Can Christian Music be unspiritual?

Done friend... How is your Advent/Christmas season going? I hope well. Have a merry, blessed and joyous Christmas as we celebrate the coming of our Lord as child and look forward to His coming in victory.

 

My last post is in response to Eric's last post. Apparently tenor and I were posting at about the same time. I didn't see his post till now.

 

I'm just establishing the fact that God forbids excess in anything except spirituality.

Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.

So, God has a line and expects us to discern it. It's significant that the psalms, hymns and spiritual songs are here in contrast to excessive behavior (which is the real sin in drunkenness--not the mere state of intoxication, which comes in rather handy at the dentist's office).

Therefore, any style which can be characterized as excessive or riotous is off-limits to Christians no matter what the heart of the performer is, or the context.

How much ornamentation is too much?

That's a topic for another discussion. As I said above, it can be overdone.

Yes Handel and most Baroque is ornate - PERIOD STYLE!!!!

Every age can be characterized by its excess in one vice or another. They're still vices regardless of how prevalent they may be in one age.

Does this make it less sacred and less spiritual?

It certainly makes it less suitable for Christian worship.

Do you believe God hates Handel's work?

I believe He doesn't want it in Christian worship. It might be fine for recital halls, however. Haven't thought a whole lot about it.

As to our gifts to God, I agree, our best is not good enough. Are you saying that God expects nothing out of the talents He has given us?

Our natural talents are useful only for our natural lives. What do you say of the talented bricklayer? Why not have a mason up on stage with you slinging mortar and stacking bricks?

God has given spiritual gifts for the building of His Kingdom, and music, like masonry, isn't one of them.

If so, why do choirs, soloists and instrumentalists rehearse before presenting music in worship services, whether it be congregational or presentational?

The same reason that a minister must study to present his message. It's the laborer that reaps the reward. Choirs and soloists are only useful to teach the congregation to sing praises to God.

We are expected to give and do the best we are able to do - this is inferred in giving God our "firstfruits."

Actually, we're not. Just the opposite. We're commanded to know and do His will. We, our very existence as born-again believers, are a firstfruits offering James 1:18. Remember the acceptable sacrifice, a broken and contrite heart. Pride and exhibitionism have no place in church.

Your SI Swimsuit compared to the Gospel of John is the most ludicrous exaggeration you have made yet.

What? Are you saying God can't use the SI Swimsuit edition to illustrate the Gospel of John? Are you limiting God?

That was the point of the illustration.

God gave a plethora of musical to enjoy and to celebrate Him through.

Agreed, provided they conform to God's standards of decency and order.

Who are we to limit those to our own biases?

No one. I thought we were discussing God's limits.

 

Aaron,

I see what you are saying and mostly I agree with you. I do differ on the degree of your points.

"Excessive" is very difficult to define. What is excess to one may not be to another. In the music appreciation classes I taught, students had a hard time accepting that a Mozart symphony was "fast" because when compared to much "comtemporary popular" music it was a moderate tempo and maybe even slow.

When I use Handel in worship - I hold back on the ornamentation; when I do it in the concert hall I use more ornamentation. Context.

As was said in another post - it's not that a line must be drawn, but where the line is to be drawn.

Let's agree to disagree on this and celebrate our Lord together.

 

Therefore, any style which can be characterized as excessive or riotous is off-limits to Christians no matter what the heart of the performer is, or the context...

"Excessive" is very difficult to define...

And this is the point, exactly, and what Aaron has never been able to show. (except for his "extreme" examples).

 

I would think that Heavy-metal Christian music is an excessive and riotous genre. It is centered around destruction and disorder. That's not Christ-like!!

 

I tend to agree with you on this one, but don't judge an entire genre of music by one of its substyles.

 

yah. dont be takin shots at heavy metal christian music. how is it centred around destruction and disorder. i have listened to a number of heavy metal/screamo christian bands and i can say that they are not centred around destruction and disorder. they are in fact centred around Jesus. just because it may sound like "angry" music. does not mean that it is "angry" music...

 

Not true. It's a point I've never attempted to show except for extreme examples. The arguments from the CCM side have, until now, always been that no line can be drawn. The extreme examples show that a line can and must be drawn because the Bible says so.

I'm more than willing to discuss where God has drawn the line, but only with those who argee that one must be drawn, AND also concede that God will draw it a lot farther back than they think it sould be.

 

********just because it may sound like "angry" music. does not mean that it is "angry" music... ***********

 

doesnt make sense? haha. have more of an open mind to it. and it will make sense... instead of judging heavy metal christian music, look into what is involved in it, look into the background of the bands... etc. the guitar/drums/keyboards/whatever-else-instrument-there-is does not make the music angry. i got friends who listen to alot of that style of music. and they are some of the happiest people i know. its all a matter of opinions i guess.

 

Your argument basically is to take the extreme styles, say that they are riotous (which I would agree, though others don't), and then try to project that "line" back to the non-extreme styles because they use the same beat, or come from the same culture or generation or whatever. Then, since some others will not even draw a line at all, you spend all the time going around in circles with them, and never do prove anything. You're trying to bite off more than you can chew. You'd be better at trying to establish a line if it was more sensible, and you didn't start off trying to set it ridiculously far according to, basically, a preconceived preference.

 

I wouldn't consider it to be "angry". I would consider it to be "energy". I love to listen to it when I'm working out.

 

yah! "energy" that's the word i was looking for! i've been listening to skillet. and it sure gets me pumped up. spiritually.

 

I've already told you how I use extreme examples, now you here make up stories and falsely assert that I do otherwise.

We'd first start by defining music. Then we'd throw some word studies concerning excess, riot, and maybe even wantonness and lasciviousness et al. And we'd find out that these ideas encompass much more than the extremes that our fleshly minds are willing to concede they do.

It would make for a very long discussion because there's no way to limit who can or can't post in a certain thread. Inevitably some lout will jump in with the old cavil the Scriptures are silent about music!, and that would be that.

 

Well, you may use those extreme examples on those who say there is no line, but in order for you to claim that we must "concede that God will draw [the line] a lot farther back than [we] think it sould be", you must do more than that, and from the few times we have gone past those cycles into that direction, it basically involves projecting the bad associations of the extreme styles to all other related styles through the beat and culture. So I am not making up any stories or falsely asserting anything. If that is wrong, then perhaps forget the people who say there is no line or that Scripture is silent for a moment, and prove scripturally that the line is where you say it is. Many of us have been asking for that for a long time.

 

So you like music that is "patently fleshly, worldly, superficial, lacking the experience of the cross, out-of-tune with the Holy Spirit, and quite clearly unfit for inspiring worship among true Christian believers in a church or assembly" unless it "claims to be Christian"? Thanks for making that clear.

 

No, actually, it's a good point.

How can you say that mainstream music is OK and then condemn the Christian genres that copy it for being "worldly" and "fleshly"?

In a way, I agree with you.

For instance, I love Neil Young and Jimmy Buffett, but I wouldn't want to hear that sort of music in church. However, it's a big double standard to say that Christian music that copies mainstream music is unacceptable because it's "worldly" and "fleshly", but then say that you listen to the music that the "worldly" and "fleshly" mainstream music it copies itself from.


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