The following article is reprinted with permission from Ron Man’s Worship Notes. It’s a great article on the many things to consider when making musical choices for worshiping through song. Download the pdf from the link above to see this article in its original form and to pull up links to a music mp3 and notation sheet.
Making Musical Choices:Â WHAT IS APPROPRIATE? by Ron Man
The most consistently asked question of me in my international teaching is about whether a certain type of music is appropriate for use in Christian worship. This is both a difficult and an age-old question. Several principles seem to have a bearing on this debate:
1. Music itself is fundamentally neutral morally. After all, music fundamentally consists of vibrating columns of air, and there is nothing inherently moral or immoral about vibrating columns of air.
2. At the same time, in its effects music is extremely powerful affectively and emotionally, and can thus be a force for good or evil.
3. While music may be universal as a special gift of God’s common grace, music is not a “universal language.” That common misunderstanding has been effectively de- bunked my modern ethnomusicological studies. One vivid example is the recorded example from the Canela tribe of Brazil, with its cacophony of tone clusters and angular tune, which to Western would seem to connote a lament or tragic ode-yet which in reality is a song that proclaims, “God’s Word Makes Me Happy”!
4. One situation that does give music a moral dimension is when a text is set to it. This is of course a completely different situation: in this case the text is the primary carrier of “meaning;” and when a sung text is used in public worship it must therefore necessarily be examined for biblical faithfulness, literary integrity, understandability and devotional quality.
5. Beyond just the text sung is the question of the associations that a particular type of music may have in the minds and hearts of its listeners. This includes the implications of the text, but can go far beyond it (for sometimes texts themselves are changed or “Christianized” in an attempt to make a particular song or style usable in a worship context). If the song (or its style) carries for the hearers unmistakable associations with non-Christian or anti-Christian themes, practices, or lifestyles, than those associations will certainly interfere with people’s worship, making that music in- appropriate to use. The desire to be culturally relevant or sensitive does not trump the priority of being faithful to biblical standards and hence being distinctly counter-cultural when necessary.
This issue is faced all the time in the world of missions, especially when a new people group is reached with the gospel for the first time and the newly planted church is seeking to find its own musical identity in worship. In pagan and animistic environments there are often musical styles that have a strong cultural association with the occult, or with ancestor or demon worship; in these cases careful consideration must be given to whether bringing over these styles into Christian worship will carry with it such a strong reminder of the pagan past that it becomes an impediment rather than an aid to worship. The budding fields of ethnomusicology and ethnodoxology in the missionary endeavor (pioneered largely by Wycliffe Bible Translators) involves placing trained experts in these areas to help the people think through these kinds of decisions as they develop indigenous expressions of Christian worship.
But it is not just in the third world where the issue of musical associations is relevant to making musical choices for worship. A perhaps more subtle version of the same dynamic is at play in Western churches as well. And here too the need is for discerning, prayerful consideration of a musical style’s associations in the minds and hearts of the people.
On vivid example from my own worship ministry in the U.S.: as Pastor of Worship at my church, it fell to me to approve all of the music used in wedding ceremonies at the church, in order to ensure that a worship atmosphere was maintained. One young couple requested to use the theme song from a well-known film. It was in and of itself a beautiful love song-but the story of the movie which the song revolved around an adulterous relationship. As well known as the movie and the song were, it would be impossible for that association to escape many of the people present at the wedding, and therefore be inconsistent with
the desire for the ceremony to be a God-honoring worship service.
Of course, not all songs or styles will carry the same connotations to everyone on our churches, and that’s where it can get controversial and divisive. Musical choice is always an emotional issue! The discussion inevitably circles around back to the local church leadership, who must be faithful students of the Scriptures, of their congregation, and of the surrounding culture, in order to make prudent and wise decisions about what is appropriate or not in their particular church setting. Not an easy task, to be sure – undoubtedly the churches in the New Testament faced similar issues as they brought Jews, Greeks, Romans and
“barbarians” under the same roof! Always there is the need for careful and prayerful discernment for the good of the body as a whole.
I appreciate the way he points out that what’s in question is the association our congregation makes with a particular musical style, that there is nothing inherently moral or amoral in a particular scale or rhythm.
The way my guitar vibrates the air is immoral.
You just cracked me up.
I don’t want to be a contrarian curmudgeon, but I see some problems with Man’s views. If music is just vibrating columns of air then art is just variations of light and dark and humans are just animated blobs of carbon. If you take this to its logical conclusion, music is not only amoral, but it’s also meaningless. And I’m not just being needlessly philosophical. This utilitarian view of the arts leads churches to choose any music as long is it doesn’t offend people, but never allows us to understand the deeper messages of music.
Ethnomusicologists have shown us that music and culture are never separable. The arts are carriers for cultural ideas. It’s no coincidence that the Baaka’s music is an intricate weave of counterpoint that emphasizes the community whereas the west has created rock stars and opera divas.
I’m not condemning rock stars and divas, I just think that we baptize some of our culture’s art forms without understanding how they are going to shape us as a people of God. That is, we go to church and take part in cultural forms that may shape us more in the image of our culture rather than in the image of Christ.
But now I’m meddlin’!
Having said that, I do think that Man’s view of music as morally neutral is/was important in the area of missions. Too many Christians from the West felt that other cultures’ music was inherently evil. The vibrating air approach to music leveled the playing field between cultures and validated non-Western Christians’ cultural expressions of worship.
Okay, enough preaching. I need go choose some vibrating columns of air for Sunday’s service…
Greg, I think you and Ron are ultimately on the same page. I believe what Ron is saying is that music (notes, rhythm, etc.) is morally neutral and that therefore it is those cultural connotations you’re talking about that we must consider when we consider styles of music for use in worship. He gives examples of how this plays out in a mission context (where the missionary discovers that a particular style has a strong cultural association to, say, demon worship) and in a local, western context (where he chose to exclude a song from a wedding ceremony because it was strongly linked to a movie about an adulterous relationship).
Greg, I apologize, I read your response rather quickly so I’m not certain I responded to what you’re really wrestling with. It sounds like you’re saying that by borrowing some of the popular styles of the day we are endorsing/encouraging some of the sinful perspectives associated with those styles. Is that what you’re getting at?
I think what Greg is saying is that music genre, not only lyrics, convey ideas where as Ron seems to suggest that the idea of a song lies solely in the lyrics.
I’ve been wrestling with this question as I’ve been learning much from Douglas Wilson, a Reformed pastor in Moscow, ID. He’s been given keen wisdom on many, many a topic, but his insistence that certain musical genres are inappropriate for corporate worship is hard to swallow. As he has often put it (I’m paraphrasing), you wouldn’t use polka music for a song of repentance. Or use a melodramatic love song for a child’s birthday party. Etc.
And I agree with him to an extent. I struggle to dig the bouncy, jazzy Warrior because I find discontinuity between the music and the text. (I’m sorry as I know I haven’t establish myself in this community as a brother who really loves you guys and am amply encouraged by you…)
Part of my struggle lies in trying to figure out how worship of God in reverence and godly fear (Heb12:28) can coexist with Davidic, joyful, God-focus exuberance as in the days that the ark of the covenant was returning to Israel. Perhaps it’s possible in the course of a covenantal renewal service (of which I only have a shallow understanding and) in which servant fear and and filial boldness don’t necessarily have to coexist in a song but within the course of a service. If this is the case, I can’t see how any genre is necessarily outside of usability in corporate worship. If we only can have somber fear or only charismatic joy than I can see how certain genres are out of place.
Sorry this is so stinkin’ long…
Hey everyone,
Thanks for responding. After I wrote my comment I was sure no one responded because they thought I was an uptight jerk who just needed to be left alone. A few quick clarifications before I have to run to a meeting:
1. I think Ron Man’s idea of of genre is important. From what I know about him, he’s spends a lot of his time as a musical missionary where he tries to help indigenous Christians figure out which of their culture’s music styles would be appropriate for worship. It’s important work.
2. I’m talking about something a bit deeper than a question like “it is appropriate to use a song from a possession ritual (or R rated movie) in worship.” That’s the connotation the music has because of its original context. I’m actually talking about the notes themselves. And here is where I part with Man and Harold Best who come from the “notes are neutral” school of thinking. I believe that music, dance and abstract visual arts have meaning, even though it’s not understood on a rational level. The actual notes, movements and colors communicate. Many Evangelicals are uncomfortable with this. They feel that words (not just The Word) are the only vehicle to communicate what Best calls “truth speak.” I believe that people and the Christian faith goes deeper than mere rational understanding, and that’s why non-verbal arts are important in the life of faith.
3. This brings up the difficult question: what do notes (colors, etc) mean? If they don’t convey specific, rational truth, how can they be used or even trusted? To answer this we turn to the field of Ethnomusicology. Music and culture are inseparable. The arts transmit a culture’s deepest beliefs and values whether intended or not. Just take a look at any culture and you’ll find their arts are telling exactly what the culture believes. Punk, Beethoven, bluegrass, Peking opera, Pollock, Jesus Is My Friend, Sojourn–you name it, the art could only come from the community that gave it birth. The notes (colors, movements) have meaning. In a worship context, the arts express and reinforce the deepest beliefs of the people.
4. I’m not one of those crazy people who will use the above logic to say that praise and worship is bad. Stuff like this http://www.breakpoint.org/commentaries/12125-worship-wars makes me furious. I will go so far as to say that it is fundamentally racist. (Ouch!) Why? Because one person (typically a conservative white person) uses the Bible and pseudo-philosophy to say that his culture is the one that God likes best. I’ve heard people say that “decently and in order” means that all of Africa and Latin America worship wrong. How convenient–if you’re an educated white person.
5. Having unleashed my fury in the above, I will say that people in praise and worship–and any other music style for that matter–would do well to do a cultural analysis of the non-verbal messages of their own worship services. How does our worship communicate messages that reinforce or undermine the Gospel? In what ways do the actual sharps and flats, lights and darks form us into Christ-likeness or into the “patterns of this world.”
Heavy stuff, I know, but very important.
Peace,
Greg
Greg, if I’m understanding you correctly, you are saying that the notes, rythms, etc. themselves have a meaning that stands outside culture and that is why specific cultures choose to associate specific messages with specific note/rhythm patterns? So then, according to this reasoning, all cultures should hear the same message in those note/rhthym patterns, correct?