Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: WillRain
"Beauty is not subjective, merely something in the eye of the beholder"

How's this: Beauty is not sujective. Beauty is not something which lies merely in the eyes of the beholder.

This is not about taste. Choosing which music you listen to in your private life is your prerogative. But it's not up to you or me to subject the worship of God to our "tastes". Look at Leviticus 10 and the account of Nadab and Abihu if you need proof that God will be worshipped according to His attributes.

Let me turn the question around and ask, Who are you to pick and choose after which which attributes of God public worship is to be patterned? God is indeed love, but is also holy, righteous, just, merciful, omnipresent, omnipotent. God is ALL of these, at once and in equal measure. Being a mere mortal, this is difficult for man to accept, who mirrors these attributes according to the Divine image in him but only in a shadow-like, limited way. He gets angry, then sad, then glad. He flits from the one to the other.

You are correct if you hold the position that no one can absolutize an aesthetic. No one said that worship music must exclude instruments or incldue only the organ or piano. But music whose character stirs the kind of emotions one might get from a television commercial (e.g. Jack Hayford's "Majesty") fails the objective test of fitting with the Divine character.

171 posted on 10/06/2003 6:31:48 AM PDT by Lexinom ("No society rises above its idea of God" (unknown))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 170 | View Replies ]


To: Lexinom; WillRain
As a quick addendum, I must clarify that that man does not have all of the Divine attributes (such as omniscience), only the transferrable ones. Dr. Kim Riddlebarger said it best: "Man is like God in every way that a creature can be like God."
172 posted on 10/06/2003 6:55:29 AM PDT by Lexinom ("No society rises above its idea of God" (unknown))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 171 | View Replies ]

To: Lexinom
Who are you to pick and choose after which which attributes of God public worship is to be patterned? God is indeed love, but is also holy, righteous, just, merciful, omnipresent, omnipotent. God is ALL of these, at once and in equal measure. Being a mere mortal, this is difficult for man to accept, who mirrors these attributes according to the Divine image in him but only in a shadow-like, limited way. He gets angry, then sad, then glad. He flits from the one to the other.

You are correct if you hold the position that no one can absolutize an aesthetic. No one said that worship music must exclude instruments or incldue only the organ or piano. But music whose character stirs the kind of emotions one might get from a television commercial (e.g. Jack Hayford's "Majesty") fails the objective test of fitting with the Divine character.

I do agree that God has a right to expect worship on his terms. That said, I fail to follow your rational that some music might improperly stir emotions or fail to me an objective standard.

Please tell me where you find in the Bible an objective standard of proper worship music, and what current denomination or group adheres strictly to that definition?

Understand, if the standard arises from ones interpretation of Scripture or the implications one draws, this is not "objective" at all except "in the eye of the beholder."

199 posted on 10/06/2003 3:05:25 PM PDT by WillRain
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 171 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson