Earlier this year / Later this year
-- And theologically dubious, in this case it is making a promise the singer cannot (or at least will not) keep, which God repeatedly deprecates in the Bible, among the parts never preached from the pulpit. Every person singing this song is an MBTI Feeler, whose highest value is unearned affirmation ("praises"), which they in good conscience dispense to everybody. There may be some Thinkers in the audience where this is sung, but they are there only to please their Feeler wives (which God tells husbands to do) because their highest value is Truth, Justice, and Duty (they wouldn't be there otherwise), and the song is a Lie, which is anathema to Thinkers.
Praising God is Good, and we should do it often, but "ALL my praises" is contrary to fact in the mouth of any Feeler, as well as anybody who wants to get along in today's Feeler-dominated USA, which includes any thoughtful, God-fearing Thinker (there are a few of us in the churches, unwelcome though we may be).
Furthermore, saying "I'm gonna give Him my praises" is itself nothing more than unearned affirmation, the words themselves mean nothing, and this in fact only says you are going to praise God, but does not actually do so (except in the mind of a Feeler, which God is not). Jesus told the Pharisees that God's highest values are "Truth, Justice, and Mercy," and elsewhere he placed Duty up there at the top. Love is never mentioned, except is a context where it clearly means "Do the Right Thing" (Duty). Those are Thinker, not Feeler, values.
Me, I praise God a lot (perhaps more than most church-goers who are
too busy praising each other), because I came to realise a year or two
ago that the physics law of Entropy means that no human ever invents anything,
so it must be God doing all the invention, and He "gives it to all
people liberally, without scolding" [James 1:5, my translation]. Like when
it's hot, instead of complaining, I say "that's what God invented air conditioning
for." But humans can mess up the Good things that God does. Like air conditioning,
when I got this car some 36 years ago, I asked for "air conditioning, a
tape player, and power nothing." The A/C worked wonderful, they told me
(and I bought) an after-market tape player two blocks down the street was
cheaper and worked fine, and I had no problems at all with the rest of
the car, except every 130 thousand or so miles I need a new clutch, but
the third was installed by some fly-by-night repairman in God-forsaken
Portland, and it's being replaced as I write this after only 5000 miles.
I'm still better off than 90% of the world's population, and I thank God
pretty much every day for His Word in my language 400+ years ago that made
it possible (the mechanics of A/C was invented by an American in 1834,
my Japanese car was designed in the USA). Some fly-by-night repairman in
another state replaced the perfectly good A/C in this car with some shoddy
product that never did work well, nor did its two replacements, and now
I have no working A/C at all, and no way to get something that works. All
because of Gummit meddling and rules about freon. But (God be praised)
I have no reason to drive long distances any more, only a couple miles
on hot days from one A/C building to another, not enough to need cooling
in transit. Twice a week in summer; the rest of the year I walk (except
in rain). I got my fill of rain as a kid in the Amazon jungle, and it rains
here more than Calif, but not as much as most of the country, and (unlike
Calif) most of what I need is walking distance. God is Good.
One night I heard some yelling outside, and I looked out and saw some guy screaming at the top of his voice, but I couldn't make out any words because when you shout, the vowels get louder, but the consonants do not, so all I heard were vowels: "-ah-oh-ee-ah-.." Around the same time I was singing in a community chorus, and the director told us to enunciate the consonants. That night I understood why.
Flash forward to this year, I'm sitting in church and they play CCM songs before and after services. One they play rather often, but I can make out only the first three words in the whole song (and its repeats), the rest are just random noise, perhaps vowels. Maybe the first three are too, but they are spaced out: "Oo. Am. I..." Maybe the singers are untrained, or maybe they are just shouting. So this is what I hear:
Who am I [shout] [shout] [SHOUT] [shout] [shout] [shout]Last Sunday was the first time the praise team sang that song in church, and the words were every bit as unintelligible as the recording they played in background the week before. Maybe they listen to CCM on the radio and sing what they hear. Except the leader introduced it as about "gratitude" and I could barely make out the word "gratitude" in the tiny on-screen words. After a couple repeats -- this is a "7-11" song (7 words repeated 11 times) -- I began to hear the vowels "a-i-u" ("gratitude") about the same time as when that word appeared on the screen. I never did understand enough words to look the lyrics up on Google. Musically it was a monotone, except for that slightly louder word in the middle also went up a step.
[shout] [shout] [SHOUT] [shout] [shout] [shout]
...
I am thankful to God every day, but not for monotone unintelligible songs like this. Perhaps I should thank Him for this reminder that there is (was) good music -- and good church music, with words about God instead of Me, Myself and I -- in the world, and that I have had the priviledge to sing some of it. Maybe I should dust off some old records and play some.
Back to the here-and-now, I ask myself, "What's the point?"
Maybe the words (and melody) don't matter to these people. The American brand of Christian Relationshipism, their highest value is unconditional affirmation, it doesn't matter what you say, nor what the words mean, just so long as it is affirming. The other half of the American people, their highest value is Truth, Justice, and Duty, they are the ones who get things done in the world. The meaning of words is important to them, because you can't get anything done if you don't understand the meaning of what is being said. These people -- mostly guys -- never darken the door of any church. C.P.Snow called it "Two Cultures," and the difference has been around for decades, maybe centuries. I know, because I am one of them -- except my parents taught me as a young child that the Bible is the standard by which we must live -- and I later learned that it actually is True -- so I read the Bible, and what it teaches is not what you hear from American pulpits. But it also (sort of) says "Go to church" so I go to church. There aren't many people like me there, maybe a few husbands who come with their wives and sit in the back row, then leave immediately after it is over. Sometimes they drive separate cars. I know one like that in this church. There's not much for me and my kind in most American churches.
Oh well.
Earlier this year / Later this year
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