I had never heard of Dan Lucarini's book Why I left the Contemporary Christian Music Movement until I got it as a Christmas present a few months ago. From the title and the cover I had thought it would be a tale of the evils of the money-hungry Christian music business told from the perspective of a former CCM band member. The subtitle should have clued me in a little better, though: Confessions of a Former Worship Leader. This book is a weapon of the worship wars that some of us have already forgotten, and Lucarini has defected from the "Contemporaries" to fight for the "Traditionals."
The book describes Lucarini's conversion as a secular rock musician, his 20 years or so leading contemporary worship music for congregations as large as 500, and arguments for his new convictions against the use of contemporary music in Christian worship. These arguments constitute the majority of the book's content. Although I hoped to find a thorough description of his personal exodus from the contemporary Christian movement, very little was said of that process in his life. The brief mentions that he does make of it led me to believe that it was caused by a combination of his wife's long-held beliefs on the matter, his own study of Scripture, the influence of a traditionally-minded pastor, and a recognition of genuinely destructive patterns that often accompany contemporary worship.
Lucarini's main argument against the use of contemporary music in worship is the style's association with a sinful and worldly lifestyle. This theme emerges in most of the book's chapters. Attacking the common argument of Rick Warren and others that music styles are amoral apart from their lyrics, he writes, “Decades of rock music in our culture have permanently stamped that music style with the dimension of immorality. Changing the lyrics and substituting Christian musicians cannot remove that stigma,” (91). He repeatedly cites 1 Thes. 5:22, "Abstain from all appearance of evil," to argue that if rock music is commonly associated with evil acts then we should not use it in worship. While Lucarini's words on this matter sometimes border on sounding a little over-the-top in a Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell kind of way, at other times he states things with a profound wisdom that ought to make any Christian with a bent toward edginess take a step back to evaluate themselves: "We must understand that saints are literally those being sanctified or ‘set apart’ from the world for God’s own glory. Therefore let us move further from worldliness in our music choices" (126).
In my opinion modern worship music in most cases never even sounds enough like modern secular music to present a stumbling block to most people. However, many of Lucarini's arguments caused me to seriously consider how worship ought to be done differently in light of some of the legitimate dangers that accompany contemporary worship as it is often done. Here are a few:
-Lucarini dedicates a chapter to explaining how the "come as you are" message of much contemporary worship music goes too far and communicates the message of "come as you are and stay that way." Instead, as Lucarini explains, God requires us to conform to His holiness after we come to Him. He shows that the Bible teaches worship primarily as an act of humbling ourselves out of godly fear, whereas much of contemporary worship is about "looking up and feeling good" (56). "True worship must produce a sense of fear in the worshipper toward the worshipped" (57).
-Lucarini says that Contemporary worship services frequently emphasize the music as much or more than the preaching, focusing on "ushering people into the presence of God" rather than preparing them to hear His Word preached. This emphasis communicates--intentionally or not--that subjective religious experience is superior to the objective truth of Scripture. (((Beyond what Lucarini says about this, I would like to add a note here that people cannot be ushered into the presence of God by music. Hebrews 10:19 ff., along with much of the argument of the entire book of Hebrews, shows us that we can only enter the presence of God through the blood of Christ. In fact, if we were to somehow usher an unbelieving person into the presence of God it would mean instant death for them because of His holiness and their unforgiven sin.)))
-Lucarini argues that contemporary worship is too often designed asking the question "Will the people like it?" first and the question "Will God like it?" second. This is a legitimate problem in both traditional and contemporary churches. However, contemporary churches are probably more prone to the temptation to please people before pleasing God since the style itself was born out of a desire to accommodate the culture. Lucarini points out that a worship service is a ministry to God first and to people second.
-"Music styles can and should be judged by their contemporary moral association” (109). I agree with this to the extent that we are talking about the morals with which those being led in worship associate that music style. For example, if the elderly members of a church cannot undo a mental association between distorted guitar sounds and drug use, then there is nothing wrong with doing away with electric guitars while leading them in worship. As Lucarini argues, adjusting the music to account for those who have such mental associations is what God would expect us to do based on the principle of 1 Corinthians 8 about accommodating the "weaker brother." Even with teenagers there are limits to how far a music style should be pushed; I would not want the youth praise band at my church to sound like Jay Z since most teenagers associate that sound with immorality, even if they like it. That would undoubtedly cause some of them to stumble.
-When unchecked, contemporary worship often mimics the sexuality of secular music in subtle ways. "When you combine the sensual dancing with the immodest dress of the women on the platform, you place a very large stumbling block in front of the men in the congregation" (71). Sensual dancing and immodest dress can be tackled by a few private conversations, but Lucarini also points out that the environment itself can become a sexual stumbling block: "We dim the lights, we design the music to move people where we want to take them, and we create the special mood, the right atmosphere. What is wrong with this? It is exactly what the world does to create sexual intimacy. Secular musicians use the same music styles and environmental methods to draw people into sexual intimacy with them" (72). Why hadn't I ever noticed this before? People who have become numb to the sexually charged culture around us will probably reject this point, but he's still right. There doesn't have to be skin and gyrations for something to be sexual. To help make his point Lucarini also tells of marriages that he saw damaged or destroyed among the members of praise bands when the setting facilitated unhealthy relationships between musicians.
-Lucarini also argues--rightly so, I think--that music style is not something over which Scripture gives us grounds to cause faithful members to leave a church: "We can all agree that a pastor has the biblical imperative to send away divisive ‘sheep’ after scriptural church discipline has failed to bring about repentance; but does the Bible also teach that a pastor may drive away the good and faithful sheep because of a new music programme? Of course not, but Contemporary pastors have found justification for it nonetheless" (77). It is better to stay with music that some consider boring than to divide a flock of faithful believers.
-Contemporary worship music can easily become a performance that does not lead the congregation to worship. Lucarini writes of one church, ". . . some [congregation members] admitted they were intimidated into silence by the great singers in the worship team ‘belting it out’ on the platform. After all, what average congregation can compete with a group of gifted, microphoned vocalists blasting a melody from a stage, especially with an accompanying rock band?" (114)
With regard to famous contemporary Christian performers, Lucarini recalls the following from his time in his days of church ministry when he would frequently take the youth group to concerts: "The CCM artists became role models for different kinds of immorality: indecent dress, rebellious images, improper crushes on married men by young girls, lustful interest in sexy females by adolescent males. It makes no difference that the artists may not have intended this to happen or that they claimed their ministry for God rises above such things . . . These artists allowed themselves to become ‘idols’ to the teens, often in the literal sense of encouraging worship" (117-118). This is true far too often and is a good warning.
Additionally, Lucarini mentions some musical problems that face congregations using a contemporary style. He says that the syncopated rhythms of contemporary music are difficult to learn (especially in white cultures) and even more difficult to read from sheet music. This has resulted largely in the demise of sheet music in the hands of the congregation, thus leading to the demise also of the beautiful harmonies often heard in traditional hymn singing.
Despite many positives, there was room for improvement in this book. While Lucarini's life experiences certainly qualify him to speak on this topic, it could have been argued much more convincingly had he written the book together with his pastor or someone else with formal biblical training. He bases several points on possible lexical definitions of Greek and Hebrew words, but it will be clear to those trained in these languages that he has never been taught how to do a proper lexical study. He can also come across at times as arguing that rock music is bad just because it is bad, so readers who do not begin with a desire to take him seriously will find many opportunities to throw tomatoes. Also, while Lucarini did convince me that contemporary worship is frequently flawed and perhaps even inappropriate in some settings, he never presents a compelling biblical argument that the music style should be abandoned altogether.
For the sake of full disclosure I must admit that I have always preferred traditional hymns over contemporary praise music. This was true even when I was a teenager in the youth group, and it was true even while I was going to hardcore, indie, and punk rock shows nearly once a week in college. There is something that has always appealed to me about the sacred reverence of Christian worship when it is so clearly set apart from the world. Lucarini has affirmed the validity of my traditional worship preference at a time when the forces of Christian culture are telling me that it means I am stuck in the past and don't care about unbelievers. However, I still see my preference merely as a preference. While Lucarini did make me feel like it's ok that I want to use a hymn book instead of a projection screen, and while he showed me a number of problems that need to be fixed in many contemporary worship settings, he did not convince me that I should break up the youth praise band at church.
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