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!
