Music in Worship

Music is the Message , posted at NeoFundamentalist, gives a great, balanced perspective on the issue of music. For those of us who are not legalists concerning music, this article presents much needed food for thought.

One of the reasons that I wandered away from the fundamentalist movement a few years ago was what I saw as an undue emphasis on music standards. Acceptable music was defined by church leaders in ways that were narrow, subjective, and elitist. The pastor and/or music minister was in the position of being the arbiter of what constituted music acceptable to God. Often, leaders would refer to certain experts who shared their tastes and cultural biases. The leaders and their writings were regarded as authoritative. This approach to church music left me cold and frustrated. Having been taught that the Bible is our only authoritative rule for faith and practice, I naturally chafed under artificial rules imposed by leaders in the area of music. I could find no Scriptural corroboration for their standards and therefore felt they were being unjust in forcing their preferences on the churches. Many pastors and leaders passed off their personal tastes as "thus saith the Lord".

My tastes in music have always been generally broad and eclectic. I like some of most genres of music, with two or three notable exceptions. When I broke free of legalism, I also indulged my tastes in church music. Some I like more and some I like less. But I bought into the comteporary church notion that music is amoral (is that like being an amillenialist?)...or at least I bought into it intellectually. But even during that period of my life, there was a troubled voice of objection in the back of my mind regarding music. I still had lines that I would not cross, but I attributed them to my own prejudices and upbringing.

As I've made the course correction back towards nonlegalistic fundamentalism away from the errors of the market driven church, I am once again convinced that music is the message to a certain degree. Music is a communicative tool, an emotional and intellectual expression that both carries and calls forth moral and spiritual values from listeners.

NeoFundy's article brings some clarity to the discussion and evaluation of music that is appropriate for the churchs and for individual Christians.

Future Men

On his blog Irrelevant, Greg Linscott quotes from the book Future Men by Doug Wilson:

Music has been one of the chief culprits in the feminization of the
church. Many of the ‘traditional’ hymns of the nineteenth century are romantic,
flowery, and feminine. (I come, after all, to the garden alone, while the dew is
still on the roses.) But the recent rejection of such hymns in favor of
contemporary worship music has been a step further away from a biblical
masculinity. The current emphasis on “feeling worshipful” is frankly
masturbatory, which in men produces a cowardly and effeminate result.
The
fact that the church has largely abandoned the singing of psalms means that the
church has abandoned a songbook that is thoroughly masculine in its lyrics. The
writer of most of the psalms was a warrior, and he knew how to fight the Lord’s
enemies in song. With regard to the music of our psalms and hymns, we must
return to a world of vigorous singing, vibrant anthems, more songs where the
tenor carries the melody, open fifths, and glory. Our problem is not that such
songs do not exist; our problem is that we have forgotten them. And in
forgetting them, we are forgetting our boys. Men need to model such singing for
their sons.

While we should exercise care not to go to the opposite extreme, we would do well to de-feminize our churches. (God is no more pleased with macho than with wimpy). This feminization has shown itself most prominently in church music ministries. Balancing our approach to music both in style and in lyrical content will allow our men to more easily and enthusiastically enter into corporate worship.

Poem for America

Green Baggins posts a great poem for America by Kipling. Read it here.

May our patriotism always be seasoned by humility and dependence on the Lord.