Brian Doerksen gave evangelicalism its soundtrack but not its current theology

(RNS) — When Canadian worship leader Brian Doerksen, writer of some of the most iconic worship songs of the 1990s, died on July 21 at age 60 , many prominent celebrity worship leaders created public tributes and for good reason. Doerksen’s “Refiner’s Fire,” “I Lift My Eyes Up (Psalm 121)” and “Come, Now Is the Time to Worship” transcended denominational and national boundaries. Long before the rise of worship music powerhouses Passion, Hillsong, Bethel, Elevation or Maverick City , Doerksen and the Vineyard Church where he led were creating modern worship music and popularizing many of the forms they now utilize.

Yet while Doerksen helped create the musical language of contemporary worship, the theological vision animating much of today’s worship music took a different, more militant path.

Doerksen’s sound emerged from his work leading music at a Vineyard Church , a small denomination with an outsize influence in the global Christian movement. Through worship leaders like Doerksen, the Vineyard did arguably more than any other Christian denomination to popularize modern worship music in the late 20th century , and — along the way — to reshape the theology and practice of…