The Brothers Bayly have stirred up the pot again by arguing that Tim Keller is a greater threat than Doug Wilson and the Federal Vision to the PCA. Calculating the heinousness of error is indeed a judgment call, but the Shorter Catechism does indicate that some sins are more grievous than others.
As folks who often read the Baylys know, these PCA pastors rank sexual identity and gender relations fairly high on the list of woes that are afflicting the United States and the church. And despite our Lord’s own teaching that love of God is the greatest commandment – which would include those laws about blasphemy, idolatry, worship, and the Sabbath – my own sense of the Baylys is that they are not as rigorous in applying the third and fourth commandments as they are about the fifth and the seventh. My reason for thinking this is the Baylys’ preference for forms of worship music that do not, as I see it, maintain an atmosphere of reverence and awe. I am not going to listen to lots of tracks or watch lots of videos of the Good Shepherd Band to back up this claim, though I have seen a few. When the guitars come out, this aging boomer melts down.
I will grant that lots of folks disagree about the application of the first table of the law and I wish the Baylys could be as generous on differences in applying the second table (you know, whether protesting with them at abortion clinics is required in the sixth commandment). But even at the level of egalitarianism, one of the Baylys bugaboos, one could argue that contemporary praise music is fundamentally egalitarian by leveling all aesthetic standards down to those of what adolescents prefer. Actually, it is a kind of aesthetic superiority and ageism where the young are automatically given authority over the old. Democracy of the dead’s hymns and psalms? I don’t think so.
Which is why this video from King of the Hill is so refreshing (thanks to one of our southern correspondents). When Hank says, “I never thought that Members Only jacket would go out of style,” he put his finger on what ails contemporary worship: contemporary style is ephemeral and so not a reliable vehicle for communicating permanent truths.
In which case, why don’t the Baylys understand that by packaging worship in the idiom of contemporary music, they may be putting their Lord in Hank Hill’s box of lame? It sure doesn’t honor the Lord, not to mention that it doesn’t seem to be all that wise a strategy for fighting the culture wars.
Sometimes the light of nature (and even Hollywood writers) does really enlighten.
Old Life 
Good thoughts. I recently left a SGM church. One of the items that did me in (besides Covenant theology) was worship style. (BTW, almost finished with your co-written book on worship and have LOVED it!) What I can’t get, however, is someone to give me their thoughts on listening to music like Indelible Grace on a personal level. I see and get the arguments for using said music at a corporate level, but what about a personal one?
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I really believe we need to apply 2k thought to worship as well, not just things political and social. Outside of Christ the King’s weekly called assembly we have great liberty. Heck, I listen to lots of Rennaisance polyphony which is mostly in Latin and of RC origin (no instruments at least). I’m not about to request that my church’s worship resemble it in any way. We should be as culturally neutral as possible in worship. I say fine if you want to listen to Indelible Grace. I even know a presbyterian who listens to the Gaithers (horrors!). But he doesn’t expect our Sunday worship music to be like the Gaithers’. Or Dave Matthews, or Journey, or the Avett Brothers, or – thankfully – those alternative lite clowns in my presbytery with the hand drums and swaying girl backup singers. Much of what goes on in hipster “worship” these days is the musical equivalent of the Members Only jacket. Better the gray suit or Geneva gown which never goes out of style — never had any to begin with.
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DJ, lots of freedom out there in the world of personal music preferences. Questions about good music, concert vs. pop., Christian vs. secular rock, are sure to generate arguments. I do believe that aesthetic standards matter and that contemporary music of all kinds has diminished those standards, and that the triumph of rock has implications for the culture and church. But Christian liberty gives great latitude for personal listening.
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That clip is great, hilarious, and resonates with so much of what I believe about culture and worship.
At the same time, I have this nagging thought at the back of my mind that my preference for un-style, or worship-as-neutral-as-possible, or the grey suit (as mentioned above) might be a problematic cultural preference as well.
Am I possibly just imposing my preferences for middle class, conservative, “neutral” values in both life and worship on others? I don’t know and I don’t know how to know.
My internal Marxist is at war with my internal Old-Life-leaning theology. Anybody care to share some wisdom?
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“Can’t you see you’re not making Christianity better; you’re just making rock and roll worse?”
Definitely a lot of wisdom from Hank in this clip. More often than not, Mike Judge and Greg Daniels get things right in assessing/lampooning culture(s).
Great post, Dr. Hart.
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DJ, the points about liberty are well taken. Even so, I’ve always questioned what’s going on when an element of worship takes a form that is more or less that of entertainment. It seems to reinforce this notion (confusion?) that worship and entertainment (especially that of a therapeutic variety) are synonymous, and it doesn’t seem to take long before what is done informally begins to inform what is done formally. But it seems to me that it is our formal piety that should be informing our informal piety, and if the former is one characterized by reverence and sobriety it would seem to follow that a form that is wistful and flighty wouldn’t make much sense. So, I’m not sure the taxonomy is corporate versus personal as much as it is reverent versus sophomoric. Still, with apologies to Brad, I’m not so sure Renaissance polyphony makes much sense in a living room or car, since the contexts suggest levity, comfort and ease.
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“I even know a presbyterian who listens to the Gaithers (horrors!)”
Where’s the trash can? i think I’m gonna be sick…
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Thanks for your thoughts everyone. Very helpful!
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My favorite line is when Hank tells the skater “Don’t tell me to read the Bible.”
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Be careful, DJ – you might sit next to him Sunday.
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Brad: Oh…! In that case I better brush up on my McKameys and show the locals some love.
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Zrim,
Well said.
………………………………………….
Dr. Hart,
In general as far as your blog post here and the Bayly post and to the question……what is the problem Doug Wilson FVers or Tim Keller Missional hipsters? My answer would be YES. A pox on both their houses and both are big problems in the PCA. I think FVers are more influential in the PCA than Bayly admits to. The Bayly post does make a good point about the N.T. Wright influence among the Missional/Hipster PCA folks.
PS… Love the You Tube! Funny stuff! You make a great point on caring for Reverence and Awe in worship.
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What other style do we have other than contemporary? I’d guess that your “traditional” Is contemporary for some period. You tell me… 1950’s? 1920’s? 1740’s? 1630’s? From what I can tell in studying the history of liturgy Genevan psalmody was definitely a cultural innovation.
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E. Burns, my own sense is that Wilson and Keller are both responding to the culture and letting the culture organize the mission of the church. Different cultures, but I don’t see the church simply being the church (especially along the lines of the spirituality of the church.
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Terry, is NPR the same as Howard Stern? Both are contemporary.
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Terry, I believe congregational psalmody was ecclesiastical reform and rearrangement – not cultural innovation. Psalms had been sung for centuries, only the singing had been given over exclusively to the clerics. Translating the psalms into local language and putting them in the mouths of the people was simply a return to New Testament worship. The tunes were based on Gregorian chant – nothing innovative about that.
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I think when it comes to secular music, we hve great liberty in what we can listen to (though decency should have some say I think). However, DJ’s question is pertinent when it comes to contemporary worship music. If God has commanded us to worship Him in a particular way, and that way excludes uninspired songs and musical instruments, then surely that command extends to all forms of worship: public and private? And surely a Christian cannot listen to Christian music without it having some form of worship element, or at the very least having an effect on how one perceives God and worship generally as Zrim suggests?
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Terry, isn’t your point a little wooden? There is a difference between “contemporary” and “contemporaneous.” In this context the former seems to mean “accomodating to the spirit of the moralistic-therapeutic age,” which happens in every generation. So when my church has that dubious thing called the song service before the stated evening service and sings lullabies, love songs and show tunes from the 19th century out that horrid revivalist hymnbook they are being “contemporaneous” to the 19th century; those were the P&W choruses of yesteryear. Which means they are adding insult to injury by being both “contemporary” and “contemporaneous, as in way out of date.”
It doesn’t help to simply reach back in time, since we have just as great a chance of grabbing something “contemporary” as we do now, since every age has pietists and revivalists writing music.
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DGH,
You have to admit, though that the brothers Bayly have a point in there somewhere. Granted it’s buried in a bunch of rhetoric, but I do think there’s a nugget of wisdom in there somewhere, and it is this: the “conservatives” (TR’s) in the PCA have allowed their battle to shape them. They became focused exclusively on fighting against the FV. This was their big enemy. Anyone that stood opposed to FV was obviously a good guy, regardless of what else they believed. This one issue shaped right and wrong, orthodoxy from heresy. If this is true, then this is a good point, and it’s one I have tried to make here on this blog before.
I think they are right to point out that there are some people who favor the celebrity pastors and the megachurches. This is just a love of money that they’re concerned about, and it’s a good concern to have.
Of course, you are making the same point I am, just in a different way. While the Bayly’s are so concerned about these other people in their denomination, they too are swallowing a camel while writing blog posts about how screwed up everyone ELSE is.
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“But even at the level of egalitarianism, one of the Baylys bugaboos, one could argue that contemporary praise music is fundamentally egalitarian by leveling all aesthetic standards down to those of what adolescents prefer. Actually, it is a kind of aesthetic superiority and ageism where the young are automatically given authority over the old. Democracy of the dead’s hymns and psalms? I don’t think so.”
Darryl is confusing style with content here. It’s a mischaracterization to say we sing contemporary praise songs at Christ the Word (PCA) and ClearNote Church when at least 90% of what we sing are psalms and hymns written by previous generations of Reformed Christians. The other 10% we either wrote ourselves modeled after the older psalms/hymns, or somebody else did. I can count on one hand the number of contemporary praise songs we sing. I wish we had more, but good ones are scarce.
What we do is accompany these psalms and hymns with modern day instruments, and sometimes updated tunes. And just so we’re clear, this is what Darryl’s taking issue with, not the doctrinal or aesthetic qualities of our lyrics. And all because he doesn’t like electric guitars, which we don’t use all the time anyway. All an Englishman’s preferences, you know.
This isn’t an argument. It’s petty small-mindedness. You can get the man out of Fundamentalism, but apparently you can’t get the Fundamentalism out of the man.
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And Darryl, that video is blasphemous. A breach of the 4th Commandment. Shouldn’t have been posted. Shouldn’t be watched. Shame on you.
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I meant, 3rd commandment.
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Darryl a Fundamentalist? That’s slanderous and breaks the 9th commandment. As a Lutheran though I have trouble accusing anyone of breaking commandments. That is more of a Calvinist tactic- we usually reserve that right to Pastors who have the obligation to make sure their congregants come to a realization that they truly are sinners in need of the Gospel.
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I am also curious as to how one comes to the conclusion that one is a Fundamentalist because of how someone interprets the scriptures in regards to form and content in worship. I don’t think that was an issue in the Modernist-Fundamentalist debates. In fact, the fundamentalist probably would have been all for contempory worship- they supported the revivalists of the Billy Sunday type.
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John,
Perhaps a distinction between a fundamentalist and a legalist would be helpful.
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Jody,
I don’t remember Dr. Hart even mentioning ClearNote Church, whatever that is, but if the shoe fits
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OPC guy,
I don’t think there is a distinction between a Fundamentalist and Legalist-they fly the same banner (although most would deny they are both Fundamentalist and Legalist).
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Jody, for what it’s worth, the Baylys regularly promote a Christian band and also speak favorably of contemporary worship. They also lampoon traditionalists. Maybe you should get your own blog.
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Well, I should know, since I serve under Tim at ClearNote Church, Bloomington, which, if you haven’t been paying attention, is the name of Tim’s church. One of my duties here is to lead the very band you criticize in this post.
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I think legalists tend to be the first to dole out shame and tell others what they may or may not watch. So, Jody Killingsworth, pastor for worship at ClearNote Church, Bloomington, do you have a category for Christian liberty for things indifferent or is that only applied in 10% of your worship where the RPW doesn’t cover every square inch?
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Zrim, the Divine Name is not a thing indifferent to those who fear the Lord.
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Fundamentalist: one who is interested in upholding the fundamentals of the faith, e.g., the virgin birth, inerrancy of Scripture, etc. They are opposed to liberals, who abandoned these fundamentals.
Legalist: one who strives to earn salvation by works. They almost always add to and subtract from the law, substituting their own man-made laws for the law of God and seeking to be justified by obeying these laws that God has not given. For example, one might think he has earned his salvation because he doesn’t drink or smoke.
Granted, these are often the same people, but the words do not mean the same thing. It’s important to keep these terms clearly defined and understood. Otherwise, it’s an easy temptation to simply hurl these words at your opponent in an argument.
To call someone a fundamentalist when what you mean to call them is a legalist is to confuse the issue. Nor is it fair to call someone a legalist because they interpret the law of God differently than you do.
So if someone thinks that the Bible teaches that a rock band on an elevated stage is inappropriate for worship, that by itself makes them neither a fundamentalist nor a legalist.
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OPC guy,
That helps to clarify what you were trying to say- I get it now.
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Jody Killingsworth, and Hebrews 12:28-29 says “Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.” I know you can count the number you have used on one hand, but how does even one meet that standard?
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OPC guy, I’ve never met a self-described fundamentalist that wasn’t also a legalist (soft or hard), and I married into the IFCA.
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Jody, I agree: When Hank says “There’s no G– dang way a son of mine is getting a tattoo”, it’s blasphemous.
That’s intentional on the part of the producer, and it’s intended to raise this question:
Which is the worse blasphemy: to say God’s name as a curse, or to attach Jesus’ name to a fad, such that He becomes an embarrassing memory to be thrown into a box?
(Not accusing you of doing so; just explaining what the video is saying)
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>how does even one meet that standard?
Because sometimes even Nashville artists are Scriptural, Zrim.
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OPC Guy and John Yeazel,
Darryl’s parents went to Bob Jones. His squeamishness around guitars makes sense in light of this fact.
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Jody, I would imagine that you would draw stylistic lines also. Night-club crooning is clearly not able to convey any sense of reverence and awe, right? And we would never play Back in Black in a worship service, right?
So how do you and your band make those decisions? (Not a trick question. I have to make the same choices in my own church’s worship service)
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>Jody, I would imagine that you would draw stylistic lines also. Night-club crooning is clearly not able to convey any sense of reverence and awe, right? And we would never play Back in Black in a worship service, right?
Right. Sensuality has no place in Christian life or worship. The time already past is sufficient for us to have carried out such things.
>So how do you and your band make those decisions? (Not a trick question. I have to make the same choices in my own church’s worship service)
Carefully, prayerfully, pastorally. Remember that an abuse does not negate a use. Just because a guitar can be used for sensuality, doesn’t mean that’s all it’s good for.
Check out our recent EP “Glorious Things” for some examples of this: http://noisetrade.com/gloriousthings
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JRC: >So how do you and your band make those decisions? (Not a trick question. I have to make the same choices in my own church’s worship service)
Jody: Carefully, prayerfully, pastorally.
OK. So it would be fair to say that you do not have a strict objective rubric which you and I could both use to come to a definite decision on any given piece of music, right? We might agree on the Genevan Psalter (good) or Bohemian Rhapsody (not), but we might disagree on Shine Jesus Shine or Of the Father’s Love Begotten.
And the reason for that disagreement is that we are making judgment calls about theology and about style in relationship to culture and its relationship to reverence and awe in worship. Is that fair?
If you’re with me so far, then here’s the point of DGH’s post: if one exercises liberty with respect to the second commandment and the worship of God, then oughtn’t one also extend liberty with respect to the other commandments on matters not spelled out in Scripture? (WCoF 20)
For example: If Tim B has the freedom to worship using electric guitars — a matter not spelled out in Scripture, but which some find to be insufficiently reverent — then oughtn’t he extend the freedom to others to get a vasectomy, instead of trying to label that action as a “rejection of faith”, instead of removing the freedom of a Christian to make a judgment call on the matter?
I mean, yes, he has reasons (some very thoughtful) why a vasectomy might not be a good choice — but those reasons don’t rise to the level of good and necessary inference, and they aren’t accepted as such by the Church. So … why make vasectomies a matter of conscience?
I’m not trying to make you responsible for Tim’s pronouncements, but just to explain: Because many creational matters are not explicitly spelled out in Scripture, it is a serious thing to declare an action to be “a rejection of faith.”
If you can see that fact clearly in relationship to electric guitars in worship, then can you also see it in relationship to other matters?
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…sometimes even Nashville artists are Scriptural.
Maybe, Jody Killingsworth, pastor for worship at ClearNote Church, Bloomington. But what hath going down to the ghetto to do with being raised into the heavenlies?
http://www.baylyblog.com/2010/12/christmas-rapping-redemptive-historical-style.html#comments
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Jeff, you have to keep in mind that to refrain from protesting abortion clinics still rises to being “unfaithful.” Is it any wonder, then, that vasectomies (which is to say refraining from reproducing) are “a rejection of faith”?
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>what hath going down to the ghetto to do with being raised into the heavenlies?
Nothing and everything, Zrimmy.
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Jody,
You are still being vague in your accusation of Darryl being a fundamentalist simply because of a “squimishness for guitars” in worship. I doubt if the squimishness comes from the fact that his parents attended Bob Jones University. It probably has more to do with theological convictions about worship.
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>If you’re with me so far, then here’s the point of DGH’s post: if one exercises liberty with respect to the second commandment and the worship of God, then oughtn’t one also extend liberty with respect to the other commandments on matters not spelled out in Scripture? (WCoF 20)
Your logic would work better if Darryl Hart allowed for some liberty in regards to the application of the RPW, but seeing as he doesn’t…
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Well, I’m not DGH (just like you aren’t TB), and as one who *does* allow for (some) more liberty in regards to the application of the RPW, can you see my point?
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Maybe Paul should school Jody in the art of arguing effectively. I guess you should not expect any more from a “worship leader.”
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John Yeazel said, “I guess you should not expect any more from a ‘worship leader.'”
John, you don’t know what you are talking about. If Jody is just a “worship leader,” then you are just a grave digger.
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>I mean, yes, he has reasons (some very thoughtful) why a vasectomy might not be a good choice — but those reasons don’t rise to the level of good and necessary inference, and they aren’t accepted as such by the Church.
Jeff, they might not be accepted as such by the church *in our day,* but they have been accepted unanimously throughout all prior church history. You really should look into this, brother, because you’ll find that your claim here is unfounded. Unless, of course, you’re referring to the past 50 years, in which case all bets are off.
Yet, an appeal to history is by no means the ultimate argument to make against vasectomies. For that, we look to Scripture, which is exceedingly clear throughout concerning our covenant obligation to propagate a godly seed, the special blessings and promises associated with children, God’s basic delight in the principle of fruitfulness, the curses and sorrows associated with barrenness, the role of childbearing in effecting the salvation of our wives, and His general promise to sanctify us through suffering of all kinds, including the suffering that children bring into our lives (which was the point of David Bayly’s most recent post on the subject). Not to mention the example of ungodly Onan.
Scripture is not indifferent to vasectomy in the way it is to the electric guitar. Your attempt to assert this shows you lack a basic sense of proportion, and a knowledge of God’s Word.
By all means, Jeff, let’s have liberty where Scripture allows it. Indeed, we must have it there, or we go beyond Scripture. But where God has made Himself overwhelmingly clear, let’s have mutual submission and obedience, please.
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Stephan,
Her accusation that Darryl is a fundamentalist does not hold weight. Plus she called Zrim, Zrimmy. I don’t hold any delusions that I am much more important than a grave digger so your accusation does not offend me. Should I worry that my knees may be taken out with a baseball bat?
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Jody: Scripture is not indifferent to vasectomy in the way it is to the electric guitar.
Let’s get some basic facts on the ground, then.
* Are vasectomies forbidden in Scripture? (That is, by direct teaching?). No.
* Are vasectomies — or even contraception in general — forbidden in the creeds, confessions, or catechisms of the Reformed Churches? No.
That latter question is the benchmark, BTW, for what the church has historically taught, and for what qualifies as “good and necessary inference” from Scripture.
We as individuals might well be moved to make a vasectomy decision based on our covenant obligation to propagate a godly seed, or the special blessings and promises associated with children, etc.
But when we as elders go beyond this and attempt to legislate actions for others, making those actions a matter of faith or of sin, then the standard required in the Confession for our commands is “direct teaching or good and necessary inference from Scripture.”
That includes the command to worship in this way or that.
That includes the command to refrain from having a vasectomy.
It is plain to see that all of the considerations that you assert above — most of which are true — still do not add up to an Scriptural teaching that “vasectomy is an act of unbelief.”
For one thing, you leave out many considerations that also weigh in on the decision. Take a family with four children, two of whom are special-needs children. Have they already propagated a godly seed? Yes. In fact, have they already fulfilled all of the considerations you mentioned above? Yes, yes.
If they decide that providing for those children (per 1 Tim 5.8) means not having any more children, it’s hard to see how your command can possibly have any force.
For another, the nuanced and correct principle you expressed wrt style of music (carefully, prayerfully, pastorally) has flown out the window, and been replaced with a single, simple answer:
Don’t.
How can that be? What happened to carefulness? Lacking a direct command in Scripture, lacking the confessional confirmation that your reasoning is sound, how can you be so absolute in your command?
See, I look at WCoF 20.2 and say, Well, my conscience is certainly free from David Bayly’s post! (not Tim: sorry, man)
Sometimes I think we don’t take seriously enough the commands we give others — we throw around phrases like “act of unbelief” as if it were just a casual opinion.
But to do so cheapens the authority of elders of the Church and of the Scripture. Every surplus command we lay on others increases their visceral sense that the “authority of the Church” really means “my bully pulpit for my own opinions.” When we say Thus Saith the Lord, we need to be able to back it to the hilt.
*There* is a sense of proportion.
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Um, John, I’m fairly confident that Jody is a he.
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John Y, you could be right — “she” might have a very deep voice and be married to a man named Jenna, and be acceptable to the Baylys as a woman worship leader and a preacher at her church — but what are the odds of that?! p ~ 0
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Jody Killingsworth –
Jeff Cagle is right on in his comments above. God has made clear many things, but obtaining/performing a vasectomy is not one of them. We are to be fruitful, to be sure, but there is wide variation in what is fruitful. Some would say we are to be spiritually fruitful, but I agree with you and the Baylys (and perhaps most here) that we should be fruitful in childbearing as well. Being fruitful and obtaining a vasectomy are not mutually exclusive. A couple can bear 1 child and still be said to be fruitful, while others may have 10. God doesn’t say to have as many children as possible as often as we can, but simply to be fruitful. There is a wide degree of libery there, don’t you think?
And can’t we be fruitful and adopt? My wife and I have been blessed with children of our own, but we plan on adopting from India or preferably an Islamic nation as well. Isn’t that being fruitful without necessarily bearing natural children?
The point is that there is certainly Christian liberty when it comes to sterilization procedures. Declaring vasectomies a sign of unfaithfulness effectively adds to God’s Law, or at the very least restricts Christian liberty. That’s the beginning of the path to true legalism.
Dr. Hart’s main point in the post is well taken: the Baylys are willing to exercise liberty in some areas and not others, scrupulously guard some commandments but not all. And their obsession with sex continues.
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“But where God has made Himself overwhelmingly clear, let’s have mutual submission and obedience, please.”
Jody – since when does “vasectomy” mean “no children”? That’s how you’re taking this. I know, after having 2 boys, given my age, and given my economic realities, that we are done having children. I have considered a vasectomy. You’re arguments don’t speak to those circumstances.
“You can get the man out of Fundamentalism, but apparently you can’t get the Fundamentalism out of the man.”
I have a sneaking suspicion that legalistic ideas about music/culture is NOT at the heart (no pun intended) of DGH’s argument… I was raised in a legalistic and fundamentalist (baptist) church and soon after becoming a Calvinist started attending a SGM church (bet you have “Worship Matters” on your bookshelf). Now, I have seen the error of my ways regarding the style of music in worship. I have no legalistic qualms however about musical styles in general as I did in my fundy days. The charge is silly in my opinion.
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Dear DJ,
Why not rather trust God to give you the exact number of children you need, and the resources to provide for them? After all, “The blessing of the Lord maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow with it.”
Sincerely,
Jody
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Jody Killingsworth, pastor for worship at ClearNote Church, Bloomington:
If you set that sentiment to a rockin’ geetar riff (or, better, a rap) it would be so much more relevant.
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Jody,
God gives us wisdom too, right? The whole “trust the Lord” thing minus wisdom is not a good thing.
DJ
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Dear DJ,
Wisdom is derived from God’s Word, where children are unequivocally seen as a blessing from the Lord, and God is shown to be a faithful provider. Living by faith and exercising heavenly wisdom are never contradictory.
It’s not that there are never any circumstances in which non-abortive contraception could be a faithful act. But these circumstances are rare. I encourage you to prayerfully examine your motives here. The heart is deceitful above all things.
With love,
Jody
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Jody – just took a look at your church’s website. You claim to be confessional and that the Westminster Standards “are a true summary of what Scripture teaches”. But it seems apparent that something as a significant thing as the mode and timing of baptism is a “non-essential”. It also seems as though that tongues, etc. are “non-essential” and are OK being practiced by church members. Sounds pretty much like you guys want to be a Sovereign Grace Ministries church. Why not just join up with them instead of just copying them? I just left SGM to find what you guys are trying to not be. Seriously.
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Jody: It’s not that there are never any circumstances in which non-abortive contraception could be a faithful act.
Good, I’m glad we have agreement here.
Jody: But these circumstances are rare.
What would they include?
Jody: I encourage you to prayerfully examine your motives here. The heart is deceitful above all things.
Indeed, it is. Thank you for the reminder, for it is certainly possible that I’m stretching a theological point to cover over my unbelief. Of course, that could be true of you as well. Not saying it is, just reminding.
One of the things that Scripture explicitly warns us against is laying down rules for others in matters that are not explicitly laid out in Scripture (Rom 14). And another is the practice of the Pharisees, which was to create boundary rules around the real rules (No work on the Sabbath? OK, no healing on the Sabbath).
This is the dynamic that I see possibly in play here. Children are a blessing from the Lord? OK, no contraceptives.
The Scripture really does warn us about that practice.
Whereas, the Scripture does *not* warn against contraception …
I hope you can appreciate where I’m coming from. The motive is to resist the addition of man-made rules to God’s Word. Certainly not to resist the use of Scripture-informed wisdom (ask Zrim!) by individuals, but to resist the creation of rules by church authorities that become binding on others. As I read Scripture and the Confession, that’s a much bigger deal than contraception.
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Thanks for your concern, Jody. I think your being sincere. I have “considered” the procedure, but alas, couldn’t afford it if I wanted to. So, I will use wisdom and “try” to stay at 2 because I already am trusting God. If He decided to give us another, I will continue to trust.
BTW, I supposed you and your wife try to conceive every month, eh? You better be consistent in this pal.
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Jody – Just to clarify, that was not from your churches website, but from the main ClearNote website.
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Dear DJ,
Sovereign Grace wouldn’t have us. They’re credo-baptistic to the man. We’re committed to unity in spite of disagreements over time and mode, and existing Reformed denominations don’t know how to handle such a beast, even though there’s historical precedence for it (namely John Bunyan). They’re also principled charismatics, and we’re merely committed to not breaking fellowship over the cessationism/non-cessationism views, which is not at all the same thing.
>BTW, I supposed you and your wife try to conceive every month, eh? You better be consistent in this pal.
🙂 Yes, would you please pray for us, that we would have faith in this?
With love,
Jody
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Now listen, men. All your talk about church history being on your side just isn’t true. The early Fathers and the Reformed Fathers all found in the example of Onan God’s condemnation of conception control. If you didn’t know that, and assumed that since the confessions don’t address contraception directly that the Fathers were indifferent to it, then read David Bayly’s sermon on Onan from 2004 and stand corrected: http://www.baylyblog.com/2004/06/gods_no_to_birt.html
If you did know, then do us a favor, please, and be honest about the fact that you’re breaking with church history on this point.
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Whatever Onan’s sin may be, it is certainly a grave offense in the eyes of God. God puts him to death for it, causing him to join the select ranks of Nadab and Abihu…
As in the fellows who offered “strange fire” in God’s worship. So, Jody Killingsworth, pastor for worship at ClearNote Church, Bloomington, if the parallel is to violations of the RPW then what does that suggest about rocking and rapping in stated services, two forms of worship nowhere prescribed in holy writ?
But what I do find curious is how the same Protestants who are Catholic on contraception are also Pentecostal on worship. And this latter reality is why Reformed who are out of town on any given Lord’s Day must do their homework to find worship that is Reformed according to Scripture, something no Pentecostal has to do. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Shouldn’t a Pentecostal church be unpredictable and a Reformed one brutally predictable?
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Contrary to the standard RPW interpretation, Nadab and Abihu were guilty, not of inventing some new way of worshiping God, but of breaking God’s explicit command. Compare Leviticus 10:1 and Numbers 3:4 with Exodus 30:9.
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Jody: If you didn’t know that, and assumed that since the confessions don’t address contraception directly that the Fathers were indifferent to it.
I had not read Calvin’s commentary on Gen 38, and I can see that Calvin was not indifferent to it. He considered Onan’s actions to be equivalent to murder.
Where should we go with this thought?
After all, Calvin also believed that instruments — any instruments — in worship were an Old Testament ceremony and forbidden by virtue of 1 Cor 14.13 (see his commentary on Ps 71.22).
And many of the church fathers would condemn both you and me for singing other than Psalms in worship.
So it seems to me that we need to reckon with this question: What is the status of Calvin’s opinions wrt the Reformed faith? If you’re going to insist on Calvin in Gen 38, then you will have to insist on Calvin on Ps 71 also, and give up the guitars.
Or if you believe that Calvin’s views on Ps. 71 are not normative, then perhaps you will pardon me if I disagree with Calvin on Gen 38.
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For my part, I happen to believe that Calvin’s exegesis of Gen 38 is incorrect.
On a textual basis, the text of Gen 38 links the sin of Onan to the command given by his father, and not to his method of contraception. It’s not like Onan was the first or last to ever practice the withdrawal method; why then was he alone killed for it? That makes no sense.
But now, disobeying the command of Judah, and especially in the matter of continuing on Abraham’s covenant family — that would qualify as an offense.
(David B misses this point when he digresses into questions of Levirate laws. AFAIK, there weren’t death penalties issued for breaking the Levirate laws. There *were*, however, death penalties for disobeying parents, which really *is* a matter of breaking the moral law.
David B’s exegesis has another problem: God’s moral law is comprehended in the decalogue. Which of the 10 commandments is broken by contraception? If none, then …)
On a factual basis, Calvin was clearly working with the biology of his day: he views withdrawal as “killing” in the same way that he views abortion as “killing” (note his comments about women and the seed within them. We (you and I) don’t accept Calvin’s biology, and that affects our view of his conclusions. For Calvin, the sin of Onan was partly “horrible”, but mostly murder. For us, who understand better about conception and what does and does not qualify as a human being (distinct living human organism? Yes. Sperm? No), this interpretation is untenable.
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But the point here is not whether I’m right or you’re right about Gen 38.
The point is that the Reformed church has not seen fit to make this matter one of command despite the opinions of Calvin and Luther. And that silence should give us great pause before we rush to fill it.
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And, I should point out, a vasectomite doesn’t spill any seed. That’s as medical as I wish to get on this topic!
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Jody: Contrary to the standard RPW interpretation…
Ya lost me right there. If we’re going to appeal to the church fathers on the matter of birth control, then we need to show a little more respect on the matter of worship!!
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Jody, the big picture here is that our argument is asymmetrical. Because of WCoF 20.2, I need not prove absolutely that you are wrong. Rather, the burden is fully on you, the giver of the command, to show that it is a good and necessary inference from Scripture.
And here’s the problem. There’s plenty in Scripture to show that having a family is a good thing. But the whole case for the general ban on contraception, even in the context of already having a full family, rests on Onan.
And the text of Scripture simply does not say with definiteness what the exact sin was, that we might avoid it. Was it using a withdrawal method? You believe so … but the text doesn’t say. Was it disobeying his father? I believe so, and the text hints at it, but it’s not really definite.
There’s just not enough there to draw out a good and necessary inference for any command that we might give concerning Onan.
Does that make sense?
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>Does that make sense?
Not to any of the Fathers, apparently–early, Reformed, or otherwise. But to enlightened, decadent, Americans like us, sure. To us, for some inexplicable reason, it all makes perfect sense. Must be that we’re more godly than they were. Yep, I bet that’s it.
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Sorry Jody, I thought you were of the female persuasion. You still argue like a woman!!
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Jody K, you’re illustrating Dr. Hart’s and Jeff Cagle’s point perfectly with this little back and forth about church history. The problem is you and the Baylys appeal to church history on sterilization to support your lack of allowance for liberty, while at the same time completely ignore church history when it comes to worship. You argue against the RPW and Calvin on musical instruments, yet cite Calvin as an authority when it comes to dogmatically opposing sterilization. Which is exactly the point of the original post: the Baylys are completely inconsistent in their application of Christian liberty and in their application of the Decalogue. Which is it: do we limit commands to the clear teaching of Scripture and allow liberty of conscience in everything else (as you do for music styles in worship), or do we dogmatically follow Reformed tradition (as you claim to do for vasectomies and birth control)? It’s logically inconsistent to apply different standards to whatever teaching tickles your fancy.
In the Bayly schema (and I use that term generously, since they seem much more willing to criticize other beliefs than promote any of their own) egalitarians, those who practice birth control, and those who don’t actively protest abortion clinics are “unfaithful,” while those who speak in tongues during worship, forgo infant baptism, and promote paedo-communion are within bounds of orthodoxy. Baffling on so many levels..
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And now you’ve done it again with American culture: you employ modern American music in worship, yet denounce American culture as “decadent” and modern American interpretation of the Onan passage as pandering. Can’t have it both ways, Mr. Pastor for Worship…
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Contrary to the standard RPW interpretation, Nadab and Abihu were guilty, not of inventing some new way of worshiping God, but of breaking God’s explicit command…
How does this help your case, Jody Killingsworth, pastor for worship at ClearNote Church, Bloomington? Even if we grant that they weren’t specifically guilty of offering false worship (what do you think “strange fire” suggests?) and that they were generally guilty of disobedience then Onan was generally guilty of disobedience and not specifically of “Onanism.” I agree that both generally involve disobedience, but Nadab and Abihu clearly correspond specifically to the second commandment. What does Onan specifically correspond to?
Zeke, bingo.
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Jody, Tim and David Bayly are out of their minds — they admit it. So that’s why they tolerate guitars.
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Jeff, well done.
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>Can’t have it both ways, Mr. Pastor for Worship…
Actually, I’m convinced I can. But help me out here, Zeke, seeing as I don’t know you from Adam. Is what ClearNote does in worship something you oppose because of the RPW? If so, what is your preferred practice? Exclusive psalmody? Inclusive hymnody? A cappella only? Piano and organ only (as apposed to drums, bass, and guitars)? Rock band? CCM? What?
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Jody, and the follow up to this is that where Scripture is not clear, the church may not do it — that’s the regulative principle. But contemporary worship advocates flip this around and say that because the Bible is unclear about instruments or style (it is actually clear about style — reverence and awe), then we have freedom to use any instrument we want. Actually, we need a warrant from SCripture to use instruments. And the last time I checked, the Geneva church that Tim and David love to use against 2k didn’t have any instruments in worship.
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>What does Onan specifically correspond to?
To the 6th commandment, at least.
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Jody, will you really go to church history for vasectomy but not for music?
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Double Z, you da man!
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>But contemporary worship advocates
Darryl, I’d like to think we’re not your run-of-the-mill contemporary worship advocates. I was a concert level violinist (baroque and modern) before becoming a pastor, and received an MPhil in performance from the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, UK. My right hand man, Phil Moyer, is a Doctor of Music candidate at Indiana University in choral conducting. He has a Masters from Westminster Choir College, and worked under Dr. Paul Jones at Tenth Pres. for a time.
>But contemporary worship advocates flip this around and say that because the Bible is unclear about instruments or style (it is actually clear about style — reverence and awe)
The Bible’s clear about instruments–It would have us use them. And it’s clear about style in the sense that you’ve said. But what makes for reverence and awe, according to Scripture, is often surprising (if not offensive) to our white, upper-middle class sensibilities. It can involve shouting, dancing, resounding cymbals, hand clapping, hand raising, kneeling, sounds so loud that they’re heard a while off, and periods of group silence.
>the last time I checked, the Geneva church that Tim and David love to use against 2k didn’t have any instruments in worship.
Understandable, that, given the gross abuses of the late Medieval Church and the desperate need to clean house. A bit of seasonal over-correction, I think. Horton Davies’ book “The Worship of the English Puritans” is helpful in establishing some of the mis-appropriations of Calvin made by the Puritans in their application (creation?) of the RPW.
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>Jody, will you really go to church history for vasectomy but not for music?
Won’t you go to church history for music but not for vasectomy? When it comes to gauging relative importance and universality, my money’s on things pertaining to sex and procreation.
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Darryl, I vaguely recall a piece in the NTJ some years ago “In Praise of the Humble Condom,” or something like that. In light of all the sex talk it might be fun if you posted it on OldLife. Then again, from what I’ve read here tonight such an article probably embodies a rejection of the Christian faith so forget what I just said.
TurturroFan
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Jody Killingsworth, pastor for worship at ClearNote Church, Bloomington: if you want to suggest that Onan corresponds to the sixth in order to stay Catholic on contraception, fine. But doesn’t that mean you have to give up denying that Nadab and Abihu correspond to the second and stop being Pentecostal on worship?
When it comes to gauging relative importance and universality, my money’s on things pertaining to sex and procreation.
That does make sense, given ClearNote Fellowship’s statement on “gap issues,” namely that instead of the doctrine of justification, “the doctrine of man is central to the Christian faith.” It’s why the world is made safe not only for corrupt soteriology (FV) but also for corrupt worship. And this is what binds all new schoolers against old schoolers: evidently, on the spectrum of importance, how we are right with and relate to God is antiquated and open to interpretation but how we relate to one another is what’s relevant.
http://clearnotefellowship.org/WhoWeAre/DefiningPositions/GapIssues
BTW, I don’t have any problem with raising of hands or kneeling in worship, but it should be only in response to God’s bidding us through his ordained servant leading us in worship and when done in unison and with all reverence. Whatever other good this does, it rightly quash’s individualism, emotionalism and spontaneity.
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Jody, you’re operating in a target-rich environment, so you may not have had time to carefully consider some of the points above. If you would be so kind as to interact with the post at 7:14pm, that would be helpful.
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Zrim: What does Onan specifically correspond to?
Jody: To the 6th commandment, at least.
You mean the commandment against murder? I’m baffled. Exactly who was murdered?
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DGH: Jody, will you really go to church history for vasectomy but not for music?
Jody: Won’t you go to church history for music but not for vasectomy? When it comes to gauging relative importance and universality, my money’s on things pertaining to sex and procreation.
Be careful, brother. We aren’t talking about music in general, but music within worship. The topic is worship. It would be rather awkward to say that sex is more important and universal than worship, nicht wahr?
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Jody, the point about dueling church histories has to do with our theological method.
You make an argument that Calvin’s view on instruments was an overcorrection. I happen to agree with you. I even agree with you that the OT commands re: instruments are still normative for today.
But in our agreement, we also have to look at Calvin and recognize that he was a creature of his time, and that some (most!) of his opinions were better than (a few) others.
And those opinions that don’t make it into the creeds and confessions of the church have a lower confidence level, than those that did. Calvin’s opinions on election and justification and … ehem … union are attested in the confession and catechism. His opinions on instruments, and Onan, and the perpetual virginity of Mary are not.
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Jody K.,
I actually agree with you on worship – I believe musical instruments can be used in worship, and am by no means EP. In my view your methods in selecting music for worship are about right. I’m not criticizing your style of music in worship at all, though I agree with Dr. Hart that there should be reverence and awe in our worship (my personal perference is for select hymns and psalms).
And that’s where I think you’re missing the point here. The point isn’t music or contraception per se, but how you (and the Baylys) are inconsistent in what you consider to be a command vs. Christian liberty. You are willing to allow a wide latitude in terms of music style in worship, along with variation on a number of other issues including the sacraments. But when it comes to “being fruitful” you are extremely rigid and dogmatic, despite the fact that there is no clear Scriptural prohibition against vasectomy/sterilization, or contraception in general for that matter. At best the Bible is equally direct regarding musical styles and sterilization, and really it has much, much more to say about worship than contraception.
You have not made a convincing case that the Scriptural teaching on sterilization procedures is more clear than musical styles in worship – not to mention the sacraments and Apostolic gifts. You’re being inconsistent in how you apply Scriptural teaching as well as Reformed precedent to each issue. That’s the point we’re trying to make – I don’t think you’ve grasped that yet.
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Jody, let me get this straight. You on the one hand point to your white-upper middle class credentials as a trained musician — it’s not the rockers who are going to Manchester for an MPhil in music. And then with the back of the hand denounce those same cultural standards that say rock n roll inspired music is inferior to other forms of music. You really want it both ways and it always seem that both ways work to your convenience.
You sure are no run-of-the-mill contemporary worship advocate. You are seriously conflicted.
As for 2k, our concerns are not understandable despite the great abuses of state churches?
I sure wish you and the Baylys could find the wiggle room for others that you do for yourselves. We all have lots of issues to work through. But your pastors have been particularly scornful of the issues that others have.
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Jody, then you sure have found a church home if sex and procreation are the top items on your list of importance. I thought justification was the doctrine by which the church stood.
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Zrim, sorry to repeat your point. Lovely when Old Lifers think the same thoughts.
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Double Z, and to add to your point, the Baylys (and perhaps Jody) don’t seem to reflect on the Judaizing tendencies of their arguments and practice. They have arrived at certain positions that then achieve the status of the gospel or the proportions of orthodoxy. And that makes me wonder what they will think of the Mormons when it turns out the Latter Day Saints agree with them on procreation and the family.
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Zrim: “…that instead of the doctrine of justification.”
Darryl: “I thought justification was the doctrine by which the church stood.”
Very uncharitable of you both. Of course the church stands on Justification. But that’s not all it stands on. Who would say so? You would, I guess. Today, the church is standing proudly on Justification (laying garlands on the tombs of the dead prophets) while falling on a great many other crucial fronts, not the least of which is authority and sexuality which touches at least the Fatherhood of God, the authority of Christ over His Bride, and the doctrine of man.
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Actually, no. Feminism doesn’t “touch” these doctrines. It seeks to eviscerate them.
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>Zrim: What does Onan specifically correspond to?
>Jody: To the 6th commandment, at least.
>You mean the commandment against murder? I’m baffled. Exactly who was murdered?
Exactly who is murdered when you hate your brother? There’s far more application in the commands than you give them credit. Calvin says that Onan “murdered” his potential child, which is not unlike the Lord saying we “murder” our brother when we hate him without cause, are guilty before the Law.
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>DGH: Jody, will you really go to church history for vasectomy but not for music?
>Jody: Won’t you go to church history for music but not for vasectomy? When it comes to gauging relative importance and universality, my money’s on things pertaining to sex and procreation.
>Be careful, brother. We aren’t talking about music in general, but music within worship. The topic is worship. It would be rather awkward to say that sex is more important and universal than worship, nicht wahr?
No, not even, Jeff. We’re talking about the tiny and comparatively insignificant question of what particular instruments may be used to support congregational singing in worship, when singing is itself a relatively small part of our worship. And yes, of course this pales in comparison to the church embracing the mainstreaming of our culture’s rebellion against the procreative purpose of sexuality.
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Zeke: “I actually agree with you on worship…”
I was starting to suspect as much. That’s neat that we agree and all, but it does make you something of an anomaly in this debate. R2K wants the law to apply only in worship, and never outside of it. I want it to apply where it applies in worship and where it applies outside too. You seem to want the Christian liberty to overwhelm both spheres.
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Jody: Calvin says that Onan “murdered” his potential child
Exactly. And Calvin, unlike us, believed that the child was formed when a seed from a man, which he considered to already be a human being, was implanted in a woman and grew inside of her.
We, on the other hand, understand that there are millions of sperm involved in every act of intercourse; only one or two of them at most will fertilize an egg. None of those sperm by themselves are an actual human being. The woman is not simply a container for the man’s child; she actually contributes 50% of the genetic material in the creation of that child.
And most importantly, we understand that the human being does not exist until the egg is fertilized.
That’s basic biology, which Calvin did not have access to. He’s wrong on the facts: the child does not exist to be murdered until fertilization takes place.
If you’re going to say that every sperm is potential human being who should not be murdered, then you’re going to end up in ridiculous-land. (Do we have to collect *all* the sperm and give them homes?!)
And if you’re going to say that preventing a human being from ever existing is the same as murder, then you’re going to end up in an equally ridiculous spot. (Just think of the potential human beings that could exist if only we forced teenagers marry to as soon as they’re fertile!)
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But you still haven’t addressed the exegetical point. There isn’t much in Gen 38 that specifies what the exact offense was, is there?
The most likely candidate is vv. 8-9a, which clearly frames Onan’s action in terms of disobedience to Judah’s command; but even that is indefinite.
So where is the good and necessary inference? There can be none.
And that’s the point. Because of the circles you run in, the anti-contraceptive interpretation makes sense to you. And because of the moral angst associated with it, you are seemingly not able to step back and address the objective question, “What can we properly deduce from this passage?”
The objective answer is, “Not much.” That’s just a matter of simple logic.
Calvin had an opinion? Yes. Was it shaped by his cultural influences and limited knowledge of human reproduction? Absolutely — because it sure wasn’t shaped by the text!
And that’s the distinction between the pious opinions of men on the one hand, and good and necessary inference on the other.
You’re clearly very zealous about this; don’t let your zeal cloud the intellect. Separate what the passage actually says from what others whom you trust say about the passage.
Perhaps you think of yourself as upholding the truth of Scripture against the culture-corrupted liberals. But rest assured that the others involved in this conversation are equally committed to upholding the truth of Scripture against a different kind of cultural corruption: Confusing the word of man with the word of God.
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Jody: That’s neat that we agree and all, but it does make you something of an anomaly in this debate. R2K wants the law to apply only in worship…
Just FYI, you have several parties in this debate. DGH and I are public in our disagreement over the nature of 2K theology, and over the applications of the law in the public square.
For my part, I believe Scripture ought to be used by individuals to guide their behavior in the public square; but church elders are limited in the commands they may issue by the Strict Scrutiny test of WCoF 20.2.
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JRC: >Be careful, brother. We aren’t talking about music in general, but music within worship. The topic is worship. It would be rather awkward to say that sex is more important and universal than worship, nicht wahr?
Jody: No, not even, Jeff. We’re talking about the tiny and comparatively insignificant question of what particular instruments may be used to support congregational singing in worship, when singing is itself a relatively small part of our worship. And yes, of course this pales in comparison to the church embracing the mainstreaming of our culture’s rebellion against the procreative purpose of sexuality.
Why?
*IF* the anti-guitar crowd is right, then instruments in worship are blasphemous. That’s more important that procreation.
You see the question as insignificant because you assume a particular answer. But if your answer is wrong, then the question becomes much more significant.
So no, I think you’ve misread the relative importance here. Getting worship right is more important than getting sex right. And certainly, getting worship music right is more important than telling people whether or not they may get vasectomies.
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I wasn’t clear enough here.
Jody: To the 6th commandment, at least.
JRC: You mean the commandment against murder? I’m baffled. Exactly who was murdered?
Jody: Exactly who is murdered when you hate your brother? There’s far more application in the commands than you give them credit.
When you hate your brother, you murder your brother.
When you fail to ever create a child, there is no child to be murdered. We might say, “There could have been a child, and you murdered your hypothetical child.”
But the could-have-beens are contained within God’s providence. I *could* have married someone else entirely, and had completely different children. I *could* have been Mormon, and had many more children. I could have been promiscuous and had even more children.
If our view is that failing to create a child is tantamount to murder, then my choice to marry my wife and not another, or to not be polygamous, or to not be promiscuous, is murder. That’s Clearly Nonsense.
Within God’s providence, none of those things happened, and the hypothetical children that might have been are merely hypotheticals.
It is impossible to murder a hypothetical.
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Jeff Cagle –
Your last 3 posts are right on. Very well said.
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We’re talking about the tiny and comparatively insignificant question of what particular instruments may be used to support congregational singing in worship, when singing is itself a relatively small part of our worship.
Jody, now you seem to be suggesting that music is only one part of worship. I actually agree with this. But then why does a church need someone with your musical pedigree? That seems to suggest that the one element of worship called singing is in point of fact so important that a church needs its own specially appointed “worship leader” who knows as much about music as a pastor does about theology; it’s why “worship” and “music” seem to be synonymous terms in the collective consciousness. So when I say music is important I mean something about faithfulness and obedience in worship, as in Reformed according to Scripture. Your circumstance seems to suggest it has to do with doing music well, as in meeting the particular musical felt needs of those who think “worship” and “music” are indeed coterminus.
But then all of this doxological latitudinarianism is excused because of “our culture’s rebellion against the procreative purpose of sexuality.” Huh? So, because society has sex wrong it means God’s worship can be broad? What does one thing have to do with the other? I’m sorry, but you speak exactly like my mega-church funda-evangelicals who also seem to think culture war is way more important than God’s worship. But have either of you considered–but especially you given your appeal to church history they typically don’t care about–that the wider world has always had plenty of creational norms confused? It was confused during the Reformation, and yet the Reformation was about reforming doctrine and worship. Indeed, if we want to go to Calvin to make the case, he says in “The Necessity of Reforming the Church” that when it comes to faithfulness the reform of worship came before even justification: “First, of the mode in which God is duly worshipped; and second of the source from which salvation is to be obtained.” Where is there anything in the reformers about straightening out the culture at the expense of God’s worship?
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J. Cagle say, “(Do we have to collect *all* the sperm and give them homes?!)”
Oh no, I have a Monty Python song playing on the i-Pod in my brain!
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“>You mean the commandment against murder? I’m baffled. Exactly who was murdered?
“Exactly who is murdered when you hate your brother? There’s far more application in the commands than you give them credit. Calvin says that Onan “murdered” his potential child, which is not unlike the Lord saying we “murder” our brother when we hate him without cause, are guilty before the Law.”
Mr. JKPWCCB., I will admit to being the dullest bulb in this very well-lit com-box, but even I can see that this is a dodge, no? Mr. Cagle’s question was very precise, but your answer was not. Try again, please.
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TFan (the other one), “No, no, children, my mind is made up: I’m afraid it’s scientific experimentation for the lot of you.”
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Jeff: “*IF* the anti-guitar crowd is right, then instruments in worship are blasphemous.”
That doesn’t really follow. You could say, “If the the anti-INSTRUMENT crowd is right, then…” Or, “If the anti-guitar crowd is right, then GUITARS in worship are blasphemous.” If you’re going with the first argument, then fine. God bless you. But if the second, then you need to provide more than assertions based in personal prejudice. If Godly worship–reverence and awe–stands or falls with guitars, then prove it from Scripture, or a confession, or something more significant than your personal tastes.
And I threw in my musical credentials only to show that I know what excellence is as well as the next man, and it’s vastly overrated. Humility and simplicity with an eye to the common man are the hallmarks of godly worship. Organs, pianos, and 4-part harmony are of the stuff educated white people like, and signal to the poor that they have no place among among us.
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Jeff: “*IF* the anti-guitar crowd is right, then instruments in worship are blasphemous.”
That doesn’t really follow. You could say, “If the the anti-INSTRUMENT crowd is right, then…” Or, “If the anti-guitar crowd is right, then GUITARS in worship are blasphemous.” If you’re going with the first argument, then fine. God bless you. But if the second, then you need to provide more than assertions based in personal prejudice. If Godly worship–reverence and awe–really stands or falls with guitars, then prove it from Scripture, or a confession, or something more significant than your personal tastes.
And I threw in my musical credentials only to show that I know what excellence is as well as the next man, and it’s vastly overrated. Humility and simplicity with an eye to the common man are the hallmarks of godly worship. Organs, pianos, and 4-part harmony are of the stuff educated white people like, and signal to the poor that they have no place among among us.
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Jody, yes, my term “anti-guitar crowd” was the first, a reference to the anti-instrument folk. Sorry if it was confusing.
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Which are you, then, Jeff? Anti-instruments? Pro-instruments? Conflicted?
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Zrim: Ha! And MP back at you: “That’s what being a Protestant’s all about. That’s why it’s the church for me.” A similar emphasis on sex as being the thing the church is all about, but for somewhat different motivations, I suppose!
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Jody, my post on June 9, 5:22am makes my position clear.
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Okay, then why on earth you would argue above as if the question of instruments in worship wasn’t settled? Why would you say, “if the anti-instrument crowd is right…”? They’re not right, and you agree they’re not right! So what gives?
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>When you fail to ever create a child, there is no child to be murdered. We might say, “There could have been a child, and you murdered your hypothetical child.”
That is, in fact, exactly what Calvin is saying, dude.
>But the could-have-beens are contained within God’s providence.
What’s not contained within God’s providence? This is sophistry. Men are still accountable for sin, even though God’s purposes cannot be thwarted. That’s like something we learn in reformed doctrine 101. It’s all through Scripture, starting with Adam.
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Jody: Okay, then why on earth you would argue above as if the question of instruments in worship wasn’t settled?
There are two parts to a question: the answer, and the stakes involved. I am reasonably confident (though not certain) that instruments should be used in worship.
But the stakes involved are a question of whether or not instruments are blasphemous.
Meanwhile, I am reasonably confident that vasectomies are not automatically acts of unbelief.
The stakes involved are whether or not failing to conceive is a violation of the 6th Commandment.
Duty to God v. duty to man. It’s clear which is greater.
—
JRC: >When you fail to ever create a child, there is no child to be murdered. We might say, “There could have been a child, and you murdered your hypothetical child.”
Jody: That is, in fact, exactly what Calvin is saying, dude.
Yes. And he’s incorrect on this, as I then go on to argue …
—
Jody, at this point you seem to be nibbling at the edges instead of directly confronting the main argument. Here it is:
It is impossible to murder a hypothetical person. Therefore, a vasectomy is not a 6th Commandment issue. It is not a matter of sin.
If you want to refute that argument, then that will be worthwhile. Otherwise, we should probably leave off.
I have no need to be reminded that men are still accountable for sin. The issue is whether or not sin is actually committed. I maintain that if there is no actual person in existence, then it is impossible to sin against that person.
—
Just so you know: I’ve promised my wife to leave off theological blogging for the summer when my school year ends — which is today. So I won’t be engaging after today, and it’s not personal.
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Jody, where’s the charity in your estimation of the contemporary churches?
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Jody, try to get 2k right. The law applies outside of worship to believers. I’m not sure if your concern for the second table extends to the first table. I believe the entire law. Do you?
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Jody, and what do electric guitars, music stands, microphones, and buildings communicate to poor people who have none of these things? Come on! Your identification with the common man — which is not exactly synonymous with poverty — is incredibly selective, sort of like your reading of the law and of the cultural landscape.
Sorry to be so blunt, but if you’re going to stand up for Tim and David, you better come prepared for the ruffled feathers.
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>”(Calvin’s) incorrect on this”
Let’s say you’re right, Jeff, and Calvin is wrong to call Onan’s sin murder. What have you to say of all the other Fathers who have opposed contraception with this text throughout history? That they laid on men’s necks (though perhaps unwittingly…after all, they were working with a deficient understanding of biology!) a legalistic burden none could bear, which we, in our enlightened day have the pleasure of casting off?
And, I’ll point out, there is nothing like their unanimity when it comes to the question of instruments in worship. Not even close. Lot’s of debate, but no unanimous witness.
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Jody, actually, I was pretty surprised at the large number of *Reformed* voices (not Lutheran) who opposed instruments in worship.
But that’s neither here nor there. The point is that you have the freedom to disagree with them. It is given to the church, NOT individual theologians, to make determinations which, if consonant with the Word, are to be received with reverence and submission (WCoF 31).
Individual theologians can help clarify, stimulate, even persuade; but if they don’t persuade, then they don’t persuade.
In fact, even if the church were to rule in a manner contrary to Scripture, then it still would not be binding (though that’s not at issue here).
Jody: What have you to say of all the other Fathers who have opposed contraception with this text throughout history? That they laid on men’s necks (though perhaps unwittingly…after all, they were working with a deficient understanding of biology!) a legalistic burden none could bear, which we, in our enlightened day have the pleasure of casting off?
Yes, I would say pretty much that, though they didn’t address the question of vasectomies.
Why is that a problem? Calvin has a certain interpretation of Scripture, based on an obviously faulty understanding of the facts on the ground. Why insist on retaining it?
William a Brakel insisted on geocentrism (Christian’s Reasonable Service, Ch. 8). Should we join him because he was a respected Reformed theologian?
Likewise, Calvin believed that the “seed of the man” was a little human being. Were he to be correct, then contraception would be murder; but since he wasn’t, it isn’t.
This isn’t hard!
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DGH says “Jody, and what do electric guitars, music stands, microphones, and buildings communicate to poor people who have none of these things?”
They communicate something very different from string quartets, pipe organs and Gregorian chant.
Darryl, what do bow ties, tweed jackets and briar pipes communicate to poor people who have none of these? Anything?
Jeff Cagle– Can you think of any example where a vasectomy WOULD be a sin? Any example at all?
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>It is given to the church, NOT individual theologians, to make determinations
Jeff, you’ve heard of the Synod of Dort, right? Would you consider any doctrines they formulated at all binding?
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Andrew, duh.
The only thing I want to chant are the psalms. I don’t need a guitar or organ for that.
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Sorry for being late to the party, but, Jody, what is a “pastor for worship?” I’m familiar with ruling elders, teaching elders (pastors), evangelists, and deacons – where does a pastor for worship fit in?
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Jody K said: “And, I’ll point out, there is nothing like their unanimity when it comes to the question of instruments in worship. Not even close. Lot’s of debate, but no unanimous witness.”
That statement is not true at all. Tell me which Reformed leaders prior to the late 19th century advocated the use of musical instruments in worship. There may be a couple, but I can’t think of any off-hand. In the last 100-150 years that began to change, about the same time views on contraception/sterilization changed. Every major Reformed confession adheres to the RPW, and the vast majority of the authors opposed instruments in worship. To try to paint the issue as a hotly debated topic among the Reformed Fathers is fallacious.
And to buttress Jeff Cagle’s point on biological understanding, remember that until the late 17th century sperm had never been described before, and even then it was thought that sperm were little humans until the 19th century. Until that point it was thought that all these little humans died if they didn’t land and grow in the womb. So the historical Christian basis for opposing sterilization was flawed understanding of biology. No such claim can be made about musical instruments.
Jody K., even though your logic is poor and your reasoning deeply flawed, I admire you for coming here and continuing the discussion with people who clearly don’t agree with you – as the drill sergeant says of Private Joker in Full Medal Jacket: “he’s silly and he’s ignorant, but he’s got guts.” You are man enough to stick to your guns in hostile territory, so to speak, which is something the Baylys never do. They hide on their own blog where they can delete, edit, and ban without having to really face tough scrutiny. You’ve displayed more moxie than they ever have.
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I’m an assistant pastor (teaching elder), whose primary (but not only) duties consist of planning and leading worship services, overseeing all music programs, discipling musicians (IU Jacobs School of Music is in town), and composing and arranging hymns and psalm settings. No principle really, just an attempt to explain to people what I do in the main. Apparently a failed one, here.
Why do you call yourself “Michael Mann” instead of just Michael Mann? Is that some kind of new and ironic hipster trend?
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>To try to paint the issue as a hotly debated topic among the Reformed Fathers is fallacious
I never said “among the Reformed Fathers,” did I.
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Jody, I can’t compete with the novelty of a music pastor so you’ve got me there. How would your church respond if a member said “I’ve searched the pastoral epistles and the rest of the scriptures, and I don’t see anything like a music pastor. It bothers me during worship and it bothers me when I put money in the collection plate?”
I’m not seminary-trained like you but I’ve probably read more theological material than most lay people. I’ve never seen anything about music ministers, at least not in the reformed tradition of which I am most familiar. Of course, I’m not as well read on the newest, hippest literature of the last couple decades, so maybe, as you say, there is some irony in my hip name.
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Michael, the phenomenon of the “worship pastor” seems to dovetail with that of the “worship team” which seems pretty medieval conceptually where a special group of people worship on behalf of the common people. Think choirs and choir leaders. And it all dovetails nicely with the evangelical (read: modern medievalism) concept of worship-as-glorified-entertainment.
But, Jody, I suppose it makes sense that the one who goes to church history to make the dubious case that sperm are fully human also sees in that same history that cultural reform was at least as important as ecclesiastical reform. Be that as it may, I’d like to put Zeke’s plaudits to the test and see if you’d have enough moxie to admit some co-belligerence with the evangelical religious right who not only have worship teams and pastors but also seem to think that cultural reformation is at least as important as ecclesiastical faithfulness.
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Zrim, you beat me to the tie-in part of this.
Jody, I’d still like to know how you would respond to the conscientious objector to the office of music pastor, but I’ll just bottom line where I am otherwise headed in this. That, is the music pastor is just your “good idea,” not a scriptural office. Likewise, your ideas on conception are based on your philosophy or “good idea.” But here’s the rub: you don’t have a right to impose your good ideas on others. If there is a disproportion between the strength of your scriptural argument and your admancy, it’s time for a self-check to figure out what’s really going on.
So, what’s going on?
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“I never said “among the Reformed Fathers,” did I.”
Come on Jody, is this really an argument you want to make? Sure Roman Catholics were all for instruments, as were Eastern Orthodox churches, as well as Methodists and a host of other denominations. You claim to be a TE ordained in, presumably, the PCA, which a is a Reformed denomination that subscribes to the WCF – as a Reformed blog, that’s sort of the context of the discussion. Are you influenced by RC teaching as much as Reformed? That’s troublesome, but does explain your firm defense of instruments and dogmatic denouncement of vasectomies.
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Well, I’ve never heard anybody challenge it. But if they did, I’d say…
Jody: Michael, I’m a pastor before I’m a musician. We are blessed to have six pastors on staff here, each with similar, yet unique gifts. I have a background in music, so I bring those skills to work with me, and try to use them for your spiritual good. None of the other pastors have anything like my musical training (not to mention my golden voice! Joke.), so naturally, the job of leading the singing and band fell to me.
Which leads me to my next point, Michael. Worship has historically been the led by pastors. Did you know that? The whole culture of the worship leader is a recent phenomenon. Now, that’s actually not entirely true. The church throughout the ages has had men who were hired to lead the singing. They were called variously cantors, precentors, capellmeisters, and song leaders. But still, there’s a whole culture that has developed around the “worship leader” today that we think is flawed.
That’s because we recognize in Scripture (Eph 5:19; Col 3:16) that singing has not only a vertical function (praise), but also a horizontal function (teaching and admonishing). That means it’s part of the teaching ministry of the church. Now, tell me, Michael, who Biblically speaking is responsible for the teaching ministry of the church? Who holds the office of teacher?
Michael: The pastor?
Jody: That’s right, Michael, the pastor. So, since the song of the church has a teaching function, we believe that it needs to be under the authority of pastors. Now, I don’t think that means every church has to have a “music pastor,” per se. But why would we go out an hire a music minister when we have a pastor who can do that for us? That would be crazy, wouldn’t it?
Now, there’s a lot more to worship than singing, of course. It’s hard for us today to think this way, because of how often worship and music are used synonymously. Again, that goes back to that whole “worship leader” culture I was talking about. But, everything we do in service is worship. Praying, singing, confessing, communing, baptizing, Scripture reading, and yes, preaching. It’s all worship.
Now, you’ve noticed probably that we’ve recently changed how we do communion. You’ve noticed that, right?
Michael: Yes.
Jody: The elders used to pass plates and trays around while everyone stayed seated in a kind of gloomy silence, right? And now what do we do?
Michael: We come forward and receive communion from the pastors and elders personally.
Jody: Yes. And do you like it?
Michael: O yes! It’s really changed the whole experience from one of quiet and moody personal introspection, to one of joy and community. I like that we sing together as we do it. I like that the pastors and elders look me in the eye and speak words of assurance to me. I like that they allow us to bring our kids up to the front to be blessed. It’s really great!
Jody: Well, Michael, that’s an example of the kind of thing I do around here. I proposed that change to the elders. After a couple of months of debating they agreed to give it a try. I worked with the deacons to make the necessary preparations. I had those cups (chalices) hand made by Jennie Sue’s father. Did you know he’s a potter?
Michael: No.
Jody: Yes, and aren’t they beautiful?
Michael: Yes, they are!
Jody: Michael, what I’m saying is there’s a lot that goes into a service of worship. A lot of behind the scenes work. Many volunteers are involved and they have to be organized and shepherded. There’s the band that needs to be rehearsed and shepherded. The service has to be planned, or course. The songs have to be chosen. The scriptures. There’s a lot. All that work is pastoral work. And I do it so that Pastor Tim can come and preach to and shepherd the flock without having to carry all that too.
I do get to preach sometimes, too. This coming Lord’s Day, in fact. It’s Pentecost Sunday and I’ll be preaching on the New Birth from John 3…
etc.
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Michael, you’ve been fashioned into a compliant and submissive hand puppet. Welcome to Bloomington.
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Jody, where is the common touch in this, the identification with the poor? A pastor is not common or poor (generally).
Which is to say, I’d still like you to address your selective appeal to egalitarianism when arguing against “traditional” — that is, non-praise band — music. It does seem that you and the Baylys like hierarchy in office, and you seem to think your musical training makes you a kind of expert. But when I lament the declining cultural standards that come with praise bands, you accuse the traditionalists of elitism.
Wow!
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>You claim to be a TE ordained in, presumably, the PCA, which a is a Reformed denomination that subscribes to the WCF – as a Reformed blog, that’s sort of the context of the discussion.
It wasn’t the context for my point, though. Which was that the ENTIRE witness of the historical church, from its beginning up to the 1930s, has been one of unified witness against contraceptives, pointing to Onan and many other passages. The question of musical instruments in worship has not enjoyed anything like that unanimity historically.
>Are you influenced by RC teaching as much as Reformed?
C didn’t become RC until it did. Before that it was just C. The Reformers (the good ones) didn’t mind claiming C wherever they found it to agree with Scripture. I don’t either.
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Yeah, Zrim, kind of like the Jedi mind trick. Maybe Yankees fans are weak-minded like that.(Oops, I forgot to stop channeling Bernard.)
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Darryl, you entirely miss the point of Jody bringing up his musical training and background. Rather than saying “I’m just some guy with a guitar and I like praise band music because I can’t play anything else,” he’s making the point that the musicians here at Clearnote Church aren’t a bunch of hacks who default to modern styles because they don’t have any taste for anything else. Can someone be highly trained and experienced and yet not be an elitist? Sure. Could someone also be completely untrained, but an elitist nonetheless due to their pretensions and tastes? Certainly.
“Michael Mann,” an ordained pastor whose job is to lead and direct the corporate worship of the church is a far cry from the modern conception of a “Worship Leader.”
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Jason, I’m going to receive your earlier self-description as truthful: you are a music (worship) pastor. I am going to assume your musical qualification is a “sine qua non” of your employment, and your church would hire another music specialist if you left. If this is the case, you are not like any average pastor selecting hymns, but essentially fill a novel office based on need. I say that when a church creates a new office to fill a need, it needs to re-evaluate its concept of “need.” In this case it needs to re-evaluate its understanding of music in the church.
Andrew, it is enough for a pastor to select hymns and sing with the rest of the congregation. Where did Paul tell Timothy how to “lead and direct” music?
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…an ordained pastor whose job is to lead and direct the corporate worship of the church is a far cry from the modern conception of a “Worship Leader.”
Not really, at least not when that ordained pastor is musically pedigreed. Then it’s more like a “modern worship leader who is pedigreed.” The underlying assumption is the same: worship and music are synonymous, or as Bob Godfrey once said music is the new sacrament, such that worship cannot be said to be happening without music (as opposed to singing). So the pedigreed modernist can look down their noses all they want at the un-pedigreed mosdernist (and vice versa), but they both have more in common than either would be willing to admit. They are categorically opposed to the traditionalist who looks askance at this fixation on music.
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Can’t spend a lot of time responding to everything I want to, but there is one important point that I’d like to make.
DGH’s beef is with music that isn’t aesthetically pleasing to his high-brow tastes. Thus, the money-line in the post: “When the guitars come out, this aging boomer melts down.”
Why DGH!, I’m surprised at you! Don’t you know that the closest instrument today to the lute is the guitar? “<> 1 It is good to give thanks to the LORD And to sing praises to Your name, O Most High; 2 To declare Your lovingkindness in the morning And Your faithfulness by night, 3 With the ten-stringed lute and with the harp, With resounding music upon the lyre.” –Psalms 92:1-3
Also, for the record, Jody is poor. Thought you should know that.
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Oops. Blog doesn’t like brackets. Inside the brackets it said:
“A Psalm, a Song for the Sabbath day.”
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Zrim, you’re the one who has a fixation on music. If the difference between an ordained TE who plans and directs the services of the church week by week, and a college aged dude with an acoustic guitar who leads praise songs is lost on you, the only thing left to say is– please stop being obtuse.
Out of curiosity, what would you all think about modern Reformed Christians working to complete a set of Revised Westminster Standards? Since many of you clearly think that the historical position on contraception is woefully out of date, you would support an effort to update Westminster. Right?
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Andrew, and you’ve missed my point. If you are musically trained, you know what is fitting sound doctrine and congregational song. In which case, musical training actually can size up a congregation and figure out what they can sing. Most contemporary worship songs are not singable, which is why they need leaders. Anyone with theological training, knows that contemporary songs are not fitting sound doctrine.
But then you and Jody want to appeal to the egalitarian trope of the poor and common man. It is the same impulse behind the arguments of women and minorities who eschewed Dead White European Men. I’m shocked, shocked, that egalitarianism is coming from folks at such hierarchical congregations as the Baylys run.
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Joseph, is Jody on welfare? Why doesn’t the church pay the man? Why don’t the brothers Bayly take a reduction in salary?
And here’s the rub: I like rock and I like good rock. Why on this trip I packed favorite cds from Yes, U2, and Radio Head. Like I say, I like rock and Christians don’t rock. So why offer up to the people inferior contemporary music? Which is a very different question from whether rock is a fitting vehicle, whether sung by Bono or Larry Norman, for offering praise to God.
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Andrew, we have updated the Westminster Standards. Did so in 1788. They are now 2k. Pass along the word to Tim and David Bayly. But, the part about exclusive psalmody is still in tact. Go figure.
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Andrew, you may be right about obstuseness, but I’m not sure it’s me. I also agree with Thomas Oden that a Fundamentalist and a Liberal are two sides of a skewed modernist coin and both are categorically different from a confessionalist. There’s a 2k point in there. Same here, and I quite expect the same furled brow when I suggest that two groups who think they are so different are really very similar. Almost like Catholics and Anabaptists.
But my point wasn’t about a difference between an ordained elder/pastor and a geetar dude; it was between an ordained elder planning and leading divine services and un/pedigreed modern worship leaders. Pastors are ordained in the ministry of Word and sacrament, not Word and sacrament and music.
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DGH, not to put to fine a point on it, but the tunes you sing the Psalms to are modernized, and you would refuse to worship with King David, (who wrote most of them) because he would dare to use a guitar as accompaniment.
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I just wanted to say after watching the clip that I liked Hank’s line of “you’re not making Christianity any better, you’re making rock n roll worse”. I think I’ve had a similar thought.
Thanks for the post Mr. Hart. It helped remind me we often do put more weight in the second table of the law while being less offended when the first 4 commandments get broken.
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“Anyone with theological training, knows that contemporary songs are not fitting sound doctrine.”
Darryl, you’ve asserted this before, and you don’t explain why. WHY is this so plain to anyone with any theological training?
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Joseph, like your uncle and father, you know only second hand what I think. I’ve advocated chanting psalms.
BTW, Calvin would not use a guitar so he wouldn’t be singing with king David because Christ came and ended the OT pattern of worship (not to mention the OT pattern of civil government).
But since the Baylys are out of their minds. . .
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Andrew, because Paul talks about virtues in Titus 2 fitting sound doctrine — self-control, discipline, moderation — that we have not come to associate with rock-n-roll, whether lite or hard.
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Darryl, you conveniently change your terms and definitions as you go.
Contemporary music does not necessarily mean rock n’ roll. The two are not synonymous.
You assert that rock n’ roll doesn’t fit with sound doctrine due to its associations. Is the issue the instruments themselves, the beat, or what? Just the associations?
You say “I advocate chanting the psalms” to make people believe what exactly? That you don’t have a dog in this fight?
Guitars are used in many styles besides rock n’ roll. Why do you fixate on guitars?
Where did these chant melodies that you like come from?
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“Why DGH!, I’m surprised at you! Don’t you know that the closest instrument today to the lute is the guitar? “ 1 It is good to give thanks to the LORD And to sing praises to Your name, O Most High; 2 To declare Your lovingkindness in the morning And Your faithfulness by night, 3 With the ten-stringed lute and with the harp, With resounding music upon the lyre.” –Psalms 92:1-3”
So, Joseph Bayly, if Psalm 92 gives the normative practice for worship, then shouldn’t we pray for the destruction of the wicked? When’s the last time someone at your church stood up and prayed specifically that, say, homosexuals “perish?” Assuming you consider homosexuals wicked – as certainly Tim and David Bayly do – then during Sunday worship shouldn’t you pray for them to be destroyed? If we’re going to be faithful shouldn’t we pray for the killing of abortion providers and praise God when they are killed? That is, after all, what David does in a song for the Sabbath.
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Zeke, you’re willing to sing Psalm 92 but not pray it? Or maybe you’ll sing it but not mean it? I don’t get it. Are you arguing that the psalms are too outdated or something?
DGH, I wasn’t aware that it is possible to engage in a conversation second-hand. Actually, you aren’t advocating exclusive unaccompanied psalmnody here. You’re arguing against guitars in worship because you have a personal prejudice against them. Otherwise your post would be very different. That’s why the money quote is your admission that it is *guitars* particularly that bother you.
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>Zeke, you’re willing to sing Psalm 92 but not pray it? Or maybe you’ll sing it but not mean it? I don’t get it. Are you arguing that the psalms are too outdated or something?
Joseph, this kind of absurdity is all through attempts to discredit contemporary music. It’s like there’s one real conviction–that contemporary instruments are bad! And from there they grasp backward to whatever principles would seem to prove it, even when those principles end up being self-defeating, or they don’t actually own them themselves. It’s wacko.
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Joseph Bayly and Jody K,
The point isn’t that you’re for musical instruments in worship, it’s how you reach that conclusion. I agree that musical instruments can be used in worship and still be in line with the RPW. I agree with you on that point. I’m not arguing against your beliefs as much as I’m arguing at how you arrive at them. You quote Psalm 92 as if to say that since the psalm was penned for the Sabbath and since David says he will play a stringed instrument, that indicates musical instruments are allowed during Sabbath worship. But if Psalm 92 establishes normative patterns for worship – as you imply that it does – then you should also praise God for destroying the wicked and pray for their continued destruction, as David does in 92:9-11. Knowing that the Bayly’s (T&B at least) like taking a hard line on abortion and homosexuality, shouldn’t you praise God in worship for the deaths of abortionists and the destruction of homosexuals? That is exactly what David does in Psalm 92. If you’re to be consistent and faithful in worship, isn’t that what Psalm 92 demands of us?
I’m not arguing that Psalm 92 is outdated – I’m arguing that if it establishes the use of instruments in worship, as you suggest, then it also mandates that we praise God for the deaths of the wicked. I doubt anyone has ever specifically praised God for killing the wicked in your worship services, which illustrates how inconsistent you are in applying Psalm 92.
The major flaw in your thinking and on the BaylyBlog is the utter lack of consistency in how you formulate your beliefs on so many issues. You like instruments in worship, so you cherry-pick Psalm 92 to support that practice at your church. You don’t like vasectomies, so you use the example of Onan to declare those who obtain vasectomies as unfaithful. Similarly, you use the 6th commandment to declare those who don’t oppose abortion strongly enough as unfaithful. You use Calvin and traditional Reformed teaching to support your views on vasectomies, yet you bypass the Reformed Fathers completely when it comes to music in worship. You allow wide variation of practice when it comes to the sacraments and worship (over which denominations divide), yet are extremely narrow and dogmatic when it comes to contraception and the degree to which we oppose abortion. You have no apparent system of beliefs – just randomly held truisms that you find a way to wrap in Reformed packaging (with only modest success, I might add).
The point of Dr. Hart’s post – and it’s a good one – is that T&B Bayly (and presumably both of you) are much more concerned with scrupulously obeying the 7th commandment than you are the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. And the root problem, I believe, is how you formulate your beliefs. If you had any intellectual, logical, and theological consistency in your approach to these issues your views would likely be very different. But your haphazard, reckless application of the Decalogue leads to allowance of extreme views on the one hand, and a rigid dogmatism on the other. And what’s even more baffling is that the rigid views (eg, the degree of opposing abortion) are far less essential than those on which you allow liberty (sacraments, worship, etc).
I want to ask you several questions in all seriousness:
1. At your church, do you discipline members who use contraception (of any form) or have vasectomies/tubal ligations?
2. Do you discipline members who do not baptize their infants? If not, do you not consider it a “great sin” in accordance with the WCF? And if you don’t consider it a great sin, have you registered that exception with your presbytery?
The answers to these questions, I think, will be quite telling.
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Andrew, I don’t change definitions. You simply assume I hold views that I don’t hold.
Do you not think that guitars and a band at the front of a meeting hall communicate nothing — culturally neutral — in today’s climate? The Baylys are pretty clear in spotting the cultural significance of all sorts of worldliness associated with estrogen and testosterone. But guitars don’t mean anything?
As for the tunes, doesn’t your copy of the Bible come with chants?
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Joseph, read carefully. I like U2, Radio Head, and Yes. They use guitars. How do I have a preference against guitars?
I know. It’s because the Baylys can read other people who are not out of their minds.
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Jody, the conviction is not that guitars are bad. The conviction is that guitars are not fitting in the worship of God. Do you have any category for what is fitting in different settings? Would you sing Rule Britannia during the Lord’s Supper? Would you even use the tune for worship?
Since Clear Note is very worked up about sex, would it be fitting for a woman in church to wear slacks? If not, does that mean you’re against pants?
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Doctor Hart,
My eyes could hardly believe it when I read you like Yes. Is this interest a past liking from your youth, or one which you still have? If you could, please let me in on what you would say is Yes’s finest hour. I wonder if you would be a ‘Fragile’ album type, or maybe even a ‘Tales from Topographic Oceans’ fan on certain days. ‘Going for the one’ is still a corker of an album, but now I find their last 70’s album ‘Tormato’ full of little interesting gems which are easy on the ear. Maybe you would concur that ‘Relayer’ is greatly under rated and in many ways excellent, but then maybe you just liked one or two tracks from an album and that may be the extent of your Yes experience.
On a completely different but more vital subject, I read with sweet satisfaction that you prefer plain psalm singing. This year my wife (who is an excellent Pennsylvanian lass) and I “came home” to a Scotch rooted Presbyterian church which stoutly defends and uses psalm singing led by a precentor. I cannot articulate all the fine detail of why this is the accurate and proper worship just yet, but I do know that it is deeply powerful, very moving, and entirely right. Having then recently experienced some hymn singing while back in the USA, I knew that it in contrast hymns are a pale substitute for the worship of simple, profund beauty that is unaccompanied psalm singing.
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Zeke, let me answer your questions seriously. Discipline of the faithlessness often involved in the use of contraceptives is continuous at our churches. Formally? No. Also, just like all PCA churches (which we are not a part of), members are never formally disciplined for not baptizing their infants. Finally, our bylaws allow elders freedom of conscience on time and mode of baptism. Those who disagree with the WCF take an exception.
As for consistency, the reason I’ve pushed DGH so hard on guitars is to force him to admit that his arguments require all instruments to be just as wicked. He’s unwilling to do more than imply that here. You disagree with him on that. Here’s the deal. Your argument that somehow we don’t care about commandments 2-4 is based in large part on the fact that we use instruments in worship. Dude, you use instruments in worship! So give up that argument. Either that, or you’re making the case that somehow guitars are wicked in worship, when violins and pianos are fine. If that’s the case, I’ll leave you to your own inconsistency.
As for consistency with Psalm 92, yes, I have prayed that God would break the jaws of the wicked and protect the weak, helpless and innocent. I’ve prayed that God would shut abortion clinics in our town (something that appears to be about to happen to 2 of them, praise God for answered prayer). I’ve prayed that false shepherds would be discredited, removed from their churches, for the sake of God and the glory of his Name. I’ve warned in my preaching that those who do iniquity will be destroyed forevermore. I’ve praised God for mercifully saving his people. And I’ve explained to the people how God’s sovereignty over salvation *and* damnation is not for us to be ashamed of, but to praise him for. We rightfully rejoice when Osama bin Laden dies and goes to meet his maker. But to do so without caring for the innocent and helpless in our own cities, or opposing the unjust slaughterers in our own towns is hypocritical. Read here: http://clearnotechurch.com/blog/2011/may/03/osama-bin-laden-dead
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Dear DGH,
I did read carefully. And what I read was *not* an argument against the use of instruments in worship. It was an attack on a particular instrument. As soon as I point out the absurdity of taking the position that guitars particularly are evil instruments, you say, “I never said that! I’m for chant!” That’s simply not your position though. To you, guitars in worship are loathsome, and it’s clear from what you’ve written–you melt down over *guitars*. Why? The answer to that is the heart of our disagreement, which has almost nothing to do with music.
As always, our disagreement comes down to this: We are committed to fighting today’s battles. You are committed to schizophrenia, where you try to live in two different worlds and make sure they never meet, for fear of the inevitable difficulty and conflict that would come. This is the real reason you can’t abide having guitars in your “holy” world–because you worship with them in your unholy world.
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Zeke, the answers to your questions are telling: sacramental latitudinarianism and cultural legalism. It’s RPW on adiaphora and discipline on liberty. Schizophrenia, as in out of one’s mind, indeed.
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Zrim, not cultural legalism. Preaching and teaching that actually addresses the sins of our culture.
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Joseph, you have your own schizophrenia. You take the fifth, sixth, and seventh commandments very seriously but not so much one through four. You even turn worship into a time when 5-7 become marks of the church, all the while neglecting the commandments that govern worship. And in your effort to keep everything consistent, you ignore both the historic practices of Reformed churches when it doesn’t suit you — don’t even acknowledge that you’re not following Geneva on the psalms for instance. Plus, you don’t have much room for Christian liberty, which does in most churches I know, allow one to smoke outside of church but not during worship.
love
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Joseph, by the way, you may want to consider the use of important and useful words like fitting, appropriate, and propriety. The categories are not simply good versus evil, holy versus profane. There is a common realm in which words like fitting and appropriate carry much weight and wisdom. Some of that common realm even extends to public worship where all the saints need to be able to sing together, without giving preference to one generation over another. This is why everyone should sing psalms unaccompanied — it is the least offensive form of music to all saints and it doesn’t require the use of instruments that are not fitting.
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UK Paul, wonderful. I’ve been looking for an outlet to talk about Yes. I’ve had some long drives of late and packed some old cds and Yes came along for the ride. When I listen now I still have great delight. But I also don’t know what on earth Jon Anderson was thinking with those long songs and mystical lyrics and sometimes abrupt musical transitions. That said, I still think they were a great band. Here’s a little bit of my brush with greatness. When I was at L’Abri in 1976 I went with some other students to Montreux to hear Segovia. In the lobby during the intermission I saw Steve Howe and Chris Squire, I’m assuming in part because Howe was trained classically. And then on my return to the States, I was living in Lancaster, Pa. and doing janitorial work for one of the school districts. In one of our high schools that summer Yes used the gym to rehearse for their upcoming Going for the One tour. If I hadn’t embraced Reformed theology by then, I’d have thought these were signs from God (of what, I’m not sure).
So in answer to your question, I tend to think Close to the Edge and Relayer are their best, but I’m of mixed mind on this because I thought the band was best with Rick Wakeman and Bill Bruford. Which leads to the point that the Yes Album has the seeds of all that would become the band’s finest music.
I am still amazed that they had a following. How would you ever dance to that music (assuming for the moment that I could)?
Glad to hear your observations about psalmody, though I’m disappointed to learn that you came to the States and didn’t bring me some beer.
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“BTW, Calvin would not use a guitar so he wouldn’t be singing with king David because Christ came and ended the OT pattern of worship”
I have often wondered the Reformed take on this… Would you mind elaborating on what this means and entails? Thanks!
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If you like Yes and Radiohead you’ll like Peter Adams’ “I Woke With Planets in My Face” which you can listen to here: http://peteradamsmusic.com/bio/
Quirky sidenote on Yes: Rick Wakeman was a big believer in UFO’s. At one time he quasi-prophesied that a major UFO event would be taking place soon. He did a really spaced-out solo album which, if I remember correctly, had a lot to do with UFO’s.
I saw Yes in concert when they toured with Donovan. Then and now, I think “Donovan”?!?
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Doctor Hart,
Your sightings of Yes at the peak of their powers are a joy to read about – the line up you witnessed was indeed the best although Bill Bruford would have kept the band a little less ‘cosmic’ and more better rhythm crafted if he had not left in ’72. The Yes album indeed is a powerful sign of what was to come, with ‘Starship Trooper’ typifying the band’s energy and it’s new (Steve Howe) guitar player’s talents. Jon Anderson is a wonderful ‘one off’ type of guy, and perhaps his other worldly lyrics were a reaction partly to his up bringing in the grimy Lancashire cotton mill town of Accrington.
Steve Howe is the musical painter and melodic backbone of the group, giving it the unique Yes sound and his solo track ‘Sketches in the sun’ encapsulates much of his delightful style; he is no flash “Look at me play!” type – just a very thoughtful and gifted musician. Rick Wakeman sums up the excellent individual playing of each Yes member, with his work on GFTO being perhaps his best – his astonishing cathedral organ playing on ‘Parallels’ would make even Bach smile.
Now, onto the subject of beer! Doctor Hart, I am a man of my word and I did carefully package and carry some bottles of liquid amber from our Cumbrian micro breweries in my luggage for you as promised. Much to my relief, it survived the journey on the plane and it has been stashed for you near Greenville Seminary which we visited. It will still be fine to slurp when you are there for their 2012 Spring Conference, but don’t let your fellow speaker Carl Trueman find out you have some English beer samples or he may want to guzzle some – I know he misses his English pint.
With, as always, my deepest regards,
Paul(UK).
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Dr Hart,
“This is why everyone should sing psalms unaccompanied — it is the least offensive form of music to all saints and it doesn’t require the use of instruments that are not fitting.”
Thanks so much for that. I speak as an OP church member who for the past few years has gone against the grain in my church by only singing psalms in worship–not so much because I’m totally convinced by the arguments for EP, but rather because I’m not (yet?) convinced of the arguments for singing anything else. In other words, it’s a matter of conscience for me. Though I admit I also much appreciate what Paul (UK) said about the beauty of acapella psalm singing.
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P.S. I once spent a few months trying to master “Mood for a Day,” by Steve Howe, on the guitar (though unfortunately, I failed miserably…. sigh).
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But, Joseph, while you are preaching against the sins of society you are letting the great sin of delaying baptism go unaddressed (WCF 28.5). This is the religious version of pointing out the faults of one’s neighbors while letting one’s own children run amok. Obnoxious is one description. What your answers help point out is the difference between cultural Christianity and sacramental Christianity.
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Joseph Bayly,
You missed my point entirely. I’m not saying you are neglecting the 2nd-4th commandments because of music in worship, I’m saying you allow a “freedom of conscience” in worship and sacraments that you do not allow in the social arena. Zrim is right: “sacramental latitudinarianism and cultural legalism.” To call obtaining a vasectomy unfaithful and to discipline church members, even informally, while allowing infants to go unbaptized is a very inconsistent application of God’s commands. To call unfaithful those who do not oppose abortion the same way you do yet exhibit great leniency when it comes to the sacraments and worship style is equally inconsistent. The main point of all this is that you are dogmatic – possibly even legalistic – in your application of certain commandments, but very lenient, almost disinterested in your application of worship and sacraments, two areas that are the core of the church’s function. Placing social concerns above sacraments and worship is unprecedented in church history, especially in the Reformed church.
As an aside, I don’t know what “bylaws” you’re referring to about allowing freedom of conscience on baptism, but one of the duties of elders in the PCA BCO (12-5) is “to see that parents do not neglect to present their children for Baptism.” I don’t see, then, how you can allow infants in your church to go unbaptized without discipline. I also don’t see how, as a TE in the PCA, you can be ordained and take an exception to the WCF on baptism. That, too, would be unprecedented.
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Zeke, as much as I enjoy a Bayly pile-on I do have to wonder if the PCA makes things safe for this conundrum. PCA BCO (12-5) may make it clear that such neglect is a problem. But the PCA also makes credo-baptists members. From what I understand, this seems to be a function of the way things developed in 19th century American Presbyterianism in such a way that there are two forms of membership: those who must confess and practice what the church confesses and practices (officers) and those who don’t really have to (laity), at least not sacramentally. This is a break from the older Presbyterian practice which mirrored continental Reformed practice, which understood that everyone must confess and practice what the church confesses and practices, which meant not making credo-baptists members and hay out of something like PCA BCO (12-5).
And, depending on what you might mean by “precedent,” I also have to wonder if raising cultural concerns to at least the same level as ecclesiastical concern isn’t easily found in church history, including the Reformed one. I mean, isn’t that sort of the legacy of Constantinianism? And isn’t that one way to describe Protestant Liberalism and the Religious Right? And isn’t all this why something like two-kingdom crazy OLTS exists?
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Zrim,
My issue with Joseph Bayly’s comments is the idea that elders take an exception to the WCF on baptism. I just cannot imagine a presbytery allowing a candidate to take a “good faith” exception on paedo-baptism; for all the flaws in the PCA, I just cannot see that happening. But your point about allowing credo-baptists to join a PCA church is a good one. I can understand if the couple is older, has adult children, and are beyond child-bearing age. But to allow a young couple to join, knowing they won’t baptize their infant seems very problematic to me. I have seen it in multiple PCA churches, and I don’t believe it is a good practice at all.
I’m not sure I agree about cultural issues in church history. Even in Constantine’s time, the key issue in the church was Christ’s divinity, and the Nicene Creed was developed in response to the Arian heresy (though Constantine himself was an Arian, if a Christian at all). And while Calvin was less 2K than many of us here, his main concerns were always centered around doctrinal purity. The Institutes deal far more with core doctrine than anything else. And even when Calvin did advocate state action on behalf of the church, it was mostly (if not entirely) to punish heresy, not for social concerns. The English Civil War, confused as it was with church and secular goals, was fought to ensure purity in worship and doctrine, among other things. I agree about the Religious Right, Protestant Liberalism, the Social Gospel, etc. I view the Bayly’s theology as drawn from all of those.
But again, not to sound like a broken record, but the issue is more the Bayly’s inconsistency in applying the Decalogue. They may not be the only Reformed church to allow credo-baptist members, but I doubt there are many other Reformed churches that allow credo-baptist members, and at the same discipline members for obtaining a vasectomy. The two practices seem highly incongruent.
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I have always had my foot in the Reformed world since I became a Christian in 1975. Right after my conversion I started reading Francis Schaeffer, then tons of R.C. Sproul, then the Reconstructionists and finally Michael Horton and the Confessionalist Reformed writers. It is a very confusing world to try to understand. It seems to me though that the Reformed Confessionalists are trying to bring some clarity into the confusion but are being met with much resistance from the cultural warriors who are stuck in attack mode about cultural issues. Zeke had some very legitimate and thoughtful questions which are at the heart of the matter- the confusion over the Old Covenant. I ran across this video yesterday in which R. C. Sproul “disciplined” or sent to the woodshed, Michael Horton over these issues which are being discussed here. Now they were able to clear this up fairly quickly during this public discussion but I am not sure who was out of line here. They were discussing issues in the Church and Michael took a question about covenant theology and then R.C. stopped him and accused him of being a Barthian, in which Michael quickly refuted and got back on track. R.C. seems to be sided with the Bayly brothers in regards to abortion and the sanctity of marriage (against homosexual marriage) too. This is the kind of stuff which drives us Lutherans crazy about you guys. Although I am not sure there is much more clarity in the Lutheran Church over cultural issues either. There just is not as many popular Lutheran personalites as there are in the Reformed world. Here is the video in which R.C. scolds Michael Horton publicly. They seemed to be OK with it but I know there are underlying issues between them: http://truthxchange.com/media/2011/06/02/dr-jones-explains-the-gnostic-gospel/ It is at the Question and Answer video.
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Zeke, I can’t fathom allowing a candidate scruples on paedobaptism either. I was only suggesting that given the fact that the PCA makes lay credos members it may not be too surprising that officers let this go. That’s part of the problem with two kinds of membership. (BTW, while I agree that allowing a young credo couple membership is problematic, it isn’t as clear to me how allowing credos beyond child bearing years/ability isn’t problematic. Are scruples allowed on Christology? If not, then I don’t see how they are allowed on sacramentology. I get that sacramentology has the unique problem having belief being put into practice in ways Christology doesn’t, but I don’t see how that should change expecting members of whatever age/ability to confess what the church confesses even if they can’t practice it.)
Your point about Constantine and Calvin is well taken. I’m not saying that efforts at doctrinal and doxological purity are unprecedented (obviously), just that I think there is plenty of precedent for kingdom confusion. I think you’d agree with that.
From what I gather, “bapterianism” (i.e. tolerating credo-baptism within paedo ranks) is more common than one might imagine. But I think you’re probably right, that those who do so don’t also discipline for contraceptive practices. That may be more a Bloomington phenomenon.
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It is always interesting to me that when it comes to worship Dr. Hart and I agree 100%.
(Though Calvin would quibble with the “ended the OT Pattern of Civil Government” part)
But I digress and will now go back in hiding.
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[Zeke, a follow-up to your consideration of “main concerns.”]
A typical summation of The Reformation often comes in the form of the “solas” or the anachronistic “five points.” While neither is entirely inaccurate, either summation loses something important. Consider how Calvin explains the need of The Reformation in his “Necessity of Reforming the Church:”
“If it be inquired, then, by what things chiefly the Christian religion has a standing existence amongst us, and maintains its truth, it will be found that the following two not only occupy the principal place, but comprehend under them all the other parts, and consequently the whole substance of Christianity, viz., a knowledge, first, of the mode in which God is duly worshipped; and, secondly, of the source from which salvation is to be obtained.”
Certainly he emphasizes justification by faith later in this work, as we would expect, but we see he begins his justification of The Reformation by speaking of worship. He continues,
“look to the injunctions of Him who alone is entitled to prescribe.… Justly, therefore, does the Lord, in order to assert his full right of dominion, strictly enjoin what he wishes us to do, and at once reject all human devices which are at variance with his command. … This is the decision, and when once the judge has decided, it is no longer time to debate.. . . The opposite persuasion which cleaves to them, being seated, as it were, in their very bones and marrow, is, that whatever they do has in itself a sufficient sanction, provided it exhibits some kind of zeal for the honour of God.”
And, just in case Yeazel is mad at me, I’ll include an excerpt of Calvin favorably mentioning Luther:
“We maintain, then, that at the Commencement, when God raised up Luther and others, who held forth a torch to light us into the way of salvation, and who, by their ministry, founded and reared our churches, those heads of doctrine in which the truth of our religion, those in which the pure and legitimate worship of God, and those in which the salvation of men are comprehended, were in a great measure obsolete. We maintain that the use of the sacraments was in many ways vitiated and polluted. And we maintain that the government of the Church was converted into a species of foul and insufferable tyranny.”
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MM,
Mad at you- what’s up with that? I play off you and have fun with you; kind of like Borg and McEnroe. I just watched that documentary about them on HBO appropriately entitled Fire and Ice so it is fresh on my mind. Then I checked out oldlife and lo and behold.
Why should I be mad? Did you win the book on the sly and keep it from me or what? Perhaps you smoozed, wined and dined the powers that be. I would not put it past you my friend.
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Talking of music, I mentioned to Zrim awhile back that I watched another documentary about a fellow named Scott Walker entitled The 30th Century Man and I swear the guy is the doppleganger of Darryl Hart. He is a musician from England who is very influencial in the music industry but is somewhat of a recluse and extremely private. David Bowie and Radio Head have been very influenced by him and talk about it during the documentary. Walker is interviewed quite intensively and it is very interesting- well worth checking out. I watched it on the Sundance Channel but I am sure it can be discovered somewhere on the internet or at some video store.
Nice quotes from Calvin MM.
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I’m digging the Yes discussion as well. I’m listening to Close to the Edge in honor of your favorite Yes album, Dr. Hart, and smoking an Arturo Fuente in homage to the NTJ.
This brings me back to my favorite Hank Hill line from the clip: “Can’t you see you’re not making Christianity better; you’re just making rock and roll worse?” Christians, when they try to do “Christian rock,” seem to simply be using (abusing?) the music in service of the message, instead of just making good music. And that to me seems to be an insult to God’s good creation. Re CTTE, has there ever been a “Christian rock” song as beautiful and moving as “And You and I”?
Sadly, I never saw Yes in concert. (The closest I came was Asia, whose material didn’t really live up to the “supergroup” hype. Carl Palmer’s drum solo was quite impressive, though.) Yes does have a new album coming out next month, though, with Howe/Squire/White/Geoff Downes and a guy named Benoit David (former singer of a Canadian Yes tribute band) who sounds quite a bit like a younger Anderson, actually. I lost interest after 90125, though (and there wasn’t a whole lot of interest in that album to begin with).
Dr. Hart, I’m in your neck of the woods, up here in Lansing. U2 will be at Spartan Stadium at the end of June. Not sure when Yes or Radiohead will come around.
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Does anyone think Yes has not stood the test of time well? They were a favorite of mine back in the day, but now, for example, “Fragile” almost sounds cartoonish. I read a Thom Yourke (of Radiohead) interview in which he kinda-sorta acknowledged Yes as an influence but seemed embarrassed to say it. This is not to say that I don’t still enjoy some of their stuff, but some music seems to endure better than other music.
I think we are officially talking during intermission.
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Michael, that’s partly why U2 deserves the title of greatest rock band in history. After over thirty-five years the members are all still original as is the music, which makes it enduring. I mean, it’s pretty impossible to listen to something from the first days like “I Will Follow” and call it cartoonish.
But, just to stay sort of on topic, perhaps best of all is how early on they were this close to never being when Adam Clayton not having a religious bone in his body got the feeling the other three who were of Christian persuasion wanted to join the wave of Christian rock. And they can versify Psalm 40 without you making feel gay:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDfShQBN5oU
See?
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I have heard other bands talk about Yes in an embarassed and condescending manner also. I am not sure why this is so. I think it might have been in that Scott Walker documentary when Radiohead was talking to the interviewer.
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Zrim, John, Michael,
It is fascinating for me as a Brit (well, more accurately a Lancastrian “up North”) to read what you guys are saying about UK groups like Yes, Radiohead and the Irish U2. On U2, I am always mindful of how few refer to the lovely early album October from 1982, which shows Bono in his early days evangelical type mode writing lyrics which are replete with Christian and Bible references. This was perhaps U2’s most overtly religious album, but it has stood the test of time musically with songs like Gloria still sounding very powerful and fresh 30 years on. My take is that Bono, Larry and the Edge were typical teenagers who encountered a Bible study fellowship and were influenced by them but kind of left the faith aspect as they progressed. I have know so many who likewise left behind all matters of Christianity once other things grabbed their attention.
On more recent matters, why are Radiohead even mentioned in any context with Yes? Radiohead are a snapshot of Britain today – often dour, serious, and lacking in warmth, colour, and somehow a bit scary. Musically they are up there with Pink Floyd for being philosophical miseries, with music to match their grey outlook on life. For me somehow Yes in their prime (I agree Michael, little of substance came after Tormato) in the late 70’s reflect an England which could still reflect some kind of utopian, dreamy, and not too serious perspectives. Early Genesis were similar, and I wonder if drugs coloured both groups quirky outlook. If you want a more recent progressive group which matched Yes for epic sounds and key changes, try the excellent Cumbrian group It Bite’s ‘Once around the World’ album’s title track – written in 1988 and maybe the last of Britain’s best contributions to this much derided form of music.
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So, Yes = utopian, dreamy, (per Paul UK) and full of possibilities.
Pink Floyd = nihilistic.
Radiohead = post-modern.
BTW, most of Pink Floyd still does sound good after a few decades. I jumped off the Radiohead bandwagon two albums ago, but OK Computer was brilliant, and the following album was successfully daring.
Paul, do you have an opinion on Radiohead’s musical influences?
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None equal the greatest band to ever come out of England.
Black Sabbath.
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Ben, listening to music from the wrong side of the tracks.
That is all.
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You should read their lyrics, especially to the song “After Forever”.
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/blacksabbath/afterforever.html
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Besides Black Sabbath has Geezer Butler and Tony Iommi, two of the best ever on their respective instruments.
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UK Paul, speaking of “Gloria” (I know, a different lass), the Irish and Christian faith sometimes bleeding through, you guys also have Van Morrison, who turns all he touches into gold. What is it with music and comedy that makes you people so superior? The Scots also invented golf. Talk about Christian sports.
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Frankly I don’t even listen to rock anymore except for what I have on my Ipod. I listen only to get hyped for workouts. Rock, whether in its pop, libertine, or relatively complex forms, lacks depth of expression. It grows out of a shallow culture, so there is nothing at the roots to sustain it. If one had to find a biblical book to correspond to rock it would be I Corinthians.
On the other hand, blues, whether mournful, winsome, or uptempo, simply grows out of deeper soil. When a soulful chord is struck it evokes sadness yet catharsis as we visit loss and limitation in this fallen world. Anyone untouched by a soulful, well-executed blues chord is a either emotionally oblivious or caught up in a theology of glory. The biblical book corresponding to blues is Ecclesiastes.
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..and when I say “I Corinthians” I mean the church at Corinth.
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Michael Mann,
Sorry, I have little knowledge of what influences Radiohead. I like your excellent one liners about the groups and their possible outlooks, deliberate or accidental.
Zrim,
Please, please don’t think the Brits are superior in any way at all musically or in comedy. We have had a disgusting tendency to over rate our capabilities and cleverness for centuries, and now our arrogance has spawned a navel gazing cynicism. I never knew the Scots developed golf, and maybe our biggest sport is soccer which sums us up – a lot of noise, talk, passion, but not much skill!
You mention Van Morrison – well, for me the best Irish music by far is the wonderful west Irish folk music, with the reels played on the violin/fiddle, accordion, bodhran, and uillean pipes. Now this fayre will cheer any really musical soul, and you will find it typically performed in places like Peppers Bar, Feakle, County Clare. With a pint or a few of Guinness in Peppers, I could listen into the wee hours to this live music played by gifted amateurs and still not have enough. Or try the ComhaltasLive pod casts which showcase the best Irish music while avoiding the usual schlock.
For the UK my only take as to why we have had some musical influence world wide with groups is that the English have had centuries of singing with the likes of Thomas Tallis, Byrd, and other church composers from Europe like Victoria whose beauty of music and singing is still spell binding. Coupled with folk songs rooted in some unknown time and place and our similar sea shanties, both of which composers like Vaughan Williams kept in the public and singing realm, and you will see why the English loved singing songs and popular music. With the advent of popular music we wedded our sense of melody and story telling in song and then there was the groups we know and like. Maybe my theory is all too simplistic, but I cannot explain any other way why we have had such an impact on the music scene.
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Paul,
I’ll look forward to British beer in South Carolina — if we are still allowed to drink. You know, they are trying to make the state Christian.
Steve Howe was talented indeed. I wonder what he’s up to these days.
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DJ, Calvin believed, I believe, that Christian worship called for simplicity that would avoid the outward and physical elements of OT worship — from blood and gore to lutes. You see this argument for simplicity in WCF, ch. 7, on the differences between the Old and New Covenants.
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Ben, glad to hear you’re still with us. I was worried by your silence. Maybe you were raptured?
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RL, thanks for the tip about U2. I’m not sure I can afford concert ticket prices these days. I hear the economy stinks. You’d never know by the cost of entertainment.
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Michael M., I count Fragile as that good era, especially because of Bruford and Wakeman. Plus, the songs were short. You didn’t have to light up a cigar to listen to one.
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Zrim, I agree about U2. It is phenomenal in this genre of music for a band to continue to produce new music (let alone stay together). It’s one thing for Led Zeppelin to get together and perform music from the 1970s. Another to actually play new stuff that teens and their parents (who started listening when they were teens) still enjoy.
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UK Paul, what do you think of Thom Yorke’s solo stuff? I actually think it’s better than Radio Head as a band.
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But Ben, Black Sabbath isn’t progressive or dreamy.
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Dr. Hart,
I am a Metalhead at heart. I was that kid hiding Megadeth, Kiss, Saxon, Ozzy, and Judas Priest albums under my mattress. I like a little aggressive guitar playing with some hard hitting drum beats and amazing bass lines. If the Bayly’s wanted real manly music they should set some CCM with awesome guitar solos between the first and second chorus. Maybe even turn their amps to “11”.
Since Dave Mustaine and Dave Ellefson became Christians it is now OK for me to listen to it again. 😉
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Dr. Hart,
I checked Thom Yorke of Radiohead’s music, and I am afraid I found it lacking in what is perhaps nebulously termed “soul” – the description electro pop comes to mind. I am though liberal to one and all in music tastes as long as the lyrics are not dodgy. From the USA I have recently discovered Cake and their excellent Showroom of Compassion, and when I need some head clearing music for driving I listen to the new album by Journey!
I find it odd and annoying that evangelicals and charismatics run to CCM and ‘praise bands’, spending huge amounts on their favourite artists and funding them and their latest toons – money which could be far better spent on funding the training of men called to the pastorate, for example. I wish SGM and their British allies like Stuart Townsend would stop making music ministry of this ilk any part of church life. Do they not know any better? No.
On U2, I have a mildly interesting anecdote. In December 1982 I mailed a copy of Oswald Chamber’s ‘My Upmost For His Highest’ to the Manchester Apollo Theatre where U2 were about to perform along with The Alarm (Welsh U2 types), asking them to pass it to Bono. With it I sent a letter asking Bono to announce my engagement that day to a lass who would be with me. I heard not a thing in reply, but at the concert Bono announced the next song would be Celebration, and then he popped a bottle of champagne and announced our engagement. Lovely chap. We met Bono after the concert, and I wish now I could have given him some better book but at the time I was an evangelical. Do you have a favourite U2 album or track/s?
Regards to you and all fellow Old Lifers.
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Ben, I remember when the pulse of hard rock soothed my teenage angst. I had somewhere found a “hi fi” – you know, basically a decorative cabinet with a record player and speakers inside it – and figured out how to run my tape recorder through it. The result: I could make the windows rattle with any music I could put on a cassette. For various reasons those days are a blur, but I do remember listening to Deep Puple’s “Made In Japan” enough to have memorized the guitar solos. I still have “Lazy” and “Highway Star” on my iPod which, for some reason, seem suitable when I am doing outside chores.
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UK Paul, That qualifies as a real brush with greatness.
When U2 wails (as in goes melancholy), my heart resonates. Acrobat would be one very good example of U2 wailing at its best.
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I’m not a big fan of rock in general, but I have always loved U2. Arguably the best rock group of all time, especially considering how they’ve stayed current and yet still maintained their essence at the same time. UK Paul, that’s a great story – more than an interesting anecdote. You did indeed have a brush with greatness.
Obviously it’s impossible to judge a man’s heart, but I’m still inclined to think Bono has a genuine faith. It’s clear he completely understands what it means to be a Christian, the importance of grace, and the pre-eminence of Christ. At least based on an interview he did a few years ago with a skeptical French reporter.
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UK Paul, I’m so glad your anecdote wasn’t about attending a “U2charist.” But I wonder if the Bayly’s understand that defending P&W puts them closer to that reality than defending RPW does.
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If anyone is still reading this, note well that no one in this parenthetical conversation is advocating for their Monday-Saturday favorite music to be morphed into hymns. I’m digging the blues these days, but blues is too intrusive to carry hymns and I don’t want Sunday mornings to conform to my Friday nights. It seems like such a simple thing to distinguish between music that is personal taste and music fit to carry worship, between what is lawful six days but not expedient the first day.
PS, “Roundabout” was on the playlist for my spinning class this morning. Nice little energy boost there. This is in contrast to some band’s unwise decision (in the same playlist) to do a cover on a Doors song. The Doors aura, love it or hate it, is pretty much unrepeatable.
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That was an interesting diversion from Jody, the Bayly’s and contemporary worship. I was more focused on the comments and arguments about contemporary bands than the contemporary worship comments and arguments. I find the contemporary worship arguments boring and lacking in anything of significance these days. It seems like a non-issue to me anymore and yet still the contemporay worship types get heated and passionate about it still.
I would concur with UK Paul’s take on the band Cake- they are one of those bands that David Wells would recommend following and listening to intently for thoughtful insights into the human condition outside the walls of the Church.
I also enjoyed MM’s wacked out comparison of bands with books in the bible- what’s up with that? Just kidding- kind of!! You need to go spin some more.
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Ben,
You keep going in and out of reconstructionist mode. Sometimes I think you might be getting weary of reconstructionist theology by some less than aggressive remarks and then you go back into that mode again. You guys cannot get out of that my kahoona’s are bigger than yours frame of mind. Perhaps your love of metalhead music pushed you towards reconstructionism. I do admire your commenting at a site that you know will usually disagree with you.
I am curious as to the type of worship that occurs at your reconstructionist church. Since charismatics have some attraction to reconstructionism do you cater to their types of preference for worship? It would be my guess that you don’t. Can you give us a breakdown of a typical reconstructionist Sunday morning service. Does it follow any particular historical liturgy?
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Well, Yeazel, since you liked that so much I’ll add that Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos is the Gospel According to John and Wagner’s Ride of the Valkryies is the book of Revelation. This is all preliminary to my development of a “Christian” Board Game.
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Michael, truth be told, Gates of Delirium got me through a patch of W. Pennsylvania yesterday on I 80. Over at Wikipedia I see that the song was based on Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Who knew?
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What in the world are you talking about John?
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Ben, perhaps you can take the reconstructionist out of the metalhead world but you cannot take the metalhead world out of the reconstructionist. I think that is more accurate than Jody’s opening remarks at this post.
MM. you are a walking contradiction. Just having some fun at your expense.
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Ben, obviously we are on a different wavelength; what I said made sense to me and my caricatures of reconstructionists. If I am wrong correct me. Are you going to enlighten us on the liturgy that reconstructionist follow during a Sunday service? I am truly curious.
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Ben, do you want me to give you examples of what I meant by statements that you have made? I would guess you probably could give a rip what I think.
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Ben, out of curiosity, does a head-banger ear for rock lead to a head banger view of the civil magistrate?
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Since diversion has already been acheived has anyone seen the movie “The Tree of Life” yet. I am thinking of going to it and wondered if anyone could give me his/her take on it. It is supposed to contrast the view of reality based on science and the view of reality based on the doctrines of grace. It follows a family from the birth of their children to when the kids grow up and how the contrasting views of their parents effected their outlooks. From what I have read the movie makers pulled off this difficult theme to produce on film in a convincing way.
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Absolutely Dr. Hart.
John,
I have no idea what in the world you are talking about.
I trust you comprehend that one can be a theonomist and not a Reconstructionist, though I am not sure exactly what a “reconstructionist” worship service would look like.
I wear a Geneva Gown, we sing the Psalms (and the occasional hymn) and have a basic, bare bones worship service that Dr. Hart would feel 100% comfortable in.
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John, I plan to see it but I don’t think it will be running in Hillsdale.
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To listen to music at its best watch this video…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0mc5TX_Fo4&
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Ben,
That made me laugh. My maverick brother was a big Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Iron Butterfly fan. I would never have pegged you as an ex-metalhead or head- banger. Did you used to frequent biker bars and drop acid too? He was a big motorcycle rider in his early 20’s. Did you ever have a Harley? In the Chicago area there is a group of ex-yuppies who call themselves the Law Tigers,ie. Lawyers who ride. I once saw one of these guys at local watering hole and said to the person I was with under my breath something about yuppie-bikers and he heard me and was not to happy about it- I had to calm him down or he was going to clock me. I was lucky to get out of that one.
On a more serious note, I did not realize you were a Pastor nor that there is a difference between a theonomist and reconstructionist. Now you have got me wanting to ask a bunch of questions but I doubt if you will answer them very thoroughly. So, I will not bother to ask. Your answer to my liturgy question was pretty bare bones.
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Darryl,
I am going to go see it this afternoon. It is not even in any of the local theater’s in the northwest suburbs yet either. I have to go to Evanston to watch it. I will report back on it and tell others if it is worth going to without giving away anything of significance of the plot line, etc.
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Ask away.
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Ben, thanks for your willingness to answer some of my questions. First of all, what is the difference between a theonomist and a reconstructionist? I’m curious as to where you went to seminary and what denomination you are a part of too- I would guess you’re a Presby. What branch of Presby though? Can you expand a bit on your Sunday worship service- can you give me a breakdown of the liturgy you follow, or , the sequence of the service with approximate times, etc. I have no hidden motives for wanting to know besides curiousity out of my former days of interest in the reconstructionists. One more question for now, what is your main problem with confessionalism besides the magistrate issue?
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1) Theonomy is a doctrine. Christian Reconstruction is a method.
2) I went to seminary at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, a PC(USA) seminary.
3) Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church
4) Service is usually 1 hr, 15 min +/-
Welcome and Announcements
Call to Worship (Scripture verses)
Opening Psalm
Invocation and Lord’s Prayer
Receiving of Tithes and Offerings
New Testament Scripture
Pastoral Prayer
Sermon Text
The Sermon
Closing Psalm
Apostles Creed (Confession of Faith)
Doxology
Benediction
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My inclination was right, I should not have bothered to ask. You did not answer the last question either. At least you were succinct.
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I did not answer the last question because I did not see it. Thanks for judging my motives though.
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Dr. Hart, I’m wondering if you have considered the cultural & missiological considerations regarding you application of”fitting, appropriate, and propriety.” How does your application apply to other cultural forms of worship such as African American worship? What about Christian worship in South Asia where a church might use tablas & harmoniums? Or in Africa? Do we really want to apply a view of worship shaped by western european culture? Could this be a reason why Reformed churches are so lilly white?
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Bobby, but I’m not talking about worship in South Asia or Africa. I’m talking about the mid-west of the United States of America. What do the cultural norms of Asia or Africa have to do with those here in suburban white bred America? And why do the sensibilities of Asians or Africans become the leverage for changing “white” worship? Do you think that many churches that use contemporary worship are doing so because of a recent influx of African immigrants?
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Ben, what in the world are you talking about?- feel free to answer that last question; I’m not stopping you and I’m not judging your motives either.
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Yes but your positions have consequences for worship elsewhere. I’m not just limiting my concernes with Africa & AsiaHow you apply your princoples has an impact on worship & church planting.
Plus we don’t live in a suburban white bread suburban america anymore as a larger percetage of the USA is African-American, Asian, Hispanic. If we insist on a worship that meets your demands of ”fitting, appropriate, and propriety” how will that affect churches planted in different cultures even within the USA? If its wrong or inappropriate to use a guitar then isn’t it also wrong for an African American PCA church to use worship that is similar to other black churches? (I don’t know abt the OPC but there are a few black PCA churches) Are African American PCA churches who have worship similar to other black churches in vilation of the PPW?
Some (maybe the Baylys; I don’t know it was suggested that I stay off their blog) might say that becuase the culture has changed then worship has changed as well.
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Why would I have a problem with Confessionalism?
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Bobby,
It messes with your stereotyping but there is an African-American RPCNA church in Selma, AL.
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yes I’m aware of that church but while it falls outside of the sterotype it means little. I’m sure somewhere there is an African American Lutheran church somewhere. My point is does a church that is largely African American or ethnic have to conform to typical reformed worship or do they at least freedom to express their worship in a way that reflects their culture?
Is there a reason that minority & Presbyterian generally don’t mix?
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Bobby, of the groups that you mention, Africans, Asians and Hispanics (and are you really going to say that African-Americans who grew up in Hawaii are the same as those from Haiti, or that Koreans, Japanese and Chinese all march under the banner of “Asian”), Hispanics (which somehow include native Americans from South and Central as well as those of Spanish and Portuguese descent) are the only ones known for guitars. But theirs are not electric.
What your point to Ben doesn’t reconcile is whether you are as protective of white bred worship as you are of “ethnics.” If African-Americans must be able to express their culture in worship (is it the blues, rap, or spirituals), why can’t European Americans. You seem to want the assimilation to go only one way.
I personally believe that chanting the psalms unaccompanied along with a word-saturated liturgy is about as culturally vanilla as we can find and still be faithful to Scripture. But I am not going to flinch at the accusation of not being multi-cultural. Who is?
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Africans, Asians(I mentioned South Asians but Indians & Pakistanis a re Asians too), Hispanics Portugese, etc, are def not monolithic and none of them march under the same banner. The only reason I mention African Americans (very distinctive from Hatians, Africans etc) is that they’ve been here in the USA from the very beginning yet there are very few of them that are Reformed & Presbyterian. Those who are reformed tend to be Baptist. I’m asking the question is it possible that an insistence on traditional worship as the only one that conforms to the RPW also cuts off other cultural expressions of worship that I believe does conform to the RPW. (hence my example of an south Asian church that uses drums such as a tabla)
>>>”whether you are as protective of white bred worship as you are of “ethnics.” If African-Americans must be able to express their culture in worship (is it the blues, rap, or spirituals), why can’t European Americans. You seem to want the assimilation to go only one way.”
Actually I don’t think I was calling for an end to white bred worship or even traditional worship although I do believe that much of “contemporary worship is just as white bread(maybe even more so) as any traditional worship. I have no problem with churches worship in traditional reformed worship. My concern is that a call for worship that is ” fitting, appropriate, and propriety” is generrally defined according to white western cultural standards or tastes. Is it possible that worship can be done according to the RPW and be cullturally expressive.
Is it possible to have an OPC church that is primarily African AMerican and worships in a style that is reflective of traditional black worship?
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Bobby, your question begs what “traditional” black worship is. Northern African Americans were far closer in worship patterns to their neighbors than slaves in the South. If you read DuBois Souls of Black Folk you’ll see some surprise on his part upon his first encounter with southern black churches.
Your question also begs whether African Americans can or cannot participate in European cultural forms. I know what Jeremiah Wright says about African and European minds, but I actually think it a form of gross cultural superiority to assume that blacks cannot use, participate in, or promote forms of expression derived from European culture and churches. If blacks excel in a host of academic disciplines or in sports created by Europeans, why would we think that church forms are beyond people of African descent.
Now you may want to argue that African Christianity is distinct from European Christianity. But are you advocating a return to the liturgy of Augustine’s church in Hippo or the Coptic church? And since African-Americans were converted through the labors of European churches transplanted to the U.S., why were European forms once acceptable but now no longer so? Could it be that suburban Americans of European descent are no longer willing to follow the forms of older urban European churches (such as Geneva and Edinburgh)?
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That was an interesting discussion between Darryl and Bobby Avant. I would add the Lutheran Church I attend has an approximately 30% black and 70% white attendance on any given Sunday. I bet on Easter Sunday it was more like 50/50. Some of the black families have a large extended family that do not attend regularly but do manage to show up during the major holidays-especially Easter and Christmas.
Ben, so I guess you are telling me the only problem you have with confessionalism is the issue with the magistrate which does not really seem to be resolved by an appeal to the Westminster confession?
Didn’t Sproul and Gerstner both spend some time at Pittsburg Theological Seminary?
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Pittsburgh has an “h”. People there are quite particular about it. Yes, Gerstner taught there and Sproul graduated from there. Both B.B. Warfield and A.A. Hodge taught at its predecessor. It is quite Neo-Orthodox/liberal now and has been for a while.
Why would you think I would have a problem with Confessionalism? I have been called a hyper-confessionalist before but never one that has a problem with the WCF.
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yes African Americans are not a strictly monolitic group in the same way that there are differences & similarities within any international or ethnic group. There are differences between those in the south & those in the north & even difference from state to state. I don’t deny that & nothing I’ve stated denies that. In fact white bred suburbanites are not totally monolitic either.
But thats not my point & the fact that there are many differences within groups or that there are differences within traditional black worship also dosen’t matter b/e i’m asking not how African Americans view thheir worship but how much flexability presbyterian & reformed worship provides that would allow for cultural expressions of worship within the OPC/PCA.
African Americans are an important example becuase they’ve been in the USA as long as Anglos & they have a very low representation w/in Reformed & Presbyterian circles. Is it possible that we are inflexible in ways we don’t need be? Even as the number of black Reformed Christians grow they tend to be reformed Baptists.
But my questions also pertain to other groups as well hence my questions regarding other international groups that now live in the USA. Does an OPC church in NJ have the ability to plant an OPC that utilizes a tabla or a sitar if they were to plant a church among the large south Asian(Indian/Pakistani) populations in NJ? Or a church plant among the Arabic community in Michigan?
>>>since African-Americans were converted through the labors of European churches transplanted to the U.S., why were European forms once acceptable but now no longer so?
I’m not sure what this means. first I think in reality most African American worship liturgy is in reality an adaption of European forms. But (while I have no expert knowledge on this at all) from my understanding the church was one of the few places where blacks had freedom to run their own affairs and used that freedom to adapt their worship to their concerns.
>>>”you may want to argue that African Christianity is distinct from European Christianity. But are you advocating a return to the liturgy of Augustine’s church in Hippo or the Coptic church? ”
Huh? I mentioned Africa as a missiological example not as a call to return to Coptic or Augustinian forms. When i mentioned Africa I was using sub Saharan Africa as an example of where worship would look very different than what you or I would recoginize as “fitting, appropriate, and propriety.”
>>>Your question also begs whether African Americans can or cannot participate in European cultural forms”….I actually think it a form of gross cultural superiority to assume that blacks cannot use, participate in, or promote forms of expression derived from European culture and churches. If blacks excel in a host of academic disciplines or in sports created by Europeans, why would we think that church forms are beyond people of African descent.”
I never said that African Americans could not participate in a traditional OPC/PCA forms of worship but MUST they? Are you saying that there is no room in the OPC for African American forms of worship?
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Bobby, what I would like to hear from you before pursuing this much further is your understanding of the relationship between culture and ethnicity. Does ethnicity determine cultural expressions? Or can ethnicity be taken off and put back on when we decide to do so? If ethnicity is malleable, then there is flexibility from both sides of the white/black experience. But if it isn’t, then I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do.
You seem to assume something about the relationship because you keep bringing up that OPC and PCA don’t have many African-American congregations. So you are hinting that this is a function of OPC and PCA ethnicity.
What would also be helpful is to acknowledge that African-Americans are one of the most churched population groups in the United States. They are overwhelmingly in Baptist and Holiness churches. Now if there is something wrong with Baptist and Holiness churches, then we should be striving to bring African-Americans into the Reformed faith. But what is often the case is that those who are most concerned about OPC and PCA whiteness are often the ones who least object to Presbyterians and Baptists together.
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First you are correct in saying that African Americans are a churched group in the USA that is unlike Arabs in Michigan or Indians & pakistanis in NJ they are not an unreached people group. Most are as you note are Baptist & Pentecostal/Holiness. But as one who views reformed theology as being truth I would hope to see reformed theology taught among al types of people and groups. And many more African Americans seem to be attracted to reformed theology although most are baptist. I am aware of a growing African American PCA presence but as far as I know those predominently black PCA churches retain some aspects of African American worship. (I have no knowledge of similar churches in the OPC or ARP). I’m not hinting that there is a function between the OPC/PCA & ethnicity but that it may be possible that one reason most blacks were not drawn to Presbyterianism was that Presbyterianism did not allow for the flexability in worship. (also the fact that southern presbyterians would never recoginize a black TE as equal nor allow for opportunities for an educated clergy are also possible reasons.)
I think one reason for the at least the small number of black PCAers is 1st way back in the 1800s the few black Presbyterians that there were opted out of the PCUS due to racism & therefore the PCUS was lilly white & the PCA as well. I also think that when the PCA was formed that at least among some the Civil rights movement & inetgration was a motive for many. (As far as the OPC I’m ignorant but knowing that Machen was at heart a Southerner I’d love to hear yr thoughts on that but thats a seperate issue for another time.)
The relationship between ethnicity & culture? Ethnicity seems less malleable while culture more so. For example take 2 brothers both African AMerican one is raised in New york & the other in L.A.(Lower Alabama). ethnically they will be essentially the same but culturally very different.
The same might be said for immigrant groups. An Indian family immigrates to New Jersey from Bombay. Their children are born in the USA. The children will be more culturally American than their parents. Then their children even more so and may feel very little identity to the home country. But that cultural identity will vary from individual to individual depending on their circumstances and families. A 3rd or 4th generation Indian may feel very much at home in an OPC/PCA church but for the 1st generation it will be very unfamilar. But it’s also true that even a 3rd or 4th generation Indian might find attractive to a church that respects & uses musical practices from his families culture.
I think this gets to my original question. Is it permissable to plant a church and use worship practices that are similar to another culture & still be considered “fitting, appropriate, and propriety.”
The questions regarding African Americans etc I think are beside the point. Yes they are churched & not an unreached group. But suppose a black seminary grad wanted to plant an OPC church in a black neighborhood would he be allowed to adapt the worship in light of traditional black worship?
(You could say that b/e they are churched group then the OPC shouldn’t parachute in. But by that same logic we could say there shouldn’t be any OPC churches south of Baltimore)
Suppose a Pakistani convert graduates from WTC/C and wants to plant a south Asian oriented OPC church would he be given the freedom to use tablas, sitars, & harmoniums?
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Bobby, as you are trying to make your point by planting churches in hypothetically pure ethnic environs, I can’t help but wonder about going in the direction of the white lillies. Specifically I think of how a church here in white bred America wants to appeal to staid suburban and upwardly mobile WASPy tastes and styles, the sort that likes lots of processionals, robed choirs, stained glass and wood:
http://www.thebanner.org/news/article/?id=578
This is why the “traditionalists” are of as little help as the “contemporaries.” Both are essentially culturalists. Both have the same human-centered assumptions that worship is somehow about us. But the thing about Reformed worship according to Scripture is that it can be done anywhere and by anyone. So to my mind, adapting worship to traditional black or white or Asian proclivities is a problem. I’m as fish belly white as they come but I wouldn’t describe white LaGrave Avenue CRC’s worship as Reformed according to Scripture.
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Just to throw a cog into the discussion: I think “traditional black worship” means the Alexandrian rite (subdivided into the Coptic rite in Egypt and the Ge’ez rite in Ethopia). If so, a Reformed liturgy, with its concomitant aesthetic standard, ought to be perfectly suitable seeing as these are merely outgrowths of the Church’s 2000 year development which, as Thomas Oden recently pointed out, has its roots in African, not European, thinking. The problem begins when we start thinking of blacks as not having existed before slavery brought them to the Americas and assume that all they’re suited for is a semi-revivalist form of worship.
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Evan- huh?
ok Africa not’s monolithic either. Its made up of north Africa(millenia ago home to Augustine & rich Christian heritage.) west Africa, sothern Africa, east etc. My point is & was not to pick out some lost worship heritage of African Americans but only to use African Americans as ONE example of how a reformed church if they were going to plant a church among a group of might adapt the worship and is that adaptation acceptable according to the RPW.
of course I recognize that all groups, wheter African Americas, asian, south asian have within them different perspectives and facets.
BUT if a person of ANY ethnic group says he wants to plant an OPC church can he use elements from that culture?
I ask that b/e Dr. Hart earlier said that guitars (& contemporary worship)do not fit the principles of “fitting, appropriate, and propriety” then what are the consequences for that statement.
Does that mean that an Indian convert who might want to plant an OPC church among the large Indian population in NJ would be prohibited from using sitars, tablas & harmoniums? (please don’t answer by going into the specfics of the Syrian orthodox of south India!) as I said the same question could be asked of the Arabic community of Michigan.
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Zrim,
Im not trying to defend contemporary or traditional worship & I know all of these terms such as traditional black worship are malleable.
But I do want to know how flexaible some of you think reformed worship is? If it can’t include guitars does that mean it can’t include a sitar? Can it include music styles from Iraq? Can an OPC church plant among Tanzanian immigrants include drums if drums are the primary musical element of that culture?
(I only use Tanzania as an example there is no need to dissect Tanzania. I have no idea if drums are. its a what if question)
The other reason for using African American worship as an example is that most of us are familar with the basic elements of that worship & there are examples of predominantly African American PCA churches that use elements of black worship. Not many of us are familar with other cultures.
(I do recall a post on Heidelblog a couple years ago of black PCA churches with a You Tube video of worship. Many of the comments there did not hesistate in labeling the worship not reformed)
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Bobby, if you think that worship is culturally derived from an ethnic group’s history, why isn’t its doctrine also culturally derived? For the life of me I cannot fathom how people can write off historic Presbyterian forms of worship and think they can retain historic forms of Presbyterian doctrine. Last I checked, both are forms and they have a history that is directly located in western Europe.
The other question is whether Reformed theology requires a certain kind of worship, or are the cultural forms interchangeable — guitars, organs, chanting? it’s all good? As near as I can tell, Reformed worship should be serious, dignified, orderly, and reverent because those are attributes that the Bible teaches and because they are fitting in the worship of a holy God. Southerners may express reverence differently from urbanites. But in either setting, the guitar is an instrument that players use to draw attention to themselves rather than direct it to the God of the universe. Why do you think so many people play air guitars?
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Ben,
I was not implying that you had a “problem” with the Westminster confession, although the way I asked the question I understand why you may have taken it that way. Maybe a better way to put it is do you think there are any conflicts with theonomy doctrine and the Westminster confession?
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Bobby,
All the more reason to return to the traditional Presbyterian form of worship that includes no instrumentation of any kind and only the voices of God’s people.
Instruments are not necessary (nor even preferable) for congregational singing.
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John,
No I agree with Dr. Hart that the 1789 revisions change the ethos of the confession in that regard, not only for those who may be theonomic but also for Covenanters of the establishmentarian kind. However the changes to the WCF in 1789 do not rule out theonomy, especially since the revisers did not bother to change the WSC and the WLC.
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Ben, do you really think the inattention to the catechisms was intended to make room for theonomy? Do you even think that the Westminster Assembly, which was called by Parliament, was theonomic? The paragraph on synods and councils not meddling with civil affairs pretty much indicates who held the power in 1646, and it wasn’t ministers.
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Bobby, it almost sounds like you want very specific answers about the permisibility of guitars and sitars. I think the point is larger than that. I think it has more to do with asking the question about whether what is done is reverent and orderly, simple and digified.
For my part, I just don’t see how either a guitar or a pipe organ do that. I see how they meet the musical felt needs of certain parts of white culture. I come from a Reformed church that considers its worship high and dignified partly because of the presence of a looming pipe organ and the absence of any guitars. But it has always seemed to me that this is the sort of thing that traditional white culture simply assumes. Maybe I’m still chaffed at how an undignified six figures was dropped to update the consarnit thing, but stately pipe organs draw attention to the musical skills and pedigrees of their players just as much as any guitar.
But there is also a “song service” just a few minutes prior to the evening service. This I don’t understand. It seems to suggest a revivalist influence where the idea is that we are to get prepared (revved or stirred up perhaps?) by way of music. But if proper preparation for godly worship is to instill reverence and awe, and I think it is, then it sure seems to me that the best way to do this is by way of silence, something I think understood across all times and places.
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Bobby, I think both you and Dr. Hart aren’t thinking broadly enough. When I posited the Alexandrian rite as an African liturgy I intentionally made the connection with the Reformed liturgies because the history of the Church Catholic is a history of organic evolution. It’s true in doctrine, it’s true in liturgy, and it’s true in details like music as well. In focusing solely on Presbyterian practice, the larger issue of Catholicity is missed. When one asks why a musical form or even a certain instrument is or is not appropriate, one should go to the Church as a whole for the answer, not merely to one denomination. You asked whether the guitar or drums were appropriate and Dr. Hart answered using categories linked with propriety and dignity which, I believe, should be sufficient. However, the big-picture answer, and I believe the more convincing, is that the musical forms to which these instruments have today been wedded are inconsistent with the practice of the universal Church. Music of a secular style has never been commonly permitted in Church worship regardless of its content. The Church has always retained a distinct manner of musical production and, though there have sometimes been stylistic similarities between sacred and secular music, the two are always distinguishable from one another. When music accompanying the liturgy so resembles that of the popular concert hall that it cannot be held apart but for its lyrics, the tradition of the Church has been violated. Now, regardless of one’s opinion on things such as exclusive Psalmody, I believe the argument I present as to musical form can be widely accepted with but a little digging into music history.
As a side thought, it might be entirely suitable to use guitars were they played differently than it typical in secular music- that is plucked rather than strummed. I’m sure many a gallery band in 18th century England included a lute.
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“Ben, do you really think the inattention to the catechisms was intended to make room for theonomy? Do you even think that the Westminster Assembly, which was called by Parliament, was theonomic? The paragraph on synods and councils not meddling with civil affairs pretty much indicates who held the power in 1646, and it wasn’t ministers.”
Dr. Hart. Of course not, I just believe the 1789 revisions leave room for Theonomy. There is nowhere in the 1789 revisions that says the Magistrate is not allowed to consult the Scriptures to make Law. However I do find it curious the 1789 revisers did not bother to change the WSC/WLC where it disagreed with their revisions.
2) I would not say the Assembly was “theonomic”.
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“But in either setting, the guitar is an instrument that players use to draw attention to themselves rather than direct it to the God of the universe.”
Thanks, DGH. Instruments in worship are not ends themselves but simply a means to carry psalms and hymns. The more any instrument draws attention to itself, the more it becomes independent – an element itself – and essentially a form of entertainment rather than an aid to worship.
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Zrim, why don’t you move to Hillsdale. We could use you in our church plant.
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Evan, by your reasoning, shouldn’t Reformed churches consult with non-Reformed communions on the sacraments? Where would that lead? I’m all for catholicity, but for Reformed Protestants to be true to the insights of their tradition, I’m not sure how an inspection of the Alexandrian liturgy is going to be of much help. Reformed theology is not an entire break with the Christian past. But neither is it an organic development of earlier expressions. Reformed worship follows the RPW (not P&W). And I don’t know of too many churches that take the second commandment the way the Reformed do.
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Ben, I don’t see anything in the WSC that is at odds with the 1789 revisions. And the only part of the WLC that seems to collide is 191 on the second petition. This is less a function of inconsistency than a general neglect by American Presbyterians of the WLC more generally. In fact, when you see what the WLC prescribes about the lay reading of Scripture, most two-office arguments about leading in worship crumble.
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Michael, I hope that simply because you won the book you will not become part of an “amen corner” at Oldlife.org.
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DGH, wasn’t that part of the deal?
…and, applying this principle to church architecture, any musician (if there must be one) should be behind the congregation rather than in front of them.
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Dr. Hart,
I am a 3-office guy.
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…After all, if someone wants to be seen and recognized for their musicianship – to be told how wonderful he played during worship, he needs to go the route that musicians take: play the coffee houses, the bars, or an auditorium if you attract a big enough crowd. The church is not the place for your musical flourishes, however suitable they might be in another context.
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I’m still not convinced “Michael Mann” is not Zrim or DGH incognito. Is that just my paranoia or what? Who is this mystery man?
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John, he’s my agent.
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Darryl, if I could you know I would, if I could I would…dislocate (to keep the U2 theme alive amongst serious fans).
Michael, I don’t know what it is about your remark that does it, but I recall a “music dedication Sunday” service in our former CRC (the CRC is rotten with special-Sunday-this-and-that) where the congregational prayer included a plea to “sanctify our instruments.” Until then I was unaware that Jesus lived and died for flutes.
John, I’m me.
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Dr. Hart, The RPW is of little use in deciding questions of style since it addresses content not mode of transmission. For those things on which Scripture is not clear, tradition is a generally trustworthy guide and, since the history of the entire Church is ours, I see no problem in examining past practice on this particular point.
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I mean, of course, that tradition is useful for principles, not necessarily particulars. For example, I recognize that a continual emphasis on sacred music being different from secular music is something quite different than trying to justify the use of choirs by an appeal to tradition.
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Evan, I see no problem in examining the past either, but when it comes to song in worship the Reformed have had a unique position that stems directly from the RPW.
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“He’s my agent” Well at least we know he is a lawyer, not a movie maker!! Hey, I’m just a lowly Lutheran (Lilliputian) who eats the crumbs that fall from the Calvinistic table.
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>>> if you think that worship is culturally derived from an ethnic group’s history, why isn’t its doctrine also culturally derived?
I didn’t say that worship is culturally derived but rather culture might influence specfic elements within worship. While I don’t think doctrine is culturally derived I do think culture might influence how you look at doctrine and what you emphasize since no one lives in culture free bubble. An Asian culture might write a new reformed confession and have certain cultural emphases but still have an overall overlap with other classic confessions.
You say worship must always be “serious, dignified, orderly, and reverent ” but I’v3e asked continually is that these terms are very cultural and may look very different in different locales & cultures.
>>> the guitar is an instrument that players use to draw attention to themselves rather than direct it to the God of the universe. Why do you think so many people play air guitars
And a piano dosen’t? an organ? a violin? this seems so subjective. I didn’t ask you about guitars but yr exclusion of guitars could easily lead to the subjective exclusion of other instruments(ie harmonium, tabla, sitar in South Asia).
I asked several times about possible OPC examples- African American ordained in the OPC how much leeway would he be allowed?(there are PCA examples you can examine. Is the PCA violating the RPW by allowing it?) Arabic convert in Michigan or Indian convert in NJ?
I can only assume that you would believe that an OPC south Asian church plant should never use a sitar, tabla but a paino is ok.
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>>>”All the more reason to return to the traditional Presbyterian form of worship that includes no instrumentation of any kind and only the voices of God’s people.
Instruments are not necessary (nor even preferable) for congregational singing.
I’m not even going to go there. I’ve looked at both the arguments against instrumentation & exclusive psalmody & find them on very thin biblical ice.
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Bobby, since you seem to want to dialogue, answer these for me:
– what is the purpose of instruments in worship?
– are you in favor of instrumental solos?
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Micheal like I said I’ve read the arguments regarding non-instrumentation worship before & don’t find them very biblical or convincing. My questions were regarding the missiological consequences regarding a strict application of the RPW as esp previously expressed by DGH who as far as I know is not an exclisive pslamist not does he call for the ban of instrumentants in worship. (althoguh I may be wrong)
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Bobby, the arguments for instruments may be even thinner — as in non-existent. Remember, the force for RPW purpose is to find a biblical warrant for doing something, not finding silence that makes it permissible.
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“Micheal like I said I’ve read the arguments regarding non-instrumentation worship before & don’t find them very biblical or convincing.” Well, OK Bobby, but that’s not much of a conversation. What if I go first?
– the purpose of an instrument in worship is to assist, if necessary, the congregation to sing hymns and psalms. If no assistance is needed no instrument is needed.
– instrumental solos, not being prescribed by the Bible are simply entertainment and have no place in the church.
– a bonus answer, to a question never asked: those who play instruments in the church are to be content to fade into the background so that the singing itself is most prominent.
Now your turn.
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I always found the quick dismissal of passages like Ps 149 & 150 by limitiing them only to the temple to be almost baptisitc in it’s reasoning(the same logic that Baptists use to withhold baptism to all members of the covenant community.) Why such a wide almost dispensational discontinuity b/n the Old & New Covenants?
But again I don’t really want to get pulled into an comment thread that has been repeated so many times elsewhere.
Again I wanted to know how far cultural expression would be allowed in worship I gave several examples that no one interacted with besides trying to make a connection b/n African Americans & North African Christianity of 1500 years ago.
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Bobby, but you really haven’t asked the question well. You want to know if an African-American congregation could fly in the OPC or PCA with its “own” cultural expression. Some have responded by asking what this “own” is. What does it look like, sound like, what do its forms connote?
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Bobby, maybe you could answer your own question? I think some here have tried to interact with what seems to be the point you seem to want to make, but it sounds like you still haven’t found what you’re looking for (more U2). But I’m still skeptical of any cultural expression – black, white or whatever – being given haven in any worship that conceives itself as Reformed according to Scripture.
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>>>”I’m still skeptical of any cultural expression – black, white or whatever – being given haven in any worship that conceives itself as Reformed according to Scripture.
you are making the hughe assumption that yr worship is cullturally neutral?
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check out this link & go directly to the video
African AMericans in PCA ministry. There are pictures of some worship. Chew on it.
But remember my question was not only about African Americans but about any cultural expressions that might be different from the typical PCA/OPC worship. ie South Asian church plant that uses tabla, harmonium or sitar. You may know of other examples
I will say one strong point in the non use of instruemnts agruments given by some of you at least its consistent as opposed to some who subjectively pick & chose which instruemnts are acceptable & which are not.
Piano- good guitar- bad
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Bobby, I see no link. But I’m curious, would you go to an Af. Am. church, or a S. Asian one? If so, does that make you a cosmopolitan worshiper, able, like Paul Simon, to taste ethnic music of all varieties. Or are you yourself not culturally neutral and so incapable of worshiping outside a white-suburban environment?
Either way, if we can’t escape culture, if we’re not culturally neutral, how can people from diverse cultures ever worship together (meanwhile, we haven’t talked about the most defining aspect of culture – language – and we’re assuming all along all the “ethnic” churches use English)? But if we can escape culture, then why can’t “ethnics” worship with white-bred liturgy?
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OK, Bobby, so you’re on my “will not talk” list. But there was a point to my approach: problems are magnified to the extent that you conceive of instruments as independent elements. The more that is the case, the more you create clashes from one congregation to the next, and clashes within individual congregations. In other words, prominent instrumentation is an influence counter to unity and peace in the church.
But this may even be the tip of the iceberg, because if you conceive of instruments as elements per se then I wonder if you have any principle that would keep other elements of the worship service from sliding into entertainment.
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Two different beginnings, two different questions. “What is an entertaining instrument in this culture?” vs. “What is the least intrusive instrument that can aid singing in this culture”?
Two different results.
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Sorry here’s the link
http://redemptionfellowship.org/
see the video African Americans in Ministry in the PCA
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Its not that I won’t talk but that yr questions are a diversion of the questions I originally asked Is it permissable to use other elements of culture in worship.
I assumed the permissabillity of instrumentation b/e the earlier arguemtnst presented were arguments against specfic instruments such as guitars.
I’ve never been a member of a noninstrumental church but I can imagine that people can fight over almost anything.
But I for one can’t even concieve of deying the use of instruements when I see more biblical permission & nothing bibillically to exclude them.
(By the way love yr movies Mr. Mann)
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Dr. Hart the link is there now.
I would hope that all of us as believers in Christ could appreciate each other’s cultures. Would I go to an African American Church? Yes
South Asian? Yes but I don’t know of any reformed South Asian ministries or church plants in the USA. (there may be something connected to Redeemer) But they like Iraqis in Michigan are mostly nonchurced & unreached. Hence my question in how much flexability is allowed in a church plant that would ministter in that community
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Bobby, I couldn’t past all the transformationism at the front door, and that there is a “First Lady” on staff smacks of Pentecostalism (plus, I don’t have much time this morning).
But I think what you want to say is that you think there is latitude in doxology. But I don’t think there should be anymore latitude in doxology than there is in sacramentology. I understand that the default setting by and large is for latitude (as if as long as our soteriology is sola fide then the other -ologies have wiggle room), but I think that is the point here. I seriously think the idea of doxology as the fourth mark of the true church is worth considering. It is odd to me that when a Reformed Christian is out of town over a Lord’s Day he must do his homework to find a church that worships predictably, while the Pentecostal Christian knows exactly what he’ll get in one of the four corners of the earth. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Shouldn’t the only tradition that has something like the RPW be brutally predictable and one based on spontaniety unpredictable?
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Bobby,
I’d listen to these two sermons to understand better why Psalm 150 poses no problem for the non-instrumental position.
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=1206111121
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=190681746
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I understand, Bobby, and I am afraid I am not making my point well. Maybe this is it: you win the argument because of your premises. That is, if I buy into your premise that instruments themselves are an element and can properly be used as entertainment, then your arguments are probably pretty sound (I haven’t read this entire thread, so I won’t overcommit.) But if I don’t buy into your premise, I can’t even begin to walk down the road that is your argument. And maybe your differences with some here is not in your logic but your premises.
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Zrim the tradition of First lady is very much an African American tradition and is seen not only in Pentcostalism but in the AME, Baptists, etc.
Personally the way you descride the RPW seems like a straitjacket while see it as giving more flexibility. What you do in worship comes from Scripture but how its expressed will look different from ch to ch and culture to culture.
Also wasn’t one reason for the RPW a reaction on the the Church of England’s heavy handed way it forced the Book of Common Prayer on all churches?
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Bobby, is this really about culture or theology. White Pentecostals and Baptists and holiness folks also incorporate women in ways that Reformed would not. So is this really about race or ethnicity or denominationalism?
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Michael, yr correct that when I started making my points & asking questions that I came in w/an assumption that instruments were ok in part b/e much of the earlier posts were over which instruments would not fit w/in reformed worship so I took that as a starting point that if some instruments were forbidden while others permissable then by consequence that their would be missiological & cultural consequences for worship & church planting among ethnic & international groups.
Your points reg instrumentation while valid in some ways(and a very well plowed field on blogs & discussions in a number of places) seemed to be a distraction. I wasn’t trying to belittle yr arguments but see if others here had thoughts on how worship might still be reformed but different culturally.
I suppose that you could have a international church plant that uses no instruments but b/e of cultural differences would look different than a middle class suburban RPCNA church & so my questions may still be valiid even w/out instruments.
Is the predominatly African American church in Selma different in worship styles to other RPCNA churches? (I’ve never been) or is it “brutally predictable?”
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is this really about culture or theology. White Pentecostals and Baptists and holiness folks also incorporate women in ways that Reformed would not. So is this really about race or ethnicity or denominationalism?
I’m not sure what you are asking. Are you talking about the First Lady practice? As far as I know that is a practice w/in African American churches which spans denominations & is not a church office(although it may vary.) My understanding is that it is only an honor bestowed upon the pastor’s wife. I don’t know the history of the practice.
Many but not all pentecostals do ordain women and as far as I know no one involved in the ministries shown in the video advocate it either. As far as Baptists I know the majority are also against ordination of women to church office at least Southern Baptists. So I’m not sure what yr point is?
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Anyone easily embarassed should avert their eyes while I quickly flash my irenic side.
Bobby, I do think we do share something in common. Neither of us desires to be cultural imperialists. So, even based on my assumptions, if a minimalist instrument is necessary to assist a congregation in a foreign setting, it could certainly be something familiar to that culture. And I suppose the lilts of an a capella chant would be lilts that would feel somewhat comfortable to the culture of the congregants. Some thought should be given to the associations of the instrument in that culture.
No good deed goes unpunished so I’ll probably get some flak for this.
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Personally the way you descride the RPW seems like a straitjacket while [I] see it as giving more flexibility.
Bobby, narrowness corresponds to the RPW. Flexibility corresponds to Christian liberty. And what you see has “straightjacketing” is actually a way to free consciences from being bound by men to worship God in a way he has not commanded. I’ll grant that the RPW may not be done well amongst many P&R (even the best PCA we worship in sometimes includes a piano and, apparently now, heaven help me, a violin), but the actual point of the RPW is to free consciences, not bind them.
So to bring this back to the Bayly’s: what is interesting to me is how the doxological latutudinarians are also the ones which bind conscience on cultural matters. To wit, the Bayly’s think guitars and rap in worship is kosher but call “unfaithful” those who refrain from showing sufficient moral indignation over reproductive legislation. And this really is a 2k point: doxological or ecclesiastical intolerance is matched by cultural tolerance. But with the anti-2k Bayly’s it’s the other way around.
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“even the best PCA we worship in sometimes includes a piano”
somtimes includes a piano? When does a PCA church not include a piano? i know of no PCA church that dosen’t use instruments. they may be a few but I’m not aware of them.
Perhaps the other reason I am presuming that the use of instruments is proper & biblical is that this seems to be no issue at all in the PCA. (and I thought the OPC) I thought the only debate in those churches was what instruments are ok. And the PCA gives fairly wide latitude to churches in most presbyteries to chose for themselves which instruments to use.
But none of you have commented on the worship in the video link. No comments?
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Bobby, the video from Redeemer PCA strikes me as Willow-Creek-for-African-Americans. Just like the article I provided a few back about LaGrave CRC is Willow-Creek-for-WASPs. At least Stan Mast has the forthrightness to be explicit about his Willow Creek-i-osity.
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Bobby, my point is that some whites worship the way blacks do — they are often in holiness and pentecostal churches. So the discomfort that “ethnics” might feel in a Reformed church may have less to do with socio-economic status or race and more with the theology a denomination professes. Some blacks are liturgical, more are charismatic. Some whites are liturgical, more are low-church. Since they all speak English, I’m not sure what culture has to do with this.
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Zrim, ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding!!!!
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That was a good discussion that did not cave in to the common arguments about cultural considerations in worship. Worship often draws attention to the worshiper, when the point of worship is to draw our attention towards what God has done for us in Christ. Transformational theology and charismatic type worship seem to go hand in hand. Until the theology of glory becomes unconvincing to an individual there will remain to be arguments for contemporary type worship. It is theology and worship which are more tied together than ethnic backrounds and worship.
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So MM, how long are you going to keep the myth alive that you are a movie maker? I noticed that Bobby complimented you on the movies you had made without narly a word from you of appreciation.
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I do not know if it’s just me or if everyone else experiencing problems with your website. It appears as though some of the written text in your content are running off the screen. Can someone else please comment and let me know if this is happening to them as well? This could be a problem with my web browser because I’ve haԁ this hapρen before.
Kudos
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Household, okay, man. Sean may need your help.
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