Soothing Ourselves to Death

Yep. Just like that horrible song we sing in our congregation:

The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters.
He restores my soul;
He leads me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
My cup runs over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days of my life;
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

That lyricist could barely express a thought without thinking of himself all the time!

 

I bet when his church does Psalm 119, they don't beat the Methodists to Shoney's.

Yeah...I think one should be careful when one belittles how an arrangement of a Psalm is written...for that very reason.

 

I am saying I disagree. I used to enjoy modern music as well, and have stopped enjoying it. I shared my view, gave my reasons. I would opt for singing out of a psalter than a shortened version.

Added in: Yes, our congregation does sing every single verse of the hymn. The Psalter breaks longer pslams into segments so they can be sung in parts, yet the whole Psalm sung, including Psalm 119.

 

God is incredibly subjective. Do you object?

 

On matters of morally right vs morally wrong, God is objective, as is scripture. Your comment and question, hoever, don't appear to have anything to do with the topic.

 

Worship music should fall under the catagory of that which makes use of the solemn sound as laid out in Scripture. That is where God stands on the subject of music.

To even think God is objective to what is moral or immoral is directly against the Ten Commandments, or do you prefer the "Ten Suggestions":laugh:

vain repetitions are spoken against in prayer. music is to be prayerfully done with the worship of God as the main theme. repetitions found in music DO make for chantings. some call this as "7-11" music which generally has the same identifiable trademarks as the same 7 words repeated 11 times or in the opposite order, 11 words repeated 7 times.

You might prefer some things, but that doesn't mean they're right.

 

a lot of 'me' and 'I' in psalms, yet still it's God focused.
I guess it depends on the singers heart and focus, who are they praising and worshipping.
Some have a problem and struggle with staying God focused, and thats why they attack those who worship.
There are people on both sides of the argument who worship, and those who mearly go through the motions, even with hymns. Menaing it isn't the music, but the heart. If a person can negelect to worship God, they have the heart problem. And as we see in this thread, there are several who have a problem not worshipping.
No one says you have to listen to music you don't like.

 

So let me get this straight.

If the song goes:

Blessed be the Name!
Blessed be the Name!
Blessed be the Name of the Lord!
Blessed be the Name!
Blessed be the Name!
Blessed be the Name of the Lord!
​

Then it's not vain repetition, but of the song goes:

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name
​

Then it's vain repetition.

BTW, scripture doesn't forbid repetition. It forbids vain repetition.

That's true. However, what qualifies as a "solemn sound" is subjective, and changes with time. Baroque music was once considered to not be solemn, but many hymn tunes we know today are baroque. Classican music fell into the same category, and many hymns today are classical in nature.

 

So, "The Hallelujah Chorus" (G.F. Handel) and "Blessed Be the Name of the Lord" (Hudson, Hymn) must be pretty crappy music to you...

Try again...this time with a valid point.

 

Where does God say that the music used must be solemn? I seem to recall a Psalm that commands us to make a joyful noise to the Lord. There is a time to be solemn and there is a time loud, boisterous, and joyful.

I have no idea what you are trying to say here. You are not making any sense.

Repeating something more than once does not make it vain repetition.

Same to you. You preferring it does not make it right. :wavey:

 

Charles Colson is wrong here and he really did not have any good reason to disrupt the service to try and impose his standards on the group. He should have went to the pastor in private after the service to talk about his complaint.

 

I like it. Thanks for sharing.

 

I have to agree. I prefer the traditional hymns to the recently made up ones that are constantly put on the projector.

 

So you'd be ok with us singing "How Great Thou Art" with the words on the screen put up on the projector? or not?

I remember hearing Evangelist B. R. Lakin saying that most preaching on separation was preaching against those things I didn't like. Some of our stands on music is based on what we don't like and what we prefer.

 

Every era, from gregorian, baroque, classical, spiritual, folk, and contemporary, have songs that will qualify to someone as theologically and excessively repetitive (though those phrases are somewhat subjective). Opponents of contemporary Christian music usually only single out the flaws of contamporary music, but ignore those same flaws of more "traditional" music.

The last song in Handlel's Messian is "Amen". It's one word repeated over and over again for several minutes. The song is continuously repetitive and theologically empty. The "Messiah" also has the songs "Hallelujah" and "And the Glory of the Lord", which take one single sentence from scripture and repeat it over and over again for 4+ minutes each. They qualify as excessively repetitive and theologically weak. But they're frequently sung in churches without criticism. Many churches sing these songs every Easter.