Worship or Paganism

Our church, not long ago,  gave in to secular ideology by instituting what it calls "blended worship." The intent was, I think, to somehow use catchy, rythym-based choruses with words and images digitally presented on two large screens in the mistaken belief the "young people" will somehow become more involved in "church stuff." They haven't, and there is a consequence in using worldly ideology in an attempt to promote God. (There is no other way to describe what we are doing).

I have always believed Worship should be about God not about what "young people," or old people, for that matter, wanted. We have had a couple of people leave us to go elsewhere over this issue. They wanted a different style of music. Music style should never be a reason for contention and if music were properly used it wouldn't be. If we sang scripture as instructed in the Bible there would be no room for argument, people would define their loyalties when they quit.

Scripture read at length, taught in depth, sung in congregation and prayed at length is not popular so we don't do that in our Church. We pay lip-service to those things, but that's about all. We are, I suppose, a typical American congregation. Few of us read books, let alone the Bible, and our attention spans are getting shorter by the day. We have become so immersed in the idea that digital technology is a gift from God, we sometimes forget to turn off our cell phones for the Sunday morning "Worship" service.

Worship should be about "renewing our minds" but there are so few people who actually think anymore I'm not sure they are aware that concept is a command of God. (Rom. 12:2) We are so far gone now that one of the "choruses" we sing has images that are idolatrous, if not blasphemous. It is a repetitious ditty which show some of the national flags of the world. One of those flags is the Iranian.

The Iranian flag has script on it and symbolism. Here is a description of the flag:

(The flag is made up of) three equal horizontal bands of green (top), white, and red; the national emblem (a stylized representation of the word Allah in the shape of a tulip, a symbol of martyrdom) in red is centered in the white band; ALLAH AKBAR (God is Great) in white Arabic script is repeated 11 times along the bottom edge of the green band and 11 times along the top edge of the red band.

So, by dumbing ourselves down to be historically, intellectually, spiritually, vacuous we have inadvertently changed our "worship" into an idolatrous perveyor of foreign gods. The only word in English to describe this is: Pagan.

Here is what one article at the Banner of Truth has to say about this:

Pagan worship is non-cognitive, but we are called to worship God with our minds, and that which we are supposed to have fill our minds is scripture. The language of Christian worship is scripture. We are either reading it or expanding upon it through exposition, singing it, or praying it. We do this because faith comes by hearing the word of God; it is the Gospel that is the power of God unto salvation.

The article ends with this:

"People are coming to church and just hearing a bunch of talk and singing a bunch of songs," says the preacher. But faith comes by hearing the word of God, and if it's not being preached, sung, read, and prayed, and if the content of our services are decreasingly Biblical, it is an ominous thing that is happening - a tragedy unfolding before us of monumental proportions.

God help us! (Hosea 7:2)