Should Christians listen to secular music?

[Jim]

“You tell me the kind of music you like to listen to…and I’ll tell you what kind of person you are.” — Frank Garlock

You’re just hitting “The Wall”.

What in name of all that’s holy are you all talking about? Rock music killing plants? My exposure to Garlock was a video series I was forced to watch at a KJVO, IFB church where I was a member. It was awful, and the logic was strange. I had no idea about this plant killing theory. I am horrified. What on earth could lead a large group of people to think this idea has any credible basis? This is how cults begin.

Jim wrote:

“You tell me the kind of music you like to listen to…and I’ll tell you what kind of person you are.” — Frank Garlock

Not long ago, as I jogged in the early morning hours, my Pandora app locked me into pop country hell. I was forced to endure Luke Bryan, Carrie Underwood and some other weird guy. I was out of skips and it was awful.

Then, Pandora decided to transition to mindless 80’s pop, and I gratefully succumbed to Jefferson Starship’s We Built This City. Compared to what I’d just experienced, listening to the epic saga of a breakup, subsequent depressed drinking, and whispered longings in the country night (no dog, though - sorry), it was wonderful.

A week or two ago, I also managed to work in a reference to Belinda Carlisle’s Heaven is a Place on Earth during my sermon, while I discussed Revelation 21-22.

What kind of person am I!?

This is the magnum opus: The Big Beat: A Rock Blast

It’s also available on a vinyl LP! There are also 5 of his sermons at sermonaudio.com

Listening to them will give you a glimpse into the subliminal reasoning behind the anti-popular music philosophy. Few quote Frank Garlock today but his ideas remain.

Patch the Pirate and borrowed pop tunes is another subject. Anyone else remember “Big Toe” and thinking “Big Bad John”?

“A college in Colorado”? Try that as a viable source for a research paper.

And don’t me going on African rhythms!

The older I get the more amusing I find the music wars.

I remember reading claims that Gothard had said that if a song were in common time, the emphasis had to be on the 1st and 3rd beats, not offbeat (e.g. polka). The funny thing about the matter was that this rule of thumb works pretty well with heavy metal, especially if the lead guitar player wears a suitcoat (“how civilized”) and the lead singer wears a flat cap. So I wonder whether Garlock borrowed from Gothard, or vice versa, or whether we’re going from a “Q” document, as a comment on Jim’s link to Scott Aniol suggests.

My guess is that both Garlock and Gothard borrowed from someone who was basically writing about the “jungle beat” back in the 1920s. Thanks, Ron, for the link.

….hearing something along those lines at one of the IBLP Seminars, WAAAAY back in the day.

I think we can stop beating up on Frank Garlock now, guys.

I have to admit - there is a three page music discussion on SI and nobody has flamed another person yet. What in the world is going on here? Is this a newer, kinder, and gentler SI than I’m used to?

I don’t know about the validity of the purported experiments or not, nor will I vouch for their methodology, but remember that sound waves are a physical cause with a physical effect. My brother, who has his masters degree in voice and is a voice professor, and who has no skin in this argument (about two years ago or so he performed with The Rolling Stones) told me that one of the reasons bass players go deaf is because they don’t understand how sound waves work. The sound wave for bass notes is physically longer, and bass players often stand so close to the stacks that they can’t hear the bass. They think it’s because it’s not loud enough and so keep turning the volume up, not realizing that they’re standing inside the first sound wave. The physical force blows their ear drums out.

Along those same lines, about four years ago I went to see Bob Mould (one of hardcore’s founding fathers). The next day, I could only hear buzzing.

It’s a fact that sound waves are a physical cause with a physical effect. Who knows, maybe blaring rock music at plants for extended amounts of time has a negative effect on the plants. More importantly, who cares?

Even if someone were to jump into this thread and provide a link to a relatively methodologically sound study proving Dr. Garlock and others right, it wouldn’t have any bearing on the question of whether it’s morally okay or not for Christians to listen to rock music. It would be evidence that gardeners should be careful in which direction they point their speakers.

More importantly, I am pretty sure that mocking Dr. Garlock and others on this thread is counterproductive and violates Paul’s admonition to speak with charity and the desire to edify and build up. No doubt, being SI, many readers of this thread know and love Dr. Garlock and have been hurt by this thread. For what? To prove what? Brothers, and I feel silly saying things like this, but I’m pretty sure that I know more about rock music and love rock music more than anyone on SI, but my Christian liberty to listen to rock music, or any other kind of “secular” music, is far less important than speaking with charity and love. So, please brothers, and I pray that this is received in the spirit of charity that I intend it, we should endeavor, by the power of the Spirit, to argue our points and positions without mocking other Believers.

I appreciate the polite but necessary rebuke. Personally I sometimes find myself reacting and responding unprofitably to some of the so-called Bible teaching of my past. I also need to remember that I regurgitated much of it with the same attitude in which it was delivered to me.

Thanks again. You’re a good (younger) brother.

John wrote:

No doubt, being SI, many readers of this thread know and love Dr. Garlock and have been hurt by this thread. For what? To prove what?

Sometimes Christians just say and do stupid things. That’s a fact. It’s really irrelevant whether someone is “hurt” by things said about Garlock’s methodology. From what I gather, the man was trying to demonstrate rock music was bad because it allegedly killed plants. On the face of it, that is stupid. What other word is there for it?

I sat with an elderly couple yesterday who distrusted their insurance agent, panicked and got rid of four annuities and suffered $60,000 in fees as a result. The annuities were good; they were just scared and panicked. They made a stupid decision. I sat there and told them they made a mistake, and that it didn’t appear the agent had lied to them. I wasn’t malicious about it, but they got the message. They made a stupid decision; or, if you prefer, a “very foolish decision.” It’s irrelevant how “hurt” they may have been by my words.

Garlock? It’s foolishness to believe that rock music is bad because it allegedly kills plants. On the face of it, it’s absurd. Perhaps rock music is evil, but it has nothing to do with the sound waves. Only somebody immersed in a particular sub-culture could take this thesis seriously, with a straight face. Just now, I walked over to an employee and asked her what she would think of this thesis. She laughed and asked if I was serious. What does she think about it, as a reasonable, intelligent person with no skin in the game? She thinks its stupid. Exactly.

Hagee’s blood moon book is stupid. Very stupid. Idiotic. I told a lady at church several years ago that Hagee’s book was dangerous, foolish, biblically illiterate and she should get rid of it. She hated me from that moment on. It may “hurt” people to hear this, but the man’s book is stupid.

Regarding Garlock, I’m willing to substitute “extremely foolish idea” for “stupid,” but know that I mean precisely the same thing!

I can’t find my copy of Makujina’s book, because we are in the slow process of packing to move. However, he references the original experiments (not to demonstrate their validity, but to stave off the mockery of those experiments). These were published in a 1973 book titled, “The Sound of Music and Plants” by Dorothy Retallack.

As far as I can find, you can get the book used - but no electronic copies are available.

A scientific-based critique is available here:
https://s3.wp.wsu.edu/uploads/sites/403/2015/03/bad-science.pdf

[TylerR]

John wrote:

No doubt, being SI, many readers of this thread know and love Dr. Garlock and have been hurt by this thread. For what? To prove what?

Sometimes Christians just say and do stupid things. That’s a fact. It’s really irrelevant whether someone is “hurt” by things said about Garlock’s methodology. From what I gather, the man was trying to demonstrate rock music was bad because it allegedly killed plants. On the face of it, that is stupid. What other word is there for it?

Tyler, are you sure that is what Dr. Garlock’s argument was? Have you read or listened to his arguments so you can make that assertion with confidence?

The way I recall hearing it was as an illustration in support of his premise, not the foundation of his premise. He isn’t the only one who used the study in the same way, as an illustration. It turns out, from the link Chris provided that the study was deeply flawed. Perhaps Dr. Garlock should have investigated more carefully, but I wonder if you investigate thoroughly every illustration you use when you speak?

As to hurting people, as far as I know, these passages are still in the Bible:

1 Tim 3.3 not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money.

Tit 3.2 to malign no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing every consideration for all men.

There are others like them.

Remember we have to understand that word in light of Paul’s denunciations of a number of people, and quite frankly in light of how Jesus cleared the Temple. We might infer from the New Testament context that it is “needlessly pugnacious”.

Regarding Garlock, and regarding those sound waves, the simple fact is that, medically speaking, what ruins hearing, and what might hurt plants, is exactly the same thing that makes us hear; the pressure waves hitting the eardrum or the leaves of the plant. Since the eardrum has a wide frequency spectrum, there is no reason to believe that Black Sabbath would be more harmful than the 1812 Overture or even Pachelbel’s Canon played at ear-splitting levels. And to lump in Air Supply or Chicago with that? Are we serious here?

Greg Howlett is also correct about the astronomical evidence, and should I look at the rest of the book, I’m sure that I would find a lot of flawed secular arguments, but no actual Biblical arguments. I may actually look up the book and take a look—don’t know if I’m enough of a glutton for punishment to look at Gothard, though. And really, the simple fact is that if we view a thorough rebuke to Garlock or Gothard’s ideas as “pugnacious”, we are going to lose our chance to correct our course. It would ensure that we would keep on doing the same dumb things until we simply didn’t matter anymore.

If Garlock’s ideas are flawed—and clearly at least a portion are—and if they are still influential in many churches—which is also the case—do we have any more business refusing to confront them than Paul had to refuse to confront legalism in Galatians, or John confronting Diotrephes?