 |
| Peggy Lee (Norma Egstrom) was raised a Lutheran. Mrs. Ichabod and I heard her sing in Chicago, years ago. |
The song is mostly spoken, dealing with various events like a fire and love, all disappointing, with the sung chorus -
If that's all there is, then let's keep dancing.
Wikipedia:
The song was inspired by the 1896 story Disillusionment (Enttäuschung) by Thomas Mann. The narrator in Mann's story tells the same stories of when he was a child. A dramatic adaptation of Mann's story was recorded by Erik Bauserfeld and Bernard Mayes; it was broadcast on San Francisco radio station KPFA in 1964.[3]
One difference between the story and the song is that the narrator in Mann's story finally feels free when he sees the sea for the first time and laments for a sea without a horizon. Most of the words used in the song's chorus are taken verbatim from the narrator's words in Mann's story.
Picture if you will, three different services:
1. A Roman Catholic mass.
2. A vespers at Washington's National Cathedral.
3. An Evangelical service.
All three have this in common. In spite of the hoopla about the thrill of each one, they left me singing the same chorus to myself - Is that all there is?
They are also performance efforts - not worship. A modern Evangelical service is nothing more than an entertaining speaker and various musical performers in front of a passive audience. They are just that - an audience. They listen passively, just as we did at the Peggy Lee concert in Chicago. And they applaud - as we did in Chicago.
Although traditional Lutheran services often had musical offerings by the choir and soloists, they always included hymn singing by the entire congregation and participation in a Biblical, liturgical service.
WELS and Missouri--with tinny amen from the Little Sect--are actively killing worship by emulating the Evangelical push for performance. And yet they offer third-rate versions of the coveted performance seeker service.
The SynCons cannot write their own happy-chappy motivational talks, so they copy what is freely available on the Net. They must have driven all musical talent away, because the worship groups they record on YouTube are awful, though some rise to the level of mediocrity.
Did I mention that the consumption of worship entertainment has spawned an industry? - form a Worship Team and rent yourself out to congregations that are looking for variety. Turn that into a business--like Koine--and pretend to be glorifying God while raking in the money. After all, that is what the DPs and SPs say about themselves. Why should the corrupt clergy enjoy all the loot?
Naturally the Worship Teams copy one another, performing all the pop Christian songs that drain the tear-ducts and raise the arms of the audience.
The end result is a massive training of Christian audiences for a mass exodus from the faith. Lutherans degenerate into pop Evangelicals, and pop Evangelicals (like Schuller, Driscoll, Stanley) degenerate into atheists.
