When Worship Became a War Cry

How modern praise music laid the emotional groundwork for Christian Nationalism

I had just come out of 30 minutes of silence—Centering Prayer. First thing I see when I check my feed? A video of a former fundamentalist drummer back in his worship band days. Full production. Drums pounding. Arms raised. It looked more like a political rally than anything to do with love or God.

And it reminded me: this was part of the plan.

Christian Nationalism didn’t emerge out of nowhere. Its theological scaffolding goes back decades—centuries, even. But one of the most effective tools it used to grip the American imagination wasn’t a sermon or a textbook. It was music.

Modern worship music didn’t create Christian Nationalism, but it laid the emotional groundwork. It trained people to crave a God who dominates. A God who wins. A God whose presence is measured in goosebumps and guitar solos—and whose enemies are always conveniently the same people your political party doesn’t like.

You don’t get addicted to authoritarian religion by reading a manifesto. You get addicted by singing the same story over and over until it becomes your nervous system.

We went from “be still and know” to “take the hill for Jesus” without even noticing the shift.

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The Worship Wars Weren’t About Music Style

Back in the late 90s and early 2000s, the so-called "worship wars" framed the conversation as a generational fight over musical style—hymns vs. guitars, pews vs. fog machines.

But the real battle was spiritual. It was about how we understand God.

When the dominant energy of worship becomes militant—lyrics about victory, chord progressions designed to induce emotional climax, bridge after bridge calling us to rise up and conquer—we’re no longer just singing. We’re being shaped.

And what are we being shaped for?

Not love. Not humility. Not the long, slow transformation of the soul.

We’re being shaped for allegiance. For certainty. For spiritualized nationalism that sees the world as a battleground instead of a beloved community.

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Worship as Performance, Not Presence

Let’s be honest: the megachurch stage often looks indistinguishable from a political convention. Flashing lights. Branded backdrops. Hype teams working the crowd. That isn’t worship. That’s programming.

It’s emotional architecture designed to bypass your critical thinking and drive you into groupthink. And when you’ve been conditioned by this week after week, year after year, is it any wonder you start to believe God has an opinion about who should be president, or what books your neighbor’s kid is allowed to read?

We built a generation of believers who confuse intensity with truth, and volume with authority.

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What We Lost in the Noise

We lost the God who whispers.

We lost the Christ who weeps.

We lost the Spirit that descends not in fire, but in a dove.

In chasing relevance, we sacrificed reverence. And into that vacuum stepped something far more dangerous than drums and distortion: a gospel of domination.

Christian Nationalism didn’t need theology textbooks. It just needed a good playlist.

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But Wait—What If You Still Love Worship Music?

Now, don’t get me wrong—this isn’t about saying guitars are bad or drums are dangerous. Music is powerful. It can shake your soul awake, crack your heart open, and yes, even be a channel for deep, divine presence. I’ve been there. Some of us still are.

This isn’t about style. It’s about spirit.

You can rock out in full surrender to Love, or you can rock out to rally the troops. The question isn’t what kind of music you’re playing—it’s what kind of energy you’re reinforcing.

If the songs leave no room for grief, for nuance, for lament, for transformation that doesn’t involve “winning” or “rising up” or “taking the land”—then maybe we need to ask harder questions.

Christian Nationalism isn’t always loud and obvious. Sometimes it hums in the background, beneath the lyrics, shaping how we think about power, belonging, and who’s really on “God’s side.”

And yeah, that can be hard to own—especially when the songs brought you comfort. Especially when they carried you through seasons of genuine faith.

But love asks more of us. It asks us to go deeper than what felt good in the moment. It asks us to interrogate the fruit. And if the fruit of the music you were formed by ends up looking more like conquest than compassion… then maybe it's time to change the station.

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What Happens Next?

Some of us left. Some of us stayed and quietly unplugged the fog machine. Some of us found God in silence again—in candles, in the breath, in awkwardly off-key gatherings where nobody’s trying to “slay in the Spirit.”

If you’ve felt it too—that subtle shift from praise to propaganda—you’re not crazy. You’re awake.

And maybe it’s not about writing new songs.

Maybe it’s about remembering the ones that don’t serve empire. The ones that make space for tears. For silence. For the kind of Presence that doesn’t need to prove anything.

There’s a new kind of psalmody emerging—one that doesn’t try to stir up the room but to anchor it. Cynthia Bourgeault has been developing a new form of sacred chant—gentler than Gregorian, easier to learn, yet rooted in the same depth. These chants don’t whip you into fervor. They center you. They entrain your nervous system to rest in God, not react for God.

Because the Kingdom doesn’t come by force. It comes like a seed. Like yeast in dough. Like a whisper in the cave.

And you don’t need a kick drum to hear it.

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If this stirred your soul, unplugged your autopilot, or whispered “You came for more than this” into your scroll-weary heart—share it with your fellow seekers, tip your mystical barista, or subscribe for more fire-lit dispatches from the edge of becoming.