praise unending, Ten thousand years and then forevermore.” A fine truth, as far as it goes, yet he barely asks us to linger on the bitter reality of death, which would arm worshippers as they fight against this last enemy, making reflections upon the ten-thousand-year promise even sweeter. Instead, the song jumps quickly from the sweetness of knowing God now to more of the same later with—okay, fine—the quick blip of death in between. Does that prepare saints who might spend years caring for a spouse in the slow descent of Alzheimer’s? Or decades married to an emotionally unresponsive spouse? Or a lifetime trying to overcome the wounds of childhood abuse and a chronic sense of God’s absence?

This is a bit of an aside, but it might be worthwhile in all this to consider the average age of our most popular songwriters. I’m grateful for the many young, talented songwriters with promising careers and growing ministries. But the joys of heaven would more likely preoccupy the minds of older saints who have suffered loss, those whose “best years” lie far behind and not ahead. (Unless, of course, you consider a believer’s “best years” as those which follow the resurrection.)

After all, moments of deepest distress have provoked some of the most tantalizing longings for heaven. Consider Fanny Crosby’s 1868 hymn, “Safe in the Arms of Jesus.” Crosby penned these words upon the death of her infant daughter. From the liturgical richness of Calvin’s refugee church in Strasburg to the profound lament of Black Spirituals to the Canaan Hymns of the Chinese house church hymnwriter, Lu Xiao-min, church history has demonstrated that Christians facing persecution produce some of the richest expressions of longing for heaven.

Finally, we should consider how commercialization has affected our worship songs The writing, publishing, and selling of congregational songs is far from a new phenomenon. But independent Christian music labels being bought out by major secular music labels is. Such buyouts offer upside: more money to invest, better production quality, and improved distribution access to name a few. This arrangement has enabled the proliferation of worship-based materials for sale.

But it’s also come with a cost: increased scrutiny on the bottom line. Secular labels care about profit, not discipleship and theology. And the best way to secure longstanding profit is to stoke the already-growing star-power of worship leaders and songwriters. So this growing industry encourages consumers to buy worship albums and register for worship conferences and to even attend “worship concerts.” Beyond paid, in-person performances, consumers also regularly watch videos of worship music—either live events or curated collections of images behind lyrics. Inevitably, these differing modes of participation shape expectations that believers bring to their Sunday morning services.

Simply put, financial concerns and discipleship concerns share a very slender overlap. Becoming a well-formed follower of Christ means we long for our coming Savior and our forever home with him in the new heavens and earth. This posture doesn’t move units or motivate consumers. Such an industry competes with a sober and substantial consideration of heaven.

HOW HAS THE CHANGE HURT US?

Singing isn’t magical. But what a congregation decides to sing on Sunday mornings offers unique functions in the discipleship of a local church. Most obviously, lyrics teach—they teach true doctrine and proper emotion; they point at the head and the heart. Beyond the words themselves, the melodic and harmonic setting of those words provide important emotional and social contexts. This combination—the doctrinal truth of the lyrics with the emotional and communal context of the music—seems to be what the Apostle Paul has in mind when he calls the believers in Ephesus to sing and make music (Ephesians 5:19). The Ephesian church was encircled by an immoral city and in danger of returning to their sinful way of life. And after he diagnoses their proclivity to the sins of the flesh (Ephesians 4:17ff), he prescribes a spiritual regimen of singing and making music.