Posted on 02/21/2022 10:53:33 AM PST by MNDude
There is no point in singing, what they are “singing” on stage isn’t singable by the congregation anyway. It is not worship, it really is just entertainment, if you like your 7/11 loud.
We left a church that discontinued the choir and moved to a praise team format so the pastor’s wife could work on her desired career.
For now we have found a church where the traditional service still has a choir, and a full orchestra to sing with.
Since you dont want to tell me how many verses in the bible it will take to persuade you…. Lets go this route. Do you know who Martin Luther is? Without him you might still be roman catholic. He was a church musician. You are much more learned than him I am sure….
I doubt if the Lord will kick someone out of heaven for singing Handel’s Messiah or playing Mozart’s Requiem in a worship service.
I remember a CofC service in which the kids were singing for the congregation. Then the teacher gave them the key by blowing on a pitch pipe. One old codger in the audience absolutely went ballistic over that. Ranted and raved on and on.
No, can’t relate. We’re Russian Orthodox. We sing the most gorgeous heavenly music anyone could comprehend. No instruments allowed. Been that way for 2000 years. We don’t change to accommodate the youth.
Our young inquirers are blown away by the beauty they witness. Sullying it with blindings lights and offensive electronic noises is anathema, and they know it.
If God considered music to be a sin, why would God call David, a musician, a man after his own heart, especially after David encouraged everyone to worship God by playing music loudly?
Acts 13:14 22 And when he had removed him, he raised up unto them David to be their king; to whom also he gave their testimony, and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfil all my will.
Psalm 150
1 Praise ye the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power.
2 Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness.
3 Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp.
4 Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs.
5 Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals.
6 Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.
1 Chronicles 15
16 And David spake to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren to be the singers with instruments of musick, psalteries and harps and cymbals, sounding, by lifting up the voice with joy.
17 So the Levites appointed Heman the son of Joel; and of his brethren, Asaph the son of Berechiah; and of the sons of Merari their brethren, Ethan the son of Kushaiah;
18 And with them their brethren of the second degree, Zechariah, Ben, and Jaaziel, and Shemiramoth, and Jehiel, and Unni, Eliab, and Benaiah, and Maaseiah, and Mattithiah, and Elipheleh, and Mikneiah, and Obededom, and Jeiel, the porters.
19 So the singers, Heman, Asaph, and Ethan, were appointed to sound with cymbals of brass;
20 And Zechariah, and Aziel, and Shemiramoth, and Jehiel, and Unni, and Eliab, and Maaseiah, and Benaiah, with psalteries on Alamoth;
21 And Mattithiah, and Elipheleh, and Mikneiah, and Obededom, and Jeiel, and Azaziah, with harps on the Sheminith to excel.
22 And Chenaniah, chief of the Levites, was for song: he instructed about the song, because he was skilful.
23 And Berechiah and Elkanah were doorkeepers for the ark.
24 And Shebaniah, and Jehoshaphat, and Nethaneel, and Amasai, and Zechariah, and Benaiah, and Eliezer, the priests, did blow with the trumpets before the ark of God: and Obededom and Jehiah were doorkeepers for the ark.
25 So David, and the elders of Israel, and the captains over thousands, went to bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of the house of Obededom with joy.
26 And it came to pass, when God helped the Levites that bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, that they offered seven bullocks and seven rams.
27 And David was clothed with a robe of fine linen, and all the Levites that bare the ark, and the singers, and Chenaniah the master of the song with the singers: David also had upon him an ephod of linen.
28 Thus all Israel brought up the ark of the covenant of the Lord with shouting, and with sound of the cornet, and with trumpets, and with cymbals, making a noise with psalteries and harps.
29 And it came to pass, as the ark of the covenant of the Lord came to the city of David, that Michal, the daughter of Saul looking out at a window saw king David dancing and playing: and she despised him in her heart.
Does the the ROC reject David's encouragement to praise loudly in Psalm 150 and David's playing of loud music in 1 Chronicles 15?
One old codger in the audience absolutely went ballistic over that. Ranted and raved on and on.
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lol. I can believe it. I had one young codger walk out on one of my Bible classes because I actually used a recording of someone reading a Bible passage. (Bible Gateway)
I’m a very excellent reader but I used a recording since a professional speaker added an extra nice touch and allowed me to refrain from speaking too much.
There is quite a difference between 'playing loudly' and electronic amplification. I was in a church, where the music was over 100 decibels. When I looked around, almost no one was singing because they couldn't even hear themselves.
I couldn’t believe it when visiting a church and they were handing out earplugs as you walked in the sanctuary doors..........I learned quickly why that was. It wasn’t just loud it was insufferable even after I put earplugs in.
You couldn’t hear anybody singing because the band and stage singers were so loud. I’ve been to rock concerts better than that!
Sounds more like “Hypnotic” to induce suggestive hearing.
I agree 100%
Was at a church dinner with a young couple singing on stage with their guitars. It was ok but the popular christian songs......until....they asked for requests. An older man asked for “How Great you Art”......
Oh my gosh....soon all the people were standing and the sound of their voices was amazing. You could sense the Spirit of God had arrived in that place throughout that moment. ...and I don’t get into waving hands and arms. But I have to say if any moment would have called for it it was then.
The other one is “It Is Well with My Soul”.....
Orthodox hymns are very moving, I concur.
That wasn't my question.
I was asking how the ROC squares 'no instruments allowed for over 2,000 years' with the passages from the books I quoted that encourage loud praise music using instruments.
For the record – no pun – I prefer the following masterpieces to the vast majority of so-called classic rock albums:
Larry Norman
Only Visiting This Planet
Daniel Amos
Shotgun Angel
The 2nd Chapter of Acts
In the Volume of the Book
Michael Omartian
White Horse
Oden Fong
Come for the Children
Randy Stonehill
Welcome to Paradise
While I have little use for the current “praise” pap – designed to offend no sensibilities – that gets played on such networks as KLOVE, I actually know and appreciate the history of genuine Christian Rock, which perforce came to be known as Contemporary Christian Music [CCM].
Larry Norman and other first-generation Christian artists began on regular record labels. Their lyrics were heavily censored by their record labels, and their songs were purged from radio playlists. Tower Records refused to put any of their albums in the Rock racks.
Transcendental Meditation? Cool. Ba’hai? Cool. Christianity? Not cool! Christian rockers were forced into a music ghetto; CCM was created by their Christophobic haters. Nota Bene: I am not here interested in subversive sophistry about what constitutes functional censorship.
(I once gave a speech on this very topic, and used musical excerpts from the above as part of my presentation. I got an ovation from the audience at that secular university, who wanted to hear more of such music!)
In fact, I prefer not to hear rock music during formal worship services, but outside of such an environment, I often listen to the best of CCM. Also for the record, there are plenty of modern non-rock “hymns” that are as egregiously mediocre as the loud rock that goes on in many modern churches. The 20th Century pieces that get used in many Arminian/Anabaptist congregations (think “Bible” churches), and certain non-Latin Catholic churches, are among the worst. They are not rock, but they are lyrically and musically insipid. I know: I have often been paid to sing them.
I grew up listening to the classic hymn chorales, and still relish them. I have sung many of them in both amateur and professional contexts. I have performed sacred and secular choral works by Bach, Mozart, Handel, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Palestrina, Vittorio, Britten, Bruckner, Verdi, Orff, Rachmaninoff, and many others. I have sung Orlando de Lassus in de Lassus’ church in Munich, and have sung Antonio Vivaldi in Vivaldi’s church in Venice.
I may not be a world-class chorister, but I am good enough to be chosen by audition to perform on stage with world-class instrumentalists, including those culled from the L.A. Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Pops, and the Royal Philharmonic, in venues before crowds of 10,000-20,000 people. (See Star Wars in Concert.)
I own a copy of the out-of-print J.S. Bach’s 371 Four-Part Chorales: the SATB chorales he composed for the laity of the Lutheran church, and the foundation for the de facto “rules” for the Common Practice (Major-Minor) music period that still dominates Western Music – including rock music – especially in regard to the consistent use of the leading tone. I have actually studied that book, in and out of theory classes, and I compose SATB-divisi choral music myself.
And I still prefer the above albums to the majority of so-called classic rock. (There are secular rock critics who consider Norman’s above album to be one of the best rock albums ever recorded.)
I was casually acquainted with Larry Norman: same neighborhood for a time, and I attended many of his concerts over a twenty-year period. He was a thoughtful and interesting person; Francis Schaeffer was one of his associates. I disagreed with some of Norman’s philosophy and theology, but that is part of life in a fallen world. We sometimes chatted before or after a concert
Larry Norman wrote a rock musical, The Epic, in 1966. He wrote others later. He suggested that Pete Townsend was inspired to write Tommy from those early efforts. I do not necessarily embrace that view, but I found Norman to be generally candid, and he certainly knew many of the rockers of that era, such as Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney.
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