Several years ago when I was pastoring a church filled with new Christians who’d never grown up in church, I was trying to teach the importance of having a grateful attitude. It was November, so a lesson on the power of thankfulness was in order. But I was looking for a visual aid that would make a lasting impression on them and remind them of gratitude whenever they saw it.
That’s when I wrote down the words “Tie a Bow on It” on my iPad for my sermon title.
I entered the pulpit that Sunday with a bag full of bows you’d buy when wrapping your Christmas presents. As I walked around the room during the sermon, I stuck the multicolored bows on each person I encountered and then I’d mention why I was thankful for them. I even stuck a bow on the wall, because I was thankful we had a place to meet. Our church was new and I had struggled to find a venue we could afford. New Christians don’t tithe much, so I was grateful just to have a place that would let us set up every Sunday.
After I’d made my way around the room and emptied my bag of bows, I addressed the crowd.
“Whatever blessings you have in your life right now – your family, your job, your lousy car – they are all gifts from God. He has supplied our needs even when all we deserved was His judgment. So you need to mentally “tie a bow” on everything you have. Remind yourself that what you have is a gift from God. So tie a bow on it and be thankful!”
What a fun day that was! Teaching new Christians was a challenging but immensely fun experience.
Now as a worship leader, the sermons I used to write have become songs I compose. In fact, I wrote a song based on that “Tie a Bow” sermon. I wrote about the importance of appreciating all the blessings God had given us, and not taking anything for granted. So I was surprised when someone questioned whether my new song fit in a worship service.
Really? What was the problem? Well, my song didn’t sound much like the other worship songs we do. It had more than four chords, and the words were more subtle. Too subtle for some, since my song didn’t contain enough of the “code words” to help people know it was a Christian song.
Some Christians have been trained that the more times the words “God” or “Jesus” are said, the more spiritual the song must be. But if none of those code words were used, it must not be a Christian song. Right?
Well, not really. As a Christian, I had written a song about thankfulness. I assumed everyone would know the One I was thankful to was God. In fact, I thought it went without being said that I wasn’t thankful to Allah, or Buddha, but to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
And yet, here was someone questioning if my song on thankfulness belonged in a church. Honestly, I never saw that coming.
This is why our local churches have so few poets, writers, playwrights, and creatives. This is why Christian movies are often predictably mediocre, and why our worship songs are made with “four chords, and no more”. It’s because there will always be someone around taking those artistic creations that use symbolism and paint word pictures, and then hold them up to a very literal, unartistic standard. And that person who points out the problems will feel spiritually superior to the artist who was willing to pour their heart out in public out of their love for God.
You see, I’ve got gifted friends who used to be in the ministry but now won’t serve on a worship team. I grieve when I hear how wounded they feel about church and ministry. They’ve been on the receiving end of the spiritual critics enough that they’ve decided they’d rather make music in safer environments where they feel appreciated. Their absence is our loss, as we so greatly need beautiful songs and inspiring stories to capture the attention of this media-savvy generation that’s looking for God.
Part of the problem is a misplaced allegiance to literal Biblical interpretation. Don’t misunderstand – we SHOULD interpret the Bible accurately and literally, except maybe for passages like the Psalms that use figurative, poetic language. The problem comes when we apply that same literalism to works of art that never claimed to have the infallible authority of Scripture.
Of course, Christian films and songs should always be in agreement with Scripture and never contradict it. But should they be picked apart the same way we would a book on theology? I don’t think so.
So when a songwriter created the song “Reckless Love” a few years back to describe the amazing lengths God would go to in order to save us, preachers and church members nationwide cut him to shreds. “How could you suggest God is reckless? Isn’t that demeaning and suggesting He is imperfect?”
No, honey, it’s poetry.The songwriter used the word “reckless” to show how completely unreasonable God’s love is toward us. But yes, if you take it completely literally, it sounds like we’re saying God is an unsafe driver or encourages running with scissors. Of course, that would be a ridiculous picture of God, but that’s what literalism does – it reduces artistic expressions down to ridiculous extremes. All nuance is lost on us.
In church, we don’t seem to understand symbolism, beauty, or artistry anymore. Like the early Calvinist churches, some want everything white-washed in one bland, neutral color. The great artist Van Gogh was passionate about God, but never was accepted by the church of his day. His paintings didn’t have enough crosses or communion cups to be considered “holy”. Yet God worked through him as an imperfect, flawed vessel.
That’s why Dallas Jenkins gets regularly ripped apart, by Christians, for his “THE CHOSEN” series on the life of Christ. It doesn’t matter that thousands have accepted Christ as a result of this program, not to mention millions other who’ve been inspired to deepen their faith because of it. The fact that Biblical characters say words that are not directly from Scripture causes critics to warn people against watching it. Why? Because they are holding it to the same literal standard the Bible is held to, even though it does not claim to be authoritative like the Word of God is.
No song, story, or movie that claims to only be “inspired” by the Bible should be held to same level of the Bible itself. They are allowed to say things not specifically expressed by Biblical characters. If not, every song we have would just be quotes directly from Scripture. No songwriter could ever put their testimony in their own words again.
Likewise, a song can be a truly spiritual song regardless of how many times it specifically uses the names “God” or “Jesus”. And I know this because there is actually a book of the Bible that never mentions them specifically either.
The Book of Esther never once mentions God or any of His other names. If those words are what qualify something as “spiritual”, then it shouldn’t be in the Bible. However, God is all over the book. The lessons on bravery – standing for right and what you believe – have inspired us for centuries now. And of course, it was her God that gave Esther the strength to stand in the first place, and it was Him she was standing for! To call Him by name was never necessary, because He was clearly already there.
So next time you listen to Christian radio, or watch a Christian film, put your critic’s pen down for a minute. Realize not everything a Christian artist creates is meant to be taken literally. No, C.S. Lewis never meant you to think that Jesus was really a lion named Aslan, nor that he had listened in on the conversations of two demons named Screwtape and Wormwood.
It’s not meant to be taken literally. It’s meant to be beautiful and point us to the beauty of the Creator. That’s why they call it art.
