The Pursuit of Excellence in Conservative Christian Music
“Pop culture and the pop style of music in general has infiltrated and reshaped much of the thinking, writing, arranging, and performing of Christian music, even within much of ‘conservative’ Christianity.” - Taigen Joos
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Where exactly does Scripture itself teach how we are to determine what things it says are “incidental” and what things are not?
Where does it say that grammar matters or that authorial intent matters or that a passage means the same thing today as it did yesterday?
There are some a priori things that go with reading a book. One of them is that the writing has a genre and that we, at least in part, understand the meaning by factoring in the genre.
This is a common error with parables, for example. A parable usually has one main point and may or may not have a few supporting points. But people have been trying to squeeze insights and principles out of incidental details in parables for a long, long time. Leading to all sorts of contradictory and very-low-confidence interpretations—because it’s obvious to listeners that the speaker/writer’s imagination is the main factor in finding that meaning there.
I could preach a sermon on David’s drool in 1 Sam 21:13, but quite a few listeners would immediately know that I’m mostly preaching my imagination. This is because details in narratives don’t clearly have any one significance—other than being story details. Once we step away from that, we can go the way of Origen freely, stacking metaphor on metaphor until nobody has any idea why they should believe us.
So, there are two parts to the answer, to summarize:
- Books and writing have built-in rules
- Persuasive speaking requires that audiences be able to understand how your conclusions follow from your evidence
That second will not be the case for a lot of people if we try to make principles out of incidental details.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
In the end we are usually left with someone's personal oplnion.
Ron,
You're 100% right on this. When I have asked for specific guidelines that can be used by the average pastor with slightly above average musical skills in determining which music is appropriate, I am left with little more than blank stares. I guess each church just needs to hire a trained musicologist to make the decisions on a piece by piece basis.
I can't help but smell a bit of gnosticism lurking in the shadows here, where only the initiated have the secret knowledge of what specific music is acceptable.
There are some a priori things that go with reading a book. One of them is that the writing has a genre and that we, at least in part, understand the meaning by factoring in the genre.
This is a common error with parables, for example. A parable usually has one main point and may or may not have a few supporting points. But people have been trying to squeeze insights and principles out of incidental details in parables for a long, long time. Leading to all sorts of contradictory and very-low-confidence interpretations—because it’s obvious to listeners that the speaker/writer’s imagination is the main factor in finding that meaning there.
I could preach a sermon on David’s drool in 1 Sam 21:13, but quite a few listeners would immediately know that I’m mostly preaching my imagination. This is because details in narratives don’t clearly have any one significance—other than being story details. Once we step away from that, we can go the way of Origen freely, stacking metaphor on metaphor until nobody has any idea why they should believe us.
So, there are two parts to the answer, to summarize:
- Books and writing have built-in rules
- Persuasive speaking requires that audiences be able to understand how your conclusions follow from your evidence
That second will not be the case for a lot of people if we try to make principles out of incidental details.
The Bible is not like any other book or literature. Every word of the Bible is exactly what the Spirit wanted it to be. Holding to the plenary, verbal inspiration of Scripture is essential.
Historical narratives are not parables. Claims that details are "incidental" are just that--they are mere claims.
I did not say anything about preaching a sermon on "David's drool."
The NT teaches us that details in historical narratives matter. For example, many hold that the people's eating, drinking, and playing in Exodus 32:6 are mere incidental details.
The Spirit teaches us otherwise through direct apostolic citation of that verse in 1 Cor. 10:7. The Spirit could have supported the command to NT Christians that they must not be idolaters by citing the people's making the idol, bowing down and worshiping it, or giving offerings to it.
In His perfect wisdom, the Spirit, however, did not inspire Paul to cite any of those aspects of their idolatry. He directed Paul to cite their eating, drinking, and playing as the basis for His command.
Those details in historical narrative were not incidental.
The topic is music. Biblical interpretation is a side issue. (And a little less "cut and paste" would make things easier to understand.)
"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan
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