Theology Tuesday - On Worship and Entertainment

 My Facebooks posts are known to create a kerfuffle from time to time. Recently it has been on the issue of the nature of worship, entertainment, and Christian artistic expression. 

I enjoy these debates. Not because I love arguing, but because nothing helps us hone and sharpen our own thinking than a serious disagreement hashed out on logical grounds. Iron sharpens iron (Proverbs 27:17) by means of friction. 

In the USA we have a particular view of worship that has been heavily influenced by entertainment. Biblically, I would say "worship" refers to the rightful response to who God is and what He has done. In the United States, we think of "worship" as an event, a mood, or an atmosphere. And we do this because of experience. 

However, our experience and the thinking that flows from it should hardly be considered normal let alone good and proper. What happens in the USA under the guise of "worship" is a theological and historical aberration. 

St. Thomas Aquinas, in considering an objection to the idea of whether religion is a theological virtue, considered the idea of whether it is impossible to worship God too much. Part of his answer is worth considering:

"And it is possible to have too much in matters pertaining to the Divine worship, not as regards the circumstance of quantity, but as regards other circumstances, as when Divine worship is paid to whom it is not due, or when it is not due, or unduly in respect of some other circumstance" (ST II-II, q. 81, a. 5, ad 3). 

Aquinas notes we can err in worship in several ways. We can offer it to someone or something that does not deserve it (which is idolatry). We can offer it when it is not done with reverence (Hebrews 12:28). Or we can offer worship "unduly in respect of some other circumstance." Aquinas goes on, in Question 93, to further explain worship can be "unduly in respect of some other circumstance" when the thing is not proportionate to its end (Article 2). It is this last category that we in the USA run into a lot. We call things "worship" that are not proportionate to the end of worshipping God. That is, the things we call "worship" simply don't fit, they are not appropriate, it is like putting a dress on a pig.

Nowhere is this inappropriateness more obvious than in contemporary "Christian band" culture, where worship and entertainment are routinely obfuscated, often for profit. Now I have no objection whatsoever to an artist charging for their work. I have no objection to musicians being paid for their music. But I must object, in the strongest possible terms, to the idea that worship can be commercialized, packaged in an event, encapsulated in an atmosphere, and sold at the rate where supply meets demand. That is not worship. To claim an event is worship, and then charge for it, is to become the money changers at the Temple. We need more men willing to follow our Lord's example in dealing with such egregious offenses.