In a previous post (The Praise Song Cruncher) I suggested a strategy for dealing with praise-mystics, namely by taking all the talk of “seeing God” and “feeling God” and taking it literally. Thanks to Brian Yambe, we have an example of what this looks like.
You can hear the strategy explained here: YOU SAW GOD!!!
Report back from the field in the comments below.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Phenomenal. I can’t wait for my next worship experience because I am going to go berzerk.
This is too hilarious! Do you recommend using this method alone, or should we make sure we are in a group large enough to create a stir and actually get the music to stop?
Because I’ve been reminded of 1 Corinthians 14:40, I’m now recommending waiting until after the service before going berserk!
If someone’s claiming to have seen the face of God, then who is creating the disturbance? Should we allow heterodoxy in the Church if it’s done in an orderly fashion?
The whole 1Cor14:40 thing and waiting until after the service isn’t so much about who’s not doing things in an orderly fashion, but not sinking down to their level if they’re already going against what that part of that epistle teaches. 😀
I think it’s saying something of the climate of the congregation and the people if they don’t have a reaction to the claim of someone seeing or touching God, or if they are able to confess this with their words in song even though they know it’s not true. Most likely, it’s saying they’re mystics–but is it saying something more? I guess a conversation after the service is the only way to find out.
lol…… it’s “pop” music. No one’s actually LISTENING to the words and trying to figure out what they say. The number of people who actually internalize what they are singing is next to nil. As a former praise band musician, I would know! The mystic experience is all about putting you brain on autopilot and going with the feeling… a feeling which you foolishly decide is coming from God and not the serotonin in your own brain. The other people in the room are usually just going with the flow. The awful secret is that the vast majority of people in the audience of your typical praise and worship experience aren’t having half the fun that the people on stage are. They are just sitting there… watching… or–at best–doing what everyone else is doing which is raising their hands or swaying to the music while they think about what they want to do for lunch.
That’s why I like to use a similar tactic to Pr. Wolfmueller. Get with a mystic while the two of you are watching a secular concert (U2 or Aerosmith are good choices, btw). As the heathen audience sways their hands back and forth to the music just like the mystics do (ex: this video) I declare loudly, “WOW! Look at how the SPIRIT is moving in that secular rock concert that talks about premarital sex and drug use!!!! Those people sure are holy cause their hands are up and their passion is showing on their faces!!!”
After hysterical laughter, you can launch into a conversation about how content determines what is holy and what is not and not emotional responses. You get them to agree that Christian content is what makes a concert Christian and not just what the audience is doing. Then you whip out a Lutheran Service bulliten and compare the CONTENT of a liturgical service to their powerpoint slides. That sets you up for a really low blow:
“If CONTENT is what makes something Christian… wouldn’t you want to make a service as CHRISTIAN as possible?”
Then I always like to talk about how modern science has been able to artificially create the “religious experience” and feelings of “higher consciousness” in the lab by stimulating certain nerve centers in the human brain… so it really isn’t from God. It’s in your head and other people can manipulate it. That renders them untrustworthy at best.
This is just one of the ways that I have found that can get you kicked out of a non-denominational Bible Study. 😉
How would that that conversation go?