Last night’s concert here at OBI renewed my convictions that contemporary Christian music and the modern evangelical mindset are a volatile mix. It should be said that the band I brought in is fronted by a Roman Catholic. You wouldn’t know that from any of the content of the songs, but the guy does absolutely no invitations. Doesn’t know what they are, which is very very OK with me. But that doesn’t deter the students who come from churches with extended “ministry times” at the altar or all that youth camp extreme invitationalism training. After the obligatory trip down front to sway and clap, things then turned into a circus, with huddles of students (mostly girls) crying, hugging, wandering from pack to pack. At one point, I was convinced the girls caught up in the frenzy had no idea what was going on musically. Matt could have been singing the phone book, farting into the mic or proclaiming God is dead and the altar call frenzy would have continued. (I still have enough Vineyard in me to let this go, because in the middle of it I could see some kids responding for the first time and I do believe God can sort it all out. ANd if I quelch it, I won’t last long around here.) The last song was a version of Amazing Grace, starting really slow and then going really very hard, fast rock style. On the slow parts, the altar shenanigans gang was praying, on the fast parts they were thrashing. (I sorta wished Matt could have gone back and forth a few times, just to see what they would do.) Call me cynical, but this is pure voluntary manipulation and adaptation. “What are we all doing know?” All very Corinthian. All we needed was compulsory tongue-speaking.

I hope you guys have picked up that what I wouldn’t allow in my church, I have to allow in a Southern Baptist School. I’m only slightly schizo. I feel like Jonathan Edwrds, preaching reformed theology while someone rolls by on the floor bellowing like a moose.