"Mystical" Music

[PreachersWife2004]

Okay, you guys generally know that I am not a champion of contemporary music by any stretch of the imagination. But I was just on facebook where a Lutheran meme page posted a nice little cute picture of a bear "playing" the piano and the caption was "STILL better than Shine Jesus Shine".

Now, I happen to like this song and said as much.

Their response was that it's mystical and all but if I'm into music that lacks theological depth then good for me.

Here's my question...How is Shine Jesus Shine mystical? Nothing in represents anything mystical and it talks about biblical principles! No, it's not the best song for a liturgical service, nor have I ever suggested I'd use it (although our school kids sang it once as the offertory) but I just can't for the life of me figure out why this song would get picked on as being mystical. Here's the lyrics:

Lord the Light or Your Love is shining,
In the midst of the darkness shining,
Jesus light of the world shine upon us,
Set us free by the truth You now bring us,
Shine on me. Shine on me.

Shine Jesus shine
Fill this land with the Father's glory
Blaze, Spirit blaze,
Set our hearts on fire
Flow, river flow
Flood the nations with grace and mercy
Send forth Your word
Lord and let there be light.

Lord I come to Your awesome presence,
From the shadows into Your radiance,
By the blood I may enter Your brightness,
Search me, try me, consume all my darkness,
Shine on me. Shine on me.

As we gaze on Your kindly brightness.
So our faces display Your likeness.
Ever changing from glory to glory,
Mirrored here may our lives tell Your story.
Shine on me. Shine on me.

 

[cerette]

It doesn't teach or promote mysticism but I can see how words like "Your radiance" and repeated "shine on me"s could lead some to think that the lyrics aren't your most common Lutheran ones and the song would probably fit better in some other context.

Sometimes people have really strong opinions about things and they go too far when trying to explain why their view is the better one.

 

[PreachersWife2004]

It doesn't teach or promote mysticism but I can see how words like "Your radiance" and repeated "shine on me"s could lead some to think that the lyrics aren't your most common Lutheran ones and the song would probably fit better in some other context.

Sometimes people have really strong opinions about things and they go too far when trying to explain why their view is the better one.

To their credit they're being relatively cool about it, other than that one remark (and some of these guys I know through a blog where I'm a pretty outspoken person so they were probably just building off that) although they have yet to really define why they believe the song is mystical. It's rather repetitive, which i know for some is a big issue. They brought up the phrase "consume my darkness" and called that mystical, and then went on to say that it's mainly about being emotional, as though emotion = God. Or something like that. I honestly don't quite understand the argument.

 

[Healed_IHS]

is "mystical" derogatory?

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

Shine Jesus, shine... the Father's glory... Blaze Spirit, blaze.... flow river, flow...

Wait. When did a river become a member of the Trinity?

Honestly, I don't think the song is any more mystical than it is liturgical. I just can't stand it.

 

[ContraMundum]

Some people just need to lighten up. You know, shine a little.

I'm not into that song for liturgy either, but as far as music goes, it's not bad. Not my scene, but not bad. The Bible has many similar poetic images for worship. I think some people just forget where in the Bible those lyrics find their inspiration, and get grumpy about it. Mind you, those critics probably think God no longers inspires hymn writing, preferring to sing songs from bygone eras- a time frozen somewhere between 1700-1850. Am I close?

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

Some people just need to lighten up. You know, shine a little.

I'm not into that song for liturgy either, but as far as music goes, it's not bad. Not my scene, but not bad. The Bible has many similar poetic images for worship. I think some people just forget where in the Bible those lyrics find their inspiration, and get grumpy about it. Mind you, those critics probably think God no longers inspires hymn writing, preferring to sing songs from bygone eras- a time frozen somewhere between 1700-1850. Am I close?

There are certainly some excellent hymns written in the past hundred and fifty years. But I don't think Shine Jesus, Shine is one of them. From any musicological standpoint, it's just hash.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

Okay, you guys generally know that I am not a champion of contemporary music by any stretch of the imagination. But I was just on facebook where a Lutheran meme page posted a nice little cute picture of a bear "playing" the piano and the caption was "STILL better than Shine Jesus Shine".

Now, I happen to like this song and said as much.

Their response was that it's mystical and all but if I'm into music that lacks theological depth then good for me.

Here's my question...How is Shine Jesus Shine mystical? Nothing in represents anything mystical and it talks about biblical principles! No, it's not the best song for a liturgical service, nor have I ever suggested I'd use it (although our school kids sang it once as the offertory) but I just can't for the life of me figure out why this song would get picked on as being mystical. Here's the lyrics:

Lord the Light or Your Love is shining,
In the midst of the darkness shining,
Jesus light of the world shine upon us,
Set us free by the truth You now bring us,
Shine on me. Shine on me.

Shine Jesus shine
Fill this land with the Father's glory
Blaze, Spirit blaze,
Set our hearts on fire
Flow, river flow
Flood the nations with grace and mercy
Send forth Your word
Lord and let there be light.

Lord I come to Your awesome presence,
From the shadows into Your radiance,
By the blood I may enter Your brightness,
Search me, try me, consume all my darkness,
Shine on me. Shine on me.

As we gaze on Your kindly brightness.
So our faces display Your likeness.
Ever changing from glory to glory,
Mirrored here may our lives tell Your story.
Shine on me. Shine on me.

When i saw the title, this is what came to mind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_of_Binge

Hildegard von Bingen - O Tu Suavissima Virga [Sequentia] - YouTube

 

[Jonathan95]

Shine Jesus, shine... the Father's glory... Blaze Spirit, blaze.... flow river, flow...

Wait. When did a river become a member of the Trinity?

Honestly, I don't think the song is any more mystical than it is liturgical. I just can't stand it.

The river might be meant to be a symbol for the Holy Spirit, which I believe is a pretty common symbol. It is also Biblical: "He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." John 7:38

"But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." John 4:14

 

[ContraMundum]

There are certainly some excellent hymns written in the past hundred and fifty years. But I don't think Shine Jesus, Shine is one of them. From any musicological standpoint, it's just hash.

Sure, but isn't that more about personal taste?

 

[PreachersWife2004]

Sure, but isn't that more about personal taste?

I believe it is. There's nothing scripturally wrong with Shine Jesus Shine.

Yet somehow it ends up in a category reserved for such songs as "I have decided to follow Jesus", which IS unscriptural in that it promotes decision theology.

The major complaint I'm hearing about Shine Jesus Shine is that people don't like it musically. Personally, I love to play it on the piano. Doesn't sound good on the organ at all in my opinion. And don't get me started on some of the hymns in Christian Worship. They're liturgical, scriptural and just plain awful to sing, yet they are favorites amongst some of the music snobs I know.

Ultimately, the people who posted the meme had to admit that there just wasn't really anything unbiblical about the song, just that they didn't like the music or the layout. One person brought up repetition, but there's several hymns that repeat that aren't bad so repetition can't be a lone complaint in my opinion.

 

[ContraMundum]

I believe it is. There's nothing scripturally wrong with Shine Jesus Shine.

Yet somehow it ends up in a category reserved for such songs as "I have decided to follow Jesus", which IS unscriptural in that it promotes decision theology.

The major complaint I'm hearing about Shine Jesus Shine is that people don't like it musically. Personally, I love to play it on the piano. Doesn't sound good on the organ at all in my opinion. And don't get me started on some of the hymns in Christian Worship. They're liturgical, scriptural and just plain awful to sing, yet they are favorites amongst some of the music snobs I know.

Ultimately, the people who posted the meme had to admit that there just wasn't really anything unbiblical about the song, just that they didn't like the music or the layout. One person brought up repetition, but there's several hymns that repeat that aren't bad so repetition can't be a lone complaint in my opinion.

I hear ya!

I actually like "I have decided to follow Jesus". While on the surface it could promote decision theology, I like what it affirms in repentance. But that's just my personal take on it.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

Sure, but isn't that more about personal taste?

Personal taste is an important factor, and I don't think traditional hymnody exhausts legitimate expressions of personal taste for liturgical purposes.

But an actual study of the music- just as with any music- reveals certain properties of the music. Take the chorus: the second "shine" begins on the upbeat of the fourth count of the measure and carries over into the next. This is exactly the sort of syncopation we find in performance music, not in music attuned to communal singing. Now performance music is great (I wouldn't be part of a performing arts group if it weren't), but it's a poor fit for songs designed to be sung by the congregation. And, as we should all know, a big change in the Reformation (both by Luther on the Protestant side and Palestrina on the Catholic side) was to make church music more suitable for communal congregational singing.

That's one reason the old hymns have been such great standbys: they have regular rhythms on the quarter note beat, subdivide into eights on two and four counts, and elongate into half notes on the one and three count. It makes them much more suitable for communal song.

In fact, Lutheranism has already dealt with this, three hundred years ago. One of the things that made J.S. Bach so important for church music was his work at the Leipzig St. Thomas Kirke, where he rearranged Reformation hymns to have more regular meter and beat. Where earlier the hymns were not hymns at all, but Renaissance-style ballads with syncopation and irregular meter, Bach changed them to 4/4 and gave us the great hymns we know today. Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley wrote in a very similar style, making these three the standbys for congregational song.

Unfortunately, the Lutheran Service Book has actually removed a number of the Bach arrangements and reverted to the Renaissance-style, Reformation-era forms under the mantra of "authenticity." Unfortunately, they're just not as singable. Now love- love- the LSB, but this is probably it's chief failing. I say this only to point out that the problems I have with Shine Jesus, Shine and many other contemporary worship songs has nothing to do with when they were written, the fact that they're "new" (even though most of them were written in the 70s before I was born), or the fact that I'm just an grumpy old man.

Which brings us back to Shine Jesus, Shine. I think the lyrics are a bit trite, but if you want to sing it in private, or perform it at an open-mic night, that's perfectly fine with me. I have no real problem with it.

My problem with it is that the lyrics don't tell the story of salvation-history in any substantive way, and therefore are less suitable for the reenactment of salvation-history that is the public liturgy. But just as importantly, the music is performance-oriented, whereas the liturgy is participatory. That was a huge part of the Reformation, and I think it would be a shame to go back on one of the strongest, most popularly attractive points of Luther's reformation in a ironic quest for accessibility.

So when I say it's hash, I mean that quite literally. It's a performance-piece trying to be a communal singing-piece, like a rock song pretending to be a folk song. It's a weird mixture that can be really jarring if you don't know it.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

I hear ya!

I actually like "I have decided to follow Jesus". While on the surface it could promote decision theology, I like what it affirms in repentance. But that's just my personal take on it.

Um. How is it not assuming freewill Arminianism?

 

[ContraMundum]

Um. How is it not assuming freewill Arminianism?

I don't think that's the point I was making. I know you can take it that way, but that's not what I get from it. I know many people understand the libertarianism here (I wouldn't call this classical Arminian at all) but there's another question this raises.

How it personal responsibility not in Christianity?

I realize there is a (very sad) trend today amongst monergists to flee for the hills in terror every time anything personal in religion is brought up- claiming it is either "Arminian" or "Pietist" or "modernist" or whatever, but no matter how you look at it, the Bible is a very personal book, filled with challenges to persons for them to take up. We are challenged in the Bible to repent, and that- even to the monergist- is a choice (God's grace coming first, of course). It's an over reaction in the pendulum swing of theology to reject anything requiring personal responsibility for fear of it "looking" synergist or whatever. Following Jesus is about our whole life and our sanctification, and we are told to repent and take up our cross etc.

When we take the view that we are mere passengers on the Heaven-bound gravy train we risk falling into antinomianism, nominalism (the bane of all religions) and ultimately we may even fall into the cheap grace trap- or licentiousness.

As far as I know, every orthodox Lutheran author, text and Confession affirms both monergism and personal responsibility. I think rejecting either one to "protect" the other is rejecting orthodoxy and losing its beautiful balance. The distinction of course is drawn between justification (monergism) and sanctification, law and Gospel etc, but you still have to do something- and that takes decision. You know all this anyway. I'm not telling you anything new. It's a just a topic I'm interested in from a Lutheran perspective.

When the pendulum swings too far bad stuff happens.

I like this quote from Bonhoeffer relevant to his time and nation-

"We Lutherans have gathered like the eagles around the carcass of cheap grace, and there we have drunk of the poison which has killed the life of following Christ. It is true, of course, that we have paid the doctrine of pure grace divine honours unparalleled in Christendom; in fact we have exalted that doctrine to the position of God himself. Everywhere Luther's formula has been repeated, but its truth (has been) perverted into self-deception. . . by making this grace available on the cheapest and easiest terms. To be "Lutheran" must mean that we must leave the following Christ to legalists, Calvinists and enthusiasts – and all this for the sake of grace. We justified the world, and condemned as heretics those who tried to follow Christ. The result was that a nation became Christian and Lutheran, but at the cost of true discipleship. The price it was called upon to pay was all too cheap. Cheap grace had won the day."

I sometimes worry that this will happen in your country too. What thinketh ye?

 

[ContraMundum]

Personal taste is an important factor, and I don't think traditional hymnody exhausts legitimate expressions of personal taste for liturgical purposes.

But an actual study of the music- just as with any music- reveals certain properties of the music. Take the chorus: the second "shine" begins on the upbeat of the fourth count of the measure and carries over into the next. This is exactly the sort of syncopation we find in performance music, not in music attuned to communal singing. Now performance music is great (I wouldn't be part of a performing arts group if it weren't), but it's a poor fit for songs designed to be sung by the congregation. And, as we should all know, a big change in the Reformation (both by Luther on the Protestant side and Palestrina on the Catholic side) was to make church music more suitable for communal congregational singing.

That's one reason the old hymns have been such great standbys: they have regular rhythms on the quarter note beat, subdivide into eights on two and four counts, and elongate into half notes on the one and three count. It makes them much more suitable for communal song.

In fact, Lutheranism has already dealt with this, three hundred years ago. One of the things that made J.S. Bach so important for church music was his work at the Leipzig St. Thomas Kirke, where he rearranged Reformation hymns to have more regular meter and beat. Where earlier the hymns were not hymns at all, but Renaissance-style ballads with syncopation and irregular meter, Bach changed them to 4/4 and gave us the great hymns we know today. Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley wrote in a very similar style, making these three the standbys for congregational song.

Unfortunately, the Lutheran Service Book has actually removed a number of the Bach arrangements and reverted to the Renaissance-style, Reformation-era forms under the mantra of "authenticity." Unfortunately, they're just not as singable. Now love- love- the LSB, but this is probably it's chief failing. I say this only to point out that the problems I have with Shine Jesus, Shine and many other contemporary worship songs has nothing to do with when they were written, the fact that they're "new" (even though most of them were written in the 70s before I was born), or the fact that I'm just an grumpy old man.

Which brings us back to Shine Jesus, Shine. I think the lyrics are a bit trite, but if you want to sing it in private, or perform it at an open-mic night, that's perfectly fine with me. I have no real problem with it.

My problem with it is that the lyrics don't tell the story of salvation-history in any substantive way, and therefore are less suitable for the reenactment of salvation-history that is the public liturgy. But just as importantly, the music is performance-oriented, whereas the liturgy is participatory. That was a huge part of the Reformation, and I think it would be a shame to go back on one of the strongest, most popularly attractive points of Luther's reformation in a ironic quest for accessibility.

So when I say it's hash, I mean that quite literally. It's a performance-piece trying to be a communal singing-piece, like a rock song pretending to be a folk song. It's a weird mixture that can be really jarring if you don't know it.

Hmmm....well, I can say that this is a fair assesment of what you call performance music etc. As a trained musician myself I can agree. But to me, I think people are just people in the end. There's a reason many of the youth leave liturgical churches for a time and then come back when they're older. Just ask them- "it's the music" they often say. Then when they come back, it's often for the same reason!

I prefer liturgy, but I also know much of it was once populist too. I personally don't like freezing art or tradition into one acceptable era or form (in fact it shows an unhealthy and ironic exaltation of man's own creations), but I appreciate the God honouring, God-first music of traditional liturgy and hymnody. To me that is real worship. All the other stuff has a place too- just not (for me) in corporate worship.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

Hmmm....well, I can say that this is a fair assesment of what you call performance music etc. As a trained musician myself I can agree. But to me, I think people are just people in the end. There's a reason many of the youth leave liturgical churches for a time and then come back when they're older. Just ask them- "it's the music" they often say. Then when they come back, it's often for the same reason!

I prefer liturgy, but I also know much of it was once populist too. I personally don't like freezing art or tradition into one acceptable era or form (in fact it shows an unhealthy and ironic exaltation of man's own creations), but I appreciate the God honouring, God-first music of traditional liturgy and hymnody. To me that is real worship. All the other stuff has a place too- just not (for me) in corporate worship.

Cool. My only exception to your post: The pattern of youth leaving liturgical churches and coming back when older is no longer the prevalent pattern (as it was in the 70s and 80s). More often now, youth get disillusioned with their Baby Boomer parents' churches during their youth, and discover liturgy in college. That's exactly what happened with me, and it's becoming more and more the trend.

 

[ContraMundum]

Cool. My only exception to your post: The pattern of youth leaving liturgical churches and coming back when older is no longer the prevalent pattern (as it was in the 70s and 80s). More often now, youth get disillusioned with their Baby Boomer parents' churches during their youth, and discover liturgy in college. That's exactly what happened with me, and it's becoming more and more the trend.

Interesting observation! I have also seen a small few young people like that come to church. Interesting that they seem to be people of deep thought and who are prepared to give account for their faith in a manner that I believe shows great promise for the future. They are very different in terms of personality to the types attracted to Pentecostal or charismatic churches.