We Must Heed the Vital Message of 1 Corinthians 10:18-20

[RajeshG]

Kevin Miller wrote:

Do you really think this is “the heart of our differing views”? This paragraph here shows me that you are either incapable of understanding the flow of thought I’ve been presenting, or you are purposely ignoring my flow of thought. I’ve never once made the statement that instrumental music is “never immoral,” and when you accuse me of having that “presupposition,” you are letting me know that you’ve decided not to really listen to my points. I’ve repeatedly and repeatedly and repeatedly said that I am open to the possibility that instrumental music could be good or neutral or immoral, but I would want confirmation from Scripture about HOW something would be immoral before I make a definitive assertion that something is immoral. I would want the same confirmation before I made the definitive assertion that it is good. I know that you feel you’ve answered the HOW sufficiently, but I see your answers as containing leaps of logic and when I ask you to delve into the specifics of your leaps of logic, you fall back on “God doesn’t want us to inquire.” Well, I feel that is just a brush-off due to you not actually having either logical support or biblical support for the details of your position and you just don’t want to admit it..

Here’s an analogy to explain how I am viewing your accusation of a presupposition.. Suppose someone were to say that certain styles of boat are immoral. I would be open to the idea, but the thought would cross my mind that God hasn’t specifically said that boats are immoral. I would NOT be listening to the claim with the presupposition that boats are never immoral, but the person making the claim that some styles are immoral would have to support it rather than me having to prove that all boats are good, especially since my desire for such support would not indicate a presupposition that all boats are good. If leaps of logic are used to support the notion that some styles of boat are immoral, I can challenge the leaps of logic without having a presupposition that boats are never immoral.

You say that you are open to the possibility that instrumental music could be immoral, but then you insist that you must know the specifics in order to believe that there is immoral instrumental music.

You have been given much more than is needed in the Bible to know that there is immoral instrumental music.

To understand how you have been given this in the Bible itself, consider what God has revealed about what the idolaters (Rom. 1:23, 25) that God has judged by giving them over to reprobate minds (Rom. 1:28) have done and continue to do:

Romans 1:30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents.

Does the Spirit say that unless He gives you specifics about these evil things that they have invented, you are free to say that those things are not evil? Does the Spirit say that unless you understand how something can be evil, you are free to reject what He says when He has specifically told you that they are “inventors of evil things”?

Any claim that what Romans 1:30 speaks about does not apply to instrumental music is special pleading, begging the question, etc. When someone rejects what God says, they will not get any other answers from God.

Does the explicit biblical statement that reprobate idolaters are “inventors of evil things” include their being inventors of evil musical styles or not? If you say that it does not, what does the Bible say that justifies your holding that it does not?

I happen to think it is a valid use of discernment to examine biblically how God determines that He is displeased with something. Let’s use my boat example above and see if you agree with this logic for determining that God is displeased with styles of boats. I think I am making some leaps here, but perhaps you don’t. There are some communities that do not want casinos to be built in their community, but they allow for gambling to take place on waterways. Therefore, the evil facilitators of gambling have invented ways to turn riverboats into casinos. We all know that playing cards used to be called “The Devil’s Bible” and “The Devil’s Picture Book” and these evil instruments are used in the wicked casinos. People gamble away their money instead of providing for their families, and someone who doesn’t provide for their family is worse than an unbeliever. What type of being is worse than an unbeliever? Well, unbelievers simply get sent to hell, but demons get chained up there, so demons must be worse. People who gamble are therefore acting in demonic ways. God doesn’t want us to have anything to do with the “works of darkness,” so we should not only stay away from the riverboat casinos, but also from the style of boat that is used by the casinos. It is a wicked boat style, so any church that rents a riverboat for a church service is worshipping in a way that is displeasing to God, since all riverboats should be rejected.

Do you agree with this assessment that riverboats should be rejected? The way I see it, this example uses the same types of arguments that you use for saying a certain musical style needs to be rejected.

[RajeshG]

GregH wrote:

I am waiting for you to tell us a musical scale we must reject. You claim there are some. Why would you not tell us so we can avoid this fellowship with darkness?

You are going to keep waiting because the kinds of musicological specifics that you want to talk about are not what this thread is about. You obviously are not interested in discussing what the Bible says.

It would be great if you would stop wasting your time and mine by continuing to comment on this thread.

You are the one in this thread that said that some scales are not acceptable to God. I just think that if that is the case, you should warn the musicians that participate here what those are.

You can continue to duck hard questions; I am not naive. I know why you duck them. But just to make it interesting, I will donate $50 to your church if you will name a scale that is not acceptable to God and describe from a music theory standpoint what about the scale makes it unacceptable.

[RajeshG]

The Bible does not provide the kinds of specific musicological information that you want about music that God rejects. I do not have anything further to say about this matter.

All right. Then I guess you admit that when you said earlier that some scales are not acceptable to God, you were speaking in error.

So let me get this straight.

* God does not accept all scales.

* God does not give us any criteria to use to decide what scales are acceptable.

* We are presumably on the hook to get it right anyway.

Got it…

Rajesh,

You must have missed my earlier post. You said God’s prohibitions against idolatry applied to the worship music of Israel.

I responded asking you if you could point to any OT passages where that occurred. Where God evidences the sinfulness of His people by pointing to their worship music. And then, continuing, where God takes His commands against idolatry and applies those commands directly to the pagan music Israel was using in their worship of Him so that their music changed. Or, continuing, God’s people understood God’s commands against idolatry to apply to their worship music, so that their music changed.

Does this occur in the OT, and if so, where?

[RajeshG]

Wrong. We have no basis to hold that He accepts all scales whatever humans come up with regardless of what they might be; we know that He accepts some because He commands the use of music in worshiping Him and Scripture records that both humans and supernatural beings have used music to worship Him acceptably.

We know that He rejects the music of demonically influenced idolaters. Because we know that there is instrumental music that He rejects, we have no basis to hold that He will accept any musical forms created by demonically influenced wicked people who have created their music for wicked purposes.

Therefore, He has given us the essential criteria for knowing what music we must not use—we must not get our music from demonically influence idolaters, harlots, and other wicked people who produce ungodly music. We must not have any fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, including their musical forms. We are not to be conformed to this present evil age. We must not walk in the counsel of the ungodly by borrowing their wicked music and bringing it into the worship of God. etc.

All right. You had better get busy scrubbing the music off your website. You use musical elements of the pagans and ungodly. The scales you work from originated with pagans. Without question…

I suppose you may quibble that a scale is not a “form” since you continue to use that word in a squishy and arbitrary way. I would disagree. There is nothing in music that affects its character more than the scale it is built on (which implies an underlying relative system of theory).

[RajeshG]

I am not going to humor you at all with your attempt to draw an analogy between boats and music. There is no comparing those two things. God does not command numerous times in the Bible that boats be used to worship Him, etc.

As for Romans 1, regardless of what applications you want to make to all unbelievers, in context, the specific people in view are the ones to whom everything in the passage applies. Namely, they become idolaters,

This thread is specifically about biblical revelation concerning the music of demonically influenced idolaters that must be rejected categorically and what that revelation teaches us about other music that we must reject categorically.

[RajeshG]

Discussing musicological specifics beyond a very general level is not the biblical way to understand what music pleases God. If it were, God would have talked a lot about such things.

[RajeshG]

Therefore, He has given us the essential criteria for knowing what music we must not use—we must not get our music from demonically influenced idolaters, harlots, and other wicked people who produce ungodly music. We must not have any fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, including their musical forms. We are not to be conformed to this present evil age. We must not walk in the counsel of the ungodly by borrowing their wicked music and bringing it into the worship of God. etc.

So I would be in agreement this far — I would not want to borrow any song/tune/lyrics that are specifically aimed at sinful activity, thoughts, attitudes, etc. But what you haven’t explained is to what extent our music can’t be similar. We will also use rhythm, chords, notes, keys, etc. I certainly wouldn’t want any tune we use for worship to sound like a song from KISS for example. But that really doesn’t tell us in what ways our music can’t be similar, and it always will be in some sense because we use the same building blocks, as Greg has tried to explain.

In fundamentalism, we certainly don’t go so far as to make all secular tunes off limits. What about the tune to “Gott, erhalte Franz den Kaiser,” which eventually became “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles,” and now “Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit,” which we commonly hear in churches as “Glorious Things of Thee are spoken”? My wife, who is a German citizen, doesn’t sing along in church when that song is used. And I can understand why, as I certainly would have a hard time singing a worship song with the tune to “The Star-spangled Banner.” But clearly all Christians do not have that association. Is that tune that was used during Nazi times now wicked enough that it can’t be used by us at all?

Any scriptural prohibitions need to be able to encompass things like my example above, and we as Christians need to be able to apply them consistently. Having someone come up to me and say “that sounds too much like ungodly music for us as Christians to be able to use it” they are going to have to explain themselves and give solid reasons why. If all you can say is that evil idolaters use or created such music, well they also use and create such music as the tune I described above. If you say that tune isn’t wicked, then you need to explain why, since it didn’t come from believers. Once we get down to those specifics, then we would finally be able to have a standard that Christians can use. What you have described all along is far too general, and subject to way too much personal opinion and feeling, and it’s never good for us to get our standards that way.

[RajeshG]

Because the people who originated those beats themselves have been involved in ungodly activities that they themselves say have put them in contact with demonic spirits. Any such music is categorically off-limits.

[RajeshG]

So what? Were the boats in any of these accounts actually offered to God as part of the worship in whatever took place. No, they were not. There is no valid comparison between the biblical revelation about boats and the biblical revelation about instrumental music that God repeatedly commands to be offered to Him in worship.

So what? Unless the rest of the passage also applies to all unbelievers, the objection that you are raising to my use of Romans 1:30 is invalid. If you are ready to claim that everything from Romans 1:23 to the end of the passage also applies to all unbelievers, then you are patently making a false claim.

The bottom line is the passage plainly teaches that there are reprobate idolaters who are sexually immoral and who are inventors of evil things. Anyone who claims that those evil things do not include instrumental music has to prove why it does not. Of course, there is no legitimate way to prove that it does not include instrumental music.

We know from Romans 1:30 that there is instrumental music that reprobate idolaters have invented that God says is evil.

This is a misrepresentation of what I have said. The other music that I have said that must be rejected has been either the music of people involved in occult practices, which also puts them in contact with demonic spirits, or the music of other openly immoral people, such as harlots.

[RajeshG]

God did not put any caveats when He forbad the Israelites from having anything to do with any aspect of the idolatrous practices of the Canaanites (Deut. 12:29-32). Their music, therefore, was totally off-limits to God’s people. There was not to be any studying of it, borrowing it, or anything else.

Then, as I have said many times (and you have ignored), you are in violation of your own theology. Your own music is rooted in paganism. You can continue to ignore this but it is true nonetheless.

It is sort of funny. You attempt to teach music theory on your site which I would certainly guess constitutes “studying” it. Who do you think came up with that theory? How does your condemnation not apply to you?

Folks, I think at some point, we’ve got to understand that when push comes to shove, there is nothing to Rajesh’s argument except a guilt by association fallacy. Oh, yes, he tries to doll it up with some sloppy interpretation of Scripture (and ad hominem attacks on people who disagree with his view), but at the end of the day, it comes down to smearing all modern music by pointing out that Gene Simmons and Frank Zappa said some things about why they were in the business, and assuming that applied universally. (OK, add hasty generalization here, too)

There is no amount of evidence that is going to penetrate here, because Rajesh is not using traditional deductive or inductive logic. Rather, he’s simply tilting at that windmill until his opponents give up, telling us in effect that the light is not, indeed, flickering. I would personally be surprised if he could even give a good working definition of rock & roll that would encompass the various sub-genre and exclude other genre. He has, after all, repeatedly refused to analyze songs when Jay has challenged him on this, and won’t even name a characteristic scale or chord for Greg. (could any of us do that?….describe in a few paragraphs a genre that includes Buddy Holly, the Beatles (early and late), Michael Jackson, Prince, and AC/DC….)

You can’t argue with that. You can (as I have) attempt to point out the folly of his arguments, in the hope of freeing others from falling into his trap, but you really can’t argue with that. And to paraphrase the noted theologian Mr. T., I pity the fools who take him seriously, as he’s putting nonsense into peoples’ mouths that will have their neighbors wondering exactly what color the sun is on their planet. There is a real Gospel, Kingdom consequence to this sort of tomfoolery.

[Bert Perry]

Folks, I think at some point, we’ve got to understand that when push comes to shove, there is nothing to Rajesh’s argument except a guilt by association fallacy. Oh, yes, he tries to doll it up with some sloppy interpretation of Scripture (and ad hominem attacks on people who disagree with his view), but at the end of the day, it comes down to smearing all modern music by pointing out that Gene Simmons and Frank Zappa said some things about why they were in the business, and assuming that applied universally. (OK, add hasty generalization here, too)

There is no amount of evidence that is going to penetrate here, because Rajesh is not using traditional deductive or inductive logic. Rather, he’s simply tilting at that windmill until his opponents give up, telling us in effect that the light is not, indeed, flickering. I would personally be surprised if he could even give a good working definition of rock & roll that would encompass the various sub-genre and exclude other genre. He has, after all, repeatedly refused to analyze songs when Jay has challenged him on this, and won’t even name a characteristic scale or chord for Greg. (could any of us do that?….describe in a few paragraphs a genre that includes Buddy Holly, the Beatles (early and late), Michael Jackson, Prince, and AC/DC….)

You can’t argue with that. You can (as I have) attempt to point out the folly of his arguments, in the hope of freeing others from falling into his trap, but you really can’t argue with that. And to paraphrase the noted theologian Mr. T., I pity the fools who take him seriously, as he’s putting nonsense into peoples’ mouths that will have their neighbors wondering exactly what color the sun is on their planet. There is a real Gospel, Kingdom consequence to this sort of tomfoolery.

Well, OK, I can’t argue with that but on the flip side, this is interesting to me and a bit entertaining. I am wondering if this line of argumentation is a flash in the pan or a start of something new. In my lifetime, I have seen two big lines of argumentation against rock music/CCM.

1) The Garlockian approach of cherry picking quotes of music experts and rock musicians and building a large house of cards. This stood a while but came crashing down when the internet came along and people were actually able to research the assertions of the various experts.

2) The appeal to culture approach of Scott Aniol, etc. I have to say I thought it was a step in a better direction. It is at least possible to understand what they are arguing for and tie it back to legitimate philosophical systems. It is not a house of cards though there is plenty of room to disagree with their conclusions. To be honest, I used to dismiss this line of argumentation but I have tons of respect for it now because I have studied the underlying philosophy which goes back at least to Plato.

But now, we have a third…

3) The new Rajeshian approach which is to cherrypick verses from the Bible and do wild extrapolations from them to make broad sweeping generalizations. This is fairly new. Garlock did not even try to mine the Bible for support for his position in the way that Rajesh does. In many respects, Rajesh is doing something I have never seen before in this regard. He has built quite a system on this. It is amazing how many doctrine Rajesh can pull out of a word or two in an OT passage. If you go to his website, you do see that he makes application. For example, he says that good music has to be either mournful or victorious. Music that is in the middle is not OK because it is uncertain.

So I am curious to see if Rajesh’s approach here is going to the be the new way that musical conservatives approach this. I don’t really care too much; the one thing I agree with Rajesh on is I don’t like CCM either.

https://sharperiron.org/article/now-about-those-differences-part-seven

Fundamentalists have sometimes failed to subject their second premises to careful examination. This failure has resulted in silly and sometimes scandalous applications of Scripture.

Well, OK, I can’t argue with that but on the flip side, this is interesting to me and a bit entertaining.

I don’t think it is interesting or entertaining. I think it’s embarrassing and sinful that this line of argumentation is engaged with or tolerated as a legitimate position. Yes, this teaching will have real effects on real people. Rajesh said he caught a series of classes on this and has been “teaching” it here since at least the beginning of this year in different threads. His position is utterly without support from church history.

We aren’t debating angels on pins here. The use of music in worship is a very serious issue, and the fact that we are now 18 (?!) pages into it - more with the other threads that have been started - demonstrates that it’s not going anywhere except down.

[Jay]

Well, OK, I can’t argue with that but on the flip side, this is interesting to me and a bit entertaining.

I don’t think it is interesting or entertaining. I think it’s embarrassing and sinful that this line of argumentation is engaged with or tolerated as a legitimate position. Yes, this teaching will have real effects on real people. Rajesh said he caught a series of classes on this and has been “teaching” it here since at least the beginning of this year in different threads. His position is utterly without support from church history.

We aren’t debating angels on pins here. The use of music in worship is a very serious issue, and the fact that we are now 18 (?!) pages into it - more with the other threads that have been started - demonstrates that it’s not going anywhere except down.

I guess you may be taking it more seriously than me. Who is Rajesh really influencing? I have not seen anyone agree with anything he writes. Not even music conservatives will jump in to support him. So, I am not sure anything really dangerous is going on here and he will eventually get tired and move on. But I get your point. I do agree that the proper thing might be to refuse to engage so this will end sooner rather than later.

It’s hard to reconcile the notion that music is wrong if it’s not completely obvious with the reality that many Psalms, e.g. Psalm 42, are neither celebratory or mourning, but are rather contemplative. And then you’ve got Psalm 137, which is hugely angry.

This does not fit into the neat categories that Rajesh proposes, and there’s a musicological/literary reason for this. Poetry that is as obvious as a trumpet call to battle is called doggerel—you’ve heard this especially in tetrameter, “da-DA, da-DA, da-DA, da-DA” and so on. You can also call it “bad prose” or an “instruction manual”, but it’s not poetry, properly speaking. I don’t know if there’s a musicological term for music where there’s no nuance to allow the mind to process it (paging Prof. Schickele or Greg!), but there is also music which leaves no room for mental or emotional interpretation. It can get popular—e.g. Gene Simmons’ minimum nadir—but good music it is not.

We might note, really, that 1 Cor. 14:7 is part of a larger passage counseling not anything regarding music, but rather shows a preference for prophecy/preaching over tongues. So as Greg and I note, it’s really part of Rajesh’s habit of taking huge liberties with the Word of God, as his citation has nothing to do with the topic.

[GregH]

…the one thing I agree with Rajesh on is I don’t like CCM either.

I don’t know if that’s the only thing I would agree with him on, but it would be close. I don’t care for CCM either, but mostly not for the reasons he expounds.

[RajeshG]

This is another patently false statement. Many church fathers held that pagan instrumental music was ungodly.

For example, the church Father Justin Martyr stated the following in his “Discourse to the Greeks,”

“Do not suppose, ye Greeks, that my separation from your customs is unreasonable and unthinking; for I found in them nothing that is holy or acceptable to God.” (Chapter 1)

As well:

“And your public assemblies I have come to hate. For there are excessive banquetings, and subtle flutes which provoke to lustful movements, and useless and luxurious anointing, and crowning with garlands.” (Chapter 4; bold added to the original)

Moreover, until the CCM crowd came along and justified their bringing rock music into the church by inventing the myth that music was neutral, God’s people consistently held that there was ungodly instrumental music.

Your statement that my position is “utterly without support from church history” is false.

A few thoughts about this:

1) Yes, some have believed in morality in music throughout the history of the church. In fact, it started well before the church even existed. You can read similar arguments in Plato. Ironically, Plato discussed the morality of scales (modes) which is one of the reasons I have been trying to get you to engage on that topic. By the way, when you quote Justin Martyr, you are quoting a Platonist. You should ponder that. Plato talked a lot more about morality in instrumental music than the Bible does and Martyr was just a bit too impressed with Plato.

2) The CCM crowd is not responsible for the “myth that music is neutral.” This has been a topic of heavy debate for centuries in theology and philosophy.

3) When Jay says your position is without support through church history, I doubt he is referring to your conclusion. He is rather referring to how you get there which I suspect he would say is dubious exegesis. In that regard, I strongly suspect he is right. I have certainly not seen exegesis like you use from others that share your conclusion.

Not only is his platonism an issue—it was common in theologians of the age—but applying that passage has a bunch of other problems.

First of all, Psalms 149 and 150 command the flute to be used in God’s praise. Second, if you interpret it literally, you might say that you’re not allowed to listen to Jethro Tull, but really the flute is far more common in other genre besides modern popular music.

Third, you’ve got the question of whether there was anything inherent in how those flutes were being played that was the problem (or the instrument), or rather that the adherents of “gods” like Bacchus and Aphrodite had been conditioned to respond to a certain set of tunes on the flute by fornicating. I’m leaning towards the latter. Let’s be honest here; in this day and age, there is no clear set of music that is associated with fornication. Some consider nasal saxaphone a la Kenny G romantic, others consider it the equivalent of dental work.

Finally, the passage really gives us no guidance as to what the nature of the playing was, and even with that, we’ve got no idea whether people today would have any similar response to it. So rhetorically, all it proves is that Justin Martyr was saying some of the same things which (a) are supported by Plato and (b) are not supported in Scripture.

This is where sloppy exegesis, “any stick to beat my enemy”, gets you.

When Jay says your position is without support through church history, I doubt he is referring to your conclusion. He is rather referring to how you get there which I suspect he would say is dubious exegesis. In that regard, I strongly suspect he is right. I have certainly not seen exegesis like you use from others that share your conclusion.

Yup, I called him on bad exegesis a long time ago. To be honest, I told him he should take a hermeneutics class, and then someone else mentioned that Rajesh has a PhD, so I later apologized for that. I think “dubious exegesis” is putting it mildly.

I’ve been involved with SI a long time and have argued on music standards for a lot of it. I don’t ever remember anyone taking these kind of exegetical leaps. I’ve certainly never heard anything like it and I’ve read Garlock, Makujina, Aniol, and others.

I just want to note that Rajesh pulls another sleight of hand in that last post. I talked about the use of “music in worship” and he went straight to…”pagan instrumental music”.

Moreover, until the CCM crowd came along and justified their bringing rock music into the church by inventing the myth that music was neutral, God’s people consistently held that there was ungodly instrumental music.

I don’t have the time or patience for this thread, but I’m fairly certain that God’s people have been objecting to “ungodly instrumental music” long before the “CCM crowd came along”. I’m also fairly sure we’ve beaten, rolled out, smothered, re-rolled, and re-beaten that particular horse to death, though.

Back in the Middle Ages, it was a nasty string instrument that was going to bring perdition through all of Merry Old England. Specifically, it’s the one Rajesh teaches, the guitar. Also, there was a LOT of debate in the Reformation era over whether instruments belonged in the Church at all (still is in some circles), and that after (h/t Greg) there was debate over certain chord structures somewhat earlier. Later on, it was a debate over Psalms vs. hymns that lasted into the 19th Century. To put it mildly, Rajesh’s mastery of church history is, shall we say, a wee bit light for a guy who claims a terminal degree.

Never mind that it’s amusing in a way to see Rajesh arguing (a) that there wasn’t a problem or debate until recently while (b) citing Justyn Martyr on his objections to certain kinds of music. Just sayin’.