Sex, Drugs, And Hillsong Young And Free

Whether an individual singing these songs is performing an act of worship isn’t for anyone to say. But when we’re talking about corporate worship, we cannot divorce a text from its liturgical function, which is to tell God’s story. These songs are cool, they are fun, they are exciting, but they don’t proclaim the gospel. They are, to put it bluntly, bad worship, which despite all the passion and energy and good intentions in the world, can lead nowhere but to an unhealthy church.

Of all the Young and Free songs, there is practically no theology, no salvation narrative, no gospel. Just high-octane commercial music paired with anecdotal, experiential, and romantic language awkwardly interspersed with vaguely spiritual sentiment.

Hillsong, the empire that it is, sure does know how to market itself, though, and the Young and Free label can certainly find an audience. It fits right into the playbook of the modern church youth group, which is comprised mostly of strategies to redirect youthful exuberance and energy from being channeled into, shall we say, indiscriminate experimentation, and into “a love relationship with Jesus.”

And the youth group, of course, is a 50-year failed experiment. Most of these kids leave the faith and never come back. The danger of Hillsong Young and Free, and with the typical youth group experience, is that it hooks kids with an exciting spark, an initial attraction, a momentary infatuation. That can be an awfully exciting thing, but without roots in the gospel of Christ, they will be left in the dark and the cold, blindly searching for yet another spark.

Instead of fumbling with emotional matches, let’s give our kids something more, something that can sustain them in a hostile world, and enable them to be the church that world so desperately needs.

That’s what worship is supposed to do, anyway.

(And, lest you suggest young people can’t handle more, check out what these Lutheran kids are singing.)