But when "America the Beautiful" was played in chapel on Monday, September Twenty, I was deeply disturbed. If it had been the "Star Spangled Banner," I'd have stood out of respect for the God-blessed USA, and I was tempted to stand anyways. Some people did stand, no doubt out of respect for America. But one guy at least looked as if he were standing for different reasons.

The dude was lifting his hands during "America the Beautiful" as if in worship (I am assuming he was). Now, there are those here, myself included, who believe that worship is a lifestyle. Everything we do is worship (or blasphemy). But when we worship by singing a song about America we do it by giving it our all as if singing unto the Lord. We do not worship by giving glory to the song or its contents, as would seem to be the result of raising your hands during such a song. There is every possibility that the gentleman in question (having met him, he certainly seems to be a perfect gentleman; I appreciate his not having animosity towards me) was actually making the distinction in his mind between worshipping God through thanking him (for America) and singing the words of a song addressed to America. Consider the gentleman in question the occasion, rather than the content, of the following . . .

It is my theory that we commit idolatry much more often than this. Idolatry is defined as misplaced priorities. Look at idols as contrasted to 'icons,' like the pictures Catholics use in worship: you look at an 'icon,' your gaze passes through it to something invisible, to an incomprehensible God. It's like an icon on your computer's desktop: you go through the icon to the actual program. You go through an icon to get to God. It reveals God; the icon itself is not God. If you look at an idol, on the other hand, your gaze stops at the idol. Anything that you look at (or think of, or whatever), at which your looking or thinking ceases . . . is an idol.

Look at the cross down on the floor of chapel that day. Those of us (hopefully all of us) who looked at that cross and thought of Jesus Christ were treating it as an icon. If anyone looked at the cross, however, and got caught up in that image and didn't let the shape of the cross take them to something beyond the wood (to a historical event, to Jesus Christ, or to God the Father, for instance), then it was an idol.

All of this idol/icon stuff comes from a book by a French Catholic guy named Jean-Luc Marion. "God Without Being" looks at a certain philosophical idea of God as being an idol. That's exactly the opposite of what it seems to me that chapel is.

In other words, the afore-mentioned book talks about an intellectual idea being an idol because we look at it and think we see God, forgetting that we can't really comprehend God with our human minds. Our idolatry in chapel (if I'm right) is different: it's an emotional idolatry. We look at our emotions and get caught up in them, and we think we're worshiping God. What we're worshiping is our emotions. This is what comes of worship music being 90 percent passion (passion's a great thing, of course) and 10 percent intelligence. It's what comes of singing mostly songs that are about our relationship with God instead of singing about God himself. Robert Webber says of "an overfamiliarity with God" that "God is no longer 'the Holy One of Israel'; God is no longer the God of judgment, whose holiness inspires fear and awe, but just our buddy, our pal, our friend. . . . These notions do contain some truth. God is there. But when God is oversentamentalized in contemporary music, poetry, and books, the view of God vorders on blasphemy. It becomes idolatry because is substitutes part of the truth about God for the whole truth."[1] Check out Rick Warren: "Today many people equte being emotionally moved by music as being moved by the Spirit, but these are not the same. . . . In fact, some sentimental, introspective songs hinder worship because they take the spotlight off God and focus on our feelings;"[2] "The most common mistake Christians make in worship today is seeking an experience rather than seeking God."[3]

Especially, this is what comes of not realizing that worship is a lifestyle. It's extremely dangerous to sing in such a way as to make it look like singing is the only true kind of worship. This attitude leads us to idolize singing by making it the goal, the purpose, the end (Greek students: can we say telos?).

This leads us to a place where we cannot distinguish between a passionate song to Jesus Christ and/or God the Father, and a passionate song to something else, like America. When our purpose in singing a song is to 'worship' by singing it with passion, instead of to worship God by singing words that are about God, we lose our ability to detect the difference between a song addressed to God and a song addressed to something else.

So it was inevitable that someone would worship America in chapel. Don't be surprised if it happens again.

So whose fault is this?

Yes, Glowing Heart is guilty.

Yes, the administration is guilty.

Yes, we are all guilty.

I am guilty.

You are guilty, unless you are the one out of a thousand, maybe one out of a hundred, DBU students who never did this.

Most of us are guilty of this. It's where we place our priorities. If our intention is to sing, if our intention is to worship, even if our intention is to know God, if our intention is anything other than GOD and if we think of GOD, consciously or subconsciously, in any way closely connected with either our intellect or our emotions, we are idolaters.

Where do we go from here? Not all is lost. We need to reconnect the mind to the emotions in our worship music. We need some more theology in our worship songs. It would help if chapel messages were a little deeper, a little less infantile; the music could emphasize the emotions, the message the intellect and theology; at least it would be an improvement over music emphasizing emotions and the message telling us to have a love relationship with God and never even telling us how.

Most importantly, we need to learn that worship is a lifestyle. Those of who know desperately need to tell the rest of us. We also need chapel to make that clear.

Do you disagree? Please feel free to do so; you have my permission. Not like you need it in the Land of Free Speech. Email dbusnipe@yahoo.com and let me know if you disagree and feel inclined to write. Let me know if you want us to post your comments, and if so under what name or pseudonym.

1. Robert Webber, Ancient-Future Faith (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999), 124.
2. Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Live (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), 102.
3. Ibid., 108.

I just heard second-hand that the individual in question (I still have no clue who he is) was not worshipping America. This is good. If I misjudged the person, to him and to all else I do apologize.

Two notes. One, note how the above essay stands in spite of weak-ish words like "seemingly" and "assuming" in the second and third paragraphs. The assumption of a person worshipping America was merely the occasion for the critique of idolatry in worship music. I still maintain that whatever is treated as the final goal, if it not God, is an idol. Furthermore, when we look at our emotional concept of God and mistake that for God, that is idolatry.

Second. Here's what I was thinking. Like I said above (third paragraph), I believe that worshipping God can be done through a song sung to His honor. However, it is my understanding of the way most of us think when we sing modern "worship songs" that we are singing not in honor of God but specifically to, or about, Him. For that reason I wonder, if the individual in question was singing while he was worshipping, did he truly distinguish in his mind between worshipping God (in his attitude, in his heart) and singing a song addressed to America?

I'm sure his heart was in the right place. Forgive me, but I worry for all of our brains. My quarell is not with the gentleman in question nor (entirely) with Glowing Heart (I love their style and don't know enough music to discern any limitations in their skill) but with the way we do worship music.

Signed,

Mark Jeremiah Boone, Jesus Freak

It's the author again. Just a little distinction: I absolutely support Christians supporting America. I don't like dualism. I had no problem whatsoever with either the performance of nor the singing of "America the Beautiful" that day in chapel. It is the continual emotionalism (emotions are great) in chapel services with which I have a problem.