F4F | Former NAR Worship Leader Discusses the Impact of Music on Theology

Fighting for the Faith

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00:14

Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Roseborough, I'm your servant in Jesus Christ.

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This is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the Word of God. Now, a real quick question.

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Have you noticed how music is a very powerful medium, and so is artwork, a powerful medium of not only conveying messages and themes or theology themes or even false theology themes, it is powerful for conveying these messages because it attaches itself to music, which appeals not only to our head, but also to our heart.

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And so the messages that come along with songs, Christian songs or otherwise, oftentimes have a very profound impact on how we believe and teach and confess.

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Have you noticed that? There's a reason for it, and it goes back to an ancient formula that the church fathers came up with.

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It's a Latin phrase. It's called Lex Arendi Lex Credendi. The law of prayer is the law of belief.

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What you pray, what you sing, oftentimes becomes what you believe.

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And so what we've done today is we've invited Jo Hogg back on to Fighting for the Faith to discuss the theology in her latest songs.

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But also talk about that connection between theology and doctrine and the arts and the impact that it has on Christians and why we as Christians need to be careful in discerning when it comes to what we're consuming when it comes to our musical choices.

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Joanne Hogg, thanks for coming back on Fighting for the Faith. How are you today? Thank you for having me.

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All right, so you're in Northern Ireland, and last time we had you on, we were discussing your album,

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Apologia Pilgrim, and by the time this airs, our hope is that this will be out on Apple Music so that people can actually, if they have an

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Apple Music subscription, they can listen to it. But when we consider the importance that music plays in the role of a

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Christian, I don't think that can be understated. As somebody who creates musical content and is skilled in this particular art form, how impactful can music be on what it is that we believe teaching infests as Christians?

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That's a good question, and it's not easily answered.

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I think some people are more susceptible to the influence of music than others, and I think

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I, as a creative, I am an emotional person. Music affects me very, very deeply.

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And that's been the case from I've been a child. I could have cried as a child listening to some classical music because it just, it was so sad and it was so emotive.

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And so I have come at music and creativity with that kind of mind and soul.

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But I can understand because I'm like that. I can understand how easily people can be emotionally influenced, manipulated by the music they're listening to.

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I mean, I also know a little bit about the kind of neuroscience of how listening to music and listening to certain types of music and rhythmical music can actually cause neurochemical changes in our brains so that we can become more suggestible after prolonged exposure to that kind of sound.

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And I've only become really aware of that in recent years.

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But now that I understand some of that, I can see how

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I was being influenced by music in the context of worship, that I'd be responding emotionally to the music and the sort of critical thinking, actually thinking about what

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I was singing, became secondary. And I think that's dangerous.

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Music really legitimately, I mean, depending on how it's composed and put together, oftentimes artists are looking for a particular feeling that they're trying to evoke.

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I think the kids nowadays, the creatives now, they try to create a vibe. That's the language that they use.

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They try to create a vibe. And so that being the case, they are intentionally constructing their chords and their music and their sentences, if you would, in music for the purpose of creating that vibe.

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And I think that's pretty much still what's happening in contemporary Christian music or in places that are producing

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Christian worship music. There's a high value regarding the vibe that is created by the music.

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I think vibe and atmosphere can almost be interchangeable. And so as somebody who's led worship along these lines, was the evocative sense of it, what emotion was being evoked, what vibe was being created, was that oftentimes a decision that you were intentionally making when you were putting together things like this?

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That was definitely the construct in some of the environments.

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I wasn't very often leading worship on my own.

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It was usually with a few other musicians and each one of us would be sharing in the actual leading.

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And I always kind of,

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I veered away. I sort of held back from, let's say, doing the more prophetic thing of, you know, speaking things out as you thought of them.

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And I tried to focus more and focus people on praising

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God, that it was an act of praise, it was a sacrifice of praise. But I was in environments where, you know, people were wanting you to kind of respond to the prophetic utterances that people were making.

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They wanted the music to kind of get more rousing, more passionate, more energetic.

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And sometimes I ended up, I was just like, I'm just enjoying the music here, but I'm not so sure about what's actually going on in the environment.

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You know, so it's probably why I didn't become a big name in the worship leading scene, because I used to find this introduction, you know, to a congregation, let's call them that, of, you know, the band are now going to lead us into the presence of God.

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Oh, that's a problematic statement. I'm thinking like, you know, big expectation here or even this expression to host the presence of God.

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And I think, well, God's here. He's here already. You know, I'm not inviting

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Him to come, you know, in a special way or, you know, make trial.

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It was like I felt the expectation, you know, of me as a musician was something that I just really wasn't comfortable with.

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Yeah. That this is like, I'm, oh, it's up to me.

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It's like, you know, oh, I am supposed to carry some kind of special anointing.

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So and I never kind of felt confident that I did. Yeah. I used and I think, you know, sometimes people would sort of hint afterwards that, you know,

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I was just maybe a little bit afraid to go for it.

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You know, that I was in some way inhibiting or suppressing what the

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Holy Spirit really wanted to do. But there were other times when, you know,

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I was leading worship on my own and people would.

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I mean, I seem to have this ability to make people cry when

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I sing and play and people would just respond very emotionally to what

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I was playing and then make a big thing out of that being, you know, the presence.

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You know, that was the anointing. That was, you know, the Holy Spirit really working in people's hearts and kind of.

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This would this would have been to accompany like ministry time. So, you know, looking back now,

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I just think, you know, this was just it was like there was so much emotional response going on.

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And not a lot of thought being given to the actual words.

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So they a lot of a lot of a lot of the lyrics would be quite repetitive, you know, and you would end up kind of just singing the same thing or or improvising on the same few chords because the people wanted to kind of extend the atmosphere and, you know, prolong it or they don't want it to end.

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You know, it's as if like when just when the music stops, you know,

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God leaves, the presence leaves, the anointing evaporates. So, yeah, it's like there was

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I used to actually feel a lot of pressure. Yeah. You know, in those environments,

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I thought it's not really all about the music. Yeah.

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And, you know, I would note that that the idea that somehow the ability to make you cry or to have these emotions being equated with the

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Holy Spirit is a dangerous thing. You know, just just do the historical work. You know, go back and look at how young girls reacted to the

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Beatles when the Beatles first came out. All right. They would they would go on a TV show and there'd be girls in the audience.

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As soon as they started playing, these girls would like not only lose their minds, they would be full on weeping.

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I mean, just crying. Right. And that's not the Holy Spirit. I can legitimately say of all the things that God has done, he has not sent his

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Holy Spirit to give a special unction, a special atmosphere at a Beatles conference, you know, or concert.

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So that's not a thing. And my concern then is that when people are led by their emotions and their brains are turned off, that is the perfect environment for deception to take root.

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Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I am an example of it because I I love music.

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I've always responded, you know, emotionally to music. And I just I got drawn in.

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I love the music. And I love the I love the kind of the dynamic of playing with other musicians.

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And, you know, in these environments where they want to kind of extend the atmosphere and prolong it, you are having to kind of musically improvise.

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Yeah. And and I kind of I quite enjoyed that.

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I liked it. But I I was always there was always this kind of tension for me because I didn't feel like I was totally immersed in it.

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Yeah. There was there was still just this this little this little kind of thought in my head.

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You know, this keep keep the focus on Jesus, you know, keep the focus on him.

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This this is this is, you know, not about an emotional experience.

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It's detached from the truth about who he is. But I, you know, when

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I look now at these kind of like videos of, you know, the mega churches and and the music and the whole production of it,

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I just I kind of recoil from it. I just I cannot

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I can't really can't watch it because I just I know that I know that a lot of people are are sincerely expressing love for Jesus.

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But it's I think a lot of a lot of the time it's like their knowledge and understanding of who they're loving.

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Yeah. It's different. It's like the sort of romantic kind of like I'm just I'm just all in.

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I'm totally in love with God and and I'm and this is how

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I'm expressing it. But it's not now having kind of been away from that for like three years.

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I can I can break down and cry singing an old hymn in a little in a little church with 30 people in it because the words are just absolutely hitting me like full force.

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I'm like. The words are hitting you. I like the way you said that.

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And that that's really the difference. So the cash value in today's mega churches has to do with the emotive ability.

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You know, what kind of emotion is being evoked? And this is with seven words repeated 11 times.

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We call them 7 -11 songs. And it's emotion almost for the sake of emotion.

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And as a result of it, there is there is very little theology, if any, that is conveyed in these things.

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Yet, you know, all the emotions are there. But that stuff wears off after a while.

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Whereas when you have content, you know, emotions that are driven by content, like the actual lyrics and it's in those lyrics are strongly grounded in what the scriptures teach.

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That's a whole different experience altogether. And so this comes back to this idea of lexa rendi, lexa credendi.

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The law of prayer is the law of belief. What you what you pray, what you sing ultimately becomes what you end up believing.

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And I think back to the ancient church, there was a heresy called the Aryan heresy.

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This isn't about a bunch of Germans. It's about the Aryan heresy is a heresy put forward by a guy by the name of Arius.

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And his doctrine was that Jesus is not God the Son, second person of the

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Trinity, eternally begotten of the Father. Instead, Jesus is the first and greatest creation of God.

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And that Jesus is a creature. And that heresy grew like wildfire in the ancient church, because Arius knew that he could teach this doctrine of his and convey it through music.

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And so he actually wrote a bunch of popular songs that people love to sing in church.

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And wouldn't you know it, people singing those songs ended up becoming Aryan heretics as a result of it.

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And so he knew that music itself is not neutral.

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It is something that absolutely picks a side. And it's gonna either pick a side with conveying a message of heresy or leading you away from Christ, or it can be grounded in what the scriptures say and help deepen your understanding of who

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God is and what he's done for us. And then emotions then come from, you know, can actually spring from that.

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But the whole point is not the emotion, but the whole point is the message. What are your thoughts on that?

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And then I'll give you an example of something here. Well, funny, when

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I was listening to Doreen Virtue, Dave Jenkins, talk about this recently,

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Doreen actually talked about the Aryan heresy and how that had, you know, been propagated through doxology, through singing.

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So, I mean, I just, I didn't know that. I was really quite fascinated.

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I'd kind of heard of Aryanism, but I didn't know about the combination of the music with the theology.

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And, you know, I've kind of, I went through a lot of the songs that I had in my iPad that I used to lead in worship.

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And I kind of went through it. And a lot of them, a lot of them theologically were, they were kind of okay.

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There was nothing sort of really obviously stand out, problematic.

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But then there were those ones that, you know, were really problematic.

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And, you know, and we're really a lot more about what we are doing than what

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God has done. Yeah, so.

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Singing about ourselves, you know, and yeah, that is a huge problem in today's contemporary.

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You make me brave. I am so brave. No, I'm not.

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Oh, man. So, let me show you an example of what

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I'm talking about here. And I haven't really discussed this on an episode of Fighting for the

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Faith. I pastor a Lutheran congregation in Oslo, Minnesota, Kungsvinger Lutheran Church.

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I also pastor another congregation in Radium, Minnesota. So, you know, we pastors who serve in rural areas do not have the luxury of only serving one congregation.

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You know, so our Sundays are very busy. When we finish up one church, we pack up and head off to another one.

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And I know some guys who serve three congregations. I don't know how they do it. But with the shortage of pastors.

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I grew up with my dad's served two. Because it was a rural congregation.

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And actually, the church I go to now, the minister goes from our service.

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He's like 15 minute drive and he goes to another one. Yeah, I got a half hour drive between the two churches.

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So, I serve one in the morning, one in the afternoon. And I do the same thing. But the question comes up.

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So, how do I pick the hymns? We don't have a band in either of those congregations.

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And I'm thankful for that. But when I sit down to pick the hymns, because we follow a hymnal.

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The thing that is the most important is which biblical text will

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I be preaching on. And then which hymns are going to fit in and fill in the theology or the doctrinal point that I'm going to make as the main point in the sermon that I preach on that biblical text.

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So, what's in the driver's seat is God's word. And so, I follow a lectionary.

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And so, I have three assigned texts every single week. Every single week.

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So do we. Three assigned texts. I got an Old Testament text. I got an epistle. And I got a gospel.

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And there's a genius behind the lectionary. Because what the lectionary does is in the course of one calendar year, it goes through all of the doctrines of Scripture, all the major doctrines of Scripture in one whole year.

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From creation to the fall to redemption to the different teachings of Christ. It gets them all, including eschatology.

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We do three whole weeks on eschatology every single year in the month of November.

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And so, there's a real big piece of all of this. The word is the centerpiece of all of this.

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And everything has to work around the biblical text. And so, talking about content.

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Let me do this real quick. I'm going to pull this up. There we go. We are looking at my

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Kindle version of the Lutheran Service Book, which is the hymnal that we use in the congregations that I serve. And over and again, people who come out of evangelicalism, this hymn, 578 in the

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Lutheran Service Book, Thy Strong Word, becomes like a favorite hymn for them. And I have a hard time singing this hymn without getting choked up.

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And so, I always look forward to biblical texts where then

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I can pull this hymn out to support the preaching of God's word.

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And so, listen to the lyrics. I'll start. I'm going to focus on lyric one and then stanza three.

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Thy strong word did cleave the darkness. At thy speaking, it was done.

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For created light, we thank thee. While thine ordered seasons run. I mean, this is just Genesis 1, 2, and 3 kind of stuff right here.

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And it's just so good. And it affirms that we were created by the word of God. God brought the universe into existence by speaking it into existence.

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And then he set everything up in order. And then, of course, you got the chorus. Alleluia, alleluia.

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Praise to thee who light doth send. Alleluia, alleluia. Without end. The stanza that I cannot sing without a catch.

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I mean, I always get an emotional one because it comes right back to the heart of the gospel. Thy strong word bespeaks us righteous.

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Bright with thine own holiness. Glorious now we press towards glory in our lives our hopes confess.

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It's like, that's the imputed righteousness of Christ. And it's right there in this.

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And you're going to note here that this is content driven.

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This is biblical text driven. This is message driven songs and worship.

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And there's even aspects of it that oftentimes become prayerful rather than exalting us.

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It oftentimes instead, in the song or the hymn, we'll end up praying one of the stanzas and asking

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God to give us things that we need. Stanza five, give us lips to sing thy glory.

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Tongues thy mercy to proclaim. Throats that shout the hope that fills us. Mouths to speak thy holy name.

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And if you ever heard the tune to this thing, oh, it absolutely is an amazing hymn.

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But today's modern NAR charismatics would say that this is spiritless. This is dead.

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This is all these kinds of things. Too much content, too much thinking with your brain kind of stuff. What are your thoughts on that,

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Jo? Well, I started to sing and look again at some older hymns.

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Now, here in Northern Ireland, we use a lot.

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We use the Keith Getty music.

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It's like we laugh because we're good friends with the Gettys. And in our church, the lady who is usually picking the hymns is trying to pick hymns that fit with the readings as well.

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And almost like every Sunday, so there are only three hymns sung, one at the beginning, one in the middle, one at the end.

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Most Sundays, two or maybe all of them are from Getty music or they're old.

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They're really quite old. And some of them are, oh, my goodness, the words are incredible.

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And I know with the Gettys and their writing team, they are really delving into scripture and biblical theology to write their lyrics.

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It's very, very strong biblical testing of everything because they – you know the hymn

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In Christ Alone? Well, that was a Getty hymn. And apparently when the

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Presbyterian Church in America were reissuing a new hymnal, they wanted to change the lyric that said the wrath of God was satisfied in the cross.

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And they wanted to change it to the love of God was magnified.

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And the writers, which was Keith Getty and Stuart Townend, they refused.

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They just said, no, no, I mean, don't put it in your hymn book then. But you're not changing the lyric.

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The fact that they would take issue with that lyric. And that lyric legitimately is biblical.

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I mean, see Isaiah 53, if you're not convinced, right? He was pierced for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement that brought us peace with God.

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And by his stripes we're hit. Yeah, absolutely. And we're saved from the wrath to come. So that is a biblical lyric.

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It legitimately summarizes exactly what the scriptures reveal, that we are saved from God's wrath against and rightly earned wrath, by the way, because of our sin and rebellion against God.

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And so you'll note that the PCUSA here in the United States, a while back, they jumped the tracks and headed deep and deep to the left.

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And as a result of that, they didn't want to hear any more about the wrath of God.

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The left generally doesn't. And as a result of it, their theology changed.

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Their theology was no longer in line with scripture. So when they ran across a hymn that they still liked, but the lyrics didn't fit with their theology, they wanted the right to change the hymn to conform to their new and unbiblical theology.

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I'm glad to hear that the Gary's said no. I mean, it was an absolute, yeah, no, no, we're not.

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So it's great that they were absolutely not compromising on that at all.

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But this has been my experience now when I am singing a hymn in church with just a small congregation of people and we just have organ or piano.

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And there is no kind of emotional, really emotional kind of push with the music.

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Yeah, it's really just it's very, very simple. I mean, the melody still matters.

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But the words, the words that hit me and actually the first after lockdown and after like two years of not being in church services.

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The first Sunday that I went to this

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Church of Ireland that someone had told me, you know, the minister there, he loves the word of God and he's really faithful.

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He preaches from scripture. And so I had gone on my own to this service.

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And it was still at a time when, you know, every other pew was roped off and people were wearing masks.

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And I went in and the first hymn they sang was actually one of the new

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Irish hymns. And I had recorded it 22 years ago when that first album of Irish hymns came out.

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And the lyrics is my heart is filled with thankfulness. It's just it's a thank it's a hymn of thankfulness for the gospel, for everything that Jesus has done.

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And I literally I got about halfway through the first verse and I was weeping. I thought, wow,

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I was like. And people, you know, people look on this kind of environment as being dead and, you know, not not having the real life and everything.

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And I thought I'm way more emotional right now. I feel this more deeply in my soul than I ever felt in an environment where the music was amazing.

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Yeah. So, yeah, that's. I can't remember.

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There's something to be said about that, because the idea here is, is that is that Christianity from time to time has been blessed with larger churches that had greater resources and that had the money to put into better equipment and and and a music director and things like this.

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That's that's always a blessing from God. But the thing is, is that historically those churches are few and far between.

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And the majority of Christian churches throughout the history of the

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Christian church have had less than 150 people. And and, you know, and just think that out for a second here, which means they don't have a lot of resources.

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So a piano or an organ are within their budget. But you'll note that that leads to a very minimalistic, you know, worship music, you know, with one major with one major instrument leading, you know, the congregational worship.

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But that's never stopped God, the Holy Spirit from doing His work. And so the hymns of the past, they're wonderful because, you know,

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I kind of built a recent episode of Fighting for the Faith just a few episodes back, talked about the fact that so many

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Christians, they have no concept of church history. Church history began five minutes ago, you know, and there's no appreciation for the fact that Christ is legitimately said in the

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Great Commission. You know, all authority in heaven on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

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Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them all that I have, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

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And lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. Christ has been with this church the entire time. There have been

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Christians throughout the world for the last two millennia. And they have added their own little contribution to the church in the hymns that we sing.

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One of the things I love when I see, you know, I'll pull out a hymn for a sermon or, you know, to match with the sermon, and then

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I'll look at when it was first published. And so Lutheran Service Book is good on that. And if it says something like ninth century,

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I just sit there and go, yeah, you know, this is the ninth century's contribution to the church as a whole.

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And there's a reason why certain songs will make it and have that kind of lasting power.

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And other songs might have some popularity for a short season, but eventually fall away.

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You know, it's a rare thing. And so we have these, like the hymn books of old are like the greatest hits of Christian hymnody and worship for almost two millennia.

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And the ones that can make the cut, you know, they have lasting power for a reason, and it's driven by their content.

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You know, and yeah, that content could legitimately lead to an emotional response.

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But you'll note that it's not an emotional response for the sake of the emotional response. It's an emotional response that's driven by the content, because, you know.

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So let me ask you this question. Paula Gia Pilgrim, when

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I think about your latest album, in fact, let me do this. Let me pull this up. There we go.

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All right. So this is still the Bandcamp version of it, because when we're recording this, the

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Apple Music version isn't quite out yet. But it should be out by the time we put this out.

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As I think about your latest album, one of the things that strikes me is that this is nothing like the latest album by Elevation Worship or Hillsong.

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This is more akin to hymns. And so, you know, because there's each and every song, there is a driving message behind them.

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How well has it been received by folks in the NAR? Well, it's hard to gauge, really, because, you know,

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I'm kind of a I'm not a fanfare release person. Once the album was ready,

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I kind of really only promoted it via a mailing list that I still have, which, you know, it's quite small.

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It's only a few thousand people. So there's not a lot of promotion and stuff behind it.

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I'm not even really that good at the whole social media platforms.

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So I'm pretty sure like a lot of a lot of people that I know here actually still haven't heard it or know about it.

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But of people that I know, you know, have heard it and do know about it.

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It's been like actually very little response, because I think, you know, that the musicians that were part of my past are kind of I think they they only have to see the title of it and that it's a cross.

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And I think that's just straight away. It's just like, you know, I've kind of I've gone back to being all reformed.

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And, you know, it's I to me, the songs are a bit they're like prayers.

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Quite a few. You know, I think I sort of I sing them in the surf first person as like a prayer to God.

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They're not they're not kind of songs that are that are going to be corporately sung by people.

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So in the whole Christian music scene, it's like if you want if you want people to be listening to your music, then you kind of really you need to write stuff like what they're all listening to already.

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I mean, it's like modern modern songwriting, modern hymn writing has become almost like there are there are certain formulas, you know, that you follow.

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And well, I don't write songs like that. So it's not, you know, it's like I think within the sort of Christian audience, a lot of people just want want something to put on that's easy listening or they can kind of sing along to.

42:07

It's when when you're considering how many people are kind of actually listening to lyrics and thinking about them, it's kind of your audience has already shrunk to being pretty small.

42:29

I think, you know, and musicians who are not really too bothered about the lyrics, they they are very positive about the album because they they like the musicianship.

42:44

They like the arrangement. And it's kind of like, you know, they they they can appreciate it as a song, you know, like friends who actually are

43:00

Christians who don't listen to Christian music have actually probably responded more positively to the album than Christians.

43:14

But I know. And so, yeah, that's that's kind of what

43:24

I've found so far. Yeah. It doesn't fall into the category of popular

43:30

Christian music. No, it doesn't. But but that is not an indictment against it.

43:37

I think it's more of an indictment against what's popular Christian music is today, which is so, so shallow and so thin.

43:48

In fact, I would even note that certain songs nowadays, they're not only shallow and thin, they're even heretical.

43:53

You know, somebody asked me, he said, why don't we ever why don't we ever sing that particular song? He says, because that ain't what the

43:59

Bible teaches and we don't believe it. Now, let me do this here.

44:07

Zooming in on your titles for your music. We're not gonna play samples here.

44:13

But, you know, two kind of stick out at the moment here. Meology and Dream Destiny.

44:19

Okay. Cracks me up for titles here. Tell me what this song is about.

44:25

Meology. And, you know, and as the artist who put this piece of art together and mixed it with a specific message, what is the message that this song conveys?

44:38

Even before the emotion, but what is the message it conveys? Well, one of the things that I had to I had to really rethink when

44:53

I kind of came out of this NAR type environment was how

45:05

I pray. And also,

45:12

I'd had, you know, over a decade of being taught about how to hear the voice of God.

45:22

You know, for yourself, as in personal God speaking to you.

45:30

I had at different times I had leaders, conference speakers, you know, who who would pray for me and who would say things like, you know, there's an anointing on you to hear

45:50

God speak. You're going to hear God speak to you. You're going to be able to hear

45:56

God speak to you. And and I actually

46:02

I find it I find it frustrating in a way, because I would

46:10

I would think, well, when I when I sit to pray or when

46:16

I'm out walking and I'm praying. So I just have to be silent and wait and listen.

46:30

And and then I'm thinking, right, OK, I'm thinking stuff here.

46:36

But is it just my thoughts? Is it my imagination is, you know, how do

46:42

I know this God's voice? But I desperately

46:48

I desperately wanted to hear God speak to me, you know, and answer some of my questions and guide me on certain decisions.

46:58

And and I used to spend, you know, quite a lot of time.

47:04

We live beside a river and we have a bit of a jetty at the river. And I used to go down to this jetty with the purpose of.

47:14

Just being still. And. Praying and contemplating, meditating and waiting to hear

47:26

God speak to me. And and I was just to get just I'd get frustrated, you know.

47:40

And and I never thought of actually opening up my

47:46

Bible and reading it. Wait, you're going to hear the

47:52

God's voice, but you're listening at the jetty, you're speaking in the wind at the jetty. But by opening up a

47:58

Bible and actually hearing the voice of God in the scriptures. But here's the thing. That is because there was so much teaching on that.

48:08

In this environment, there would be conferences on, you know, learning to hear God speak.

48:15

We had we had people give sermons, you know, sermons on how to tune in to the voice of God.

48:29

And and that, you know, that twisting of John chapter 10.

48:37

Yeah. You know, whereas the sheep know my voice. And.

48:45

And I and I really I actually thought at times, what is wrong with me?

48:52

You know, I would even hear teaching that kind of almost suggested that. Well, of course, we're supposed to hear

48:58

God speak to us. It's like, you know, it's meant to be a two way conversation in this relationship.

49:05

And if you if you're not hearing God speak to you, well, you should maybe ask the question.

49:12

Are you really. Truly a believer, have you really got the Holy Spirit?

49:20

So that's what. That's what the song is about.

49:26

It was about that starting off with that kind of waiting.

49:35

And. Then realizing, you know, coming out of this whole paradigm of theology, this kind of theology that.

49:50

That this is not how I this is not how I hear God speak. Yeah, it was like, you know, my.

49:58

That was the thing I think I felt most convicted and repentant about was.

50:05

How I had my attitude to scripture. How I had like.

50:13

Just not bothered for how I how I had like being so like greedy to read all these other books.

50:23

Yeah, you know, and. Hadn't actually read and studied the

50:32

Bible, and it was actually. It was reading, starting to read the

50:38

Bible for myself that actually. Got me to wake up to.

50:46

To. To the to the false. Theology to the twisted ideas to, you know, to actually be able for myself to discern that there's something wrong here.

51:02

You know, that's not right. And nobody, nobody ever came up to me and challenged me about, you know, the environment that I was in.

51:14

No one ever came up and said, you know. Are you sure, you know, you're hearing the truth.

51:24

Every Sunday, nobody ever said anything. I literally. Ironically, at the church that I was getting all this kind of not so good theology, you know, which was really a spillover from Bethel.

51:45

From a pastor who had, you know, 12 years ago. Brought Bill Johnson over to speak and then.

51:55

Put himself under the apostolic covering. Of Bethel of Bill Johnson, and from that, from that point forward, everything that we everything that we did.

52:09

And the church was kind of modeled on what Bethel did. So there had to be a supernatural school, you know.

52:19

There had to be, there was all the, all the theology like dominionism and seven mountain mandate and, you know.

52:27

Dream interpretation and all that stuff. All came like, flooding in and.

52:35

But at that, but it was at that church that. One, one. Person got up one

52:43

Sunday. And he was, he was a person who had done, who had theology training, but he wasn't an ordained minister or pastor.

52:52

He, he just was kind of, you know, now and again, he would come on and do some

52:57

Bible teaching. And that particular Sunday he, he just said, you know, we all need to be reading, studying the

53:06

Bible. And, and he actually, he actually gave an invitation for people who've really sensed conviction about it to stand up.

53:18

And to be accountable to someone, you know, stand up to say,

53:23

I've neglected this. I, I know that I need to return to the

53:29

Bible. And, you know, it's, it's a church environment where usually the appeal on a

53:36

Sunday at the end of a, of a talk was for people, you know, who wanted prayer or ministry.

53:41

And I bet there would have been like several hundred people going to the front. And that Sunday there was, there was probably between 20 and 30 people out of a thousand.

53:51

That stood up. And, and, and that was, that was the start for me.

53:56

That was in about October, 2019. Okay. And over the next few months,

54:03

I was like, Oh, something's going on here. I've been deceived.

54:10

And, and, and then whenever I kind of really kind of had the complete falling apart experience, it was just the start of the pandemic.

54:23

So. Okay. Let me, let me pull up another one from the list.

54:29

Long answer. Sorry. That was a long answer to one question about one song. Not a problem. You're going to note here is that in asking you the question, what is this song about?

54:41

It is packed not only with a message, but it's also packed with your experiences and what you were feeling and what you were going through.

54:51

The confusion that you felt and as a result of the false teaching that you had.

54:56

And then, and then conversely, then how God's word opened your eyes. This, this is a, that's, that's a lot to say in a five minute song.

55:08

All right. Here, here's another one of, again, a longer song. You know, this is not a three minute song.

55:14

This isn't designed to be played on the radio. But the name of the song is Certainty. And it has a question mark.

55:20

Certainty question mark. Tell me what this particular song that you put together is about.

55:28

What, what, what is it that you want, you wanted this song to convey? Well, I think what, what sort of happened as I start, as I started to read the

55:40

Bible and then began to think, really, have

55:47

I been that wrong? Have I been that far off track? How could that happen to, to somebody who's really, you know, was a genuine

55:59

Christian who was born again at an earlier part in my life? And also it was the start of lockdown and I ended up with a house full of young people and into a lot of conversations about faith, about Christianity.

56:20

Does God exist? You know, Bible's just an old, you know, archaic book of, you know, cultural myths and stuff.

56:31

How can we even, how can you even know we can trust it? And, and, you know, how, how can you be, how can you be sure

56:39

Jesus rose from the dead and all these kind of questions? And I, and I was really, it was existential crisis, angst.

56:47

Like I found it very overwhelming. And that was kind of what, you know,

56:55

I found your channel. I found, I discovered

57:02

Elisa Childers, Melissa Doherty, Holly Pivot, Doreen Virtue, all just a whole gamut of people.

57:13

And also some of the kind of Christian apologetics like stand to reason and cross examine.

57:22

And so I, I began to kind of look into the history.

57:32

Which I'd never done. And you said earlier, like Christians just have no clue about the history of our faith.

57:43

That started to just totally blow my mind. And then the whole reliability of scripture and textual criticism and how the canon of scripture was put together.

57:57

I was like, this is, this is incredible. And it, and also some of the apologetics arguments.

58:09

So I had, I had gone from, you know, being sort of really, really going to the depths of doubting.

58:20

And, and asking myself, what do I believe?

58:27

It was like, it, it suddenly became like, you know, belief, believe.

58:33

It's just this little word, but it's just packed with significance.

58:40

It's like, what do I really believe? If I really believe this, how can

58:47

I continue to live like that? And, you know,

58:54

I, I find the, the more that I read about the

59:01

Bible, the history of the church and the, the martyrdom of believers and the persecution of believers.

59:11

And I thought, you know, these people died for this belief.

59:20

You know, like, really? Is it, is it, am I that certain of what

59:28

I believe that, you know, I would die for it?

59:33

Like you, you need to be pretty certain of something. And it's funny,

59:38

I was, there was a discussion recently, you know, that I listened to about, you know, the apostles and, and their, you know, their willingness to endure the persecution and everything.

59:54

This was one of the, you know, great arguments for the resurrection. And I, people say, yeah, but sure, people in other religions die for what they believe.

01:00:05

And I said, yeah, but other people will die for something they, they really believe is true.

01:00:12

But, you know, the apostles, nobody dies for something they know isn't true, is a lie.

01:00:21

It just doesn't happen. And, and so I, I just start to become so like, so certain of what

01:00:34

I, what I believe, and so much more confident in stating it, talking about it.

01:00:43

And I put the question mark on there because this, this word certainty, there's even like Christians who really don't like you to say that you're certain of what you hope for.

01:01:06

And, and, and, and it's also that sort of whole like, well, everybody just says, yeah, you can't really be certain about anything.

01:01:16

But they're certain about that. They're certain about not being certain about anything. And so, and it was just the certainty about the resurrection of Jesus and who he is and why, you know,

01:01:35

I am gonna, I am gonna believe what Jesus has said about things with certainty.

01:01:46

I mean, I think I, I think I am certain. I think I have certainty now. Whereas before it was just, it was just so many questions about, about everything.

01:02:00

And so I thought to try and kind of, you know, get that into a song, that process of thinking about it and, and, and also, you know, the whole line that was so ingrained in my thinking from before was, you know, faith is really spelt

01:02:32

R -I -S -K. Yeah. That's the whole thing, you know, about when you're being taught in that whole, you know, theology of speaking out words and having faith that, you know, what you're declaring and speaking out has authority.

01:03:01

So that, you know, and it would be like, you have to, you just have to step out and take the risk, you know.

01:03:15

That is not exactly what faith is. It's, faith is something different than this.

01:03:21

Faith might result in risk. Okay. That for sure may be the case, but not, not some kind of willy nilly presumptuous risk.

01:03:31

It's the risk that comes with, I am certain that Christ has bled and died for my sins, that He's risen bodily from the grave, that He's ascended into heaven, that He's with me now.

01:03:40

And He has told us in Scripture to, to proclaim Him and Him crucified for our sins to all nations, including my nation.

01:03:49

And so I'm going to take the risk of losing life and reputation. Yeah. For, before this faith, but you know, for them, when they talk about faith being risk, they're saying, well, if you, you got to show

01:04:01

God that you really have faith in Him. So you got to take this leap into the darkness and, and empty out your bank account and send it to, to me and, and show, show

01:04:11

God that you're, you're, you're, that you're really willing to take the risk that knowing that He'll take care of you.

01:04:16

This is, this is how they talk. Yeah. Yeah. So, so it was that, it was a, it was that sort of moving from, from having been kind of taught that understanding of faith to realizing that it's actually, it's trusting.

01:04:33

Yeah. You know, it's, it's me putting my trust in what

01:04:40

Jesus has said, what His word says. And I, there, there are things that are still a mystery.

01:04:47

There are things that I, that I, I will never understand. But now they don't, they don't overwhelm me the same way because I just think ultimately

01:05:02

I, I trust, I trust God to do what is right.

01:05:10

I trust Him to do what is right. So even though I don't understand how things work out or why things happen that way, it's like,

01:05:20

I don't need to know now because I trust

01:05:25

Him. I trust, I trust what we've been told. And all of that in a song.

01:05:31

Can you imagine, all of that in a song. Thanks for making my point.

01:05:38

You're, you're, you're doing a good job of making the point that I'm trying to make. And, and, and that is, is that each and every one of us, every generation of Christians, we've had to wrestle against the temptations of the devil, the world, our own sinful flesh.

01:05:53

We've even had to wrestle with God and His word. And, and God, the

01:05:59

Holy Spirit through His word has had to produce in us the fruit of the spirit. But God oftentimes takes us through, through suffering and pain and difficulty that ultimately will help better produce that fruit.

01:06:14

A friend of mine has a wonderful book and the name of the book is called Limping with God.

01:06:20

And it's a wonderful story. It's, it's, it's a, it's a wonderful exegesis through the story of Jacob.

01:06:27

You know, the, the, the guy who becomes Israel, his name becomes Israel. And from his, from the time of his, you know, his conception, you know, he and his brother fought in his mother's womb.

01:06:40

And then all the way, you know, all the way through the rest of the story, even during the dark days when, you know, when

01:06:45

Joseph was gone. And, and God, you know, God didn't let on at all that Joseph was still alive.

01:06:51

He thought he was dead. And, and it's, it's a wonderful look at just how messy and difficult

01:07:00

Christian discipleship is. And if there was ever a guy in the Bible that, you know, that should never be considered a believer held up for us to like, you know, to emulate, it would be

01:07:12

Jacob because the guy is a complete deceiver and con man. And he's got so many problems and sitting there going, why does

01:07:19

God hold this guy up? Because the reality is, this is, we're all just as screwed up as he is.

01:07:26

And our, the course of our discipleship is, is marred by these incidences.

01:07:33

But he, he refers to these times when, you know, it just seems like God is far off.

01:07:38

He calls these, you know, the, the, he calls them like winters of, of, you know, fruitful winters is what he calls them.

01:07:45

It's a fruitful winter, you know, where God takes these difficulties in our lives and, and it's in them that he produces in us the things that we need produce, but we wouldn't have never even sought for, you know, and so you are describing a part of your life that was a fruitful winter for you.

01:08:05

Yeah, the pandemics.

01:08:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, well, yeah,

01:08:17

I, we've been at this for more than an hour. Holy smokes. And it's only two songs.

01:08:24

And it's only two songs. But if this isn't what people's appetite for, you know, for actually more meaningful

01:08:31

Christian art in the form of music, then, I don't know, we're left to only praying for them.

01:08:42

Let me remind everybody, the name of the album is Apologia Pilgrim.

01:08:47

We'll put a link down to the Bandcamp version of it too. And by the time we broadcast this interview, her album should be available on Apple Music, and we'll provide the link for that as well when the time comes.

01:09:00

So, but it's worth the listen as you work your way through the artwork that conveys some very important messages, messages that I think a lot more

01:09:14

Christians need to hear and consider and ponder, even in their own piety and ask themselves the same questions that Jo has needed to ask herself in her journey and her discipleship with Christ.

01:09:25

And she can say along with Jacob and the rest of us, yeah, your discipleship journey has taken down some pretty weird alleys.

01:09:37

But we praise God for His faithfulness and through His Word straightening us out.

01:09:43

So again, thank you for your time, Jo. It was a pleasure to interview you a second time. Oh, pleasure. It's always good to chat.

01:09:50

Yes. Thanks, Chris. All right. Peace to you, sister, and stay on. I'm just going to sign off with the viewers and then we'll come back and chat for a minute.

01:09:59

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01:10:06

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01:10:15

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01:10:21

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01:10:30

And until next time, may God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and His vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.