Editor’s Note: Neither my Catholic upbringing nor my Episcopal adulthood exposed me to the repetitive “praise” singing typical of Evangelicals. Still, my eventual reaction to the words to religious songs is similar to the description below written by a former pastor. Once I started really listening to the words, I realized how gruesome they could be.

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By Jim Mulholland

I’d probably sung the song a hundred times, swaying to its gentle melodies with arms uplifted and eyes closed. It was one of those praise choruses evangelical Christians love to sing, a few words repeated over and over again –

“You alone I long to worship. You alone are worthy of praise.”

We sang until we were oblivious to our surroundings and open to the Spirit. Having practiced this form of spiritual reflection often, I was startled when my inner voice said, “That can’t be true.” I opened my eyes, looked over at my wife and said it out loud,

“That can’t be true.”

Later, as we drove home, she asked what I’d meant. I explained that God couldn’t be the only one worthy of praise. It suddenly made no sense to me. Every human life had worth. Nearly everyone did something worthy of praise. Why did we have to lift up God at our expense? Why did God’s majesty require our abasement? Why did God need to be constantly and repeatedly praised? Was God insecure? Though I didn’t realize it at the time, my theology was shifting and my belief in god was beginning to crumble. All I knew on that day was that Christianity’s opinion of humanity seemed inadequate and inaccurate.

Of all the religions I’ve studied, Christianity has the poorest opinion of human nature. Christian theology, rhetoric and music often praises God’s magnificence at human expense. According to orthodox theology, we are born into sin, doomed from our first breath. Though Christianity says we were created in God’s image, that image was quickly and irrevocably broken and twisted by sin. No matter how much we try to do good, we will always fall short of the glory of God. A single sin makes us unworthy of relationship with a holy God. Without the atoning death of Jesus, all of humanity is destined to destruction. There is nothing praiseworthy in being human. God alone is worthy of praise.

This is what I was taught in Sunday School and theology class. This is what I preached, though I always tried to downplay the ugliness of this portrayal and emphasize God’s goodness in saving and forgiving us. Unfortunately, this negative view of humanity was hard to escape. It wasn’t just the music that praised God at our expense. The first time I officiated at communion I cringed as I lead the congregation in reciting,

“We are not worthy to eat the crumbs from beneath your table.”

Gradually, this self-flagellation began to grate on me. It didn’t match my experience.

When my children were born, I didn’t look at them and despair. I didn’t grieve their immaturity and imperfections. I marveled at their complexity and celebrated their vast potential. They had within them the possibility of great and wonderful accomplishments. While I knew they would make mistakes, I saw this not as a moral failing, but as a necessary process. What I expected from them was not perfection, but eventual maturity, the ability to live life with wisdom and sensitivity. What they needed from me was not a continual reminder of their frailties, but my praise when they did well and my encouragement when they failed. Eventually, I realized my opinion of my children was more praiseworthy than God’s opinion of me.

Thankfully, when it came to raising my children, I trusted my intuition and not my religious training. As a pastor, I worked hard to deconstruct this theology of human depravity. I adopted Judaism’s more nuanced interpretation of the events in the Garden of Eden. I saw Jesus as more of a teacher and less of a sacrificial lamb. I abandoned a belief in hell and damnation, imagining a God who was at least as good at parenting as I was. I borrowed the lessons of Buddhism, seeing the goal of life as gradual enlightenment rather than spiritual perfection. Yet, even with all these adjustments, I found myself frustrated. In the end, it may have been the music that drove me from religion.

In my last year of pastoring, I vowed to avoid songs that maligned humanity. I broke that vow after a couple of weeks. Even in my liberal Christian hymnal, God was consistently praised and humanity forever diminished. Grace was amazing, but humans were wretches. We were weak and God was strong. I found a few songs with a positive bent, but my congregation soon grew tired of singing them, requesting the familiar regardless of the message.

When people ask me why I left Christianity, I tell them it wasn’t working for me any longer. I usually leave it at that. But, when I think carefully about what wasn’t working, one of the nails in the coffin was the music. I couldn’t sing those songs any longer. I didn’t believe them. I didn’t think them accurate or healthy. In a world where living can be a challenge, I saw no purpose to disparaging human effort. Every life was worthy. Everyone could use some praise.

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Jim Mulholland spent twenty-five years as a pastor. He wrote several best selling Christian books and spoke nationally. In 2008, he resigned when his faith faltered. After several years of transition, Jim published the book “Leaving Your Religion” and began writing a blog on becoming post-religious. You can read more of Jim’s story and reflections atLeavingYourReligion.com. The above post is reprinted with permission from http://leavingyourreligion.com/2014/03/praise-worthy/

Photo credit http://leavingyourreligion.com/2014/03/praise-worthy/