The Pursuit of Excellence in Conservative Christian Music

I recently attended the funeral of a long time friend and Christian brother. Part of the service was a 20 person ukelele band that performed a well rehearsed 15 minute medley of familiar Christian hymns and Gospel songs. Was this excellent music?

This is the question that has kept this type of discussion going for decades. Just give us actual examples or a list of excellent Christian music that is acceptable along with actual examples or a list of music that is unacceptable so people don't have to worry.

We are told we should use excellent music. We agree. Yet no one will give us an example of excellent music. We are told we should not use "sinful" or "bad" or "uncheckable" music. We agree. Yet no one will give us an example of that music.

People need simple answers.

I do not expect that I will participate much longer in this thread, given the nonsense and false claims about me that Bert Perry has again injected into yet another thread.

Rajesh (and anyone, really). There is another option when criticism seems unfair/inaccurate/bad tone. It’s an option I’ve used a lot. You can always ignore it and refocus on what you see as the relevant points of agreement and disagreement.

Human interaction is always pretty messy. I often think it’s a miracle that people ever understand eachother at all! So sometimes the line between debate and meta-debate (debate about the debate/other stuff that isn’t really relevant) is murky.

I’m in favor of a “just refocus” approach.

That said, this post is almost entirely meta-debate, so far. … which just goes to show that sometimes it has a place.

But to refocus, questions like “What does the Bible teach about music styles?” are definitely downstream of questions like “How do we interpret narrative and other kinds of OT writing?”

In any debate you have to have points of agreement to use as bases for making your case/defeating the case for another view. In issues concerning arts, entertainment, culture especially, hermeneutical points of agreement are vital. If you don’t agree on a general approach for handling the biblical evidence (or even when it is “evidence”), you don’t have much to talk about.

Well, you could have a debate about sound interpretation/hermeneutics and how we derive that. But you can’t really have a debate about the cultural/arts/entertainment topic… because you kind of don’t speak the same language.

What constitutes "godly music" continues to be fervently argued ad nauseum by (IMHO) those with too much time on their hands. Quite frankly, at this point it's a waste of time and energy to launch into and trace the arguments of another 14+ page discussion on this topic. (How many such music threads do we currently have on SI?) I agree that the 2014 Shai Linne / Scott Aniol discussion was edifying and revealing. Beyond that, the argument ultimately breaks down to one claiming God's imprimatur on one's music preferences.

[Aaron said:]But to refocus, questions like “What does the Bible teach about music styles?” are definitely downstream of questions like “How do we interpret narrative and other kinds of OT writing?”

In any debate you have to have points of agreement to use as bases for making your case/defeating the case for another view. In issues concerning arts, entertainment, culture especially, hermeneutical points of agreement are vital. If you don’t agree on a general approach for handling the biblical evidence (or even when it is “evidence”), you don’t have much to talk about.

Well, you could have a debate about sound interpretation/hermeneutics and how we derive that. But you can’t really have a debate about the cultural/arts/entertainment topic… because you kind of don’t speak the same language.

I think that there is much that can be done even without agreement on everything. The key is to let the Bible itself determine what proper hermeneutics are instead of imposing them from without.

For example, the Psalms are an inspired collection of perfect songs that God has infallibly, inerrantly, and authoritatively directed NT Christians to minister to one another in singing and in other ways. There is no legitimate denial of that fact.

Because that is true, all the content of the Psalms about music has direct doctrinal importance for NT Christians for whatever it says about music. When what the Psalms reveal about music (whether directly or by way of principle) is properly and thoroughly treated, we have a vast amount of information that instructs us about music that is acceptable to God.

If we appeal solely to the Bible for our rules of hermeneutics, we have something of a chicken/egg situation where we must understand the Scriptures to find out our ground rules for understanding the Scriptures.

Pro tip; sound exegesis and heremeneutics can never be grounded in a tautology. Rather, sound hermeneutics begins with a sound comprehension of the language used and an adherence to the rules of logic. That includes a prohibition on personal attacks (e.g. comments like "worthless interaction") as well as a prohibition of guilt by association (e.g. "the roots of rock & roll lie deep in the soil of voodoo") fallacies.

And until we get an agreement from Rajesh that the rules of logic apply--he's actually posted things on his personal blog claiming wrongly that the Bible uses guilt by association--we really don't have any basis for discussing hermeneutics with him. No sound hermeneutic can dispense with the rules of logic, and the prohibitions of personal attacks, guilt by association, and circular reasoning (tautologies) are among the most basic rules of logic.

Take care, brethren, that you be not misled by Bert Perry's false statements about hermeneutics. He speaks confidently about that which he does not know.

Examining how the NT writers use the OT is a perfectly legitimate and necessary part of sound hermeneutics. One of the most highly respected professors in the seminary where I did my doctoral work taught us extensively about NT use of the OT in one of our doctoral classes that examined problems in NT Interpretation.

Learning from the Bible itself how to interpret and apply the OT to our lives is an essential part of proper interpretation of the Bible, sound theology, and godly Christian doctrine and practice.

I think that there is much that can be done even without agreement on everything. The key is to let the Bible itself determine what proper hermeneutics are instead of imposing them from without.

This has a great ring to it and I applaud the desire to give the Bible all the authority we possibly can.

I also do agree that there are hermeneutical principles revealed in Scripture itself. We should take that as far as it is meant to go.

But there’s an inescapable reality that plays a huge role in limiting that idea:

We have to approach the Bible itself as readers from the outside, and we do not come from a neutral place.

To put it another way, God gave us a perfect (for His purposes) Book, but He:

• Gave it to us in the context of community—fellow believers.
• Gave it to us in the context of our humanity—created beings with built in capabilities as our starting point.
• Gave it to us through human writers—first, prophets (in the believing community) and later apostles (in the believing community)

Anyway, my point is this: what the Bible is and how it was given to us are just as important as what it contains in determining how to interpret it.

To put it a different way, in order to learn from the Bible how to interpret it, we have to first interpret what it says about how to interpret it.

You can see the circularity there. We can’t get 100% of interpretive principles from the Book itself because we have to have some interpretive principles already in order to get any principles at all.

You have to know how to read and think before you can read more about reading and thinking.

The problem would be unsolvable if it weren’t for the fact that God made us with some innate abilities and providentially guided history in a way that we approach all forms of writing with some basic understandings of how to do that—and He made us in a way that we’re able to engage in reasoning to figure a lot out.

And, even more, after laying all that ground work so He could speak to us in this way, He inspired writers in the context of congregations who would work together to understand what was given.

It works because we’re humans, made in God’s image, bound together in faith. It’s messy because we’re still only humans.

To sum up: It is not possible to get all of our hermeneutics from the Bible because we have to have some hermeneutics already in order to get anything out of the Bible.

Rajesh, the question is not whether we can use the OT to interpret the NT. I don't believe anyone here would deny that. The question at hand is whether sound exegesis and hermeneutics are bound to the rules of grammar and logic. You are on record as saying that they are not, and your conduct in this very thread involves other (sinful) fallacies like the ad hominem.

When I add that to your endorsement of Brennan's Pen's racist claim that "the roots of rock & roll lie deep in the soil of voodoo", what you need most is to repent of these sins and start to learn to understand the Bible properly, bound by the chains of the rules of grammar and logic.

As far as sound hermeneutics go, I do not have to prove anything to you about my abilities to handle the Bible properly. You fancy yourself to be an expert in hermeneutics and sound logic, but you are not anything of the sort.

As far as the rules of grammar go, I challenge you to produce one legitimate example where I have violated the rules of grammar concerning proper interpretation of the Bible.

As far as sound hermeneutics go, I do not have to prove anything to you or
anyone else about my abilities to handle the Bible properly.

This is true.

You also don’t have to respond at all to anyone in particular, if you think what they’re saying is not relevant or doesn’t have value. In those cases, it’s kind of a distraction.

I do want to raise a question, though: What do you want to accomplish?

If you’re goal is to persuade people who are potentially persuadable on this topic (Bert is probably not in that category—which is not criticism; it’s just pretty clear he has made up his mind), then you kind of do “have to prove” some things.

Whenever we are trying to persuade people to consider another point of view—or even just trying to teach them something—we have to make a case for it. Part of that case is understanding what they see as strong as evidence.

If what I see as strong evidence is not what my hearers see as strong evidence, I have two options:

• Use evidence they see as more weighty.
• Persuade them that the evidence I have is more weighty then they think.

That second response is going to take some work, and usually includes a measure of proving our own skills… or other ethos arguments.

If, in the end, an audience can’t see the value of your evidence, you have to use different evidence, or just give up.

Question for Ragesh:

If you and Bert were in the same church, wouldn’t you just “agree to disagree “? And move on?

How many years has this argument been going on! (4-5-6?)

Question for Ragesh:

If you and Bert were in the same church, wouldn’t you just “agree to disagree “? And move on?

How many years has this argument been going on! (4-5-6?)

I have no desire to continue to interact with him. He keeps interposing himself in thread after thread in which I participate.

When he does so, the nature of his false claims about me are such that not answering him would make it look like I have accepted that he is right in what he is (falsely) saying about me, so I am left with no choice but to repeatedly engage with him to repudiate his falsehoods.

Ragesh, why do you feel the need to answer Bert?

Consider if you will, Proverbs 24:6 (if you regard him as such

Proverbs 26:4. Corrected

Ra[j]esh, why do you feel the need to answer Bert?

Consider if you will, Proverbs 24:6 (if you regard him as such

Proverbs 26:4. Corrected

Since you brought it up, consider what Proverbs 26:5 also has to say on that subject.

Rajesh, I "interpose" into threads because first of all, I'm a member here, and second of all, because at times I think you're introducing some serious errors, starting with basic logic. One of the consistent things I notice is that you do not hesitate to make guilt by association errors, and you also do not hesitate to make personal attacks.

If you want to demonstrate to me that you don't understand why genetic fallacies are fallacies, you're doing a great job, but no sound hermeneutic can rest on genetic fallacies.

Regarding the notion that I'm unpersuadable; no. I can be persuaded by valid logic and real evidence in any number of areas. The rub is that valid logic and real evidence does not include genetic fallacies. I'm no great logician, but I do know enough to know that guilt by association, personal attacks/ad hominem, and the like are bad logic.

Yes, too many "fundagelical scholars" do use these, including (as Ron Bean noted) pretty much all advocates of the "traditional music" position. But that does not make it sound logic or good theology.