O God, why did You keep this hymn away from me for so long?  My new favorite hymn, and one that brought me so close to tears when I first heard it.  I commend it to you.  This hymn was traditionally attributed to St. Columba, but the music is a traditional Irish melody and rearranged by John Ferguson.  This version you're hearing (not the best audio quality, unfortunately) was rearranged yet again by Ferguson for the inauguration of the president of a major seminary.  Probably the BEST rendition of a hymn I've ever heard.  This, my friends, is hymnody at its zenith!

I decided that my priority at church this year before moving back to the USA is not to commit to some uber-large leadership role.  No repeat of my time at WCAC, that is.  I think it's quite a refreshing change to just sit down and be led.  You allow yourself to be focused on other things, like my research.  Even if I really wanted to help, it's not as easy.  St. Andrew's is very conservative Anglican, so only seminarians or above help out in the traditional services.  At the contemporary services the worship teams are youth-led, there's scripture reading and all, but everything else is done by seminarians or above.

So the spiritually mature brethren normally serve as leaders in the youth groups or college/career groups.  I joined the latter, of course.  One of the leaders there is Barnabas "MK" Sim.  He's not much older than I am, but yet his wisdom is deep for his age.  I had a chat with him after today about the changing culture and how the church responds.  This came from a discussion about the Episcopal Church of the USA (ECUSA), which is very controversial in the Anglican Church in South East Asia.

The bigger problem is the future.  If in the US, homosexuality is not only tolerated, but even celebrated among the more liberal ECUSA churches, what is the future of Anglicanism?  Nowhere is this concern bigger than in Singapore. 

Singapore is very well-connected.  Facebook, Twitter, and all these random social networking sites are very, very frequently used.  I see people at Starbucks studying with their laptops on and their browsers on Facebook all the time.  Why that's so remains a mystery that Lord knows, but He ain't tellin' me (isn't studying done better at home?).  The thing about these social networking sites (SNS) is that they only serve to make the world even more flatter, as Thomas Friedman would say.  No longer do Singaporeans need to travel to the USA to get a glimpse of life there.  They just need to go online.  When Palin entered the VP spotlight last year, her daughter's pregnancy was of no surprise to Singaporeans who know that premarital sex is an issue in the US.

But here's the difference.  The Church in the US is used to handling these issues, even in Chinese churches.  You guys will, over the course of your days in YG, be discussing dating or even premarital sex at least twice before graduation.  Because premarital sex has been a regular occurrence in the lives of quite a few Americans, the Church is forced to deal with this issue sooner or later.  There are still issues with Christian dating couples having premarital sex.  But we talk about it in YG, in hopes that you all, my dear youth groupie friends, will listen and be responsible for doing the right thing.  I should say, though, that because we are human there is always a small chance that we will decide to go ahead and do what's displeasing to the Lord.  If so, the Church needs to respond with love, yet lead the sinners to repentance.  Oftentimes the Church doesn't do that, responding with excommunication and lead the sinners to complete abandonment of the faith. 

But you realize that premarital sex didn't appear in America in the space of a few years.  But in Singapore, this connectivity with the world opened Singaporeans to the fact that in other places (i.e. USA) there are young people who have premarital sex.  Thus, the advent of ready access to the Internet - there is free WiFi in many public spaces in Singapore - exposes them to such issues.  Now, only the young use internet, so the youth of Singapore are changing at a dizzying pace, to the point where even parents give up, thinking that they can't catch up to how society is changing.  After all, it was only within the past 3 years when gambling and homosexuality is accepted in the country.  Thus, youths are now struggling with issues that American churches have already responded to for the past decade or so.  The churches in Singapore are left scrambling to catch up.

At least this is what it seems to me.  What's true is that I see young (i.e. junior highers) couples holding hands and hanging out at public places.  MK has told me that he's seen kissing and cuddling in public spaces from these junior high and high school aged children.  Even for him, he couldn't believe the changes going on in Singapore.  "There was a time in MY LIFETIME," he told me, "where procreation before marriage (premarital sex) is  completely unheard of.  But now every young person's doing it!"  He's confused at this, and I was too.  I hesitate placing the blame on parents and the Church, because how quickly can they rally to deal with this issue effectively? 

So it behooves me to say that part of an effective Christian education program is the ability to engage the culture theologically, and respond to it quickly and effectively.  The Church needs to be at the forefront of culture and engage it consistently and continually.  Culture changes, my dear friends, and no doubt St. Andrew's and WCAC will be facing different challenges in 50, or even 10 years time.  But we need to stay ahead and educate both the young and old how to respond to a culture that often wants to consume us and make it dominate our lives.

And the key is to respond correctly.  I believe that the original intention of ECUSA's acceptance of homosexuals into the church community was to include them with hopes of changing them.  That's excellent.  But somewhere in that process, acceptance of the person became acceptance of the sin. This, coupled with a some priests not believing in Biblical inerrancy or even on the supremacy of Christ, only digs the hole deeper.  But problems are looming for ECUSA.  I just read that three of the most liberal seminaries are running into issues.  Bexley Hall Seminary was founded in Columbus, Ohio, but moved to Rochester, NY.  Recently, they closed their Rochester campus and re-established their Columbus one.  The reason: declining enrollment and more stringent accreditation requirements.  Excuse me?  You can't meet more stringent accreditation requirements?  If that was bad enough,  Seabury-Western Theological Seminary near Northwestern University just closed its M.Div program, pretty much leaving it a DMin-only program, and these are jointly administered by collaboration with other seminaries.

Why the flight from liberal to conservative?  That's the topic for next time.

Okay, I know I've been less than sympathetic to Hillsong Church in Australia for their prosperity-leaning tendencies, but they do write good praise songs.  If only their theology matched their songs!  This is quite different than most other Protestant churches, where if only our songs matched our theology. 

Well... that might not be so good, depending on what church you are.  I mean, if you're a good church, then by all means, bring on the songs that match your theology!  But for some less than solid churches, it might not be so good. It's kinda like that YG/CACG icebreaker, where you go around the circle asking people, "if you were a superhero, what power would you want?" I'd always answer, "to read peoples' minds."  The response I get, by the way, is interesting, ranging from quizzical befuddlement to thoughtful recognition of its usefulness.  And to this day, I haven't gotten a response that's like, "Aw shoot! You took mine!"  I would love that power because it exposes you publicly (i.e. to me) in a way that you can't cover.  If Ryan Shyu thought I was a total jerk, then I'd know right off the bat.  He couldn't hide it with his niceties or whatever.  I'd love that power.  Forces people to be honest, and cuts down on the B.S. 

Songs matching our theology is like publicly revealing your theology in a very accessible manner.  At least in academic theology, you can cover it with pages and pages and God-knows-who would read your book.  But when it comes to modern praise songs, there's no covering.  Your theology is there for the whole world to see.  Thus, pay attention to your choice of praise songs.  That song where it's "Jesus (x8)" is a BAAAAD idea. 

By the way, if any of you are interested, I do have a praise song archive.  Check it out.

Anyways, here's a song that's caught my fancy: