Sydney Carter is banned in this Community. His particular blend of syncretistic heresy and drivel is firmly of its time. Which I suspect may well be the Times of Tribulation for those who've been Left Behind. They really are gonna wish they'd all been ready.
Anything "Celtic" immediately gets my back up, of course.
And anything with so little theological content that, as with Gwilym in Dylan Thomas's "Peaches" you can change the subject of the song from God to a girl's (or boy's) name will always make me suspicious.
But all that said, context is everything. There is a place for most things.
But if I'm going to pick the CCM song I really dislike I am going to choose "I want to be out of my depth in your love". It has a strong slice of "Jesus is my Boyfriend", I'll give it that. Or it would, if it mentioned the Godhead at any stage in any way. It has no Biblical basis that I can notice. Indeed, being "out of my depth" in the Psalms is generally regarded as a bad thing rather than a good one. But given its depth of emotion and plinky tune, I can still see why some people might want to sing it. Not 20 stone hairy panel-beaters called Eric, on the whole, but some people. Some people who've already been through "I will dance(undignified)" and are wondering what is left.But no, I shall quote just the last verse.
Things I have held so tight,
Made my security;
Give me the strength I need
To simply let go.Can you see it? There it is - see? Look! A totally unnecessary split infinitive. Surely between the collective brain cases of the imaginative and amusing Doug Horley and the slightly more sentimental but still creative Noel Richards - surely they could have come up with a closing line that didn't split an infinitive? Let's face it - it didn't even need to rhyme. In my view, this wins.
This from Banksy and so many others.
These are the Days of Elijah
ReplyDeleteI know it's really catchy, but I don't understand the words.
And as a Sign Language interpreter, the phrase "behold he comes riding on the clouds" is something of a nightmare - I have seen it signed as God sitting astride a cloud as if it were a horse....