Question Praise: Considering The Source Of Worship Music
One frequent command in Scripture is to sing, or more specifically worship through song. In fact, the longest book in the Bible is an ancient hymnal full of songs to be sung to the Lord. Clearly, worship through singing is an important part of our faith, and most churches take this command seriously by incorporating music into worship services.
With the large variety in worship styles among churches, the question remains: What types of songs ought to be sung in church?
If you step into a contemporary evangelical church, chances are that you will hear songs by Elevation Church and Bethel Church. Scrolling through a praise chart’s list of “Top Trending Worship Songs,” these two churches take up many spots on the list. Although these churches have released popular songs, that popularity is not without controversy.
While many of these Christian songs are in fact orthodox, the people writing them have questionable beliefs. Steven Furtick, the lead pastor of Elevation Church and cowriter of several popular worship songs released by the church, has repeatedly promoted the false “little gods” doctrine, saying things like, “whatever (God) is, you are too,” according to Monegerism.com and Protestia.com.
He has also advocated the heresy of modalism, which denies the Trinity by saying that God manifests himself into different modes, when he has said things like Jesus changed forms when he sent the Holy Spirit, according to Coercion Code.
Bethel Church has even more problems than Elevation Church. Bill Johnson, the senior leader of Bethel Church, also helps write the worship songs coming from Bethel Church. He has repeatedly said that it is always God’s will to heal, according to Premier Christian Magazine. The book of Job clearly refutes this false doctrine.
Johnson also has questionable Christology, saying that Christ emptied himself of his divinity on earth, so that he was only human — not divine, according to Lighthouse Trails Research. These teachings, along with numerous others, put Bethel and Elevation outside the realm of orthodox evangelical Christianity.
While many (but certainly not all) songs by Bethel Church and Elevation Church are theologically correct, the people writing them generally do not fall within the realm of orthodoxy. As a result, evangelical churches should not be singing songs by Elevation or Bethel. When churches sing these songs, they must pay for the rights to use these songs, which in turn supports the ministries spreading these false teachings.
Singing songs by these churches also gives the appearance of approval. An undiscerning person might walk out of church and say, “We sing songs written by Steven Furtick at church, so he must be a solid teacher.”
Most pastors would not quote false teachers in their sermons, even if the quote was sound, as they would not want to promote these people to their flock. The songs that are sung in church should not be held to a lower standard.
With the amount of worship music being produced today, not to mention all the songs written over the course of the 2,000-year history of the Church, there is no reason that churches need to sing songs by Bethel and Elevation. It is challenging to find contemporary Christian musicians and worship artists who don’t have some affiliation with Bethel Church, Elevation Church or other controversial church-based labels; however, Getty Music is an example of a music organization working to revive theologically sound music, and their music could be considered as an alternative for corporate worship.
Clark is an opinion writer for the Liberty Champion.