Theologically-Dubious Christian Songs

A couple of weeks ago, Reyn, the pastor of our daughter church came to preach and spoke about the preeminence of God's glory as part of our series in Numbers. In part of his sermon, he referenced a popular Christian song and embedded theological inaccuracy. He wasn't hating on the song per se, but it did remind me that it wasn't the only song that might be considered "theologically dubious".

By the way, I firmly believe that praise songs that speak of an aspirational response of worship, such as "You are my all in all" knowing well that we struggle to live out such lofty words do NOT belong in the theologically dubious category. The Psalms are full of such "aspirational" language (in the spirit of "Lord, may it be so that I...") and are clearly appropriate for worship. So without further adieu, here are a few that come to mind with YouTube links embedded.

"Above All" by Michael W. Smith

Crucified

Laid behind the stone

You lived to die

Rejected and alone

Like a rose

Trampled on the ground

You took the fall

And thought of me

Above all

PROBLEM: Reyn gets credit for this one, but I'll rehash his point. The song makes the implication that Jesus was thinking, above all things, about us as He was being crucified. Not so, he pointed out. Above all things was the regard and the passion for the Glory of God, which is yes, manifest in his steadfast love to His people. Hebrews 12:2 further goes on to tell us that Jesus endured the cross for the "joy set before him."

WORKAROUND: The preacher pointed out that if you view the chorus as "You took the fall and thought of me (PERIOD)," then the "above all" immediately following it simply becomes a poetic tag. Uh... sure.

"We Are The Reason" by David Meece

And we are the reason

That he gave his life

We are the reason

That he suffered and died

To a world that was lost

He gave all he could give

To show us the reason to live

PROBLEM: It's similar to the dilemma in "Above All" which is the inaccurate implication that the primary driving force behind Christ's work is focused on the elect - the fact that the song references it as "the reason" makes it tough to navigate around, and he compounds it by implying that the purpose of the atonement to secondarily serve as a teaching point that we have a reason to live in the spirit of "It grieves me that humankind lives meaningless lives, so I shall die to give them a reason to live." Ugh. I can understand that singing "We are part of the reason that he gave his life" doesn't sound quite as catchy.

WORKAROUND: This is a tough one. It's a very moving song and you hate to rain on the parade of David Meece's voice cracking with emotion, but between the above commentary and the lyrics around "On a dark and cloudy day a man hung crying in the rain because of love" I'm thinking it's not going to be featured at our church any time soon, let alone PCA General Assembly.

"I Believe in Jesus" by Marc Nelson

I believe in Jesus

I believe He is the Son of God

I believe He died and rose again

I believe He paid for us all

PROBLEM: If you lean reformed doctinally, you clearly believe that Jesus did NOT pay for us all. The concept of limited or particular atonement holds that Jesus' substitutionary work is limited to those who are the elect, or predestined for salvation. He paid for the elect, not for all.

WORKAROUND: You might make the argument that you're singing this chorus within a congregation of elect, so "us all" could refer to "all of us here, the predestined elect who could only sing this song in sincerity given these beliefs we profess." Yup, there ya go.

Those of you who are readers of the blog can probably come up with others. Fire away in the comments section.