Elevation Worship’s New Album Is BIZARRE!

Elevation Worship’s Album as a Doctrinal Problem

Hey guys, Colin here, and welcome back to Fight For Truth, the channel where we bring you Christian commentary about the things that matter. In today's video, we're going to be talking about the new album from Elevation Worship.

Now Elevation Worship is the music brand of Elevation Church, which is led by Steven Furtick. As we have documented throughout the history of this channel in detail, Furtick is not a reliable source of Biblical teaching.

In fact, a lot of his teaching is directly unbiblical. So it should be no surprise then that this strange and unsound doctrine has made it into their music. The best evidence for this is their most recent album, entitled Lion.

It came out in March of 2022, so it's actually been out for quite some time now. But recently, I finally got around to reading the lyrics of every song on this album. So what we're going to do today is simple.

We're going to offer a Biblical analysis of the songs from a doctrinal perspective. Now I know that some of you may be tempted to respond, saying, come on, it's just music. It's art. Don't be such a stick in the mud.

Obviously, not every song is going to be perfect. And to that I would respond by saying, I agree. No song is going to be perfect in the way that God's Word is perfect. However, we still have a responsibility as Christians to be discerning about how we worship God.

After all, there is no difference between saying something unbiblical and singing something unbiblical. As our Lord said in John 4, 24,. So with that in mind, let's see if Elevation Worship's new album, Lion, is Biblical.

Same God and the Problem of Man-Centered Bible Application

We're going to go over these in chronological order. The first song I was concerned about was one entitled, quote, Same God. In this song, they say this, quote, There are several issues here. First, this song follows the pattern set by Stephen Furtick when he preaches at Elevation.

Essentially, he takes a Biblical text and then he makes that text all about you, regardless of the context or the original audience. In fact, that's a theme in this album. But in this case, it's referring to when the people of Israel being pursued by Pharaoh escaped through the miraculous parting of the Red Sea in Exodus 14.

And according to this song, God is going to do the same thing for you. But let's ask an important question. What exactly does this mean? In what sense is God going to part the waters for me? Is God going to make my life easier, give me a promotion at work, or give me a vacation?

Or does this simply mean that He's going to lead me by His Spirit as a Christian? This is the problem. The song can easily be applied in an unbiblical way, really, in any way you want. Second, this lyric implies that if God does not part the waters of my life, so to speak, that means He's not keeping His covenant.

But God has not promised Christians that He will part the personal waters of their life wherever they want as part of the new covenant. So the dangerous implication here is that if God does not part the waters of my life, then He's not being faithful to the covenant.

And of course, I get to define what the waters of my life are. But this isn't the only time they do this. At a different point in the same song, they sing, I'm calling on the God of David, who made a shepherd boy courageous.

I may not face Goliath, but I've got my own giants. So again, they are reading themselves into the Old Testament, almost as the main character. Only this time, they are referring to the story of David and Goliath in 1 Samuel 17.

And the implication is that the trials in my life are my own personal giant that I have to slay. And just like David, God is going to help me kill my giant. Here's the problem with that. This allows the listener, again, to fill in the blank as to what their personal giant is.

Some might say that their giant is sin. And if they're a Christian, God will certainly help them battle their sin. Galatians 5 .16 says, quote, Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

That's biblical. But others might see their personal giant as a lack of riches, or health, or success, or some other personal goal that is not guaranteed to them by God. This would, of course, be a man-centered and unbiblical way of thinking.

But later in the song, they say, quote, You heard your children then, you hear your children now. You are the same God, you are the same God. You answered prayers back then, and you will answer now. End quote.

You see, Elevation Church is saying that God will answer our prayers now just as He did back then, in the examples of killing the giant or parting the Red Sea. So let's put this all together. According to this song, God will answer your prayer just like these Old Testament examples.

God will part the metaphorical Red Sea of your life, and He will kill the proverbial giant of your life. The only catch is that, of course, you get to fill in the blank as to what your Red Sea is, and what your giant is.

Intentionally or not, after listening to this song, someone could easily come to the conclusion that God must do whatever they want Him to do. And the emphasis here is that God is not doing these things for the Church as a whole, as He did for the people of Israel as a whole, but He's actually doing all of this for me personally and individually.

The examples are tailored for my life. Also, when you take these statements in conjunction with the teaching that is often welcome at Elevation Church and endorsed by Stephen Furtick, this gets extremely concerning.

You see, Stephen has actively endorsed both Joel Osteen and T .D. Jakes, among others, as well as partnering with them in various types of ministry. These are outright prosperity gospel preachers, who tell you that when you follow Jesus, you can expect money and health and material possessions.

Suppose someone took the vaguely positive lyrics of Elevation Church's album here and personally interpreted them for themselves through the lens of prosperity gospel preaching. That's not an unrealistic possibility at all, given that Furtick has aligned himself with these preachers.

And when you make this connection, you'll find that Elevation Worship's music is even more dangerous than you thought. There is absolutely no doctrinal line in the sand, so to speak, separating their vague lyrics from false teaching.

In any case, this song clearly resembles the man-centered teaching that we consistently see coming from Elevation Church. This song is at best vague and irresponsible, and at worst, it's directly unbiblical.

Lion, Repetition, and Empty Hype

The next song, though, is entitled Lion. Here's a small sampling of what is said in the song and how often it is said. Some variation of the phrase, Hail, hail, Lion of Judah, let the lion roar, is repeated seventeen times.

Some variation of the lyric, Prepare the way or prepare the way of the Lord, is repeated forty-eight times. And some variation of the phrase, O mountain be made low, O valley be raised up, is repeated twenty-two times.

Hopefully you can see the theme here. Now, I have no problem with repeating a phrase or a chorus or a verse in a song. Even many old doctrinally sound hymns do that. But with modern worship music of the variety that's coming out of Elevation, there is something different altogether.

The concern of many pastors and church leaders that I have a deep respect for is that this style of worship is substituting deep theological truth for hype. There is a big difference between responsibly repeating a phrase because it represents biblical truth, as opposed to repeating a phrase over and over and over again because it will put the listener into an emotional trance.

Again, many good men of God are extremely concerned that this is precisely what modern worship bands are doing. Just to be clear, this is not a slam-dunk exegetical argument. It's just a word of caution about this style of music.

By contrast, this next example is truly strange and absolutely bizarre. This one is from their song entitled Dancing. Here's what it says, Quote, When you walked across the room and asked me to dance with you, you said, You're the one I choose.

I couldn't believe it. Like, you weren't just passing me by. No, you looked me in my eyes and I have found my paradise. Oh, you are my paradise. I'm not leaving. End quote. So where exactly in the Bible does it say that Jesus wants to slow dance with us?

And this style of music has become known as Jesus is my boyfriend music. It's essentially where you write a sappy love song that sounds like it's about a couple of 18-year-olds, but then you put Jesus into the boyfriend role.

It's extremely cringey and, frankly, quite uncomfortable. Now, I know what many of you are going to say, Colin, wait just a minute. Isn't the Church supposed to be the Bride of Christ? And my response to that would be, yes, the Church is the Bride of Christ.

But that reality is spiritual, not literal or sexual. Also, the Church is collectively and corporately the Bride of Christ, all of us together. 2 Corinthians 11 says, Quote,. For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you, the Church, to one husband, Jesus, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.

End quote. The audience Paul is writing to here is the entire Church of Corinth. And by contrast, this song from Elevation Worship is all about the individual listener of the song dancing with Jesus, and it's apparently about them slow dancing together.

But they go on singing, Quote,. Even if the sun drops out of the sky, even if the stars stop shining at night, even if the drummer stops keeping time, if your hands are in mine, I won't stop dancing. End quote.

Seriously, this is really strange stuff. Not only is it oddly out of step with Scripture, but it also has little to no actual doctrine in it. What biblical truth exactly are we singing about here? And that's not all.

They go on singing, Quote, We've made some memories, yeah, we've got some history. If we told them everything, they'd never believe it. Never, never. So many loves out there, out there, but none of them can compare to the sacred space that we share.

Whoa, I'm dancing away my cares, I'm not leaving. End quote. Again, weird. First, where in the Bible does it say that you are individually slow dancing with Jesus in a, sacred space? This almost sounds like mystical language.

Second, the Bible does tell us to cast our anxieties on God in 1 Peter 5 -7, but nowhere does it tell us to, dance our cares away with Jesus. But they go on saying, To the right, to the left, when you step, I step, I won't stop dancing.

Again, what on earth are they talking about? Yes, we certainly are told to follow the example of Christ in John 13 -34, but that doesn't mean we are told to slow dance with Jesus. This is truly strange.

There's no real discernible doctrine that we're singing about here. There's no attribute of God that is being adequately or biblically presented. This is just more of the sappy, vague, Jesus is my boyfriend stuff that has become so popular in the Church today.

Water Is Wild and Emotion-Driven Worship

But their next song is called, and I'm not making this up, Quote, Water is wild. And this one is certainly not an improvement on what we've heard so far. It says, Quote, Heaven's tearing open, tearing open wide.

Oh, I feel it down on the inside. Yeah. End quote. So heaven is tearing open, and the way we know that is because we can feel it on the inside. We can feel it in our bones. But really, this points directly to one of the core problems at Elevation Church.

Too many people in this movement have made their vague emotional state the measure of all things. As a result, when people point out the false teaching of Stephen Furtick, like on this channel, his fans will simply respond by saying that his teaching is awesome, and it makes them feel really good inside.

Whether or not it aligns with the Bible is really of no consequence. Heaven's tearing open after all, as the song says, and they can feel it inside. And for many people, unfortunately, no amount of sound doctrine will persuade them otherwise.

This is precisely the kind of emotional revivalism that has become so common in churches like Elevation. And it's very dangerous. By contrast, Isaiah 40 verse 8 says, The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

You see, we must not put our subjective emotions above the objective Scriptures. Your emotions are fleeting and passing, but God's Word is not. When the two are in conflict, God's Word must win the day.

But the song then says, quote, Oh, I've been baptized in the water, and the water is wild. I've been baptized in the water, and the water is wild. End quote. Now, this is yet another lyric that makes you immediately ask yourself, what on earth does that mean?

And where did they find it in the Bible? Is the actual water of baptism wild? Or is it saying that because we are baptized, we should act wild? Neither of those things are told to us in Scripture. And what are the implications of this, for example, for young, inexperienced Christians new to the faith?

What exactly is a new convert supposed to think about the water of their baptism being wild? These people are going to be very confused, and potentially even led to stumble because of lyrics like this.

And by the way, they repeated the empty phrase, water is wild, about 35 times in the song. More empty repetition. The last song we're going to look at is entitled You Really Are. Here's what it says, quote, I have a revelation now.

What you've been to me all this time, I have a revelation now. I want to see more, want to see more, end quote. Now, just for context, essentially, this song is about wanting to see who God truly is and wanting to dispense with any false perceptions of who He is.

And that is certainly good as a general idea. The problem is that it's unclear whether or not the true reality of who God is is coming more so from personal private feelings and revelations or returning to the objective Word of God.

Here's another lyric, quote, Invade my beliefs about you. I want to see who you really are, in a new way, in a new way. I can't help but view this in light of what Stephen Furtick often says from the pulpit.

He is, after all, the leader of this entire movement. Virtually every week, Furtick says something like, God told me to tell you this. And then, as has been documented very well, he often proceeds to twist the Scriptures.

By contrast, 1 Thessalonians 5 .21 says, quote,. But test everything, hold fast to what is good. And 1 John 4 .1 says, quote,. And elsewhere, we are told that preachers are required to rightly divide the Word of Truth.

You see, discernment is important, especially when someone claims to have a message from God. And yet, despite this, private revelation without proper discernment has become commonplace at Elevation Church.

And in this song, which talks about desperately wanting to know the truth about God, it seems strange that there is no direct reference to God's Word. Why spend the whole song singing about the problem without ever mentioning the obvious Biblical solution?

If you want to know God, start by reading His Word. That's His revelation to us. In any case, let's put this all together. Many people like Elevation worship music. They are one of the most popular Christian bands in the entire world.

But when you compare their music to the standard of God's Word, I think it comes up really short in many significant ways. First, the music has a distinctly man-centered flavor to it. It often makes the listener of the song the main character in Bible stories that are not about them as an individual.

Second, there is often not enough actual doctrine in the song to set up any of the necessary boundaries to what is said. So the listener can often just make the song mean whatever they want as an individual.

This can include Prosperity Gospel themes like those advanced by Stephen Furtick's friends Joel Osteen and T .D. Jakes. Third, there is an unnecessary amount of empty repetition in these songs rather than robust Biblical doctrine.

Fourth, Elevation creates Jesus Is My Boyfriend music wherein the listener is encouraged to slow dance in the arms of Jesus. Fifth, this music almost constantly reinforces an emotion-centered view of worship where the measure of a good worship song is almost exclusively how it makes you feel rather than how much Biblical truth it presents.

Sixth, Elevation music offers this strange claim that we are baptized as Christians in wild waters, which is unbiblical and deeply concerning. And seventh, their music can reinforce personal private revelation, often at the expense of the Bible.

And this is echoed consistently in the teaching of Stephen Furtick. It is for these reasons and many more that I would encourage you to find Biblical worship music elsewhere. I pray this video has been a blessing to you.

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