Michael Gungor:There is a tension to the Kingdom of Heaven that is here but not yet here. That tension ought to give way to poetry. To lament. To art. Sure, there is room for some celebration, but if our faith has nothing else to it than positive messages and encouraging clichés, perhaps it has become a Band-Aid rather than a surgery.
Worship music doesn’t need to be medication. Our worship music ought to put us in touch with the deepest places of our humanity, not simply distract us from our pain and put is in a good mood for the preacher’s talk. It ought to stir things deep in us. Hope. Joy. Anger. Mourning. Doubt. Love.
Have you ever had a relationship that never can get past the surface of things? A relationship where the people never talk about anything deeper than the weather or favorite sports teams is not a very deep relationship. The people in a relationship that have never had any disagreements or conflict are those who have kept their true hearts hidden from one another. A Christianity that does not lament is a shallow Christianity. It is a medicinal, numbing balm that we use to avoid living life in a world that is groaning. It is a Band-Aid to cover our wounds. Fig leaves to be sewn over our humanness. And many of us need to be saved from our addiction to this anemic, shallow substitute for Christianity.
Read the rest and then go buy
his music.
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