Music in the Bible and the Contemporary Music Styles Debate (Part 2)

This series continues as Gregg Strawbridge examines some common arguments against contemporary music styles in the church.

The Natural Law Argument

Bill Gothard (1986), a well-known critic of CM says, “There is no such thing as amoral music.” He diagrams an analogy between other disciplines and music. “The following disciplines illustrate how the purity of an item can be corrupted by adding even a small amount of another element” (p. 124).

• Chemistry: H2O + CN = poison
• Language: truth + lie = untruth
• Math: solution + 1 = incorrect
• Art: figure + nudity = pornography
• Music: rhythm + imbalance = acid rock

However impressive this line up is on first glance, this presentation actually begs the question; it assumes what must be proven. Namely, it has not yet been shown that “acid rock” music style (whatever it is) is, in fact, evil. The illustrated argument rests on an analogy between different disciplines.

Accurate evaluation of music is only possible as we integrate it with the related disciplines of mathematics, science, history, and medicine. The laws of these disciplines act as an authoritative reference to confirm that the musical expression is either following or violating established principles….Just as there is a balance of power in the three branches of United States government, so the laws of related disciplines provide checks and balances for music (p. 123).

The perceptive reader will note that until one can prove that a music style is analogous to poison, falsehood, mathematical inaccuracy, or pornography, the indicting conclusion is fallacious. The fallacy is called the fallacy of false analogy.

There are a number of reasons why such analogies should not be persuasive:

1. Contrary to what is asserted, unless the analogies are Biblically supported they cannot be “authoritative” (sola Scriptura).
2. The analogies themselves do not really have the impact intended upon further analysis. Poison in large quantities may be medicine in small quantities; the truth or falsity of a statement must rest on the intention of the author; mathematical inaccuracies are quantitative not qualitative (as music is); figure plus mere nudity does not equal pornography, cf. medical text books and some art (e.g., David, Michelangelo).
3. “Imbalance” in the last of the series (rhythm + imbalance = acid rock) must be defined. If “imbalance” essentially means CM, the argument has not advanced beyond circularity. If imbalance can be defined so as to prove a particular music style is morally evil, then it must rest on Biblical implication.

The Bad Emotions Argument

Garlock and Woetzel in Music in the Balance really do a much better job of arguing their case. I am especially glad that they spell-out their arguments. The issue is addressed on page three. It is given in an informal syllogism.

“Since music is an emotional language, and since some emotions are wrong for the child of God, then some music is wrong for the Christian” (from Tame, 1984, p. 151).

However, the syllogism, as a syllogism, is invalid. It contains four terms (rather than three, a requirement for logical validity): (1) “music” (2) “emotional language” (3) “wrong” and (4) “emotions.” Therefore, the syllogism either has four terms (making it invalid) or the terms “emotional language” and the “emotions” must be taken as meaning precisely the same.

Second, the inductive fallacy of hasty generalization (since the premise must be inductively proven) is evident. Unless all emotions are expressed in music, the conclusion that “some music is wrong,” would not follow. It is logically possible that only the moral emotions are expressed in music.

A better formulation of this argument in a valid syllogism, keeping the same intention as the authors, would look like this:

1. All emotions are (in) music.
2. Some emotions is sinful.
3. Therefore, some music is sinful.

The substantial difficulties can be seen more clearly now. How is one to prove the first premise, all emotion is in music? An even more difficult problem arises in the second premise, a problem to which the original writer of the argument (Tame) alludes: “Hate, when directed at sin, is good and acceptable….Anger is unacceptable except when the one who is angry is not sinning. An emotion like lust is never right” (p. 3).

Defining the ethical content of an emotion is difficult. How much more difficult when the emotion is represented in musical expression! The fact is, the Bible represents the same emotion, described with the same word, as in some situations good and in others evil. (See the Appendix: Emotions in the Bible)

Apparently, the same basic emotions can be sinful or acceptable, given the purpose and motivation. Thus, the syllogism is incomplete until the music critic can identify the specific content of the emotion in the music. One is hard pressed to identify the specific content of a CM style (especially apart from the lyric content of a song) with a specific sinful emotion. Certainly the emotional argument has not proven that any CM style is inherently evil.

The Beat

The thrust of many CM critiques is to demonstrate the sinfulness of “the beat.” Lawhead (1981) wittily titles this discussion, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

Some suggest that when the beat becomes the main focus of the music, overwhelming all other components, that is when the trouble begins. The pulsating beat assaults the mind and puts it to sleep, so to speak, opening it to evil invasion while the listener is off guard. That is the assertion. But how is such a statement to be proven? Or disproven? The argument at that point moves from the realm of the concrete to the metaphysical. And metaphysical arguments cannot be settled in the laboratory. (p. 69)

Bill Gothard has even used the exact term, “metaphysical,” to refer the power of music. He says listening to Christian rock is “fellowship with demons.”¹ Explaining the biological phenomenon, Gothard information on the subject asserts rock music causes “a mix-up in the alpha waves between the two hemispheres of the brain, resulting in what some researchers call ‘switching.’ ‘Switching’ is a phenomenon which occurs in adult schizophrenics to produce regression to infantile, reptilian locomotion (where crawling is done with the same, rather than the opposite, arms and legs)” (Cannon & Cannon, p. 12). This booklet comes complete with a picture of a crawling baby adjacent to an alligator.

Much of the behavioral research to which the above Gothard-endorsed authors refer is based on the behavioral kinesology of Psychiatrist John Diamond. Diamond says that the anapestic beat (“da da DA”) found in some rock music causes muscle weakening, even up to a reduction of two-thirds (Cannon & Cannon; Miller, 1993, p. 12ff). An example of this beat is that fine specimen of popular music, “Southern Nights” by Glenn Campbell. Miller (1993) is right in questioning these conclusions.

As for a refutation, suffice it to say that at every Golds Gym, Diamond et al is constantly being refuted. An instant autonomic reduction of strength is de facto not occurring as iron-pumping people are bench-pressing to anapestic back beats.

Garlock and Woetzel (1992) focus on the inherent immoral qualities of rhythm-dominant music (pp. 79-80). “The emphasis of most of contemporary sacred and secular music is on the rhythm. Rhythm is that part of music which elicits a physical response. Therefore, most of today’s music, secular and sacred, feeds and satisfies the self-seeking, self-centered, and self-worshiping part of man” (cf. p. 67). Here is another example of demonstrably fallacious reasoning. Either the argument is invalid because of equivocating on terms “physical response” and “self-seeking, self-centered, and self-worshiping part of man” - or, the authors are guilty of serious theological error in equating the physical part of man with the sinful part of man.

Even if we overlook the fact that many of the Church’s greatest theologians have taught that man is dichotomous (comprised of a body and soul, the soul including all the non-material part of man), the conclusion does not follow from the premises, unless the physical part of man is the sinful part of man. But, the physical part of man cannot be equated with the sinful nature since, the sinless Son of God was made flesh (1Jo 4:2). Further, the first man and woman were initially sinless, though incarnate. And we shall ever be sinfully incarnate after the Resurrection.

Passages which use “flesh” (sarx) to refer to sinfulness (Rom 6-7, Gal 3, etc.) are not referring to merely the physical body, but the inherent sinfulness of fallen human nature which permeates every facet of man, body, soul, spirit, mind, heart, bowels, and spleen. Of the 147 times “flesh” (sarx) is used in the New Testament, only a small minority of passages have the sense of “sinful nature” (NIV). “Flesh” (sarx) is used in a number of ways both positively (Rom 1:3, 2Co 4:11), and negatively (Gal 5:17). Fatal to the argument above, is the clear teaching that the regenerate spirit of man is also sinful. “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2Co 7:1).

Finally, it is simply metaphysically false to imply that evil is to be equated with embodiment, since the devils are not physical but are evil. To connect sinfulness with physicalness is the Gnostic heresy and is a flat contradiction to the redemptive enterprise of the incarnate Jesus.

Let us suppose that Garlock and Woetzel really mean that rhythm appeals to the “sinful nature” (“flesh”). By this they would avoid a theological error of no small proportion; however, if rhythm appeals to the sinful part of man, it follows necessarily that good music should have no rhythm at all! But of course, this is not possible, since all music involves sound in time.

Note well: what the Bible almost explicitly teaches about rhythm in music is irreconcilable to the above critics of CM. Scripture does not condemn the appeal to bodily movement and rhythm in music. This is indicated by the correlation of dancing with the use of music and especially percussion instruments such as timbrels and cymbals.

• Let them praise His name with dancing; Let them sing praises to Him with timbrel and lyre. (Psa 149:3)
• Praise Him with timbrel and dancing; Praise Him with stringed instruments and pipe. (Psa 150:4)
• And Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took the timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dancing.
• And Miriam answered them, “Sing to the Lord, for He is highly exalted; The horse and his rider He has hurled into the sea.” (Exo 15:20-21)

It is predictable the above authors of a CM critiques do not bother with extracting Biblical principles from such passages (or even mention them for that matter).

This series continues next week.