Near/Far

Recently, I've been running across comments and blog posts complaining about the "feminisation of the church", and not just from the Wild At Heart types.

And I've also come across other sources decrying what they consider the vomitous drivel of worship songs which they categorize as "Jesus is my boyfriend" types of songs. And I have to wonder: why all the sudden Christian male fear of intimacy with God?

After all, we're supposed to be enlightened 21st century dudes, aren't we? Not stuck in some wierd 1950's Leave It To Beaver kind of gender role assumptions? So what's the deal with saying that the church has been "feminized"?

What's the preferred, more balanced, man-friendly alternative -- worship services modelled after a wrestling match or perhaps a tractor pull, with the platform adorned with flannel-draped power tools, and where the pastor looks like Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor, or perhaps that icon of Canadian manliness, (insert genuflection here) Red Green?

Okay, I'm being just a wee bit sarcastic, but it DID strike me as odd this sudden sense of angst over the church being "feminized" (the decorating committee chose pastel colours again?). DANG, gotta get me some kind of sarcasm filter here...

I think the real issue behind this feminisation of the church and reaction to "Jesus is my boyfriend" songs -- which seems to include ANY song that speaks of loving Jesus (contrast with the Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and Mark 12:28-30) -- is the false dichotomy and pendulum swing between God's transcendance and imminence.

When songs like Arms Of Love by Craig Musseau, or Father I Want You To Hold Me by Brian Doerksen (to name just two of many) were written in the late 80's and early 90's, they were addressing a whole element missing from much of our worship: that God was approachable, intimate, a Comforter and a loving Father. The pendulum up till this point had been more focussed on God's transcendence: His holiness, His complete Other-ness, His attributes, and the need for reverential respect (fear) of the Lord. In many church circles, these songs of intimacy were perceived as an attack on God's sovereignty, or at the very least, the watering down of an understanding that God is HOLY.

And in some instances, there probably has been an over-correction, where God is now viewed as the Big Buddy in the Sky, or a feel-good hey-holiness-is-no-big-deal smilin' bobblehead, or even with the cavalier attitude of "Jesus is my homeboy". And perhaps we could start a contest: "Syrupy Worship Songs That Send Me Into A Diabetic Coma", but we might not be happy with the results. But this just represents the fringe element on the far side of the pendulum swing, which only serves to perpetuate the false dichotomy.

But perhaps the pendulum is swinging hard in the other direction; just as the anti-everything crowd gets their knickers in a knot about the irreverence towards God, so the emerging conversation has an element that seems to want to put God back in His unapproachable, unknowable, unlovable transcendent place.

Respect? Sure. Wonder? Okay. Mystery? Cool. Intimacy? Not at my tractor pull, buddy!

We need to learn to be comfortable in tension; radical middle people who can hold in one hand the idea that God is holy, righteous, soveriegn, just, and to be held in a deep reverential respect (fear of the Lord), and hold in the other hand the reality that, as Jesus told Philip, "if you have seen Me, you have seen the Father", and then look through, say, the Gospel According to St. John, and see just how Jesus modelled the heart of a Father who loves, cares for, blesses, and comforts His children. There is no biblical reason we should have to separate God's imminence and His transcendence; it's a false dichotomy.

"For this is what the high and lofty One says -- He who lives forever, whose name is holy: 'I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.'" (Isaiah 57:15)