FBFI "Why we are still here"

[Mark_Smith]

Andrew K wrote:

Mark_Smith wrote:

To me, the entire issue with “convergents” is about 2 things. First, if you want to loosen your music standards from traditional worship, and you start from the BJU/Maranatha/etc position, you will start singing Getty and Sovereign Grace songs. Maybe you will stop there. Maybe not.

Take out your church’s hymnal sometime and look at the dates of composition on a handful of the pietistic, revival songs. Most of those songs were considered a “loosening” of the traditional worship standards long before the Gettys. In many cases deservedly so, might I add.

Can you do me a favor? Can you list 5 songs that you love to use in worship at church right now?

Would it suffice if I provided you with my hymnal? ;)
https://www.opc.org/hymn.html?list_type=alpha

[Mark_Smith]

at church? If you don’t Bert or Ron, why not?

Mark…how I wish Hillsong was as taboo as you think it might be. I think that ship has sailed, too….

Well, a little bit off topic, I guess, but as I’ve noted elsewhere, I believe that music in the church exists to communicate the Word of God to the people of God in lyric form and prepare them to meet with Him. So reasons to exclude music would be that it’s flat out un-Biblical (especially contra-Biblical), that it’s not in decent lyric/poetic form, or that the music chosen simply doesn’t work with the lyrics. In congregational singing, it ought to be singable by an individual of ordinary singing ability so the tune, and the Biblical message, can be put into hearts and minds.

So if and when Hillsong’s music violates these principles, or other Biblical principles, then we’d want to shy away from it. I don’t know Hillsong well enough to comment, though. I would tend to exclude “Breathe”, though, simply because it says nothing distinctly Biblical about God. Among other things, it’s a waste of time.

Put more broadly, the demise of a fundamental standard for music (or any other topic) does not mean that there is no standard. It can mean, optimistically, that there’s a possibility we’re adopting a Biblical standard where one was not being used before.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

My church makes use of both traditional music and contemporary music in our services. Our music pastor has a list of criteria when selecting songs that we will use. (No, it’s not “Does it have a good beat and is it really popular?”) I couldn’t list all of his criteria offhand, but I know it includes these things (not verbatim):

  • Is the song doctrinally sound? Does it convey Biblical truth? Is there doctrinal error in it?
  • Is it vague about to whom the song refers? Is it about, or addressed to, the triune God of the Bible? (Or could it be referring to some generic, unnamed “deity”?)
  • Is it a “Jesus is my boyfriend” song? (NOT gonna happen at my church…..)

Not all CCM passes his test, by any means. But then, not all traditional hymnody does either.

This thread has proven Mark Ward’s comments in his Frontline article. This is why fundamentalism hasn’t produced a large body of more relevant work. We’re busy with “other” things.

Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.

1 Corinthians 15:1-3, FAV (Fundamentalist Authorized Version)

1 Cor 15
Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all [NOTE: meaning first in importance] that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures; and that music with an offbeat is satanic, and that you should wear suit and tie to church, and that Jesus turned the water into grape juice, and …[list greatly abbreviated for sake of time]…, and that we must separate from those who believe otherwise on any of these issues.

That’s why I have zero interest in what is generally considered to be fundamentalism. ZERO.

-------
Greg Long, Ed.D. (SBTS)

Pastor of Adult Ministries
Grace Church, Des Moines, IA

Adjunct Instructor
School of Divinity
Liberty University

You bring up “Revelation Song”. Man, WAKE UP. That is pure Charismatic music. From Christ for the Nations. Maybe you are ok with it. I wasted 15 years with the Charismatics. I wish to God that I could have the time back. But I can’t. There is NOTHING that the Charismatic church does that we should be emulating or using.

So would you recommend that Christians should stop singing “Like a River Glorious” and “Take my Life and Let it Be” because it was written by someone immersed too deeply in Keswick theology? I think not. The “guilt-by-association fallacy should not be a criteria of what songs we or we should not sing. The lyrics of the Revelation Song are biblical. That should be enough. Or else I’d have to let go of my love of “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” because of some of my differences I have with Martin Luther’s theology or even his anti-Jewish rants where he advocates burning down their synagogues, their houses, and confiscating their property. By the way, I first heard the Revelation song used by a Black Baptist Gospel Choir, and so my associations were not even on the radar that it came from a Charismatic group like Christ for the Nations.

I don’t sing the songs you posted BECAUSE they are expressing Keswick theology. No one can limit their hymns to only those with agreeable theology. There is nothing left.
This is the part about the anti-CCM (I don’t use it or listen to it for other reasons) folks that I never get. Don’t they realize that their hymnal has the same errors?

Have no fear. I’m not offended! :)

Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.

The Mark Ward who helped write the forward/preface; is that Mark Ward Sr. or his son, Mark Ward, Jr.? Both have doctoral degrees, so I’m not sure which Ward is which. Nevermind, it was specified at the bottom of the page.

As for ‘influential’ FBFI members - I would imagine that if you cross reference the list of FBFI members with the leadership of BJU or DBTS, you’d seen a lot of the same names. The FBFI promoted itself heavily while I was a student at NBBC/NIU, but obviously that isn’t happening anymore.

"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells

Mark asked a great question about why I’d want to bring a blues riff into the church; the simple answer is that the blues are simply a secularized phrasing of black Gospel music, which is the music which communicated God’s word to God’s people through slavery, Jim Crow, poverty….when you talk with a black pastor, even one with some “issues”, you will likely be amazed at how much Scripture they have memorized and ready to use. It’s almost like muscle memory, really. Put simply, the blues WORKS in communicating God’s Word to God’s people. Can I have an Amen?

Plus, if we think that our black brothers and sisters don’t notice when our rules for music are effectively “music of white protestants prior to Elvis is OK, everything else not so much”, we’re kidding ourselves. Along with divesting ourselves of guilt by association arguments and other genetic fallacies, bringing other peoples’ music into our churches is a way of saying that we are open for business, and not just among the fishbelly white.

To be blunt, one of the major problems I’ve got with most CCM is that they don’t use the blues enough, but rather water it down a la Muzak.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

Nevertheless, the “Convergence” issue was understandably troubling to Mark’s generation of fundamentalists. Similarly, this issue could be troubling to my generation. Already, I have received an appeal to cancel any plans to allow Mark to edit an issue of FrontLine and even to shut down his regular column. But Mark’s response to “Convergence” was exemplary. It was biblical. Rather than join those in his generation who took to the Internet in umbrage to declare (in essence), “They have no right to say these things about us!,” he called me and asked for clarity.

Sigh…

When you publish a magazine - an entire issue - about the compromising ‘convergents’ in our midst, you have moved beyond private discussion and into the ‘marketplace of ideas’, even if it is behind a paywall or is subscription only. It’s not only normal for that debate to happen, it should be expected.

We talk about being Bereans in our willingness to search the Scriptures, but when someone raises a contrary opinion or questions what we are told, we’re just supposed to accept whatever is said without questioning it? Particularly when so many of us explicitly stated on SharperIron that we didn’t know who they were aiming at or what this was all about?

I’ve probably been the biggest FBFI critic on this website, and I know that FBFI members have been offended by what I’ve said. It’s not because Aaron went looking for someone to ‘throw bombs’, and it’s not because I particularly enjoy it. It’s because this is a place for discussion/debate, and if the FBFI puts something out there that is that controversial, then they should have expected controversy.
I have said this in the past, and I’ll say it again - if people like myself (as the resident FBFI bomb-thrower) truly didn’t care about the FBFI, we wouldn’t repeatedly talk about them. We’d just ignore the FBFI to death, as Greg Long noted. Some of us still care enough to push the FBFI for what we see as a better direction. That doesn’t mean that we’re outraged or ‘out to get you’. It just means that we disagree, and that’s good and healthy.

And in my opinion, shutting Mark Ward Jr. out of future involvement is sending exactly the wrong message to the people that the FBFI is supposedly very concerned about retaining (the ‘young’ members).

"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells

[Jay]

And in my opinion, shutting Mark Ward Jr. out of future involvement is sending exactly the wrong message to the people that the FBFI is supposedly very concerned about retaining (the ‘young’ members).

When Mark is the coordinater of this issue, writes a monthly column for the magazine, and is heavily involved with the FBFI in many ways that aren’t noticed in the public eye, how, exactly, is that shutting Mark out? Or any of the other young voices writing in this issue?

I think you are simply believing your own narrative, which is not reality.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3