Weird worship in the Bible
May 14th, 2008 at 17:57David Ker has started a new meme on Weird Worship, and has honoured me as one of the first group of five to be tagged. Not being one to duck out of a challenge like Nick Norelli, I decided to look for my own selection of weird lines from worship songs. But I will look in a more authoritative source even than Songs of Fellowship volume 4 – my TNIV, and specifically the Book of Psalms:
There is no God (14:1)
Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls (42:7)
Moab is my washbasin,
on Edom I toss my sandal;
over Philistia I shout in triumph. (108:9)
Happy are those who seize your infants
and dash them against the rocks. (137:9)
Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
praise him with the harp and lyre,
4 praise him with timbrel and dancing,
praise him with the strings and pipe,
5 praise him with the clash of cymbals,
praise him with resounding cymbals. (150:3-5)
Well, almost anything taken out of context can seem weird. That includes what is happening in Lakeland, Florida. But weird worship is biblical, because it is found in the Bible. Accept it, and get on with it, or at least let others get on with it without doubting their spirituality.
Well, this was a meme, so I’m supposed to tag some other people. I’ll give them a choice: either continue David (I mean Ker, not King)’s search for weirdness in contemporary worship songs; or follow my example by finding more weird worship in the Bible. I hereby tag:
- the wonderful Eddie Arthur,
- the incomparable Jim West,
- the latest enfant terrible of my blogging circle Roger Mugs,
- the pastor with the furthest to fall if his congregation decide to re-enact Luke 4:29, Brian Fulthorp,
- and, to try to get him to blog more than one post, my old friend and weird worship leader Dave G.
May 14th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
What strange songbook did you get all those weird lyrics from?!? Not one mention of Jesus or Amazing Grace!
Well, at least you’re not a party-pooper like Nick.
May 14th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Yes, David, I know I have provided more ammunition for the anti-TNIV crowd, who are no doubt unaware that ESV includes almost the same weird lyrics.
May 15th, 2008 at 8:14 am
[...] snarky, sublime and interesting replies (not necessarily in that order) to my Weird Worship meme: Peter, Nick, Jim. P&W is important to talk about love it or hate it because of its influence on [...]
May 15th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Some interesting responses here.
Roger Mugs is the only respondent so far to actually list some weird worship, or to tag anyone else. But his second example, from Keith Green, is in fact a straight quote from Psalm 51:11-12, which doesn’t seem at all weird to me. His third example, “Dropkick me Jesus”, is of course wonderfully weird, just the sort of thing David Ker must have been looking for.
Predictably, Jim West implies that at least 98% of contemporary worship is weird.
Eddie, however, takes a very different line:
- to which I replied:
May 15th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
[...] the MBTI, I’m an ISFJ, so usually I like to stick to the rules. But, with this one I followed Gentle Wisdom’s route and just let my mind go down its own path with the topic. Instead of five weird songs, I’ve [...]
May 15th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
[...] but I should note that weirdness has been with us for a long time. I am not remotely sure why Peter Kirk thinks Psalm 150 is weird, but I quite agree with him that Psalm 137: 9 is weird. What an [...]
May 15th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
[...] In addition to David’s original post, there have been a number of great replies, including this from Peter and this from Eclexia. I’m not sure that I’ll come up with five, but I’ll [...]
May 15th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
peter… to me this brings up some of the questions about how some of the psalms are to be sung/prayed. As for that song I listed, keith green was able to do it to music, I am only able to do it uncomfortably…
i’m still learning to wrap my head around some of these psalms that don’t handle my AD theology…
May 15th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Indeed, Roger, there are profound issues here.
May 15th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
[...] Weird Worship meme seems to have taken off. See David Ker’s latest roundup, also this one I wrote earlier [...]
May 16th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Peter, I like your follow-up analysis. Of course Roger’s post ties into the BBB series by Suzanne and my Cyber-Psalm today is tied to yours and Doug’s mention of Psalm 137. Truly a world-wide web! But are we the spider or the fly?
I felt both Eddie and Jim were engaging with the topic in their own way while not taking up the meme per se. And you know how I hate memes!
May 19th, 2008 at 4:27 am
Psalm 150. Weird? Perhaps. But it’s also quite beautiful. Here it is as a chiasmus:
A Praise the LORD!
B Praise God in His sanctuary; Praise Him in His mighty expanse.
C Praise Him for His mighty deeds; Praise Him according to His excellent greatness.
D Praise Him with trumpet sound;
E Praise Him with harp and lyre.
F Praise Him with timbrel and dancing;
E’ Praise Him with stringed instruments
D’ and pipe.
C’ Praise Him with loud cymbals; Praise Him with resounding cymbals.
B’ Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.
A’ Praise the LORD!
A few notes:
B/B’: Praise Him everywhere (B), everything (B’).
C/C’: God’s deeds and greatness are matched with the sound of crashing cymbals.
C’ to D/D’ and E/E’: Starting with cymbals, other instruments are brought in. From the loudest (cymbals) to quietest (strings).
F: The very physical act of dancing takes center stage.
The dancer(s) are surrounded by increasing bands of volume (E/E’ to D/D’ to C’), greatness (C), numbers (B’) and space (B). Working from outside-in, the ‘volume’ decreases until it is focused on the act of personal worship – involving the whole person.
Nice!
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! (A/A’)
May 19th, 2008 at 10:48 am
Larry, thanks for this interesting analysis. The centrality of dancing is interesting, especially to those of us for whom dance in worship is thought weird. It wasn’t so in Old Testament times.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
True enough.
July 29th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
[...] Peter has tagged me with a meme started by David Ker and challenged me to mention examples of weird worship either from the Bible or from personal experience. [...]