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This is just a musing about church lyrics. It got a little long, so I'll hide big chunks of this. Let me know what you think if you feel so inclined!
A LOT of Xtian hymns border on the sexual. Some of this is due to the fact that in the late 1800's, a lot of hymn-writers were female. As Valerie Cunningham pointed out in one of her articles, "The classic, canonical English hymn book is packed with the songs of women, especially Victorian ones." June Haddon Hobbs agrees, in her book "I Sing for I Cannot Be Silent" pointing out that the hymn "In the Garden" is so full of Victorian erotic imagery that some Victorian audiences found it pornographic.
I Come to the Garden -- C. Austin Miles
And he walks with me and he talks with me
And he tells me I am his own
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known
Yes, although a lot of late 1800's hymn writers were male, they also utilized the flowery submission imagery - it was having great success. A contemporary of Miles penned this popular hymn:
I Surrender All -- Judson W. Van DeVenter
All to Jesus I surrender, All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him, In His presence daily live.
Refrain: I surrender all, I surrender all.
All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.
2
All to Jesus I surrender, Humbly at His feet I bow,
Worldly pleasures all forsaken; Take me, Jesus, take me now.
Of course, only the language has changed, the problem still exists. Matt Kennedy wrote an article in 2011 about being embarrassed over "jesus-is-my-boyfriend" praise songs. He starts off with one example:
Your Love is Extravagant -- Casting Crowns / Darrell Evans
Your love is extravagant
Your friendship, it is intimate
I feel like moving to the rhythm of Your grace
Your fragrance is intoxicating in our secret place
Your love is extravagant
His discomfort with the "almost obligatory display of enraptured bliss", the transported singing of the hymns, drew a varied bag of comments. One commenter, Sarah, replied that "It is no coincidence that sometimes our relationship with Christ sometimes “feels” a bit romantic." Other commenters agreed, saying that the church is supposed to be the Bride of Christ.
I have uncomfortably witnessed the phenomenon many times. For a lot of xtian females, Jesus isn't just a saving and protecting god-figure. As Cunningham said: "The rhetoric is of totality: total surrender, a complete yielding of a female all to the mastering Saviour, the divine surrogate lover." Jesus isn't JUST an imaginary friend to these folks.
Just as I am, without one plea -- Charlotte Elliott
Just as I am, thy love unknown
hath broken every barrier down;
now, to be thine, yea thine alone,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
I'll just post a few hymns here. Be well, AF denisons!
Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine -- Frances (Fanny) Crosby
Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels descending, bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.
Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Savior am happy and blest;
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.
Have Thine own way, Lord -- Adelaide A. Pollard
Have thine own way, Lord, Have thine own way
Thou art the potter, I am the clay
Mold me and make me After thy will
While I am waiting Yielded and still
Fill with thy spirit Till all shall see
Christ only, always Living in me
Oh to be Nothing by Georgiana M. Taylor
Oh, to be nothing, nothing!
Only to lie at His feet,
A broken and emptied vessel—
For the Master’s use made meet!
Emptied that He might fill me
As forth to His service I go;
Broken, that so unhindered,
His life through me might flow.
Refrain: Oh, to be nothing, nothing!
Only to lie at His feet,
A broken and emptied vessel—
For the Master’s use made meet!
2
Oh, to be nothing, nothing!
Only as led by His hand—
A messenger at His gateway,
Only waiting for His command;
Only an instrument ready
His praises to sound at His will—
Willing, should He not require me,
In silence to wait on Him still.
3
Oh, to be nothing, nothing!
Painful the humbling may be!
Yet low in the dust I’d lay me
That the world might my Savior see!
Rather be nothing, nothing!
To Him let their voices be raised!
He is the fountain of blessing,
"The family that prays together...is brainwashing their children."- Albert Einstein
November 18, 2015 at 4:30 pm (This post was last modified: November 18, 2015 at 4:33 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
Whats the joke again, the difference between writing pop and devotionals is a "jesus" in place of "baby", Let's give it a go.
Oh Jesus, Jesus Oh Jesus, Jesus Oh Jesus, Jesus How was I supposed to know That something wasn't right here Oh jesus jesus I shouldn't have let you go And now you're out of sight, yeah Show me, how you want it to be Tell me jesus 'Cause I need to know now what we've got
[CHORUS:] My loneliness is killing me I must confess, I still believe When I'm not with you I lose my mind Give me a sign Hit me jesus one more time
-Yeah, sounds about right. Solid, fucking, gold baby.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
(November 18, 2015 at 4:05 pm)drfuzzy Wrote: This is just a musing about church lyrics. It got a little long, so I'll hide big chunks of this. Let me know what you think if you feel so inclined!
A LOT of Xtian hymns border on the sexual. Some of this is due to the fact that in the late 1800's, a lot of hymn-writers were female. As Valerie Cunningham pointed out in one of her articles, "The classic, canonical English hymn book is packed with the songs of women, especially Victorian ones." June Haddon Hobbs agrees, in her book "I Sing for I Cannot Be Silent" pointing out that the hymn "In the Garden" is so full of Victorian erotic imagery that some Victorian audiences found it pornographic.
I Come to the Garden -- C. Austin Miles
And he walks with me and he talks with me
And he tells me I am his own
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known
Yes, although a lot of late 1800's hymn writers were male, they also utilized the flowery submission imagery - it was having great success. A contemporary of Miles penned this popular hymn:
I Surrender All -- Judson W. Van DeVenter
All to Jesus I surrender, All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him, In His presence daily live.
Refrain: I surrender all, I surrender all.
All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.
2
All to Jesus I surrender, Humbly at His feet I bow,
Worldly pleasures all forsaken; Take me, Jesus, take me now.
Of course, only the language has changed, the problem still exists. Matt Kennedy wrote an article in 2011 about being embarrassed over "jesus-is-my-boyfriend" praise songs. He starts off with one example:
Your Love is Extravagant -- Casting Crowns / Darrell Evans
Your love is extravagant
Your friendship, it is intimate
I feel like moving to the rhythm of Your grace
Your fragrance is intoxicating in our secret place
Your love is extravagant
His discomfort with the "almost obligatory display of enraptured bliss", the transported singing of the hymns, drew a varied bag of comments. One commenter, Sarah, replied that "It is no coincidence that sometimes our relationship with Christ sometimes “feels” a bit romantic." Other commenters agreed, saying that the church is supposed to be the Bride of Christ.
I have uncomfortably witnessed the phenomenon many times. For a lot of xtian females, Jesus isn't just a saving and protecting god-figure. As Cunningham said: "The rhetoric is of totality: total surrender, a complete yielding of a female all to the mastering Saviour, the divine surrogate lover." Jesus isn't JUST an imaginary friend to these folks.
Just as I am, without one plea -- Charlotte Elliott
Just as I am, thy love unknown
hath broken every barrier down;
now, to be thine, yea thine alone,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
I'll just post a few hymns here. Be well, AF denisons!
Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine -- Frances (Fanny) Crosby
Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels descending, bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.
Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Savior am happy and blest;
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.
Have Thine own way, Lord -- Adelaide A. Pollard
Have thine own way, Lord, Have thine own way
Thou art the potter, I am the clay
Mold me and make me After thy will
While I am waiting Yielded and still
Fill with thy spirit Till all shall see
Christ only, always Living in me
Oh to be Nothing by Georgiana M. Taylor
Oh, to be nothing, nothing!
Only to lie at His feet,
A broken and emptied vessel—
For the Master’s use made meet!
Emptied that He might fill me
As forth to His service I go;
Broken, that so unhindered,
His life through me might flow.
Refrain: Oh, to be nothing, nothing!
Only to lie at His feet,
A broken and emptied vessel—
For the Master’s use made meet!
2
Oh, to be nothing, nothing!
Only as led by His hand—
A messenger at His gateway,
Only waiting for His command;
Only an instrument ready
His praises to sound at His will—
Willing, should He not require me,
In silence to wait on Him still.
3
Oh, to be nothing, nothing!
Painful the humbling may be!
Yet low in the dust I’d lay me
That the world might my Savior see!
Rather be nothing, nothing!
To Him let their voices be raised!
He is the fountain of blessing,
Only the perverted mind could find sexual intentions in any of those songs.
GC
God loves those who believe and those who do not and the same goes for me, you have no choice in this matter. That puts the matter of total free will to rest.
(November 18, 2015 at 4:30 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Whats the joke again, the difference between writing pop and devotionals is a "jesus" in place of "baby", Let's give it a go.
Oh Jesus, Jesus Oh Jesus, Jesus Oh Jesus, Jesus How was I supposed to know That something wasn't right here Oh jesus jesus I shouldn't have let you go And now you're out of sight, yeah Show me, how you want it to be Tell me jesus 'Cause I need to know now what we've got
[CHORUS:] My loneliness is killing me I must confess, I still believe When I'm not with you I lose my mind Give me a sign Hit me jesus one more time
-Yeah, sounds about right. Solid, fucking, gold baby.
November 19, 2015 at 1:44 am (This post was last modified: November 19, 2015 at 1:47 am by Athene.)
(November 19, 2015 at 12:52 am)Godschild Wrote: Only the perverted mind could find sexual intentions in any of those songs.
GC
The objective mind simply sees how some of the lyrics could be interpreted as innuendo GC, that's all. I did see several double entendres in a few of the songs. And I'm only minimally perverted.
The songs were just written by regular folks. The lyrics aren't perfect.
(November 18, 2015 at 4:05 pm)drfuzzy Wrote: This is just a musing about church lyrics. It got a little long, so I'll hide big chunks of this. Let me know what you think if you feel so inclined!
Only the perverted mind could find sexual intentions in any of those songs.
GC
You gotta be kiddin' me, GC. You're saying you were NEVER a teenage boy? At least three times I have found groups of boys rummaging through the hymnbook and laughing. The last time, a bunch o' confirmation kids had slipped up into the choir loft during the service, and they were laughing so hard (over the lyrics in one of our choir octavos) that the deacon had me go up there and chase them out of the choir loft.
And that Counting Crowns song is really ridiculously over the top.
"The family that prays together...is brainwashing their children."- Albert Einstein
