Steve Pettit and the Skillman family

[josh p]

Also, when it comes to corporate worship, I do think its worth being sensitive to the fact that due to associations or convictions certain music may be a barrier to some people’s ability to worship.

This is very true. However, the problem is that you cannot “please” everyone. I lead corporate worship and realized long ago that someone is going to be unhappy no matter what I do. You simply can’t please everyone. We have walked through the issue of music from Scripture with the church. From Scripture, there should nearly be a reverse worship war where everyone is willing to bow to the preferences of others in order to help edify and build up one another while worshipping God. The barriers of worship start to come down (somewhat) once they start looking at this from a Biblical perspective. However, there are certainly some people that can’t get past a certain style of music. This is a whole different subject in itself but certainly related…and very interesting!

The purpose of a hammer is to efficiently transfer momentum from the users arm to the nailhead, or whatever. At its base level its purpose is morally neutral, possibly even positive if efficient productivity is a moral choice. Use that same hammer to crack someone’s noggin and you have a whole different scenario, but the morality of the situation is not at all in the hammer but in the user.

Words and music are tools. Unlike a hammer, however, they are tools with the purpose of affecting moral perspective and subsequent actions at practically every level—rational (esp. words); emotional; spiritual; physical; intellectual.

Letters and notes are as morally neutral as anything can be because they have no meaning at all by themselves. But when a man organizes them into words and music they are purposed by the source to affect a moral outcome on himself and all those who utilize it, an outcome which may be good, bad, or relatively ambivalent.

You can separate the morality of a hammer from its source. I’m not sure it is possible to separate the “morality” of music—text and/or tune—from its source. Because it is a specific mode of communication its source provides its purpose.

[Lee]

The purpose of a hammer is to efficiently transfer momentum from the users arm to the nailhead, or whatever. At its base level its purpose is morally neutral, possibly even positive if efficient productivity is a moral choice. Use that same hammer to crack someone’s noggin and you have a whole different scenario, but the morality of the situation is not at all in the hammer but in the user.

Words and music are tools. Unlike a hammer, however, they are tools with the purpose of affecting moral perspective and subsequent actions at practically every level—rational (esp. words); emotional; spiritual; physical; intellectual.

Letters and notes are as morally neutral as anything can be because they have no meaning at all by themselves. But when a man organizes them into words and music they are purposed by the source to affect a moral outcome on himself and all those who utilize it, an outcome which may be good, bad, or relatively ambivalent.

You can separate the morality of a hammer from its source. I’m not sure it is possible to separate the “morality” of music—text and/or tune—from its source. Because it is a specific mode of communication its source provides its purpose.

So then pick a song, any song, and tell us how to determine if the music is morally good or bad. We have to be able to put this into practice. Are you saying we must know the author and his intent in order to know whether the song is moral or not?

[RajeshG]

People with life experience have innate ability to discern what is and is not sensual concerning how something is being spoken or sung.

This is where everything gets squishy. If each person with “life experience” can discern what is and what is not “sensual,” and if this is really a good basis for judging, why is there so much disagreement? Are you arguing that everyone that disagrees with you knows the music they are using is wrong, but refuses to discard it anyway?

Also speaking for myself, my senses are very gratified by “high church” music, or things like Bach. Does that make that music wrong for me?

Personally, given my background and life experience, worship music I would choose (and generally do, when it’s my choice, and not that of my church) based on it “sounding” worshipful, would probably be at least as conservative as Aniol, Bauder, Riley, or maybe even Don (though I don’t know his exact standards on worship music). Of course “sounding” is not exactly a concept that is objective, given we have yet to hear objective standards that any Christian (or at least those with “life experience”) can apply consistently.

I’d love to be objectively able to throw away most CCM, pretty much all hip-hop and similar, and in my case, even a lot of those “merry go round” tunes that I did enjoy singing in my childhood, but now consider somewhat less than worthy (like the tunes to “At the Cross” or “Love Lifted Me”). However, I can’t find any good, objective reasons to do so on the basis of the music itself. I can easily discard much of it, at least for myself, based on words, associations, etc. Of course, in the case of associations, I realize that that will be different for others. I really want to believe there is no such thing as “holy hip hop,” but consistent standards any of us can apply, based on the music itself, are pretty hard to come by, and just saying that those with “life experience have innate ability to discern” doesn’t meet any standard of objectivity I’m aware of.

[RajeshG]

Jay wrote:

Please define “sensual” and “sensual vocal techniques” for those of us who aren’t musicians.

How do you decide if one of your church members feels that xyz song is too sensual and should not be used but another person is fine with it?

I am not going down the “it depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ means” road, but I would love to see what Scriptures have bearing on vocal techniques for musicians outside of “make a joyful noise to the Lord” or “singing songs, hymns, and spiritual songs”.

In the wisdom of God, He does not define things that do not need definition. People with life experience have innate ability to discern what is and is not sensual concerning how something is being spoken or sung.

There should be no possibility that anything used in corporate worship has any hint of sensuality employed in vocal techniques used or anything else used in the worship music.

The Spirit speaks about singing as a harlot without any explanation or definition:

Isaiah 23:15 And it shall come to pass in that day, that Tyre shall be forgotten seventy years, according to the days of one king: after the end of seventy years shall Tyre sing as an harlot.

God expected all who heard this revelation (and all who subsequently hear or read it) to know what comprises singing as a harlot. Detailed explanation is not necessary to know what this ungodly singing style is.

Numerous musical authorities, both unbelieving and believing, have talked extensively about sensual vocal techniques and those materials are easily and widely accessible for you to consult them.

I’m not sure it is possible to separate the “morality” of music—text and/or tune—from its source. Because it is a specific mode of communication its source provides its purpose.

I do think this is a matter of degrees, but we still need to settle the question of what makes a tune evil. The text of a song, I think, is quite simple and not a point of debate here.

I remain unyielding in my refusal to submit worship guidelines to the expertise of anything outside the Scriptures, especially unsaved musicians, no matter how good, skilled, or published they are. Paul rightly rebukes the Corinthians for taking internal church struggles to an unbelieving agency for mediation (6:1). I still do not see any arguments for the appropriateness of musical tunes based on Scriptural principles aside from Rajesh’s out of context verse from Isaiah.

This is a fine example:

[Jay]

I’m not sure it is possible to separate the “morality” of music—text and/or tune—from its source. Because it is a specific mode of communication its source provides its purpose.

I do think this is a matter of degrees, but we still need to settle the question of what makes a tune evil. The text of a song, I think, is quite simple and not a point of debate here.

I remain unyielding in my refusal to submit worship guidelines to the expertise of anything outside the Scriptures, especially unsaved musicians, no matter how good, skilled, or published they are. Paul rightly rebukes the Corinthians for taking internal church struggles to an unbelieving agency for mediation (6:1). I still do not see any arguments for the appropriateness of musical tunes based on Scriptural principles aside from Rajesh’s out of context verse from Isaiah.

I once observed that a “Patch the Pirate Club” song was in a tango beat. Now, do we separate from just that song, or from the “Patch the Pirate Club”, or from Majesty Music and BJU altogether over that, knowing that the tango is one of the most sensual dances out there, being very popular in places like brothels for that reason?

Just curious. Let’s be serious here; those who understand tango know that its associations are far nastier than those for rock & roll. Certainly you don’t find too many fundamental Baptists like Buddy Holly playing tango. Well, except for Ron Hamilton, of course.

[dcbii]

RajeshG wrote:

People with life experience have innate ability to discern what is and is not sensual concerning how something is being spoken or sung.

This is where everything gets squishy. If each person with “life experience” can discern what is and what is not “sensual,” and if this is really a good basis for judging, why is there so much disagreement? Are you arguing that everyone that disagrees with you knows the music they are using is wrong, but refuses to discard it anyway?

Also speaking for myself, my senses are very gratified by “high church” music, or things like Bach. Does that make that music wrong for me?

Personally, given my background and life experience, worship music I would choose (and generally do, when it’s my choice, and not that of my church) based on it “sounding” worshipful, would probably be at least as conservative as Aniol, Bauder, Riley, or maybe even Don (though I don’t know his exact standards on worship music). Of course “sounding” is not exactly a concept that is objective, given we have yet to hear objective standards that any Christian (or at least those with “life experience”) can apply consistently.

I’d love to be objectively able to throw away most CCM, pretty much all hip-hop and similar, and in my case, even a lot of those “merry go round” tunes that I did enjoy singing in my childhood, but now consider somewhat less than worthy (like the tunes to “At the Cross” or “Love Lifted Me”). However, I can’t find any good, objective reasons to do so on the basis of the music itself. I can easily discard much of it, at least for myself, based on words, associations, etc. Of course, in the case of associations, I realize that that will be different for others. I really want to believe there is no such thing as “holy hip hop,” but consistent standards any of us can apply, based on the music itself, are pretty hard to come by, and just saying that those with “life experience have innate ability to discern” doesn’t meet any standard of objectivity I’m aware of.

[Jay]

I’m not sure it is possible to separate the “morality” of music—text and/or tune—from its source. Because it is a specific mode of communication its source provides its purpose.

I do think this is a matter of degrees, but we still need to settle the question of what makes a tune evil. The text of a song, I think, is quite simple and not a point of debate here.

I remain unyielding in my refusal to submit worship guidelines to the expertise of anything outside the Scriptures, especially unsaved musicians, no matter how good, skilled, or published they are. Paul rightly rebukes the Corinthians for taking internal church struggles to an unbelieving agency for mediation (6:1). I still do not see any arguments for the appropriateness of musical tunes based on Scriptural principles aside from Rajesh’s out of context verse from Isaiah.

[Lee]

The purpose of a hammer is to efficiently transfer momentum from the users arm to the nailhead, or whatever. At its base level its purpose is morally neutral, possibly even positive if efficient productivity is a moral choice. Use that same hammer to crack someone’s noggin and you have a whole different scenario, but the morality of the situation is not at all in the hammer but in the user.

Words and music are tools. Unlike a hammer, however, they are tools with the purpose of affecting moral perspective and subsequent actions at practically every level—rational (esp. words); emotional; spiritual; physical; intellectual.

Letters and notes are as morally neutral as anything can be because they have no meaning at all by themselves. But when a man organizes them into words and music they are purposed by the source to affect a moral outcome on himself and all those who utilize it, an outcome which may be good, bad, or relatively ambivalent.

You can separate the morality of a hammer from its source. I’m not sure it is possible to separate the “morality” of music—text and/or tune—from its source. Because it is a specific mode of communication its source provides its purpose.

[RickyHorton]

josh p wrote:

Also, when it comes to corporate worship, I do think its worth being sensitive to the fact that due to associations or convictions certain music may be a barrier to some people’s ability to worship.

This is very true. However, the problem is that you cannot “please” everyone. I lead corporate worship and realized long ago that someone is going to be unhappy no matter what I do. You simply can’t please everyone. We have walked through the issue of music from Scripture with the church. From Scripture, there should nearly be a reverse worship war where everyone is willing to bow to the preferences of others in order to help edify and build up one another while worshipping God. The barriers of worship start to come down (somewhat) once they start looking at this from a Biblical perspective. However, there are certainly some people that can’t get past a certain style of music. This is a whole different subject in itself but certainly related…and very interesting!

Does God actually parse things in the totality of the composite audio package? If He doesn’t, then would that make the song itself sinful when it is sung sensuously? You already told me that I obviously know it doesn’t, but your statements about parsing make me think your answer would be “yes” based on the precedent of Cain’s sinful offering.

My point about Gen. 4:5 was that the verse does not say anything about God’s explaining to Cain what aspects of his worship were pleasing to God versus what aspects were not. Of course, God scrutinizes every aspect of everything that anyone does and evaluates it accordingly.
Based on what Gen. 4:5 says, we learn that God deemed it enough for us to know that He rejected Cain and what he offered without the need for His also explaining in detail to us His evaluation of Cain and his ungodly worship.

[RajeshG]

Does God actually parse things in the totality of the composite audio package? If He doesn’t, then would that make the song itself sinful when it is sung sensuously? You already told me that I obviously know it doesn’t, but your statements about parsing make me think your answer would be “yes” based on the precedent of Cain’s sinful offering.

My point about Gen. 4:5 was that the verse does not say anything about God’s explaining to Cain what aspects of his worship were pleasing to God versus what aspects were not. Of course, God scrutinizes every aspect of everything that anyone does and evaluates it accordingly.

Based on what Gen. 4:5 says, we learn that God deemed it enough for us to know that He rejected Cain and what he offered without the need for His also explaining in detail to us His evaluation of Cain and his ungodly worship.

Not that I can fathom, really.

There’s an ongoing pattern here with many that is essentially this: If doesn’t get something or can’t fathom it or can’t understand it, it is wrong. It appears that some don’t even consider that it might be his own deficliency that is causing the problem. There are numerous statements to this effect, and this is only the latest. We have had one person explicitly reject anything outside of his own understanding. Why do we do this?

Bert likes to condemn guilt by association (in spite of the fact that the Bible clearly uses it) but one of his primary arguments against Mike’s writing is that it is just Frank Garlock redux. In other words, no need to address what Mike actually says. Just associate him with Garlock and call it a day. He’s guilty. Of course, Mike’s argument and Garlock’s aren’t the same and no one who has thoughtfully interacted with either would consider them so. He also used GBA by name dropping BJU into a condemnation of percussion, which, again was a just bizarre and virtually unintelligible attempt at an argument. It’s hard to know what Bert was trying to get at with that because he didn’t bother to explain it.

Bert has engaged in the fallacy of begging the question, that is asserting that music is neutral while failing to prove (or even argue much for) such a position. In another bizarre moment, Bert declared that Psalm 149 and 150 mean that modern music is okay and Mike must disagree with it. Yet Bert has made no effort to tell us what part of Psalm 149 or 150 Mike or other conservatives disagree with. He hasn’t even been able to play Psalm 149 or 150 for us so we can know what it sounded like. After all, that is the only way to judge, is it not? Are we really expected to make aesthetic judgments about sound without ever hearing the sound?

In the end, regardless of where one falls on this matter, there is a lot of sloppy thinking going on, if thinking it could even be called.