Steve Pettit and the Skillman family

What we need is an “Official Music Checker” to simply tell us what music, secular or Christian, we can listen to. SMILING

What we need is a true Man of God, to speak to the People of God, about the music that ought to be played in the House of God, based on the Word of God, all for the Glory of God, and for people to not question that Man of God, who heard the Voice of God, about the Music of God. Haymen!!!?

my point in this thread is simply to oppose the idea that music is devoid of moral value. To me, it seems absolutely folly to assume that music is neutral. Nothing else produced by the heart of man is.

therefore, discernment is required. We may not agree exactly on application, but if you insist no discernment is necessary (no moral content/value), there is nothing else to discuss. It seems to me to be a worldview problem.

I agree that music does have moral value. The question is how you determine this morality - by the style, lyrics, or both? What does that look like? Lyrics are easy! Is there a way to nail down style, in an objective way? I’m not so sure! That’s the problem.

Does the moral value of a particular kind of musical style hinge on the contextual background of that style, or the intent of the person who performs the piece? Consider a hermeneutical parallel - the phenomenon of reader-response theory. Does the author determine his intent, or the reader? Where is the objective truth? Most conservatives (I hope) would say the writer defines his intent and meaning. So, bring that concept over to music - in what sense can a Christian rap or rock song be considered deviant (in some way), if the lyrics are appropriate and the performer’s intent is to employ that style to honor God?

Personally, I’d never allow rap or rock in a worship service. But, I have no objective basis for that - it’s my own subjective opinion.

I too agree that music apart from lyrics has moral value. I just want Don or someone to tell me how to determine that value in a subjective way and not by answering my question with more questions. Please. Anyone?

Don, the simple fact is that until one provides Biblical principles that would tell us whether it’s acceptable to use the organ, electric guitar, finger cymbals (a la Art Garfunkel), and such in music in the church, the simple fact is that the situation is pretty much as Tyler describes it; the “manogawd” dispensing from on high his pronouncement that a certain subset of Christian music is appropriate, and that others are not.

It’s especially worthy of mockery when one considers the horrible abuse of proper thinking that is (e.g. Gothard, Garlock**) typically used to get to that point, and even more so when it generally boils down to some variant of “white man’s music prior to Elvis is fine, others not so much” or “camp meeting revivalistic songs only, please”.

** I am holding out hope that Pettit’s band is going to force BJU to re-evaluate the works of Frank Garlock and hopefully pull them from distribution in the future, apologizing for the needless division they’ve caused. Not that the pro-CCM side of the “music wars” is innocent by any means, but Garlock’s work is just.plain.embarrassing.

[Ron Bean]

I too agree that music apart from lyrics has moral value. I just want Don or someone to tell me how to determine that value in a subjective way and not by answering my question with more questions. Please. Anyone?

I think I’ll write something up on this for P&D. May go out next week. We’ll see. However, many others have taken this topic in hand and done good things with it. It isn’t that hard to find good biblical arguments for a Biblical worldview of the arts in general and music in particular. It strikes me that those who stand on the sidelines and claim agnosticism to Biblical standards just don’t want to know.

And, for Bert, stay classy man. You are proving once again why I usually ignore your posts.

I sincerely am looking for simple answers to apply to making music choices. I’ve been looking for a long time. In the classical realm I’ve been praised and blasted by brethren for using both Ravel’s Bolero and Wagner’s Ride Of The Valkyries. I’ve received the same contradictory responses for How Great Thou Art (Billy Graham association) and Ron Hamilton. I decided to walk away from the confusing admonitions of others and be content with having a good conscience before God until I get some clearer instruction.

Looking forward to reading your post (potential post?) on P&D. For what it’s worth, this thread had caused me to consider doing what I’ve avoided doing for a while - writing a post explaining my position on music. We’ll have dueling posts :)

[Don Johnson]

Painting can be pornographic, lewed, edgy, suggestive, questionable, acceptable, noble. Probably you could add other adjectives but I’m trying to give a sliding scale there. Literature, sculpture, dance, etc, all can have the same “scale of holiness.”

Painting is judged as lewd, suggestive, or questionable, based on what it portrays, not based on the style (impressionist, realist, or even neon on black velvet). As others have pointed out, it’s not simple (or, I would argue, even completely possible) to determine with finality what music (on its own, without lyrics) is portraying. That’s why this is the “$64,000 question,” as Greg put it. Like others, I judge any form of music first by its lyrics (if any), whether for personal or worship use. Judging the music itself, I have different standards for worship and personal use, based on what “sounds” like I should avoid it, or use it. That’s a personal judgment, not an objective one. And for worship music, my personal view is that such music should sound different than standard music, because it should have some attribute of being “separated” for use for God, or holy, if you will. If I were the one deciding what music our church used on Sundays, it would be similar to “high-church” music, but that’s me. I know some converted Roman Catholics who never want to hear anything like that again. Personally, I’d avoid bluegrass style for Sunday worship, though I expect some churches in Appalachia would use it.

I wish you well on an article for P&D, because like Greg, I’d like to be able to judge music objectively from scripture. However, I’ve read and heard everything from Garlock to Bauder, to Aniol, as well as men who have come out of the CCM world, those who are in it, etc. I have yet to see something that makes very clear biblical judgment of the music itself possible. And, I’m fairly convinced it’s not a solvable problem (in general). For me, I’ll continue to partially solve it the way Greg and Tyler do — if I believe it’s wrong or questionable to use or listen to, I won’t. And my lines are probably different from theirs (and yours). Absent a clear standard from scripture, that’s the very definition of a Romans 14 issue.

[dcbii]

Painting is judged as lewd, suggestive, or questionable, based on what it portrays, not based on the style (impressionist, realist, or even neon on black velvet).

That sounds true, but I don’t think it is completely true. Style says a lot about worldview.

[dcbii] Like others, I judge any form of music first by its lyrics (if any), whether for personal or worship use.[/quote

Then you aren’t judging the music. You are judging the literature.

[dcbii] And for worship music, my personal view is that such music should sound different than standard music, because it should have some attribute of being “separated” for use for God, or holy, if you will.

I think that’s a part of a Biblical standard, to be sure. It does give some objectivity as well. (My working title for my article is “Objective Subjectivity”)

Don wrote:

Style says a lot about worldview

Not necessarily. You certainly can’t impute worldview motivations to somebody because of a particular style, unless you have an objective criteria to judge the style. What about the context and intent of the expression? Aren’t you advocating for a standard in judging style that you wouldn’t ever do with a written text? For example:

• I think CCM is inherently unholy
• A Christian produces and performs a CCM song with theologically rich and accurate lyrics
• Therefore, the worldview of that individual is suspect because of the style
• Even though the performer is only motivated by the desire to glorify God, and performed the piece with that intent.

But, would you ever say:

• The 14th Amendment provides “equal protection” of law. A Christian cake baker denies a cake to a gay couple. Therefore he violated the “equal protection” clause, because the law requires public establishments to serve everyone … even though Congress did not have this scenario in mind at all, when they wrote and passed the Bill of Rights?

In the State of Washington, during a parallel case involving a florist, the Alliance Defending Freedom unsuccessfully argued on behalf of the florist that the State’s public accommodation law couldn’t be construed to compel the florist to provide equal access to a homosexual “married couple,” because same-sex marriage wasn’t legal in the State at the time the accommodation law went on the books. Why does this matter? Because the intent of the framers is kind of important; not a subjective feeling after the fact that colors interpretation.

Ironically, Justice Taney understood this principle in the infamous Dred Scott case. He wrote that the Constitutional framers drafted the constitution in a context that subjugated black people and, thus, the document affords no protection to black people as “citizens” … because (Taney claimed) the framers never recognized them as “citizens,” thus black people were never intended to have the protections of “citizens,” under the Constitution. An unsuccessful dissenting opinion attempted to argue, rather convincingly, that the framers were moving away from that mindset and Taney’s argumentation was invalid - but both arguments hinged (in part) on authorial intent.

The point is that we can’t give into a subjective imputation of a person’s stated intent, based on personal preference! Without an objective standard to determine style, the issue of authorial intent matters. It matters in law, as a matter of basic fairness. It matters here, too.

Don, you have to produce criteria to judge style, and I’m interested to see how you go about it.

The implied idea that one’s world view may be determined by the style of one’s music sounds like a paraphrase of Frank Garlock’s foundational statement:

“If you tell me the (style) of music you like to listen to, and the (style) of music you like to perform, I will tell you what (your world view is).

I’m anxious to see proof of this.

[Don Johnson]

That sounds true, but I don’t think it is completely true. Style says a lot about worldview.

OK, so I’m curious if you can give me an example of a painting style that’s lewd. As an example, let’s take a painting in that style with the subject being a tree. Without changing the tree into something recognizably lewd, which would again be the content, what would make your chosen style lewd?

Then you aren’t judging the music. You are judging the literature.

While that’s *technically* true, I generally consider a song written with both lyrics and music as a unit. And if I know the lyrics, and they are sinful, or sometimes even just problematic, the association in my mind is usually strong enough to avoid that music, even in instrumental form. But if the words are good, then judgment of a song does come down the to music, and we’re back to the same problem of a clear scriptural standard.

However, most worship music is of this type — both lyrics and music. I have heard purely instrumental music (written without words) used in a church, but those are uncommon. Even instrumental specials or offertories are almost always of sacred music for which we know the words. At my church, we project the words during such a number.

(My working title for my article is “Objective Subjectivity”)

Sounds promising, but I still wonder when something that sounds holy to one person sounds profane to another, how will those sides ever meet objectively?

If “style says a lot about worldview”, please explain Cantus, which performed at BJU a few years back, to me. Beautiful music, but a significant portion of their singers are men married to men. Do we assume, then, that they are in a better spiritual position than, say, LeCrae, because they sing in BJU approved genre? They’ve got the style BJU-approved, after all.