Steve Pettit and the Skillman family

My dyed in the wool, IFB pastor father loves Southern gospel, bluegrass, and old-school country music (Jim Reeves, Chet Atkins, etc.). My mom, who was from Michigan, hated the stuff. When my mom wasn’t in the car, the music would be Southern gospel and bluegrass. When my mom was in the car, it was all classical music or PCC’s radio station.

After my mom passed away, my dad went to the Grand Ole Opry. Something my mom would have refused to go to. Whatever else my dad is, he’s also a good ‘ol boy from the South who loves his region’s music, college football, and soul food soaked in hot pepper sauce (for those who know him, ask him to say “Massachusets” next time you see him).

Much of this is cultural. Dr. Bob Jones Jr. was a carefully curated high-brow who loved high art. Not to mention that the university drew heavily from the part of the country my mom grew up in. On the flip side, I remember Dr. Rod Bell speaking fondly in BJU chapel services about country music and the Grand Ole Opry.

Even the ifb isn’t immune from the cultural clashes between Yankees and real Americans Southerners :)

This weekend, at our four contemporary services (we also have two traditional services), this was one of the songs we sang:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5L6QlAH3L4

In our 1,100 seat auditorium filled with fellow believers joyously, enthusiastically singing praise to God, I find songs such as this one personally very edifying and encouraging. Was God being revered and honored this weekend while we sang this song? (Yes.) Was the assembly worshipping “in spirit and truth” (John 4:24)? (I don’t doubt it.) Was the objective of Ephesians 5:19 met? (Absolutely.)

Besides that, however, some seem to want to offend brothers with more sensitive consciences about these things.

A few years ago, a Presbyterian friend of mine quipped, “You can tell if someone is an ex-fundy or not by how often they post pictures of their alcohol on Facebook.”

At first, I puzzled over his comment. I now understand it. Like the cage-stage for Calvinists, there is a cage-stage for “ex-fundies.”

My description of Dr. Bob Jones Jr. isn’t pejorative. I praise God that I was raised by a high-brow mother and a good ‘ol boy father. Because of it, I can read Shakespeare while listening to bluegrass. Likewise, I can work on my car while listening to Mozart.

I am not arguing for or against bluegrass in my posts in this thread.

The only point I am arguing is that there is an issue with music that touches on fundamental issues and is an appropriate venue for battle. To just say, “I like it,” fails to deal honestly with the subject. There are lots of sinful things that I can enjoy. There is such a thing as the “pleasures of sin.”

My point here is that there is good reason to be concerned in many ways with music, music styles, and other cultural expressions. We don’t always agree on identical applications of this concept, but to deny the reality of the issue is extremely naive, in my opinion.

Don wrote:

My point here is that there is good reason to be concerned in many ways with music, music styles, and other cultural expressions. We don’t always agree on identical applications of this concept, but to deny the reality of the issue is extremely naive, in my opinion.

I would add that to ignore that the Fall has affected artistic and cultural expressions is not only “extremely naive” but dangerously so. The notion that music (or any other artistic endeavor) can be amoral is nonsensical at best, willfully rebellious at worst, with a lot of room in-between, I acknowledge.

My take is that there are a lot of musical cues that bluegrass can lend to people at BJU and like-minded institutions that will be tremendously helpful. All too often, people fall into the same traps of thinking that adding volume and adding instrumental parts (playing the same variations of the melody and maybe a harmony) somehow makes it more musical, or that somehow adding flashy frills here and there is equivalent to the same. We need to get outside our own musical ghetto at times.

No argument, by the way, that the lyrics are important. It doesn’t mean that we need to abandon everything by Hillsong or whoever simply because it’s Hillsong, but the concepts in the lyrics are indeed important. Lyrics, poetry, music, all need to work together to impart God’s Word in lyric form to God’s people. And the worst thing we can do is to use guilt by association arguments.

Yes, using “guilt by association” to argue that such-and-such is sinful is a fallacy. But, saying that I don’t listen or do such-and-such because of “guilt by association” is not a fallacy. It could be a wisdom issue. It’s like the slippery slope argument. Just because the slippery slope doesn’t prove or mean that something is wrong, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t wisdom for some in avoiding that “something” because of the slippery slope.

The issue of cultural conditioning is very, very important:

• Are 18th century hymns inherently holier than contemporary Christian music?
• Is “Come Thou Fount” intrinsically holier than Hillsong’s “Who You Say I Am?”
• Is it the style, rather than the lyrics? Was “Come Thou Fount” not arranged in a contemporary style of its time?

Style matters; and there’s a whole lot of stuff to discuss under that rubric for corporate worship. For example, I don’t think a song leader should breathlessly make love to the microphone! Lyrics matter, too. I hate “In the Garden.” I also hate “Away in a Manger.” Its theology is wrong; Jesus did cry!

But, to some people, there is a reflexive suspicion of all things new. I understand that. I’m still that way with many, many things. I was handled a theological box and philosophy (for which I’m very grateful), but I immediately become very cautious when a paradigm threatens to up-end the way I was taught. Sometime there’s nothing wrong with doing things differently (and sometimes there is!), but many people can’t ever go beyond the pre-packaged system and philosophy they were handed at school.

This is the crux - do we have the ability to discern between sub-cultural mores and Biblical truth? They aren’t always the same thing. This is why I changed my position on the Lord’s Supper from “close” to “open.” It’s why I’m much looser of a dispensationalist than I used to be. It’s why my soteriology is Reformed-ish. On the other hand, I’ve grown to appreciate the emphasis I was taught about the church and corporate purity, and the necessity for church discipline. If there’s one thing American churches don’t seem to care about and/or cheapen, it’s (1) membership, (2) purity, (3) discipline, and (4) baptism.

With music, I think there’s a whole lot of cultural baggage at play. The recent Baptist Bulletin (May/June) is an excellent resource, with careful and reasoned arguments from both sides.

Wasn’t the rationale provided by BJU in regards to its recent dress code changes that students were increasingly coming from homes/churches/schools that no longer held the same prohibitions on girls wearing pants, etc. that they had previously held?

If (I’m inclined to instead say “when”) the scales likewise tip in terms of music, and students are more often than not coming from homes/churches/schools in which CCM isn’t forbidden, will BJU likewise scrap its prohibition against CCM?

One only has to talk to some current BJU students to know that there are students (and their parents) now attending who view the school’s music rules as anachronistic. (And I’ve been reliably told of a Hillsong song being sung in a recent student talent competition, to a (mostly) favorable reception.)

[TylerR]

…

My point is that I’m reaching a point where the objection that “BJU + bluegrass = bad” is so strange to me that it seems to come from another planet. …

My not so humble opinion: “[anything] + bluegrass = bad”. When it comes to bluegrass in any venue—BJU; the White House; Joe’s Bar and Grill—the only sane response should be something akin to “I’ll take death for $1000, Alex.” Just sayin’……….:)

[John E.]

Yes, using “guilt by association” to argue that such-and-such is sinful is a fallacy. But, saying that I don’t listen or do such-and-such because of “guilt by association” is not a fallacy. It could be a wisdom issue. It’s like the slippery slope argument. Just because the slippery slope doesn’t prove or mean that something is wrong, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t wisdom for some in avoiding that “something” because of the slippery slope.

Nope, still fallacies, even if they’re dressed up as if they were wisdom. The logic for such fallacies is always incorrect, hence you cannot trust any conclusions made using such logic.

And really, one doesn’t even need to go to a logic text to figure this out, because if something is indeed a wisdom issue, one is implicitly saying that to reject that wisdom is a sin issue. Rephrasing things that way does precisely nothing to redeem the argument.

If it’s part of a formal argument that uses it in the syllogism that “proves” the argument. Someone saying that they avoid doing such-and-such because it’s a slippery slope is not a formal argument.

Disagreeing with a wisdom issue isn’t a sin. Who on this thread is asserting that or even implying that?

I was just at BJU Homecoming last weekend. It was a great three days. Steve Pettit played his mandolin at the Friday evening class reunions dinner outside the Art Gallery. I heard Orange Blossom Special and was waiting for Puttin on the Dog. The music was great. Everyone enjoyed it—Saturday afternoon too outside the Dining Common.

When need a group to write and publish a music Talmud establishing what constitutes acceptable music and end this constant expression of individual interpretations! SMILE! (Excuse me now while I go watch “O Brother Where Art Thou”.)