Kurt Willems, an Anabaptist writer preparing for a church planting project with the Brethren in Christ, recently blogged about some of his concerns with a catchy worship song: Our God is Greater. Interestingly, he affirms the theology of the lyrics yet proposes that singing the words may have the ability to somehow make God “seem less great.”
The lyrics include these words:
Chorus: Our God is greater, our God is stronger, God you are higher than any other.
Our God is Healer, Awesome in Power, Our God! Our God!Bridge: And if our God is for us, then who could ever stop us.
And if our God is with us, then what could stand against.
So What?
While I applaud Kurt’s efforts to provide a basic overview of the shift that occurred some time ago in our culture from Christendom to post-Christendom, I find his article would have been far more effective if he had focused on it rather than trying to apply it to critique lyrics. While I agree with his suggestion that calling God greater instead of great in this new world “invites a competitive and confrontational tone,” I find that his claim that he agrees with it fully and finds none of the lyrics “untrue in any way” actually creates the very problem he seeks to avoid.
Take a few minutes to listen to the entire song before responding to the following questions.
- Do you believe your god (or gods) are greater, higher, and stronger than all other gods?
- If so, what does this say about other religions? How does this impact your attempts at interfaith dialog?
- If not, how do you understand the god you worship in relation to the gods worshiped by others? How does this impact your attempts at interfaith dialog?
- In the current cultural context, Willems argues singing these words “invites a competitive and confrontational tone.” Given Christianity’s history of violence and American Christianity’s uneven (perhaps even unstable) acceptance of its current position in a pluralistic nation, what type of damage do you feel could result from these words? for those who sing them boldly? for how those of other faiths view Christians?