Archived Posts For Worship
not in love with Jesus
Posted on September 17, 2007 by Geoff Matheson
Filed Under Emerging Questions, Worship | 7 Comments
This is an issue I’ve heard Mike Frost get quite excited about, and I’m very keen to hear some reaction:
Today our congregation was asked to sing, “Jesus, I’m in love with you”–a line that shows up, in one permutation or another, in several songs that occur frequently in our worship leaders’ rotation.
Well, I didn’t sing it. It’s wrong, and I try not to sing wrong lyrics.
First, I’m not in love with Jesus. The locution “in love with” is one I reserve for one person only: my wife. I love my sons, I love my siblings and parents, I love my friends, I love my country, I love my brothers and sisters in Christ, and I love God. But I’m not “in love” with any of them. And I daresay most of the rest of us use this phrase in exactly the same, highly-restrictive way.Second, it gives me the homoerotic creeps to declare that I am “in love with” another man. And I don’t apologize for saying so. A gender lens is interesting here, for a lot of men feel as I do (many have told me so), while many (not all) women seem to love telling Jesus that they are in love with him. I saw them, swaying with closed eyes and waving hands in the air this morning, singing exactly that. Maybe, indeed, they are in love with Jesus. But they shouldn’t be.
For the third point to make is a theological one. Jesus is not your boyfriend, not your fiancé, and not your eventual husband.
From Prof. John Stackhouse’s Weblog, Via Dan Wilt
I find it a difficult argument to disagree with: and I think it offers some pretty big challenges for the songwriters and worship leaders and it represents a really big deal for the theology that comes with it. So - tell me, singers, songwriters, general advocates for the “I’m in love with Jesus” worldview - why is Professor Stackhouse wrong?
(P.S - Have a read of Professor Stackhouse’s whole post before commenting, to save on duplication. Thanks)
