Every now and then I have a pointless ding-dong with someone about nothing. Literally nothing. That is, I have an unnecessary ding-dong about words that I choose to miss out of a song. Last Sunday I chose to miss out the ‘Oh yeahs’ that appear in the chorus of Nathan Fellingham’s ‘There is a day’. My problem with the phrase is that as the righteous realise at last the full extent of the grace of God in Jesus, and as, in horror, the wicked call on the rocks to fall on them, I cannot think that ‘Oh yeah’ is for one moment an appropriate response, but then it might be that I’m proud as well as being old-fashioned — I’m the sort of person who sticks one of my own t-shirts and a belt on my six-year-old for World Book Day and tells him he’s going as Mike the Knight.
Appropriate or not
However, there’s nothing in the Bible that says that it would either be appropriate or inappropriate for Christians to shout ‘O yeah’ on the Day of Judgment. Here’s the problem: if you leave ‘Oh yeah’ in, then you are sending the message that ‘Oh yeah’ is an appropriate response for everyone. If you leave ‘Oh yeah’ out, as I did, then you are sending the message that ‘Oh yeah’ is an inappropriate response for everyone. Hence the ding-dong.
Once, in one of our meetings, the leader gave us the option of choosing to sing the ‘Oh yeahs’ or not, which meant that half of the congregation sang the ‘Oh yeahs’ with slightly uncomfortable gusto, while the other half stood there in slightly uncomfortable silence. Neither half was wrong, except for universal discomfort. Oh the freedom that the Regulative Principle can bring when congregations decide just to sing the Psalms!
What makes me cross is not the brother with whom I had the ding-dong, but the fact that the words were written in the first place, meaning that a choice has to be made either to leave the ‘Oh yeahs’ in or to leave them out. (Actually, I also get a bit crabby about the fact that no one knows how to fit in the words ‘it’s only momentary’ in the last line of verse 3!)
What to learn?
The first thing to say is that, legally, it’s OK to omit words. We can’t change words because of copyright, but there’s nothing in copyright law (yet) to say that we can’t omit them. This is great because it means that we can miss out some of those bridges that are impossible to sing. It also means we won’t get arrested if the sermon went on too long and we have to miss a verse of a song out.
There can be extremes of omission. I heard of one church incumbent who stopped his congregation half way through the 70s song, ‘We really want to thank you Lord’. The leader said something like: ‘Singing that we ‘really wanna’ thank you Lord doesn’t make us thank the Lord any more than if we don’t sing that we ‘really wanna’ thank you Lord. We either thank the Lord or we don’t’. So he made everyone start again, singing: ‘We …………… thank you Lord, we …………… praise your name…’.
The second thing to learn is that we need to pray for our songwriters to use as much biblical language as they can. Fellingham himself says that the ‘Oh yeah’ was his personal and genuine expression of how the truth of the return of Jesus affected him. That’s fine. But it would be much more healthy for Christians to be discussing how awesome that day will be rather than arguing over whether someone else’s personal Christian expression is universally appropriate, however genuine.
The third thing to learn is that it’s OK not to sing songs at all that divide opinion over trivial matters. Only the Word of God lasts forever (Matthew 24.35), unlike the words of men.
One other thing to learn is that we’re all sinners, and our pride means that we often stand our ground on arguments that have no resolution. The positive thing about songs like this is that they do remind us of our sin, and the relief it will be when Jesus returns and ding-dongs will be no more. Come, Lord Jesus!
Richard Simpkin is Director of Music at St. Helen’s Church, Bishopsgate, London.
