Yet others saw problems with the logic of the tweet. “Lol If you lived before a certain time period, it wouldn’t even occur to you to sing hymns in English because Christianity hadn’t reached England yet,” said user Chris Lee.
Nobody ever raised their hands above their shoulders while singing until 1901! Arms didn’t even do that. pic.twitter.com/03oNhCN7PT
— Scott Barber (@thescottbarber) June 7, 2022
One user observed, “Fascinating that so many people are quick to point to the verse about men lifting holy hands in prayer as support for raising hands during singing. With so much support for this passage you would think all the men raising their hands during prayer was a common practice. Is it tho.” Aniol responded, “Exactly. She gets it.”
User Joseph Knowles said, “I might have worded the point a little differently, but it seems like a lot of people who are missing your point are deceiving themselves into thinking that the prevailing church culture hasn’t been taken captive by an unbiblical sentimental emotionalism for the last 100 years.”
User Leah Boyd saw a parallel between Aniol’s critique of emotionalism in worship and similar critiques from people who have deconstructed from Christianity.
continually fascinated by seeing remarkably similar takes on christian worship music from opposite sides of the deconstruction/fundamentalist spectrum; real horseshoe theory moment imho pic.twitter.com/xVh2yIQBBW
— sassy seminary student🌷 (@LeahBSassy) June 7, 2022
In response to the blowback about raising hands in worship, Aniol doubled down on his original tweet by retweeting it several times. In one retweet, he said, “All these people just posting verses of lifting hands as if they are obvious support for contemporary hand raising are perfect illustrations of my point.”
When one user asked, “Genuinely curious, do you think there is something wrong with hand raising during musical worship?” Aniol answered, “Not if it’s a corporate act rather than an outburst of an individualistic emotional high (that’s usually been engineered by manipulative music). Even so, lifting hands in Scripture is much more associated with prayers, lament, and thanksgiving.”
Some takes on the existence of this conversation were as varied as the discussion itself. One user responded to Aniol by quoting Titus 3:9-10, which instructs believers to “avoid foolish controversies.”
Another, however, said, “For what it’s worth, I’m not dogmatic about this, but it is important that we think about these things. Why do [we raise hands in worship]? Is it because everyone else does it? [Is it] so I can look super-spiritual? Or is it a genuine expression of submission and praise to God in worship?”
