Excellence in Music – the Role of the Church

We need to contemplate why it is that many would promote a "conservative" philosophy centered on the old hymns (say a lot of the Salvation Army songs that were defended in their day with "why should the devil have all the good songs?"?) instead of a Biblical theology of music that would be more ready to say "you know, we've pushed some very important themes and notions out of our church music, so let's reconsider."

Part of the issue, in my view, is that "pop culture" (a.k.a. modern music) actually has a lot of the things that the Psalms, especially the final two Psalms, seem to recommend. Perfect? Of course not. But reality is that music is to have an emotional component, and there are certain songs that ought to have one tugging one's feet against the nails that hold them to the floor.

Probably step one in my view is to ask ourselves why we have music in the church at all--and my first attempt at an answer is that if well done, it communicates the Word of God and the theology of God to the people of God in a way that prose does not. And if that's a reasonable answer, I think it clears away a lot of our mistakes. Weak lyrics (e.g. "In the Garden")? Doesn't communicate the Word of God to the people of God. Distracting or ineffective tune? Same thing.

But reality is that music is to have an emotional component, and there are certain songs that ought to have one tugging one's feet against the nails that hold them to the floor.

We recently sang "How Great Thou Art" before Bible Study. One of the elderly men passionately spoke about how he wanted to raise his hands in the air because that song had moved him so much. He must have noticed my hand going up as I sang it.

He must have noticed my hand going up as I sang it.

It is good to set an example for others to help them see that it is OK to display some kind of emotion while singing or saying powerful truths. I have tried to do this for several years in order to show members of the congregation that it is appropriate.

Being among the "frozen chosen" here in the North, it certainly requires some effort to get past the stoicism that seems to be taken for granted in our worship.

Perfect? Of course not. But reality is that music is to have an emotional component, and there are certain songs that ought to have one tugging one's feet against the nails that hold them to the floor.

There are so many "traditional" hymns that are just plain difficult to sing. Instead of being able to really meditate on their deep and meaningful lyrics, we struggle just to sing them. But since they are a part of our tradition, we have become comfortable with nearly un-singable songs. But at least they're not using drums, right?

Exactly, Pvawter. There are some hymns where the language needs to be brought more up to date and understandable (which I struggle with, being a language nerd who understands a fair amount of it), others where the key is such that ordinary voices struggle to hit the high or low notes, others where the melody and harmonies are such that ordinary instrumentalists struggle to play them, etc.. In each case, in that setting, we might agree that this music is failing to communicate the Word of God to the people of God, and hence it needs to be modified or abandoned.

To draw a picture, most of us no longer sing the metric Psalms in Jacobian English, and fewer yet sing Gregorian chant, for these reasons. That does not mean in itself that modern music achieves the central goal of song in the church, of course, but it does mean that if A is not working, we ought to consider B, C, and so on.