Steve Pettit and the Skillman family

Just because I don’t think Pickering’s brief discussion was good, and I think Riley can’t get past subjectivism, it doesn’t mean I mistrust Christian sources! I agree music communicates. What nobody has been able to objectively explain is by what objective basis you can say one style communicates something intrinsically unholy, without factoring in the intent of the writer and performer.

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

Don, I will link to the background music for any other Shai Linne song so that you can evaluate it without dealing with the words. I will say that I don’t think instrumentation only is available for his most recent album (“Still Jesus”), but I want to try and settle this. So pick one.

In exchange, you are going to prove that music to be sinful on the basis of what God says in the Bible. If you don’t want to or can’t do so, then the only conclusion we can draw is that your entire premise and position is fatally flawed.

You are a fundamentalist pastor with 20+ years (maybe more - I don’t know for sure) of experience, and you sit on the board of at least one major Fundamentalist organization. Proving something to be a sin issue ought to be eminently doable.

"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

Sorry, Jay, I won’t bite. It really doesn’t matter what I say about any piece you care to point to. Your mind is made up. And of course, so is mine.

My point in today’s exchange is simply that the debate isn’t about the words. I’m sticking to that point. I have no obligation to evaluate your examples. Won’t prove anything. But my point is eminently true. The music debate is about the music, not the words.

[Granted, some CCM lyrics are incredibly shallow, but that’s not the point either. Some more conservative pieces are less deep as well. The issue is not the words.]

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Don wrote:

The music debate is about the music, not the words.

That’s fine. But, can you explain by what objective basis you can say one style communicates something intrinsically unholy, without factoring in the intent of the writer and performer? Many people have asked, on this thread and the related thread, how you can escape the charge of subjectivism in this regard. I’m not trying to be difficult; I just don’t think the question has been answered.

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

Subjectivism? Meaning isn’t relative. Read the secular music theorists. They tell you what music means. It isn’t intent of every composer and has nothing to do with the intent of the performer. Some composers simply compose in a style/genre they like, though they may not fully or at all understand the meaning.

Granted, there is some difference of opinion, including some contrary opinions. But if you study meaning thoroughly, I believe you will find that a general consensus emerges.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

[Don Johnson]

Subjectivism? Meaning isn’t relative. Read the secular music theorists. They tell you what music means. It isn’t intent of every composer and has nothing to do with the intent of the performer. Some composers simply compose in a style/genre they like, though they may not fully or at all understand the meaning.

Granted, there is some difference of opinion, including some contrary opinions. But if you study meaning thoroughly, I believe you will find that a general consensus emerges.

This is where I disagree with you. In my opinion, a set of notes in a particular style has no inherent meaning other than that assigned by it’s associations within our culture. If rap music is unusable for Christians, it is unusable because it contains certain cultural associations, and the strength of these associations is relative for each person. Circus music has the meaning of circus music because of it’s association in our minds with circuses. Two hundred years from now, people who have never heard of circuses might assign a completely different meaning to that style.

Let me take it a bit farther because I think this is where the “music is moral” people will go next. After showing (like Kevin Miller just did) that meaning is assigned to music by people and not necessarily by the music itself, the conversation then normally goes to studies about emotion in music. Why is certain types of music used in a horror movie and certain type of music used in car chase scenes. I don’t think anyone disputes that music conveys emotion, but don’t make the mistake of saying that this shows music communicates to the point of right or wrong. Some have said rap and hip/hop is angry and aggressive, yet anger and aggression can be a good thing as well. This doesn’t mean that the style is wrong. This also doesn’t mean that everyone feels we should use rap and hip/hop in our church services tomorrow…meaning and appropriateness for the particular situation are two different things.

The point is that if something is considered sinful then you must show this from Scripture. You can go to the experts and studies but ultimately you must go to Scripture to show how something is sinful. God doesn’t want to keep sin hidden from us. He intended for even the simplest of people to go to Scripture to find what is right and what is wrong. This is the problem I have with most that are proponents of the morality of music…they never take the music itself and show from Scripture how it is wrong. I’ve had conversations with the “experts” in this asking them how someone is supposed to go to a particular piece of music and know whether it is sinful or not. If it is sinful then we need to know! In those conversations I have never found anyone that was willing to take a song and breakdown how it is right or wrong. Why? Because when it comes to practically applying the generalities of this “doctrine”, it simply falls apart.

Two points for Ricky and Kevin.

first, it is true that context, association, etc can add meaning to a particular style, but the meaning isn’t entirely or even mostly connected with contexts.

second, why does Paul say, “nature itself teaches you…” on more than one occasion? General revelation teaches us as well, and we are accountable for all that it teaches. Further, I have showed passages that apply, see my piece a few weeks ago on P&D. There is sufficient revelation for us to have at least a general guide of what to think in this area.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

The point is that if something is considered sinful then you must show this from Scripture. You can go to the experts and studies but ultimately you must go to Scripture to show how something is sinful. God doesn’t want to keep sin hidden from us. He intended for even the simplest of people to go to Scripture to find what is right and what is wrong.

This is the bedrock of my thinking on this issue, and why I keep hammering on “prove it from Scripture”. We did not have the Protestant Reformation so that we could appoint another cleristy and group of experts to tell us what God thinks a couple of hundred years later on any given subject.

The Bible, and the Bible alone, is what informs believers about who God is and what He wants, and any appeal to any other source as the authority on matters of faith and practice is an assault on the sufficiency of God’s Word. So if anyone teaches me that I have to understand why 17th century European culture is more godly than the culture I live in or how I cannot discern the music that is pleasing to the Lord with understanding chord structure and music theory, the proper response should be “the Scriptures are sufficient for me”.

This is not to say that those things are wrong or unhelpful. They just aren’t the authority on my relationship with God. That’s why I generally don’t waste my time reading articles like this by Riley or Aniol or Johnson. I am not going to cede that principle to them, no matter how nice they are or how much I may like them personally.

"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

Of course Don is not going to do what you guys keep asking him to do. He is not going to discuss what that music means because he can’t. He claims that anyone can study a bit and easily know what music means but he can’t do it himself. That is why he is ducking the question.

If you notice, all the people in that mindset are that way. They are quick to tell people that they need to judge music for meaning but they can’t do it themselves. If I am wrong, they can prove me wrong but they won’t. They will continue to duck and weave and avoid going on record interpreting a song for us, all the while telling us that it is easy.

[TylerR]

I agree music communicates. What nobody has been able to objectively explain is by what objective basis you can say one style communicates something intrinsically unholy, without factoring in the intent of the writer and performer.

Do you believe that it is possible that there can be one or more styles that can communicate “something intrinsically unholy, without factoring in the intent of the writer and performer” or do you believe that is impossible? If you believe that it is impossible, on what biblical basis or bases do you believe that it is impossible?

[Don Johnson]

Two points for Ricky and Kevin.

first, it is true that context, association, etc can add meaning to a particular style, but the meaning isn’t entirely or even mostly connected with contexts.

second, why does Paul say, “nature itself teaches you…” on more than one occasion? General revelation teaches us as well, and we are accountable for all that it teaches. Further, I have showed passages that apply, see my piece a few weeks ago on P&D. There is sufficient revelation for us to have at least a general guide of what to think in this area.

Even what is generally revealed in nature is expounded upon in Scripture. Your article spoke in generalities yet does not reveal how to practically apply this to music. If there is some music that is truly sinful, then shouldn’t we be able to identify what is sinful? I was taught about the sinfulness of some music when I was in high school yet no one could ever or would even try to show us how to tell what music was sinful and what wasn’t. Everyone had a different opinion and it was quickly understood even by a high school kid that there was no standard in Scripture that any of this was based on. It was all a matter of opinion, though well intentioned. Yet it was taught as doctrine and was the worst of sins! We were at the mercy of an authority figure to tell us what was right and what was wrong. That is a scary thing when the authority on sin is outside of Scripture!

[Kevin Miller]

This is where I disagree with you. In my opinion, a set of notes in a particular style has no inherent meaning other than that assigned by it’s associations within our culture. If rap music is unusable for Christians, it is unusable because it contains certain cultural associations, and the strength of these associations is relative for each person. Circus music has the meaning of circus music because of it’s association in our minds with circuses. Two hundred years from now, people who have never heard of circuses might assign a completely different meaning to that style.

Do you have a biblical basis for your opinion that “a set of notes in a particular style has no inherent meaning other than that assigned by it’s associations within our culture”?
How do you know that is true?

[RajeshG]

TylerR wrote:

I agree music communicates. What nobody has been able to objectively explain is by what objective basis you can say one style communicates something intrinsically unholy, without factoring in the intent of the writer and performer.

Do you believe that it is possible that there can be one or more styles that can communicate “something intrinsically unholy, without factoring in the intent of the writer and performer” or do you believe that is impossible? If you believe that it is impossible, on what biblical basis or bases do you believe that it is impossible?

Keep in mind here that those who would argue “traditional music only” or “some/all modern music styles are inherently wrong” are seeking to impose a limit on the freedom of fellow believers. So instead of asking “do we believe that it’s impossible that some music would have intrinsic moral value?”, we ought to ask “on what evidence do we say that certain forms of music have an objectionable moral value?”.

If the answer is merely “guilt by association” or similar. we need to jettison the hypothesis.

That noted, given the usual pattern of these debates, I am leaning towards the conclusion that yes, I do believe it’s impossible to prove that music has intrinsic moral values. Those who study music might speak of emotional moods of music—that’s why you might find yourself tearing up for no apparent reason while the movie background music is going—but Scripture doesn’t tell us that certain emotions are wrong (only that they can be abused or entered sinfully).

The long and short of it, though, is that the onus is on those who want to limit freedom to prove their point. I agree with others that Don’s column has abjectly failed in this attempt.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

No more time for this subject today. Spent most of the day conducting the funeral of one of our deacons. What a great man. Trusted the Lord 18 years ago in the same room we conducted the service. Almost all his family, except his wife, unbelievers. Many coworkers in attendance, also lost. A great privilege to serve them today.

As for this topic, I’m not interested in attempting to analyze any particular piece of music because not one person here arguing the other side would agree. You are committed to your presuppositions, I think they are unbiblical. Music is the product of human hearts, it has to reflect the heart. Christian music these days is imitative, not creative. It imitates the products of the world rather create products of the Spirit.

So we disagree? What else is new?

But my point at this time is simply to argue with Jay who seems to think that good words make good music no matter what the genre or style it is presented in. The argument about music is not an argument about the words. That’s all I’m saying today. You all can dance around and try to distract from that point all you want. You should be able to agree with that point, but you won’t. Who knows why? Seems incredibly odd to me.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3