Autism, Music, and Emotion

There’s a strong connection between emotion and music. I’m not usually very emotional, but music in worship can stir and lead my emotions effectively. Being myself, I’m almost always head-first rather than heart-first. I get the impression that many people can just go along with the emotional tone of the music; I can’t do that unless the emotions also come from the words.

Sometimes I find the words distracting and off-putting because their theology is unclear or confused, because the song could just as easily be sung to a lover* or a pagan god, or because the song just isn’t theologically Christian.

It’s not just modern hymns at all – there are plenty of older hymns this is true of, and I am a little notorious for removing verses from famous hymns!

For example:

Christian children all must be
Mild, obedient, good as he.

That’s not Christian, is it? Jesus kept the law because we cannot. “Must” there is either legalism or exclusion. It’s either putting an impossible burden on our children, or it’s saying that they aren’t Christians if they are less than perfect. Oh, and it’s saying that Jesus was “mild”, which doesn’t sound like him at all.

Or from William Cowper:

Return, O holy Dove, return,
Sweet messenger of rest;
I hate the sins that made Thee mourn,
And drove Thee from my breast.

In the context of the hymn and Cowper’s life, it is clear that he was severely depressed, didn’t feel like God was with him, and concluded that he must have done something so awful that the Holy Spirit had abandoned him. The hymn is pleading with God to come back, even though Cowper doesn’t know what he’s done wrong. It’s a heart-wrenching depiction of Cowper’s own experience of depression, but it’s disast

rously bad theology.

But it’s modern songs too. The other week, I was at a gathering of church leaders, and one of the first songs we sang was a modern song welcoming God to the meeting. I got so distracted by the question of whether that was something it was ok to do that I couldn’t engage emotionally with the rest of the singing.

These days, I do a lot of picking of songs. I don’t always get it right, but I’ve done a lot of thinking about it, and here’s how to pick songs that work for me:

1. Lead with truth about God. Our worship is a response to him; we love because he first loved us. Songs that start with our emotional response leave me cold, unless they follow on from something that should engender that response such as a Bible reading or a more doctrinal song.
2. The theology of the songs should be coherent, Biblical, and well-articulated. If not, I will disengage; I won’t have a choice about that. Songs don’t all need to be deep, but they do need to be about the God of the Bible rather than a moralistic god or a god we can control.
3. The emotions conveyed by the music in hymns / songs should be congruent with the emotions implied by the theology of the words that are sung. If I’m singing about people being condemned on the Day of Judgement, it shouldn’t be triumphal; if I’m singing about how amazing God is, the music shouldn’t evoke “magical unicorn” vibes.
4. Avoid lines that are either vague and wishy-washy or throwaway. Much better to follow “the way that you have shown me” or “orthodox Christian doctrine” than “everything I believe in”.
5. As much as possible, avoid the idols of modern culture. For example, there’s more than a hint of moral therapeutic deism about “Will you love the ‘you’ you hide if I but call your name?” What if the ‘you’ you hide is the flesh you are meant to be crucifying?

If I get distracted by bad theology in songs, or by sloppy wording, then I can’t engage with them emotionally. I’m not great with emotions; I think it’s very likely that I have alexithymia. But I can and do love to sing to God, and love to let good songs, of whatever age and from whatever tradition, lead me emotionally in engaging with the truths of God’s word.

[Autistic tangent: I don’t have a problem with “My Jesus, my boyfriend” songs. After all, the Church is meant to become the Bride of Christ, so that sort of sentiment seems thoroughly appropriate. I don’t get on with songs that seem to be enthusiastic about Jesus for reasons that work just as well for a range of non-Jesus options. I’ve sung at least one worship song that seems to be more about sex than God.]