A few Sundays ago during a discussion in Sunday school, an old debate surfaced about the style of acceptable music within a church’s worship service. I generally don’t contribute much in these discussions, and not because I don’t have an opinion. Let me preface my thoughts with a series of statements and observations:
- Acceptable music expresses truth in a fitting and pleasing manner.
- Music used in worship created the foundational theological understanding for most of us. When this music, as in many traditional hymns, teaches good theology, it is music worth singing.
- Praise and worship music, recently composed, is predominantly contemporary in style.
- Much of the contemporary music is weak in theology.
- Some of the praise and worship songs from the 90’s are not worth singing
- Some of the modern hymns of this decade are not worth singing
- Some of the songs in our pew hymn books written long ago are not worth singing
A song I like, “Thank You,” expresses praise to God:
For all that You’ve done I will praise You,
For all that You’re going to do.
For all that You’ve promised and all that You are,
Is all that has carried me through.
Jesus I thank You.
This song is not wrong, but you have to have a theological understanding of why God is worthy of praise to understand what you are singing about. As I sang this, I knew precisely what it meant; some may not have quite known what it was about. People exposed to only this music don’t have the opportunity I had growing up to have theological underpinnings in music. From my vantage point, this is not so good.
Some contemporary music from the 1990’s teaches sound theology. This is music worth singing. Rita Baloche from the Maranatha singers wrote one of my favorite songs of all time in 1997, “You are Worthy”.
My name is carved in the palm of Your hand;
It is written in the Lamb’s book of life.
Even though my soul was destined to be damned,
Lord, You ransomed me with your life…
This song was enough to have two lost Taiwanese students asking questions like “Who is the Lamb?” “What is the book of life?” “Why is my soul destined to damnation?” “What was the ransom?” It is enough truth to bring tears of gratefulness to my eyes as I rethink and realize all God and His Son Jesus went through to bring me salvation. The past 7 years has ushered in a new group of musicians who borrow from the contemporary style of the 1990’s, but issue the Theology of the ages. This is music worth singing.
So what kind of music is acceptable? Sadly, this question has soured in our mouths as the debate has become preferential and generational in nature. It should be neither a preferential nor a generational issue within the church. In other words, those under 35 years old should not be at odds with those over 55 years old and vice versa. And those in the 20 year span between should not be caught in between. The <35 camp doesn’t like the old hymns. The >55 camp doesn’t like contemporary style. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard, “I don’t like that music” spoken in the debate from both sides. Are our tastes the deciding factor in the value and propriety in music? No, they aren’t. In fact, we are distracted often by style and fail to realize the virtue or the vileness of a song.
For you lovers of the contemporary music, haters of the old hymns, let me give you this thought from John Piper in reference to C.S. Lewis, “He has made me wary of chronological snobbery. That is, he showed me that newness is no virtue and oldness no vice. Truth and beauty and goodness are not determined by when they exist. Nothing is inferior for being old, and nothing is valuable for being modern. This has freed me from the tyranny of novelty and opened for me the wisdom of the ages.” (Don’t Waste Your Life, p.19)
The converse could be said to you lovers of the old style, haters of the new and contemporary. Old is not always good, valuable, or right, and new is not necessarily bad, inferior, or wrong. The fact is we aren’t singing the same hymns or songs or using the same music styles that our church fathers were singing in the 1700’s and even further back to David’s Psalms. Things have changed, even in the worship styles of you older folks.
We tend to look at things in a rather linear fashion, i.e. the far left, the far right, and somewhere in between. This may work with politics, but it does not work with doctrine. Doctrine is either sound, or it is wrong. There is no “truth continuum” where middle ground is to be found. To say otherwise would be to buy into the humanistic philosophy that plagues our world today. There is absolutely an absolute truth. All music, past and present and future is either right or wrong, acceptable or unacceptable. This is something each of us should be able to determine as we hear words coming from music. Cull the bad music. Only certain music is worth singing. You may be saying right now, “Jeremy, this is the real world. Things don’t really work that way.” I’d say to you in response, God has a value system in which He uses words such as “fully”, “completely”, and “wholly”. We cannot afford to dwell in some non-existent middle ground in regards to theology. The middle ground is worse than the wrong because it leads men into sin while thinking they’re o.k.
What about the modern music that isn’t wrong, but not so good. Am I on the fence? I don’t think I am. Once right or wrong has been determined, then appropriate or inappropriate needs to be determined. I wouldn’t advocate singing the camp song, “Father Abraham” in a Sunday morning service. There might be songs that we set aside for camp and home etc., which still are good, but we’re not going to sing them in a church service.
Pure, orderly expression of truth can be found in both old and new styles of worship music. The determinate is the truth of the message followed closely by appropriateness of the words and music. I challenge each of you to set aside generational disunity, any personal preferences or tastes, and focus on the right or wrong of songs. Truth doesn’t change. If we sift our music with both sieves of truth and propriety, some of both old and new will be graded out. And enough will be left of both old and new to use in our worship. Not one should be exclusive, and not one should be excluded.
