"No Turning Back"

I woke up this morning to the strains of young singing girls. No, not your nympho-type oracles in 300, just pinafore-clad CHIJ primary-schoolers. (I live next to chij bukit timah). It was surreal, eerie.


"I have decided to follow Jesus
I have decided to follow Jesus
I have decided to follow Jesus
No turning back
No turning back"


Suddenly the audacity of this song -- which I had sung for over 16 years -- appalled me.

What hit me first and hardest was, what's with all the repeated lines? It really sounds like a chant. Do they not believe it, that they have to repeat themselves thrice over? They also sounded really dispassionate, as if reading off a screen. They probably were. I did the same for almost two decades, and looking back, I shudder. The only difference between this and the Buddhist chants they malign is that this is in English.

These were primary school girls, mind you. At the wise old age of 10 years old, they have "decided to follow Jesus, no turning back"? They haven't even met boys! They don't even know how to spell agnosticism, let alone understand it. What choices did they decide between? No one can hope to choose without choice. I think, it's more like: their parents chose the school, and their teacher chose to put up that song. Praise and Worship? Seems more like mindless institutionalism to me.