Here is a truth that many religion-beat professionals (a) haven’t really thought through or (b) they totally get it, but their editors do not.
Obviously, churches from coast to coast and around the world are engaged in heated debates, if not outright financial wars, about centuries of church teachings about marriage and sexuality. This makes headlines. These battles often reach the local level (ask United Methodists and, previously, Episcopalians).
Editors like that, since these battles can be framed as “politics.”
But there is another subject that frequently causes divisions in the pews (or megachurch folding chairs) — music. These battles rarely make headlines, even though they stir deep emotions between various generations of believers. In recent decades, this has led to discussions of “worship wars.”
I recently wrote a column — “Open Bible to Psalms: What messages are seen there, but not in modern praise music?” — that was, shall we say, “worship wars” adjacent. This led to me being invited as a guest on the national “Connections” podcast, with hosts Mike Thom and Colleen Houde. If you want to listen to that, CLICK HERE.
During that discussion I mentioned that I had another column coming up that was related to this subject. It later appeared with this headline: “Hillbilly Thomists — Dominicans tracing their roots into Appalachian music and faith.”
But the Psalms column was the hook for the podcast and it didn’t take long to veer into “worship wars” territory and the subject of commercialized music in the modern church. That made me flash back a decade-plus to a column with this headline: “FM radio reality in church.”
Maybe the best way to intro this bonus podcast is simply to reprint that column. So here goes.
The clock is ticking and soon Jeff Crandall while face the challenge of selecting the right music for the Christmas services at High Desert Church.
This will be tricky, because Christmas is what the 70-member staff at this megachurch calls a "federal" event.
