SLOPPY PRAISE

I am a walking stereotype of the English teacher who silently judges everyone else's spelling, punctuation, and grammar. It is a heavy cross to bear from day to day.

But it's not just Facebook and email. It's Sunday morning worship too.

In particular, contemporary praise songs. And I am not just talking about typos on the overhead screens. (Our church has a pretty sharp PowerPoint proofreader, so that's a relief.) 

No, I am talking about the lyrics themselves.

It's one more reason for me to prefer the old hymns over the K-LOVE stuff that now dominates American worship services. The old-timers knew their conventions of standard English as well as they knew their theology. Modern Christian lyricists struggle with both.

Here's a test to see if you were paying attention in 8th grade English. What is wrong with the following lyric:

You see it, right? 

You get bonus points if you are able to label "created from dust" specifically as a "misplaced modifier". In other words, its position in the sentence implies it is describing Jesus, who "came and lived among us".

But if you believe Jesus was "created from dust", we need to have a serious talk about your theology. 

Here's another example from a different song. A mess of a stanza:

"Lord, I confess I've been the prodigal,

Made for your house but walked my own roads.

Then Jesus came and tore down my prison walls.

Death came to life

When He called me by name."

I can see at least three problems. 

1) Shift in audience. It starts by addressing God: "Lord, I confess". But then it switches to speaking of Jesus in the third person. Is Jesus not Lord?

2) Mixed metaphor. Is there a prison in the story of the prodigal son? Nope. 

3) Frustrating ambiguity. What in the world does "death came to life" mean? The context implies it is a positive thing, but how can that clause be read in a positive sense? Maybe the author meant "death became life"? I don't know.

Nobody knows.

It's sloppy song-writing. And worship should not be sloppy.