I'm cleaning up going through piles of paper and reading some stuff which arrived a while back. One was a review of a December lecture by Jeremy Begbie called ‘Sentimentality in Christian Art & Worship: What’s Gone Wrong?' I love a collision of ideas having spent 3 late evenings talking with an extremely qualified church musician and former broadcast producer about the state of worship and musicianship. Anyhow Begbie hammers home a deep problem in current worship trends where music and words become bland, flat and meaningless, being reduced to the emotional. Sickly syrup rather than real honey sometimes with only a faint sweetness and other tastes and aromas. Have you ever wondered why so few contemporary worship songs are in minor keys or even use relative minors?
"Three characteristics of sentimentality Jeremy identified three characteristics of sentimentality. First, sentimentality misrepresents reality through evading or trivialising evil; it is selective in what it chooses to notice (“the world is a great place, really”), and projects innocence where there is no innocence (“he’s not so bad, really”). Second, sentimentality is emotionally self-indulgent; it encourages an emotional reaction to reality that is shallow or one-dimensional. Third, sentimentality fails to take appropriate costly action; the sentimentalist screens out darker dimensions, wants emotion without expense."Visit my music blog and you'll see a similar reflection over a recent worship song. I really desire that worship music and words can cry with me! If you want to read more of the summary of Begbie's lecture go here. (be warned the pdf is 2.35 MB!)
