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At the end of the family service on Easter (it's a service with contemporary music) we sang "Let the Sun Shine In" from the musical Hair. And I was not happy about it.
Don't get me wrong: I have absolutely no problem with using "secular" music in church. Good music often has a spiritual message, even if not a specifically religious one. For example, we often sing "Inch by Inch," a secular song about, well, gardening. (From what I've read, it was actually written by a guy about his marijuana patch, but never mind.) Great song, and works well when you are trying to convey concepts such as stewardship to small children.
It bothers me when songs are used in such a manner as to do violence to their original meaning and context. (Mostly it's just amusing -- such as the very short-lived Mercedes commercial of a few years ago that used Janis Joplin singing "Mercedes Benz".) And, taken in context, "Let the Sun Shine In" is not an Easter song. If anything, it is a Lenten song.
In fact, it's not even a song. It's half a song. The first half, "The Flesh Failures" is a bleak ode to life in America. "Let the Sun Shine" is an answer: a prayer, if you will, for a way out of the darkness. It is a cry for deliverance, not a shout of rejoicing.
By itself, "Let the Sun Shine" is pablum. In context, it is wonderful.
Don't get me wrong: I have absolutely no problem with using "secular" music in church. Good music often has a spiritual message, even if not a specifically religious one. For example, we often sing "Inch by Inch," a secular song about, well, gardening. (From what I've read, it was actually written by a guy about his marijuana patch, but never mind.) Great song, and works well when you are trying to convey concepts such as stewardship to small children.
It bothers me when songs are used in such a manner as to do violence to their original meaning and context. (Mostly it's just amusing -- such as the very short-lived Mercedes commercial of a few years ago that used Janis Joplin singing "Mercedes Benz".) And, taken in context, "Let the Sun Shine In" is not an Easter song. If anything, it is a Lenten song.
In fact, it's not even a song. It's half a song. The first half, "The Flesh Failures" is a bleak ode to life in America. "Let the Sun Shine" is an answer: a prayer, if you will, for a way out of the darkness. It is a cry for deliverance, not a shout of rejoicing.
By itself, "Let the Sun Shine" is pablum. In context, it is wonderful.
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*cringe*
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i see your concern, if that is the right word, but disagree... it shows sadness in the world and the killing of innocents or those that should not be so sad and dead-ish and HOPE. that's what easter is. in the true christian sense it is the resurection and ascension of christ, but more importantly, the promise of ANOTHER coming again.
the promise of hope.
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