We've been examining from several angles what art does in worship. Of the many failures of Novelty Christianity, I think the atrophy of art is probably the most significant; certainly the most conspicuous. There was a time when "the chief obstacle to the Christian religion [lay] in the sphere of the intellect", and I think in that day Machen spoke eloquently to the problem. Today our problem is somewhat different. It's not that we enjoy a purer stream intellectually, even in those back-eddies where comparatively more intellectual rigor exists—if only in the memory—there is a consequent problem.

It is not just that we no longer think about God as we ought: even false prophets blather on about "the normality of dysfunction" in American Christianity. Now it's worse, now even the orthodox cannot feel toward him as we once did. Thinking properly about God involves more than orthodoxy, and all those who spoke to us of orthopraxy and orthopathy certainly cannot lead us out of this desert. We hear people suggesting remedies in the form of "fellowship gathering power", "vision casting", "spiritual formation", or some cure for "hurry sickness". We listen to piffle about agendas and organizational solutions arising from "newly emerging forms of our life together". Imagine Dante or Bunyan or Milton talking like this.

Out went the poet and in came the scold. We sowed to the wind and we reaped a toxic cloud.

Monday I posted a hymn which I think vividly illustrates the problem. I appreciate the responses we've gotten and most of them are helpful. I think some of you offered more particular answers to a more general question.

Which is perfectly fine.

But let me point you toward the forest.

The point I wanted to illustrate was somewhat broader. I agree with someone who said that the ocean as a metaphor for God's love has become a bit stale. I can understand that, but only to a point. I don't think the metaphor is bad, just ineptly and thoughtlessly reproduced. Actually in this song, I think it is apt and powerful. And it only starts with the ocean.

The metaphors are the ocean, the flood, fountains, floodgates and mighty rivers. This is more epic than the Flood. What the writer helps us imagine is an effusive grace. Grace and love, like mighty rivers poured incessant from above. I love that line. Torrents of judgment have become cataracts of grace. But where has all that water gone in the last two stanzas? They are dry as a bone. They are plodding homilies compared to the first two stanzas.

I am not suggesting that this is the worst of all mistakes songwriters can make: this is a perfectly usable song. I have spoken freely and eagerly about some atrocities which are genuinely offensive and which consistently fail to reward reflection.

But what I think is interesting about Here Is Love is the stark abandonment of useful images in favor of a very mundane exhortation, especially the last stanza.

It's not that I am opposed to exhortation; certainly some hortatory stanzas might follow which preserve the imagery and strengthen the whole. But notice how at some level they fail so spectacularly.

It seems we cannot make people worship. The only thing we seem competent to do is to keep them from worshiping; all we can succeed at is blandness. If God is awesome, don't you think we could find a way to express that to one another?

Art is how this was accomplished in the past.