I don’t know which was more surprising to me tonight - Michael Johns’ out-of-nowhere elimination, or the fact that tonight’s group number was a straight-up, hardcore, lift-your-hands and praise Him, honest-to-God WORSHIP song.

So there I was, minding my own business watching Idol’s results show, marvelling at how horrid a dancer Brooke White is (the Ford commercial reminded me), and thinking how I love me some Chris Brown (BNLT), when Ryan announced, “With ‘Shout To the Lord,’ it’s your top 8, ladies and gentlemen.” I thought, “Huh, that’s weird, I’m not familiar with any tune by that name, other than the somewhat old-school praise and worship number that my church used to sing. But it couldn’t be that. This must be some sort of obscure R&B tune I’m not familiar with…or maybe I heard Seacrest wrong and he actually said something about a Spout and a Sword.” But no, the final eight start to sing, and I hear this first verse:

My Jesus, my Savior, Lord there is none like You.
All of my days, I want to praise
The wonders of your mighty love.

Then the chorus:

Shout to the Lord - all the earth let us sing
Power and majesty, praise to the King.
Mountains bow down, and the seas will roar at the sound of your voice.

Wha? Huh? My jaw was literally dropped wide open. Idol has flirted with religious themes - from Dolly Parton night, to “inspirational” night, to covers of some also-Christian tunes, there have been plenty of Christian songs snuck in under the radar but never has a song with such a patently Judeo-Christian message featured so prominently. I was left wondering, who was responsible for this? While Idol will surely win some hearts in the religious set, are they not opening themselves up to some serious criticism with this?

Now at this point, those of you who do not have DVR’s and watched last night’s Idol Gives Back live, you’re thinking this is old news because as it turns out, they closed the show last night with this same number, but it went on after 9:00, at which time thousands of very-prompt DVR’s (including mine) changed to whatever they were set to record at that time (UFC). So I missed it (hey, I can’t be on top of EVERYthing.)

So back to the song - what makes this even more amazing? The song “Shout To the Lord” is one of many great praise and worship songs by Darlene Zschech. It was written in 1993 and it has been hugely popular as a mainstay in all sorts of churches around the world, but it has never been a major hit even in the CCM world, never mind a crossover success. The closest it came was a release by Chris Tomlin in 1998, well before he was as popular as he is today. It would have been one thing for Idol to do a song like “I Can Only Imagine,” or something that would appeal to a secular audience as well, but “Shout” is not that. On the “Idol Gives Back” edition, they did change the first line to “My shepherd, my Savior,” but tonight’s version was unadulterated.

The question everybody will ask is, what was the rationale? From the Christian perspective, I have to say this from Philippians 1:17-19, “But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.” 

Surely the song offended some, and that certainly saddens me. But I’ll tell you this much, it took some serious brass ones to pull that one off, Idol. And I applaud you for it. You certainly had ME at My Jesus.

Oh, and I called the bottom three (again). And Michael Johns got eliminated.

For those of you like me who missed the Idol Gives Back version, here it is: