Fail to plan, plan to fail. Bad Music as SIN!

One particularly heinous song has the congregation proclaiming, “We are the light of the world,” even though this biblical description applies to Christ. The lyrics of “We Are Called” are liberally peppered with self-congratulatory references to the people in the pews. In my book, bad church music is a sin. It can annoy people and make them angry, which is never a good thing. It also drives some people to avoid Sunday services altogether.
In continuation of some reactions to recent posts in the liturgical music blogworld, yet another post features what amounts to no more than a haranguing bloviation about taste. I was amused, however, by the complaintent's choice of songs to excoriate; they were'nt among the ususal suspects, those being of the Vox Dei or We Sing Praise to Ourselves in order to Bring a New World Order Church Into Being. Nope. The first song, not knowing if its setting was Greif's or Hayakawa's (doesn't matter, really) is purloined as proof that the clear biblical intention from Matthew 5:14 to identify Christ as the Light of the world, and there is no mitigating extension allowing his followers to self-apply that assignation to themselves. But even a randomly selected commentary on the passage yields what should have been obvious to the irate writer:
from Clarke's Commentary on the Bible Ye are the light of the world - That is, the instruments which God chooses to make use of to illuminate the minds of men; as he uses the sun (to which probably he pointed) to enlighten the world. Light of the world, נר עולם ner olam, was a title applied to the most eminent rabbins. Christ transfers the title from these, and gives it to his own disciples, who, by the doctrines that he taught them, were to be the means of diffusing the light of life throughout the universe. Regarding the latter mentioned song, of all of the David Haas catalogue, I actually find this lyric quite compelling personally. It's never sung at any Masses that employ primarily traditional chant and hymnody at our parishes, but is often found at the ensemble Masses, including the one a week I direct. And I only use it after the dismissal, where its appropriateness in unquestionably purposeful. It's about the missio, Ms. "I hate bad church music." It's not about contorting ourselves into our own redemption. But the larger point of this followup addresses the much larger issue, namely, if we continue to use propaganda-like vitriol such as the absurd accusation that bad music compels back-sliding grinches from worshipping Lumen Christi, and being present to the salvivic grace of confession and Communion, we do nothing but place ourselves in our own little corner and appear to many as mere doubters and pouters. There have been a number of moments and missed opportunities to engage divergent opinions which might further some consensus as the evolution of understanding, not the music itself, but the understanding of its role at worship, could have proceded well. David Haas gave it the old college try, but any stridency of his voice was met by the big guns of rhetorical shock and awe. So he basically said, "Forget it. These folks have ears that are mere props. I'm outta here." Who could blame him? And, of course, more REACTION thus ensued. "We prevailed, the foe is vanquished, our righteousness and zeal won the day and will win the war." Bad music? Define that for me please. Bad music, a sin? "Hell yeah, because it burdens my ability to pray at service!" No it doesn't. It's your cross, show up and bear it. Lay it before the altar and pray for relief. Stay home because of "bad music," you're choosing to stay home rather than to encounter the Living God. Don't lay that on the music or the musician.