epiphany

Worship Wars?

I've cut back on my blog reading significantly in recent weeks. There are still a few I regularly visit, but mostly, I'd rather spend my time living than looking into other people's ever more distant lives. Most of the blogs I read are those of people I knew from my years at Bob Jones. Some of those people probably don't remember me. That's fine. I can't think of why I should be particularly memorable to them.

One thing that keeps coming up among the "pastorly" blogs I visit (and especially their links to other blogs), is that churches associated with Institutional Fundamentalist Christianity are slowly beginning to change their styles of music. These changes are leading to what some are calling "the worship wars."

Several months ago I finished reading John Makujina's Measuring the Music, a text the conservatives in the worship wars point to as proof of the evils of rock music. I began writing a review the day after I finished it, and I still have my page of notes. But I decided that my review was not worth either my time or my readers' time (the three of you who are left after my long break). Basically, I was very disappointed with the book. It takes a very learned and sophisticated perspective and tone, but it talks little, if at all, about music itself, preferring to focus on negative lifestyles, worldviews, and associations of those who have recorded some of the music. For me, that says nothing to the appropriateness of rock (or any style of music) in worship of God. My response would be to clean up the associations by living a life of love in Christ.

I suppose I could write for hours, trying to convince people not to worry about their musical preferences. I mostly like traditional folk and classical music. I like some rock (which is actually a modern variation on folk music). I like some Christian rock. I don't like jazz or rap. Of those genres I do like, I don't enjoy all of the pieces in each of those categories. Some are a waste. Some I don't understand and don't want to understand. Some are very negative, to the point that in my ears, they are evil. But not all are, and each believer must follow a conscience submitted to the Bible and Jesus.

Our friend Paul tells us that "Knowledge . . . tends to make people conceited; it is love that builds us up. If anyone imagines that he already possesses any true knowledge, he has as yet attained to no knowledge of the kind to which he ought to have attained; but if anyone loves God, that man is known by God."

Another pastor that speaks to the issue behind these "worship wars" is James:

"Which of you is a wise and well-instructed man? Let him prove it by a right life with conduct guided by a wisely teachable spirit. But if in your hearts you have bitter feelings of envy and rivalry, do not speak boastfully and falsely, in defiance of the truth. That is not the wisdom which comes down from above: it belongs to earth, to the unspiritual nature, and to evil spirits. For where envy and rivalry are, there also are unrest and every vile deed. The wisdom from above is first of all pure, then peaceful, courteous, not self-willed, full of compassion and kind actions, free from favouritism and from all insincerity. And peace, for those who strive for peasce, is the seed of which the harvest is righteousness.

"What causes wars and contentions among you? Is it not the cravings which are ever at war within you for various pleasures? You covet things and yet cannot get them; you commit murder; you have passonate desires and yet cannot gain your end; you being to fight and make war. You have not, because you do not pray; or you pray and yet do not receive, because you pray wrongly, your object being to waste what you get on some pleasure or another.

"You unfaithful women, do you not know that friendship with the world means enmity to God? Therefore whoever is bnt on being friendly with the world makes himself an enemy to God. Or do you suppose that it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, 'The Spirit which He has caused to dwell in our hearts yearns jealously over us'? But He gives more abundant grace, as is implied in His saying, 'God sets Himself against the haughty, but to the lowly He gives grace." Submit therfore to God: resist the Devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and make your hearts pure, you who are half-hearted towards God. Afflict yourselves and mourn and weep aloud; let your laughter be turned into grief, and your gladness into shame. Humble yoursleves in teh presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.

"Do not speak evil of one another, breathren. The man who speaks evil of a brother-man or judges his brother-man speaks evil of the Law and judges the Law. But if you judge the Law, you are no longer one who obeys the Law, but one who judges it. The only real Lawgive and Judge is He who is able to save or to destroy. Who are you to sit in judgement on your fellow man?"

((all quotes are from Richard Weymouth's translation of the New Testament))

Posted by jonhanneman at March 4, 2006 7:55 AM | TrackBack