I've read through A. J. Jacob's book, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible. It's an entertaining look at one man's carnal attempt to be obedient to all the commandments in the Bible.
In one part, he visited a snakehandling service. I thought the description of his responses to the preaching style was revealing, and I'm posting it in this forum because it's relevant to modern worship (which has its roots in Charismania) and the appeal of pop idiom music.
Should I answer "spiritual," there are obviously some issues at hand (one being the misinterpretation of Mark 16; the tongues thing, etc) that make my answer problematic scripturally.
However, we both know that God can use things that might not be entirely "pure" to accomplish His purposes.
However, my answer of "carnal" will further your red herring argument that because these guys handle snakes, CCM is wrong.
Oh puh-leeze! It was a carnal experience. Jacobs is agnostic, and his 13 months steeped in the Scriptures did not impart faith, yet he was caught up in the feelin' of the worship service of the snakehandlers. Note the elements:
-Continuous rhythmic repition
-exhibitionism
-spontaneity vs order
These things are effective in evoking emotions, even from those who have not the spirit.
So, are you saying that anything with repetition, and spontaneity cannot possibly be of the spirit?
Also the "preaching style" that is discussed here (with the exception of snakes being present and the misinterpretation of teh Mark passage) is possibly, if not probably, used in 75 - 90% of mountain churches. Where I live in NC for a while there were 4-6 preachers on the radio each SUnday morning that sounded like the man discussed.
Emotional, yes. Carnal, not sure. Was is worshipful for or a Spiritual experience me, no. I did, however find it quite entertaining, but not in the good sense of the word.
I'm saying that these are some of the elements employed to evoke a feelin'. And where the feelin' is a result of elements like these, the worship is not spiritual.