I have been keeping up with the controversy where the American Idol contestants last Wednesday sung the popular worship song ‘Shout To The Lord’ (written by Darlene Zschech of Hillsongs fame) but with a catch…

They replaced the line “My Jesus, My Savior with “My shepherd, My Savior”

Last night, the American Idol contestants went back on the stage Thursday, this time singing the correct original version of the song.

Here is my problem with what has happened Wednesday and Thursday. Where everyone is raving mad over the switching of the words Jesus with shepherd and calling it ‘the conspiracy to eradicate Christianity’, who is really at fault here?

Did Ms. Zschech or the copyright company that handles copyright issues for the song grant permission for the song to be sang and the American Idol crew took improper liberties by altering the lyrics?

or

Did Ms. Zschech or the copyright company that handles copyright issues for the song grant permission for the song to be sang with the altered lyrics?

Hmmmmmmm!!!!

You try to get permission to sing a copyrighted song and alter the lyrics and see what happens. Foot, you can’t ever sing one of those Jesus love song worship chrouses without first getting a CCLI license and then displaying the copyright info on the overhead projector.

The reason why I have asked the speculative question in bold is that from the private e-mail conversations I have had with some Aussie christians who call themselves ‘underground Christians’, the entire Hillsongs mindset to them is Australia’s version of purpose-driven and that Australia/Hillsongs has emulated and taken further the concepts of the American religious right movement and associated themselves with Australia’s ex Prime Minister John Howard when he was the leader of Australia.

In fact, these ‘underground Christians’ have told me that they were glad that Kevin Rudd was elected because the Hillsongs ‘buddying’ with the government was perceived as a threat to other Christian fellowships religious freedoms. In other words, they saw Hillsongs with an agenda of becoming the official ‘form of Christian religion’ in Australia to the point of suppressing ‘Christian disagreers’ in ways similar to the way the purpose-driven movement and the religious-right movement has tried to bully their sphere of influence within Christianity and suppress the Christians who disagree with them.

You would think that after what had happened Wednesday night, that Ms. Zschech, her lawyers, or the copyright company that manages copyright issues to the song would have been outraged and would have had some scathing words to say.

Imagine that, Darlene vs. Simon…

However, we saw nothing to that effect. No public reaction or outcry. All we saw was another performance of the song Thursday with the correct lyrics.

It makes me wonder….