"God Likes Music of All Kinds"
In his chapter God, My Heart, and Music in the book Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World, Bob Kauflin writes,
Actually, it seems that God likes music of all kinds. No one style can sufficiently capture his glory or even begin to reflect the vastness of his wisdom, creativity, beauty, and order. That doesn't mean some kinds of music aren't more complex or beautiful than others. It just means no single genre of music is better than the rest in every way.
Tellingly, Kauflin offers no biblical support of his own for these statements.
I believe that wrong claims such as these (by Kauflin and others) about God and His supposedly liking "music of all kinds" is one of the chief reasons that we have the debacle that we have musically in the Church in our day.
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The Bible does not state that God likes all kinds of music. True enough.
But it also does not state that God dislikes any form of music. Based on that one of these is true:
- God likes all kinds of music.
- God only likes certain kinds, but chose not to tell us about His preferences.
Since He tells us to use music in worship, not telling us about His preference, if He has one, seems unlikely. That makes the first "seem" very likely. So, with the "seems" caveat, I agree with Kauflin on this point.
But it also does not state that God dislikes any form of music
This simply is not true. Those who want to believe that it is true take anything negative that is stated in Scripture in a passage that mentions music and assert that whatever the problem was, or problems were in the passage that elicited divine judgment, etc., it wasn't and couldn't have been the music itself. In effect, what is said to be true is merely assumed to be true.
- God only likes certain kinds, but chose not to tell us about His preferences.
This manner of addressing the issue assumes that God's only "liking" certain kinds of music could only be a matter of His having "preferences." It begs the question that God does not reject any kinds of music because there are not any intrinsically evil or otherwise unacceptable-to-Him kinds of music that combine musical elements in ways that God never intended were to be combined.
It also begs the question that for any such unacceptable kind or kinds of music to exist, God would certainly have to have told us explicitly and specifically that such unacceptable kinds of music exist.
in that respect, I have proven in another thread that there are musical instruments that wicked humans have made that are intrinsically evil and unacceptable to God even though the Bible never mentions that any such instruments exist. In the same manner, even if there were a lack of mention in Scripture of a kind of music or kinds of music that God does not like, it still would not therefore be true that no such kind or kinds of music exist.
I have a hard time believing that Satan can corrupt all sorts of communication but not music.
In line with Andy’s comment, I also find myself in the uncomfortable middle on the music issue. I also see no specific prohibitions in scripture, but am often considering how to determine in what ways music could be corrupted that could make it unusable, since it makes sense that it could be, and that Satan would certainly attempt it if it’s possible.
Like I suspect is true with most of you (at least those that don’t believe “anything goes”), in light of the fact of the Bible’s relative silence on this issue, I have over the years developed my own standards on what I believe is acceptable for both personal and church use. I have heard sermons, participated in discussions on this topic since at least high school, and I have read many works on this topic, both from the fundamental and conservative evangelical camps (not to mention some completely secular treatises on musical meaning), and I still struggle to see any hard and fast rules I can use. There is far too much “hand waving” in the arguments for me to easily accept them.
It would be much easier if the Bible were more exact on this topic, but clearly that wasn’t God’s intent. That does mean that my standards will not be the same as everyone else’s, and the criteria I use may seem inexact or unconvincing to others, but I have learned to live with that.
Dave Barnhart
I believe that the essential problem in the so-called worship wars is Christians choosing to perpetuate human foolishness and sinfulness by accepting the use of occult kinds of music in Christian worship. Christians who accept the use of such kinds of music in their worship reject divine wisdom and righteousness as follows:
From nearly the very beginning of human existence, God's dealings with humans have instructed them to accept His wisdom in setting boundaries for them about acceptable sources of wisdom (Gen. 2:17 compared with Genesis 3:6). Rejecting God's wisdom and righteousness, Eve foolishly and sinfully sought wisdom ("a tree to be desired to make one wise" [Gen. 3:6]) by a forbidden means from a forbidden source of wisdom that God sovereignly had put off-limits to her.
She was deceived into doing so by the work of an evil, supernatural, non-human spirit being (Gen. 3:13; 2 Cor. 11:3; 1 Tim. 2:14) of whom Eve had no knowledge. In fact, she had no capability of knowing what really was taking place and took place that led to her transgressing against God.
We must learn from Eve's horrific and tragic foolishness and sinfulness. As finite, corporeal beings, we as humans apart from divine revelation are utterly incapable of understanding how things of the spirit world work.
We therefore are simply no match for evil, supernatural, non-human spirit beings who incomparably surpass us in so many ways. Our only place of safety is to exalt God's wisdom and righteousness in His demanding that we utterly reject all wisdom from forbidden sources of wisdom that is demonic.
AndyE : I have a hard time believing that Satan can corrupt all sorts of communication but not music.
Do you mean that Satan corrupts a form of communication? Or that he uses a form of communication in a corrupt way?
IOW, is the medium itself corrupted by sinful use?
Dan, are you implying that music is a medium only, and cannot communicate anything on its own?
Dave Barnhart
But the fact that music can communicate doesn't mean it itself is corrupted by the corrupt use of it.
The word "hate" means something. And it can be used in corrupt messages. But those uses don't keep it from still being usable for good messages.
As to what music communicates, Scott Aniol has said a lot about that here over the years. Those who study know what music to play when Darth Vader enters the room or when Frodo grasps the Ring. And if you play the wrong music for those scenes, it's not nearly as scary. So music clearly has meaning.
Just like good letters can be used to form a bad word, or like good words can be used to form bad sentences (false, hateful, blasphemous, etc), so good notes can be used to create bad music, i.e., music that is corrupt. That doesn't mean all music is corrupt but that it can be made to be corrupt.
Just like with words, I believe that music’s meaning is highly dependent on context.
Take, for example, the word “hell,” which we use to mean the final destination of the unrepentant. If we use it in English casually in a conversation, e.g. “It’s _____ outside,” we would rightly see that as profane or corrupt communication, but not when used in a sermon. However, in German, that word means “light,” so if I wrote “Es ist hell draußen” (i.e. “It’s light outside”), that word has a whole different meaning. And by the way, that word is pronounced the same, so the very sounds that could be profane when misused can be good in another context, in both languages.
I’ve yet to be convinced that music’s meaning is morally intrinsic in the sense that the sounds it makes can be somehow decisively tied to “good” or “evil” without any possibility of misinterpretation.
That, of course, is an entirely different question than the one of conxtext, where music, due to our shared background, cultural upbringing, personal associations, etc., can certainly be wrong to the listener due to those factors. That’s what I meant when I said my standards would be seen as inexact by others, when they don’t share the exact same context that I have. That’s also different from appropriateness, which is another topic completely, but for me, at least, absolutely figures into the equation of what music to use in which circumstances.
Dave Barnhart
I am still waiting for someone to provide an example of music that God doesn’t like that I can hear! The guilt by association doesn’t work. I was told God didn’t like How Great Thou Art because Billy Graham used it, Amazing Grace hit the bad list when sinful Judy Collins hit the top 40 with it, and Rock and Roll and Jazz were banned because they were rooted in the occult practices of Africans. #Backtomyseatinthestands
"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan
I agree with what Dave said there. "Hell" is a great example.
As an example of music that I would object to in music, imagine a 40 year old man wrote a song and asked to sing it in church. So we say, ok come in and sing if for us. And it's a silly-sounding song written and performed to the music from "Wheels on the Bus." He sounds like he's impersonating Elmo.
Would I let him sing it in the main gathering worship? No. I would tell him I was suspicious that he was mocking worship. But I would make it clear I'm not judging him. I would tell him that the vast majority of adults watching would assume he was trying to be funny and mock the worship of God.
Would I let him sing it in a Kindergarten Sunday School class? Maybe. It would depend on if I was impressed that he did not intend to mock God.
Corollary questions:
Is "Wheels on the Bus" corrupt? No.
Is it wrong to mock worship? YES.
Is a worship song to the tune of WotB corrupt? Not necessarily. Context matters. If it was my 5 year old son who wrote it and wanted me to sing his Jesus-worshipping version with him at bedtime, I would be delighted to do so.
Todd Wood, an old SI regular, used to say these things were heart-issues. And this example expresses why. But it is NOT simply the heart. The adult in the example might claim a honest heart of worship. That will not matter. If he sings it in the adult gathering, the majority will be very disturbed. Whether he intends it or not, he's communicating mockery.
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