We have in the past two articles first seen that the current phenomena of the domination of contemporary worship music by experiential, sensual, subjective songs, and, second, that this is a departure from the historic worship of the Church, which, though in its reflection of Scripture included such songs, it also, like Scripture, held such worship content in balance with more objective doctrinal content.

We turn now to consider the question of how such a development occurred. What has caused the current imbalance in worship? To understand what has given the experiential and sensual the ascendance over the doctrinal, we must first understand how such a division came to be in the first place.

The impulse behind this imbalance is rooted in the Fall of mankind. Romans 1:18-32 tells us that everyone who has lived knows at least five things deep in their core being: (1) God exists; (2) God has created everything that exists; (3) God is Holy; (4) men are sinful and rebellious; (5) God is Angry about mankind's sin and rebellion.

Now, though Paul tells us that these things are known by every person (vv. 19-21), he also tells us that unregenerate men "suppress the truth" which has been revealed "in unrighteousness," but that, even though they suppress the truth revealed through Creation, they still know that truth on some level (vv. 20-21). The combination of inescapably knowing these five things while attempting to suppress this knowledge (as Fallen men attempt to manufacture their own meaning and be their own gods) leave men realizing that there is a real existential reality of guilt and shame which they experience.

Even though they know bone-deep that they are guilty and separated from God, they attempt to suppress the realization that it is the True Creator-God Whom they have sinned against by imagining that the God against Whom they have sinned is some god other than the True God, but who still represents a spiritual entity beyond humanity.

Even if it isn't clearly articulated (though it frequently is), Fallen man, who experiences real spiritual alienation, knows, on some deep level, that there has been a separation, an imbalance, a deep offense against a governing or more fundamental part of Reality, an offense against God (or what is understood as God by non-believers). 

It works like this: God (Whom the non-believer mixes with his distortions) is correctly perceived as being alienated from Fallen mankind by the sins of men, and, since God is spiritually separated from sinful mankind, and since God is a Spirit and men are physical, unregenerate men see the world as divided between spirit and matter (metaphysically divided in nature, rather than ethically and spiritually divided).

The spiritual state is seen as perfect and static (since the Holy God is there) and non-physical (since God is Spirit), and the physical state (the world) is seen as imperfect and changing, and the spiritual state, since God dwells there, Who is seen as not dwelling in the physical realm of the world, the spiritual world is seen as vastly superior to the impermanent, flawed, and finally worthless world.

Thus the realm of the human is seen as, at best, a necessary evil, something to be escaped from. Is this, though, a valid perspective Biblically? No.

 After all, as Scripture teaches God created a world, though physical, communicates the spiritual reality with which it is intertwined as Romans 1:18-20 and Psalm 19: 1-6 tell us. We are also taught by the Bible that the Incarnation of Christ is the Once-for-all Joining of the Eternal Word, the Second Person of the Spiritual Godhead with a Humanity He specifically created to be joined to, Two Natures in One Person, the Lord Jesus Christ Who is Both God the Spirit and a Human with a Body, Soul, and Spirit.

What we learn from this is that the world is a unity of matter and spirit, intended to be intertwined and unified, not divided, sundered, or split. A dualistic sundering between matter and spirit is a result of the Fall and human rebellion in refusing to see Reality as it is created to be and in refusing to accept God's Testimony concerning the purpose and state of His Creation as revealed in God's Word.

The Lord Jesus has died to reconcile the world He created back to God, as 2 Corinthians 5:17-19 tells us. Yet even Christians, who should know better because of what Scripture reveals, are still very influenced by a dualistic view of the world (the view that sees the world as split or sundered), and it is this pagan view which has informed, ultimately, the eventual split between subjective, experiential worship songs and objective, doctrinal worship songs as well as the ascendancy of the subjective songs over the objective in worship. In articles to come, we will (God willing) examine how, over time, this view produced today's unfortunate worship imbalance.    

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A helpful book on the Incarnation: