Like, one of my favorites is "The Canticle of the Turning." It's a song of hope and trust, for the day when God comes down, topples tyrants, and uplifts the poor and suffering. But... God's not real. He isn't coming to turn the world around. If we want the world to turn, we have to do it ourselves. - ThreadSky

lydiascribe.bsky.social • 8 days ago

Like, one of my favorites is "The Canticle of the Turning." It's a song of hope and trust, for the day when God comes down, topples tyrants, and uplifts the poor and suffering.

But... God's not real. He isn't coming to turn the world around. If we want the world to turn, we have to do it ourselves.

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lydiascribe.bsky.social•8 days ago

I feel the same way about songs that involve God providing comfort or healing to people. Anything based on Psalm 23, "There's Power in the Blood," "Amazing Grace," "You Raise Me Up." (Man, if you haven't listened to "You Raise Me Up," you really should. It's sweeping and grand!)

lydiascribe.bsky.social•8 days ago

But the pinnacle of this is, of course, praise and worship songs about how amazing God is. They're always ostentatious and powerful, to match the message they're conveying. But, like, what are we doing here? Reminding God of how powerful He is? Or reminding ourselves how powerLESS we are?

lydiascribe.bsky.social•8 days ago

Or maybe... these songs aren't really about God. They're really about something else, but smuggling that in through the only acceptable form of music at the time. You can praise the beauty of the world by cloaking it in praise of its so-called Creator.

lydiascribe.bsky.social•8 days ago

Here's an example of what I mean:

"O Lord My God, when I in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds Thy hands hath made,
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder--
Thy Pow'r throughout the universe displayed.

Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee,
'How Great Thou Art,
How Great Thou Art!"

lydiascribe.bsky.social•8 days ago

See? It's not about God, not really. It's about the splendor of the universe, the magnificence and sublimity of the profound. But when you write a song like that, you have to credit God for it to count. The universe can't be beautiful for it's own sake; it has to be tribute to The Big Guy Upstairs.

lydiascribe.bsky.social•8 days ago

(The Second Verse of that song doesn't really gel with what I'm saying here; it shifts into the first topic I discussed, "Someday God will come back and fix all this mess." But I hope you get what I'm saying.)

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