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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That noted, I don't object to teaching people about older music--classical/baroque/romantic/modern/folk/etc..--but our chief goal in music in the church is to have music which achieves a Biblical goal--we're not going to be able to use RIte of Spring, Papageno, or any number of other "classical" works in church very well.
The starting point I'd suggest that what's really at stake is that the music fulfill its intended purpose; to communicate God's Word and theology in lyric form to the congregation. To do this, I'd argue that a short list of key characteristics might include:
- Does the melody work with the subject matter?
- Do musicians do things like completing chords and use dynamics in an appropriate way?
- Does the meter of the poetry/lyrics work for memory and to communicate the subject matter?
Probably a few others, but it's a bit different from the usual arguments.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Just a brief digression. Rajesh, I empathize with what you guys in the Greenville area are going through after Helene. My daughter and son-in-law also live in your area (outer Greenville up towards Traveler’s Rest). Last I heard, they still don’t have power and there are many trees down in the area, etc. My church has many relatives and friends in Western NC that are dealing with even more than that right now. My prayers are with all of you affected by this, to whatever degree.
Thanks, Dave. It was quite a storm, and the aftermath has been very intense. God mercifully spared me from the more serious repercussions that so many have experienced--I praise Him for His goodness and mercy!
Taigen’s part 2 will post later today, but I think the topics we’re interested in here are even further from his focus in that one. … at least, the biblical interpretation aspect, for sure.
So maybe I should write an article myself on the biblical angle and we can toss that around in comments.
Most of what I have to say on that I’ve written about before, but not with music as context. I did one some years ago using casting lots as a thought experiment/example, but everybody got hung up on the lots question… which was only meant to be a hypothetical. But I guess the hypothetical application was more interesting than the theory/hermeneutics. 😀
Understandably. But all this stuff is downstream of the hermeneutics, so we shouldn’t skip over that.
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.
josh p:
For myself, I concluded, as Aaron has asked, that you and I do indeed have a different hermeneutic. Given that, there is no way to really discuss it. You simply use a different interpretive method than what I consider correct and befitting normal rules of interpretation.
dcbii
Common hermeneutic
Rajesh, I can echo Josh’s comment by noting that previously when trying to interact, it really seemed like we were just talking past each other. After Aaron made the point about lacking a common hermeneutic, I think I agree and am understanding the disconnect better now. . . .This illustrates how far apart I feel we are when we try to discuss things like music (or the GCI from that infamous thread). Although we agree (as Aaron mentioned) that every word in the Bible is inspired and important, we are seemingly so far apart on how to use what scripture is telling us that it seems we are talking different languages.
Josh and Dave,
I would like to respond further to these comments from the two of you earlier concerning the differences in my hermeneutic versus that of the two of you.
First, I believe that both of you are overstating the differences that we have.
Second, having given much thought to what has been said in this thread, I would like to ask each of you whether you deny altogether the legitimacy of systematic theology (ST).
What systematic theology does is what I have done with passages that speak of things pertaining to music. In ST, Bible students routinely look at every mention of a particular subject, regardless of whether it is "the main point" or "the big idea." Furthermore, they do so in all "genres" of Scripture, including historical narratives.
Systematic theologians look at details of passages and draw conclusions about things that are not even said in the passages but are legitimate inferences drawn from them. They do not just stop at what is explicitly said. They draw conclusions and inferences based on what is said about a subject in a passage and based on comparing and correlating what has been said throughout the Bible about that subject.
For example, a sound and biblical demonology requires the treatment of all that Scripture reveals about demons. Much of that revelation is in historical narratives where demons and their activities are not "the main point" or "the big idea" of the narratives.
Do you deny the validity of what systematic theologians have done concerning demonology and many other subjects in the same ways that you deny the validity of what I have said from details of biblical mentions of music?
What systematic theology does is precisely what I have done with passages that speak of things pertaining to music. In ST, Bible students routinely look at every mention of a particular subject, regardless of whether it is “the main point” or “the big idea.”
As a huge fan of systematic theology, I want to comment.
Your observations about ST are sort of true, but sort of not. What ST does:
- Systematic theology highly values internal evidence
- ST always evaluates the weight of evidence, its relevance to the concepts being studied.
- ST strives to reason in valid ways from that evidence.
- ST relies heavily on grammatical-historical interpretation: so authorial intent, the use/function/genre of the writing is a major factor in weighing the evidence.
- In view of all the above, ST does not try to develop doctrine from narrative details.
Rajesh, I think the main distinction between your hermeneutic and those who are finding it frustrating and esoteric is that your interpretive method seems to be very flat. There is not much scale on the relevance axis. What I mean is that the relative relevance/evidential value of information to a particular question of doctrine seems to not matter much.
But as I’ve pointed out before, affirming that every detail has a purpose is not the same as saying every detail has a direct doctrinal purpose. The purpose of many details is to paint the picture of the larger narrative or help the pieces of an argument fit together. It is the narrative or the argument that provides the teaching.
A little garage hermeneutics
I taught a class once I called ‘Garage Hermeneutics.’ The idea was that garages are relentlessly practical places. They are places work gets done. They are very grounded in reality. A lot of common sense is involved.
An analogy I didn’t use then, but seems relevant now: A car has lots of parts. Each one is “there for a purpose.” In one way or another, each piece is important. The seatbelt matters a lot when some idiot crashes into you. But the seat belt contributes nothing to your getting to Walmart and back. It in no way contributes to motion from point A to point B.
So, in my analogy, getting from A to B is deriving theology.
There is no biblical reason to believe that every detail of Scripture, especially in narrative, has a direct doctrinal purpose vs. serving as a component of a larger chunk of Scripture that does have a doctrinal purpose.
Purposes for details can be emotive, aesthetic, incidental (clarifying what incidents occurred in what way), chronological—the list goes on.
Can a piece of information have more than one purpose? Sure. But here’s the thing: the further we move away from the clear central purpose of the information, the less certainty/less evidential value it has in making a case for a principle. A secondary purpose has less evidential weight, because we are less certain that weight is intended. A tertiary purpose has even less, and so on.
So the questions to take to a text include things like this…
- Based on the context, why is this information provided?
- Looking beyond that purpose, what are other possible purposes?
- What evidence do we have that any of these secondary purposes are intended?
- If the other potential purposes are mutually exclusive, what evidence do we have that one or another is correct?
A person could go through every reference to music in the Bible and pretty quickly classify it into one of these categories:
- Direct teaching on the nature and purpose of music in all contexts.
- Direct teaching on the nature and purpose of music in a particular setting.
- Examples of people using music, with contextual indications of quality and evidence of exemplary intent.
- Examples of people using music, with contextual indications of quality and no evidence of exemplary intent.
- Examples of people using music, and there are no contextual indications of quality or exemplary intent.
I’ve probably overlooked a classification or two, but this mostly covers the options.
(What I mean by ‘exemplary intent’ here is that sometimes we read that person A did B and the context encourages us to believe that what this person did was an example of good or bad conduct. So there is evidence there that we can derive that kind of meaning from what the person did.)
As you move down the scale, you have increasing uncertainty regarding what can be learned about the topic in general or in a particular setting.
Why? Because as you move further down, you have less evidence to narrow the possible interpretations—so the number of interpretive options expands rapidly, with less or more derivative/complex evidence involved in landing on a correct interpretation.
More possible interpretations + less evidence/more complex evidence = more uncertainty.
Usually, a pile of very uncertain interpretations can’t be assembled into a highly certain generalization. Maybe sometimes that kind of induction can work out OK, but usually that is going to be poor reasoning. …and people will know that at some level if you try to teach them something that way.
Edit to add: In that list of 5 classifications, you could replace ‘music’ with any number of other things. It works the same way. (In summary: a sound hermeneutic is not flat.)
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.
A person could go through every reference to music in the Bible and pretty quickly classify it into one of these categories:
- Direct teaching on the nature and purpose of music in all contexts.
- Direct teaching on the nature and purpose of music in a particular setting.
- Examples of people using music, with contextual indications of quality and evidence of exemplary intent.
- Examples of people using music, with contextual indications of quality and no evidence of exemplary intent.
- Examples of people using music, and there are no contextual indications of quality or exemplary intent.
I’ve probably overlooked a classification or two, but this mostly covers the options.
(What I mean by ‘exemplary intent’ here is that sometimes we read that person A did B and the context encourages us to believe that what this person did was an example of good or bad conduct. So there is evidence there that we can derive that kind of meaning from what the person did.)
As you move down the scale, you have increasing uncertainty regarding what can be learned about the topic in general or in a particular setting.
Why? Because as you move further down, you have less evidence to narrow the possible interpretations—so the number of interpretive options expands rapidly, with less or more derivative/complex evidence involved in landing on a correct interpretation.
More possible interpretations + less evidence/more complex evidence = more uncertainty.
Usually, a pile of very uncertain interpretations can’t be assembled into a highly certain generalization. Maybe sometimes that kind of induction can work out OK, but usually that is going to be poor reasoning. …and people will know that at some level if you try to teach them something that way.
Edit to add: In that list of 5 classifications, you could replace ‘music’ with any number of other things. It works the same way. (In summary: a sound hermeneutic is not flat.)
I appreciate the ongoing, substantive interaction. You pack so much into your replies that it is hard to know what to engage with in my responses and how to engage properly with what you are saying.
I see a number of points that I would like to respond to and probe, but that will have to wait until I have time to process all that you have shared in your most recent reply in this thread and the other thread.
Discussion