Monday, April 03, 2006

Ending the Music Wars

Now it's my turn to poach theology. (See Becca's blog for the first poaching.)

Mel posted this article up on her blog a few days ago, and I couldn't resist putting it up here. (Have patience--it loads slowly.) This one issue that has divided so many people and hurt so many young Christians. It really needs to stop. There's no reason to argue over this, and there's equally no reason to cut ourselves off from enjoying all of what God created.

5 comments:

Luke and Trisha said...

"There's no reason to argue over this, and there's equally no reason to cut ourselves off from enjoying all of what God created. "

Does this include cocaine? ;)

--Trish

Monica said...
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The Bard said...

What's wrong with cocaine? :-) Just kidding. BTW, Trisha & Luke, its a delight to hear from you again.

I appriciate the article, Monica. It does a good job outlining what has been percolating in my head for some time: truly scriptural arguements to refute the bad music arguments from Garlock, et al. I especially appricate the focus on the use of music. I get the sneaking suspicion that when our alma matter (and its allies) try to focus on "higher" church music, or even classical music in performances, there is the element of pride and superiority that Scripture condemns. And if the criteria is excellence, well, why is there so much Mac Lynch in the hymnal?

There has to be a middle ground on so many issues, music being one, between the "our way is the only way, and it is the way Paul did things" that BJU et al. often convey, and the "anything goes" attitude we see in modern Evangelicalism. This outline is a step in the right direction.

Ben said...

Must confess, I'm entirely writing from ignorance, having only skimmed the article in, like, 30 seconds.

But my take on this debate has been that it's a matter of Christian freedom. Paul felt perfectly free to eat certain kinds of meat (was it meat sacrificed to idols? Don't remember) in order to "be all things to all people" for the sake of the Gospel. BUT, he didn't do it if it made a brother stumble.

Same thing goes for any kind of music, rock, hip-hop, whatever. Music's not sinful. And reaching different groups of people with their kind of music is the perfect example of being all things to all people. Certainly, one shouldn't do music if one thinks it'll make a brother (or sister) stumble....but that's more a matter of the audience, not the music.

Just wrapped up a study of the book of Galations in my church and they brought out a good point. Galations isn't just about grace vs. a works-based Gospel. It's about how we Christians tend to want to make other Christians in our own image. We want them to look like our religious subculture. We entirely miss that there can be a wide variety of culture, language, music, fashion, politics, etc. as long as the truth of the Gospel is in there. All this talk about the right kind of music sounds to me like "these people should look just like my congregation or how can I know their Christians?"

Becca said...

The article is on the head on so many points. I'm gonna go turn the Newsboys up really loud now.