Another Attempt at Relevance

During Christmas Eve service at the Church assembly I attend, we had “special music” with a woman singing Faith Hill’s song, “A Baby Changes Everything.”  I never previously heard this song, and I wish I never had now.  It is just another attempt at relevance in today’s culture.  I was disappointed it was used in our service.

Due to the way the singer performed the song, I had difficulty understanding most of the lyrics.  (I don’t know what it is about our culture nowadays wherein no one seems to enunciate the words in song lyrics.)  But that which I did understand disturbed me.  So today I had a chance to seek the lyrics on the Internet, and what I post below is what I found.

Teenage girl, much too young

Unprepared for what's to come

A baby changes everything

Not a ring on her hand

All her dreams and all her plans

A baby changes everything

A baby changes everything

The man she loves she's never touched

How will she keep his trust?

A baby changes everything

A baby changes everything

And she cries!

Ooh, she cries

Ooh, oh

She has to leave, go far away

Heaven knows she can't stay

A baby changes everything

She can feel it's coming soon

There's no place, there's no room

A baby changes everything

A baby changes everything

And she cries!

And she cries!

Oh, she cries

Shepherds all gather 'round

Up above the star shines down

A baby changes everything

Choir of angels sing

Glory to the newborn King

A baby changes everything

A baby changes everything

Everything, everything, everything

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

My whole life has turned around

I was lost but now I'm found

A baby changes everything, yeah

A baby changes everything.

Now, except for the last two verses the song could be about any unwed mother.   But there is a problem with anachronistically placing modern ideas into the culture of the period of Jesus’ birth.

First, the fact that Mary was a “teenage girl” is irrelevant.  She was a young woman, as is every “teenage girl.”  It is only in modern culture where we keep our children as children well into their 20’s.  During Mary’s culture, marrying at 14 was common.  In fact, it was quite common up to a couple hundred years ago, and even after that it wasn’t unusual.  My own mother married at 15.  Mary was already engaged to be married.

Mary was told by an angel that she was going to conceive and have a baby.  Therefore, being a mature young woman, she was not “unprepared for what’s to come.”

“Not a ring on her hand” is anachronistic.  Rings weren’t used.  Of course the listener is meant to understand by this that she wasn’t married and having a baby would change “everything.”  We know nothing of any “dreams” or “plans” of Mary’s other than she was planning on marrying Joseph.  Of course being with child and unmarried was certainly a problem, but Joseph was also contacted by an angel when he thought about divorcing Mary.  We aren’t told in the Bible, but I would assume that both Mary’s and Joseph’s parents would have been filled in with the information about the miraculous conception.  After all, that isn’t something which would have been kept secret from family members who worshipped God.  But what I found especially amusing about this song and its attempt at relevance, is that in today’s culture being an unwed mother is readily accepted without any stigma!

“The man she loves” - do we know she loved him?  She was engaged to him, but in those days many marriages were arranged and romance was not necessarily part of the equation.  And we are never told Mary cried about anything!  She most likely was ecstatic about being chosen to bear the Son of God!

A baby changes every couple’s lives, and that is all this song is saying with its attempt at relevance.  However, it totally leaves out the reason why this particular baby was different from every other baby; if I knew nothing about the gospel, I would think this song was just about a new heir to a throne being born.

In all the efforts to be relevant to today’s society, song writers continue to be touchy-feely in their so-called “Christian” songs.  And everyone is led to feel so emotional about them, without ever once exercising discernment and trying to understand what the lyrics teach.