At FIRST THINGS, Michael Linton urges Evangelicals to stop attacking the messenger (in this case Alexandra Pelosi) and reflect on the validity of the message:
It's a scene familiar to any Evangelical. As standard as the Venite was in Morning Prayer, our worship now begins with twenty minutes (sometimes more) of uninterrupted praise choruses like this one lead by a rock band onstage (the production Pelosi tapes is actually rather tame; the megachurch down the street from me uses dry ice and lasers). The tune is infectious, the words few and easily memorized, and the message upbeat; you feel great singing it. And it's kinda scriptural.
Kinda. James 3:23b quotes Jehoshaphat's plea for the Lord's intervention (2 Chron. 20:7), where the king calls the people of Israel "the descendants of Abraham thy friend." In his high priestly prayer, Jesus calls his disciples "friends," but his salutation is conditional: "You are my friends if you do what I command you," and it's delivered within the context of the Lord's preparation for his crucifixion; friendship requires obedience and sacrifice (John 15:14).
But the king's startling honorific for Abraham is for the patriarch alone. The title was peculiar to him and based upon his obedience. Jesus' invitation to friendship is open to all, but it, too, is based on obedience and, in the context of John, obedience even until death. The scriptural formula appears to be obedience, suffering, then friendship. And that pattern has been an important teaching Evangelicals have shared with other Christians (look at all those "cross" hymns we used to sing). But there's not a hint of that pattern in this song. Instead, there's the suggestion that friendship with God is our right simply by being human. By only referencing the scriptural pattern in part, the song distorts it in whole. And, at least in Evangelical circles, distorting the Bible is supposed to be a big problem.
But while the song distorts the Bible, it's true to the way we tend to live. I am a friend of God. I am a friend of God. I am. I am. I am.
The Tetragrammatron, the Name of God, made into a mantra, applied to us. I am. I am. The blasphemy is an accident of thoughtlessness, but, like the Freudian slip, it reveals to us an aspect of our character. I love how I feel about God. I love the great sex I have because of God. I love the power I yield in God's name. I adore "the me" that God made. I am...
We scoff at Shirley MacLaine running into the surf and joyfully shouting "I am God, I am God!" But when Haggard boasts about our great sex, and Falwell crows about our political power, as we sway like Dervishes chanting mantras, we don't look that different from her-just drier and not as pretty. We've become sensualists, aesthetes, untroubled by either self-reflection or accountability.
Well worth reading the whole post.
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