I thing that most Calvinists will agree with much that is posted here. IMHO modern Christians want God to be a big buddy, and not God.
Gang?
GRPL PING
Posted on 12/01/2004 7:48:32 AM PST by sionnsar
[Please read the comment following, to get the context of this posting, before starting into this article. --sionnsar]
The Catholic church has been fighting a running battle with narcissism in worship ever since apostolic times. There has never been a shortage of people who want to take over public worship for their own purposes. In this battle–really a tug-of-war–two powerful forces struggle for supremacy. On the one side there is “me”: the personal dimension of religion. The faith of Christianity must involve the personal, private relationship of the individual ("me") to the personal Jesus, who will always listen to every prayer. On the other side of this tug-of-war is the job of faith. Christians come together to worship as a community. The Mass is a public, communal effort, in which individuals act and pray as a group. Tension between the private and public sectors is inevitable.
We can see this tension in two thousand years of Christian art for a liturgical setting. The painters of the Byzantine icon, for example, were ready to burst with emotional religious fervor and yet at every stage of artistic creation they pulled this zeal back; they held the reins tightly, as it were. They would not permit themselves the luxury of painting their own version of what they felt. Instead, they submitted to a canon of taste that belonged to something larger than themselves: the highest expectations of the community, the culture, or, if you wish, the tribe. The painters of the icon put their private, inner faith into the painted image but they did so according to strict conventions and traditional formulas; in this way they communicated to the beholder the message that the image went beyond the mere feelings of the artist and beyond the commonplace.
The church insisted on obedience to a great Unwritten Law which went something like this: “As a creative artist you may follow your own instincts but your art or music for the church must not clash with the liturgical function; it must take its place in the objective liturgical setting and not seem like an intrusion. Your creation must display a degree of quality and craftsmanship which will be agreeable to prince and peasant, male and female, young and old. Everyone who sees the artwork or hears the music must sense a group endeavor, a group prayer: maybe something performed by the assembly or by a choir acting in the name of the assembly, maybe a painting that seems to sum up the highest religious aspirations of a whole people. In the past the icon painters prayed and fasted as they struggled to put the holy images into the exacting forms prescribed by tradition. You must try to do something similar.”
The composers of … reformed folk music have created a large repertory of songs with mild harmonies, comforting words, and a sort of “easy listening” sound; it is all so very undisturbed and appealing, the musical equivalent of the warm bubblebath. The whole enterprise has been resoundingly successful and some publications sell in the millions…. For the time being, the reformed-folk repertory (also known as “contemporary” church music) occupies the high ground; it has the advantage of appearing to possess a musical and a moral superiority. It enjoys the reputation for being “new” and “what the people want.”
The victory of the folk style, reformed or otherwise, is so great and so blinding that many people cannot see beyond the apparent success to what could mildly be called the problem with this music: simply put, nearly all of it–no matter how sincere, no matter how many scriptural texts it contains–oozes with an indecent narcissism. The folk style, as it has developed since the 1960s, is Ego Renewal put to music.
“I” and “me” songs or sung versions of intense personal “conversations” with God can be found in the psalms and in almost two millennia of Christian worship, but great care was taken to make sure that the music would not sound like a presentation of individual “I-me” emotions. The words of the psalm might say “I” and “me,” but the music, intended for public worship, said “we.” A good example of this can be seen in the various settings of Psalm 90/91, a song of comfort and a reminder of God’s abiding protection. In the Middle Ages, the words of this psalm were lifted out of the common place and uttered in the Latin language (Qui habitat in adjutorio Altissimi …); the sentiments in the text were then twisted in the unusually shaped melodies of chant, the musical equivalent of the icon. These two “artificial” steps (the Latin language and the odd melodies) reminded everyone that this particular text, as sun, was not the personal property of the singer but an integral part of a public act of worship.
The early Protestant reformers translated the same psalm into the vernacular so that the congregation could sing it, but they too kept this important element of distance and “artificiality”; that is, they preserved the ideal of the “icon in music.” The words of the psalm were jammed into the pattern of a strict poetic meter with rhyme. ("O God, our help in ages past,/Our hope for years to come …") Melodies were foursquare and totally without a sense of private intimacy. Sometimes the melodies were so “neutral” and generic that a tune could be used for any kind of psalm: one with a joyous text or one with more mournful words.
Now, with the above versions of Psalm 90/91 in mind, analyze the same text as found in the song On Eagle’s Wings by Michael Joncas. Note the enormous difference. The Joncas work, an example of the reformed-folk style at its most gushing, does not proclaim the psalm publicly; it embraces the text–lovingly, warmly, and even romantically. That moaning and self-caressing quality of the music, so common in the reformed-folk style, indicates that the real topic of the words is not the comforting Lord but “me” and the comforts of my personal faith.
One composer of “contemporary” church music described perfectly what is going on in this type of music. He said that in his own compositions he tried to bring out the “felt meanings” of the sung words. There is indeed something quite tactile about the way this music manipulates the words; the meaning of the text has to be molded, shaped–felt. As a result, the performance of reformed-folk music depends heavily on a dramatic realism, on the ability of soloists to communicate personal feelings, felt meanings, to a congregation.
The music of the St. Louis Jesuits, the Dameans, the Weston Monks, Michael Joncas, and all the others is, without any doubt, a revolutionary addition to the Roman Rite. These composers have, as it were, smashed the icon, an exceedingly revolutionary act.
I hate praise music too. All the churches are "doing it" where I live. It's so irreverent and "casual". Unfortunately, that whole attitude is keeping me home on Sundays.
Have you checked everywhere? I would think that PCA Presbyterians, Missouri Synod Lutherans and conservative Catholics would be the last to do this - and certainly not Orthodox, Melkite Catholics, or any other of the Eastern Churches.
No PCA here. The only one I haven't tried (besides Catholic) is the Missouri Lutheran and it's next on my list!
My mother goes to a ML church and they have an entire praise service.
Maybe you can find a nice quiet Catholic church with chant? There's one here. Just one drawback - the Mass is entirely in Latin.
;-)
Thanks, AAM. We try to deal with things as they come, but I think it will all turn out for the best. She is 17 weeks along and that is good as far as miscarrying goes. She had a seizure yesterday, and we had to do a little time in the emergency room.
Your thoughts and prayers are most appreciated, all of you Freepers who do pray for us!
Both my sister and I made it . . . 17 weeks is good . . . we'll keep praying!
Will add you both to my prayers, NOBV.
As an Evangelical Christian, I enjoy "praise and worship" music - at home, in the car. I do not believe it belongs in church services. When I go to church, I want traditional hymns, an organ or piano, and a choir. Formal music adds to the spirit of reverence that should be part of church worship.
BTW, my husband has sang both in choir and on a 'worship team' and he would rather sing in a choir for the same reason.
Thanks, bonfire, I appreciate it!
I make no secret of being something of an old fart ...
Who, or what, is Stryper?
Imagine if Spinal Tap was a Christian band, that's Stryper.
I thing that most Calvinists will agree with much that is posted here. IMHO modern Christians want God to be a big buddy, and not God.
Gang?
GRPL PING
There is a smattering of praise music in the PCA, but it is stuff that is sound. i.e. not self-exaulting.
Now I'm feeling even older. Spinal Tap? Uhhh... don't bother.
As we, and our church, continue to do...
is "Stryper".
They are (were?) a band.
That is, they did something which they purported to be making music.
Christian music.
Allegedly.
Their doctrine was questionable.
Their musical talents were without question.
They were abhominable.
IMO.
What's with the silly getups? Uhhh... never mind. Thanks!
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