NASHVILLE, Tenn. (RNS) — It’s just after 8:30 on a Sunday morning in Nashville, and the worship band at Woodmont Christian Church is getting warmed up. After tuning her Taylor guitar, worship pastor Andra Moran jumps into a familiar song.

“How great is our God / Sing with me / How great is our God.”

The song has long been one of her favorites. It is easy to sing, gives people a bit of transcendence and lets them know they are not alone.

“Inviting people in — that’s something important to me as a song leader,” said Moran.

If you’ve been to church in the U.S. over the past two decades, chances are you’ve heard “How Great Is Our God.” First recorded by Chris Tomlin in 2004, the song is a favorite at big-box megachurches and tiny congregations alike. In mid May, it was #10 on the list of top songs sung in churches, compiled by the CCLI, which licenses songs for congregational use.

But in recent years, “How Great Is Our God” and other worship songs have been sung at conservative political events too: the Jericho March before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol; MAGA events and anti-vax revivals during COVID-19; pro-Israel protests during the Gaza war; and Charlie Kirk’s memorial.

After a Christian nationalist pastor, Doug Wilson, preached at the Pentagon, worshippers sang “How Great Is Our God.” And Tomlin closed his set at the recent “Rededicate 250″ prayer rally on the National Mall with the same song. 

Here’s the thing – there’s nothing overtly political about this song. No mention of the themes — freedom, the flag, America or the land that we love— found in other songs used in political settings.

“I can definitely tell you, the song is not partisan, you know, and it’s definitely being sung on both sides of the aisle,” said Jesse Reeves, who co-wrote “How Great Is Our God.”

Reeves, a Texas pastor and songwriter who also plays in a ’90s country cover band, said he’s not bothered by worship songs being used in political settings — “I Speak Jesus,” another song he co-wrote, was also sung at the Kirk memorial.

He said that “How Great Is Our God,” which he’s heard sung at rallies, in stadiums around the globe and at neighborhood Little League games, reminds people to pay attention to God.

 “It’s kind of a reset in the middle of whatever’s going on, just to focus our attention back on God,” he said.

Charlie Peacock, a Grammy-winning producer in Nashville and senior music editor for Christianity Today, says performing worship music at a political event is a kind of endorsement.

If a politician shows up at church, he said, the focus is still on God, no matter what the politician says. But at a partisan rally, politics rule.

“When I saw the Charlie Kirk event, I saw the opposite happening. I saw the co-opting of the sacred for the political. And that’s what I disagreed with,” he told RNS during an interview at his home in Nashville.

At a rally, he said, worship music can give the idea that God is taking sides in a political debate. “That’s what was a little heartbreaking to me — to see that music, which does serve the church, set the stage for something that has radically divided the church.”

Randy Lovelace is the pastor of Christ Community Church in Franklin, Tennessee, which sings worship songs like “How Great Is Our God” and “Holy Forever” — another Chris Tomlin song — that have also appeared in political settings.

“When I hear those songs being used at political rallies, it feels manipulative,” Lovelace said. “I want to head for the exits.”

Lovelace said he prays for the country’s leaders and wants them to do well. But he worries worship songs are being used to manipulate Christians into thinking God is on the side of one party.

“They want Christians to hear it as saying, ‘You Christians are under threat,’” he said. “‘You are embattled. We hear you, we will support you, and we’ll use this music so that you feel safe, that we have your back, and we’re going to fight.’”

Melody Noel Altavilla, a worship pastor at Revival Today church in California, sees things differently. Politics, she said, is a part of worship. And God cares about politics.

“I really see it as like there’s territory, and God wants to have influence over territory, and our job as Christians is to pray and to worship and to speak God’s Word over territories so that he could have his dominion,” she said.

Altavilla led worship for two years on the ReAwaken America Tour, a traveling religious revival and MAGA political rally that featured President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, anti-vax activists and preachers — along with worship and mass baptisms.

She picked “How Great Is Our God” because it’s easy to sing and people know the words. Only one chorus through, the whole crowd would join in.

“But also, it’s vertical,” she said. “It gets people to remember who God is and the nature of God, and to remember … what really matters.”

While on this tour, Altavilla had one of the most profound spiritual experiences of her life, she said. “I just remember at the end of it coming off in the wings, General Flynn was there, and Roger Stone was there, and Roger’s eyes were all watery, and General Flynn was like, ‘What was that?’” she said. “And I’m like, ‘The Lord.’ That was crazy.”

And this is why worship music works so well at political rallies, said Leah Payne, a professor at Portland Seminary who studies Christian music. “It gives the space an activist space, the idea that this is an act of worship to engage in this protest,” she said.

She says worship songs help people feel like God is right there with them. And that is a powerful tool, one that the Civil Rights Movement, anti-ICE protesters and MAGA all have used. The gospel song “We Shall Overcome,” for example, became the unofficial anthem of the Civil Rights Movement, sung by protesters across the South and popularized by folk singers such as Pete Seeger. The emotionally powerful, repetitive lyrics are easy to remember and sing.

Think of this music as the “We Shall Overcome” of the right. Those two songs even have some things in common – they have a similar chord pattern and tempo, and use a walk down to a minor chord that adds emotional power to the chorus.

“It’s like an emotional and spiritual shorthand,” Payne said.

Once the song starts, people join in, and the song takes off from there. That’s what happened at the Kirk memorial. After a long worship set, the band dropped out and 70,000 voices filled State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, with the words of the chorus.

The same thing happened at Rededicate 250. Halfway through the first chorus, the crowd joined in, many with hands lifted to the sky in worship.

Reeves said that it really doesn’t matter what he thinks, as “How Great Is Our God,” like other popular songs that have been used at protests, has taken on a life of its own.

When Reeves and Tomlin wrote the song, they were struggling young musicians playing at Christian summer camps. The kids hated them.

 “And so the goal was, just like, to write a really simple song,” Reeves said. “We just wanted to write something really simple, just that kids at summer camp would like.”

They played it, and the kids would not stop singing.

“It just kept going,” he said. “And at the end of it again, we were just like, wow, that was special. The end. We had no clue what God was going to do with that song.”