Should Christians use worship songs from questionable sources? - GotQuestions.org Podcast Episode 38

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So we'll cast your questions, biblical answers. On today's episode, we're discussing something that, for whatever reason, while it is a question we've received, it got questions numerous times, it's also something that seems to be happening to me personally a lot and that a lot of people at my church and other people

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I know are discussing this issue. The question is, songs or music that's written by churches with questionable beliefs, should we sing these songs in our churches?

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You may not have noticed, but many of the worship songs you hear on the radio and maybe even some of the ones at your church are from either

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Hillsong music or Bethel music, and of these churches, Bethel especially, have some, we'll say questionable beliefs, and that's an understatement to be sure.

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So a song is written by one of these churches, one of their worship teams, should we be singing that in our church?

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And joining me on today's program, we've got our regulars, we've got Kevin, our managing editor, and Jeff, the administrator of BibleRef .com.

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So Jeff, I just want to get your opinion. Is this something you're also running across, and what are some of the arguments or thoughts that you've been noodling on recently?

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It is definitely something that I've come across for a few different reasons. Our church that I'm at, my home church, is currently in the process of looking for a worship leader.

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So ideas about theology of worship have been on my mind. This is something that comes up frequently through GotQuestions, and sometimes when you discuss it with people, they don't understand why it matters or why it's an issue.

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And there are reasons why it is at least a topic that's worth talking about.

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First of all, not every single person who's producing music that's labeled as worship music or Christian music holds to orthodox beliefs.

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There's variation just like there is between denominations, but like you were saying, some of those variations are larger than others.

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Some of the major purveyors of Christian worship music hold to beliefs that you could consider anywhere from heresy to outright blasphemy, all the way dialed down to just not my preference.

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So that's the thing that sets it up in terms of when we're singing that music, to what level are we indicating unity or agreement with that particular group?

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The other reason that it's a concern is churches that use that music, at least as long as they're following the procedure that they're supposed to, every time a church performs that music, they're paying a royalty to whoever owns the copyright on that music, which means a church that sings a

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Bethel song or Hill song or Elevation or any other group, they are contributing to the finances of that group.

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Then there's also the concern of if our church is singing this, are we lending some kind of credibility or approval to that particular group?

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So all of those issues come up, and I know we're in the process right now of starting to have a conversation about this.

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And I got to be honest that this is one that I'm still trying to land to find my exact center on where I am with this.

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I know there's going to be some need for grace involved, but it's one of those circumstances where I'm not fully convinced in my own mind in any particular direction.

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I don't have enough conviction on the issue to take a strong stand for or against.

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I particular view, and I know part of that is going to depend on exactly the circumstances at a given church.

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What songs are they using? What groups are they using? And what do those believe? Because not every group is exactly the same.

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Not all of them have the same differences. Not all of them have the same beliefs. Kevin, as a pastor,

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I know you're very well up on those sorts of things. What's your view or your stance on where these different groups are coming from?

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Well, Jeff, you've laid out some of the basics there with the issues that we have to deal with.

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And as a pastor of a church, I'm responsible to be watching the doctrine and teaching sound doctrine.

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And the music is part of that. We have to watch the music because we speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

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That's part of the teaching and learning process in any church. And so we do pay attention to that.

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Music is important in our church. As a church and as a pastor, we are very much opposed to much of what

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Bethel is teaching, much of what Hillsong is teaching with the prosperity gospel and the word of faith.

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And at least in Bethel's case, the grave sucking and some just really aberrant practices.

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And so we want to separate ourselves from that. At the same time, there are some good songs that have come out of those movements or at least written by people who were associated with those movements.

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I think of Shout to the Lord, which came out of the Hillsong group. And that is a great song.

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We sing that in our church. Sometimes we do a lot of hymns in our church, but we also mix in choruses as well.

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And Shout to the Lord is one of our favorites. And it's really a beautiful song, has sound theology.

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And if we sang it again this next Sunday, I'd be perfectly fine with that. We have a music committee that kind of looks at all these things and they consider some things.

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But I think the principle is that we can distinguish a song individually from the beliefs of whatever group the author is associated with.

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And we can evaluate songs on an individual basis. Is this song sound doctrinally?

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You know, the author may be teaching some things or believing some things that are doctrinally off, but what about this song?

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Is this song, does it teach something good? Is it teaching something true about Christ?

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Does it lift up the Lord Jesus? Does it have any problems theologically?

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If not, then we can look at this as maybe something that we can use in a worship service.

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You know, I've got a hymnal right here that we use in our church.

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And if I go through this hymnal, I can pick out at least two songs, more modern choruses that are in this hymnal that we use in our church that are written by practicing homosexuals today.

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And when the songs were written, they were not out of the closet, but they are now. And do we have to tear those pages out of the hymnal?

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Do we just not sing those songs? I don't think that that's necessary for us to do that.

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I think that the songs themselves reflect good theology, and that's why they were included in the hymnal to begin with.

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I don't think we need to go back and tear them out of the book simply because the authors have made some wrong choices later in life.

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Horatio Spafford is another name that's thrown out there a lot because, well, it is well with my soul.

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And when he wrote that hymn, he was orthodox, and he was teaching good things.

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I think that was probably in either his Presbyterian or his Baptist days. But later on in life, after he wrote that song, he got involved with Unitarianism.

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He denied the existence of hell. He believed that Satan would be saved someday. He himself was leading a cultic group in Jerusalem that denied marriage and different kinds of things that he got into later in life.

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But that doesn't affect it as well with my soul. Great song and has been a blessing to thousands through the years.

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And we're not going to take it out of our hymnal simply because Mr. Spafford made some mistakes later in life.

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Yeah, excellent thoughts, Kevin. I mean, even some of the hymn writers that we have known and loved and listened to their songs for decades,

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I mean, who knows what was some things going on in their lives. Sometimes we don't even know what all of their beliefs were on a given issue.

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So to a certain extent, ignorance is bliss, I guess, but the problem arises when, okay, now we know this church is teaching these false things and they're doing it right now.

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But for me, similar to what you said, it comes back to the quality of the lyrics.

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And that's kind of the same guideline I go by with the music I listen to, whether I listen to a

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Christian band, a Christian artist. The lyrics to me are what are determinant of what

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I consider to be good quality Christian music, not necessarily the genre or style of music.

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If the lyrics are true, if they're worshipful, if they're edifying, if they're encouraging, those are things

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I look for. And even some songs that aren't from exactly the same theological camp

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I would put myself in, I mean, does that mean I can't appreciate or enjoy or even worship to some of the things that are said?

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I don't think that is. But this is such a touchy issue because Jeff brought it up briefly with the whole

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CCLI concept. And just in case you're not aware, most churches every year pay an annual fee to CCLI that gives them the rights to use this music.

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The church then reports back what songs they sang or performed in the church.

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And then some of the royalties that the church paid are then divided amongst the artists behind that song.

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Or sometimes multiple musicians or songwriters were involved in the writing of a song.

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And so it gets divided amongst all 10 of them. So with most churches in the country, you could sing a song 10 times in a year, and that will result in the artist getting a few pennies.

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So we're not talking like every time we sing a Bethel song, we're sending them a check for $100. That's not it at all.

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But at the same time, is there any chance that by us singing this song and someone sees it at the bottom of the slides up there,

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Bethel Music, or then later hears it on the radio and finds out that it's by Bethel Music, are they going to interpret that as an endorsement?

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To me, that's the biggest issue in that we don't want to be endorsing that group even if we're saying this particular song might be okay.

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And I think it's important for our congregations to understand that simply because we use a song from a certain publishing company or a certain group does not mean we endorse everything that that group stands for or teaches.

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It's true in the songs, but it's also true in other areas as well. When I preach a sermon,

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I might quote from Shakespeare. And that does not mean that I endorse everything that Shakespeare ever said, did, and thought.

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I would hope not, because Shakespeare said some pretty weird things. Yeah, yes, absolutely.

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But it just means that this particular quote by Mr. Shakespeare is apropos for this part of the sermon.

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It's helping to make the point. Paul quoted pagan poets in the epistles, and that, of course, did not mean that he approved or endorsed everything that those pagan poets ever wrote or said or did.

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It simply means that that particular passage that Paul was using was helping to make his point and had that truth that he was trying to present.

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So we can look at these kinds of things, too, and say, well, we need to distinguish.

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And our congregations need to be taught in such a way that they can discern truth from error.

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And so they should be able to know that just because you use something that came from a questionable source does not mean that you endorse everything that that particular source is putting out.

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Kevin, I think you're talking about the congregation. That's one of the points that for me is a balance that I think has to be brought up and has to be talked about, because one of the things that people are concerned about is the idea that,

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OK, if we're singing these songs in our church, does that lend credibility to those organizations?

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Are people going to say, oh, well, we've sung a song by this person or that group, so we should just accept the things that they say or do?

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And I'm not saying that people are going to be that cartoonish about it. But at the same time, that's the general idea of the concern.

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And you talking about the ability to discern, I do think that the purpose of the church is supposed to be equipping people through discipleship.

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And part of that means we should be teaching people things such that they shouldn't ever be looking at any teacher or book or group and just blindly accepting the things that they say.

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We shouldn't expect them to blindly accept the things that the pastor is saying from behind the pole, but there should be a healthy

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Christian skepticism. So I think if somebody is deeply concerned that singing a song from Hillsong is going to make people sympathetic to Hillsong's theology,

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I have to then question, well, then what level of depth is there in the discipleship and the training that's happening there?

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And that's not to dismiss the idea behind that, because there is something to be said for that sort of a thing.

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There's a relatively famous video going around out there where a particular theologian basically says that he thinks that it's more acceptable to donate money to Planned Parenthood than it is to give money to some of these heretical churches.

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In my opinion, I think that's a little much. I understand the concept of eternal destiny and so on and so forth and all those things.

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So it's not that we dismiss it, but I do think that there's a marked difference between saying this particular product or song or service has value versus saying everything that this group has put out is good.

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I'm thinking of Paul in Philippians. He talks about, you know, some people preach the gospel out of envy. Some people preach for gain and so on and so forth.

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I think if there's legitimate spiritual value in something, there's a sense in which we can kind of look at that like Balaam's donkey.

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You know, I mean, just because Balaam's donkey said something that was valid and true doesn't mean I got to listen to everything that that animal says when it says those things.

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And I think we can at least apply that. And again, I am by no means settled on that, but that's one of the things that is, you know, percolating through my mind as I'm trying to understand this and trying to process it.

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So as we talk, this kind of reminds me of a conversation we've had not that long ago with – at the bottom of every

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Got Questions article, there is a recommended resource. And I cannot tell you all how many times we've received complaints about a particular recommended resource.

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It's like, why at the bottom of this article do you recommend a book by – and insert basically anyone's name – don't you know that this person did – and then they mentioned something silly.

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In a book three years ago, they quoted from The Message one time, or they don't have the same belief about the end times as we do.

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Well, the book we recommend is not about the end times. It's about how to be a good pastor, stuff like that.

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Or we had a deal more recently with a Christian leader who the three of us all loved and respected and found extremely valuable, fell in some horrible ways.

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And so we had recommended several of his books on our site. And kind of like, do we keep recommending the books?

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And kind of the conclusion we came to is like, if there are other books on the same topic that also cover the issue well, just to avoid giving the appearance that we are somehow either oblivious or endorsing the mistakes this person made, let's go and recommend something else.

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So maybe that's a similar principle that could be applied here is that, is it wrong to use music from Bethel or Hillsong or whatever other group might be the next one to explode?

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But if there's another song that would work, another song to be equally worshipful or connect with the sermon the best or what, maybe it's better to use that just to avoid any possible conflict of interest that we're discussing.

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But that's not to say it's wrong to use a song written by one of these groups.

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If the song itself, the lyrics are solid, it's worshipful, it speaks the truth and so forth.

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And I think Paul's approach to controversies and disagreements and things like that within the church,

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I think is a good idea for us to keep in mind to where it's entirely possible that one particular congregation may say, look, for us and the people that we're ministering to, this issue is controversial enough.

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It's prickly enough that we do need to avoid those songs and those particular artists.

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Whereas another church, it may not be the particular case for them. And as much as there might be disagreement on those things,

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I think the whole fact that Paul talks about how there can be differences of opinion and there can even be disagreements on how critical particular issues are, that we need to have a willingness to extend some grace and accept that, you know what, maybe there's going to be different answers to that particular question in particular circumstances, just based on how people do it and the way they do it and who's involved.

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The church that I'm at may not be as concerned over something like that.

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A church that's doing music where they're constantly seeing people that are only in once or twice a week because they're traveling.

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Maybe they're going to say, well, we're a little more concerned with that. And I think it can also come down to the particular moments.

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The issue with Ravi Zacharias is not a bad parallel for something like that.

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I know for a fact that the material that he produced in and of itself has tremendous truth and tremendous value to it.

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In and of itself, it does. At the same time, have I stopped recommending his resources, quoting them, citing them?

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Yes, I don't recommend them anymore and I don't cite them anymore. And I'm not saying that that'll never change.

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But in the current environment, this particular situation, the baggage that comes along with that is just not overdone by the value that's in there.

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And maybe for a lot of churches, the same thing is going to be true. Or let's say one of these groups suddenly comes out with some profoundly disturbing action or statement, then maybe that'll change.

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And I think we're just going to have to be ready to accept at least a little bit of that. Not necessarily uncertainty, but sensitivity to the situation as we're looking at this.

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Those are wise words. Yeah. So for me, I guess probably the two key scriptures on this, obviously the

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Bible doesn't talk about singing worship songs written by questionable people, but Romans 14, 23, whatever is not from faith to sin in the sense of combined with Romans 14, 5, let each person be fully convinced in his own mind that this is a debatable issue.

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This is an issue on which Christians can agree to disagree. But this is something we need to think about when we pray about it.

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We need to be fully convinced and then follow through that in faith. Because if we are not sure that it is okay, allowable, right even to use a particular song, we shouldn't use it.

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So we should be fully convinced and make sure we're doing it in faith. And then if that's the case, we should show grace to others who may come to a different conviction on this and understand that their conviction may be equally valid based on the situation they're in, the church they're in, the reason that they're singing or not singing particular songs.

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I'm inclined in a lot of situations to think that we always say when we're talking about philosophy and apologetics and theology, that all truth is

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God's truth. In other words, if a statement is true, it's true. You know, if a blatant heretic writes something in a song that is an accurate description of God and his attributes, then in that sense, this is

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Balaam's donkey. This is God having the ability to use the rocks to cry out. To an extent, and again, that's not at all dismissing those other concerns.

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I think the idea of contributing to the finances of groups that we're not comfortable with is a concern that's worth people thinking about and exploring.

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I think the idea of lending credibility is something that's worth exploring. I think where I sort of am on the whole subject is that at the very least,

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I think it's the kind of thing that worship leaders and pastors should bring up with their congregations, at least every so often, just as a way of making that baseline.

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Just like Kevin was saying, that there should be an understanding that buying

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Pepsi and serving it at a church picnic does not mean that we agree with every single thing Pepsi has ever said or done.

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And granted, there's a huge difference between a secular food company and people making worship music. But I think as long as we're clear on those things, that some of the concerns and the issues become less a matter of people getting caught off guard and more just a matter of personal preference.

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And that's where we can start to extend grace and converse about it, come to a conclusion instead of bickering with each other about it.

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Exactly. So again, this conversation, a lot of the things we brought up on the podcast have been pretty cut and dry, that there is a clear biblical answer to.

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But this is one of those where I hope you can see that the three of us are all to varying degrees still struggling with this a little bit and not entirely sure where we can stand.

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I think we all are not of the camp of absolutely never could we use worship music from Bethel or Hillsong, but to what degree and how, and is it best?

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Still trying to figure that out. So imagine many of you are in the same spot. So ask

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God for wisdom, as James 1 .5 instructs us. Yeah. Unity, love,

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I almost want to give all the fruit of the spirit, but all that applies to discussions like this, that this is an issue where we need to be fully convinced, do things in faith and show grace and love to others who may come to a different conclusion.

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So hope our conversation has been encouraging and edifying to you. And this leads you to examine this issue and be a little more fully informed to make the decision on that basis.

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So it's been the Got Questions podcast. Got questions? Bible has answers.