The New Fundamentalism of “Religious Affections”

[Jay]

[Greg Linscott] In personal correspondence with some of the RA guys recently, talking about establishing commonly shared principles for the nature of interaction and fellowship (and personal side note, why I might not easily fit into those parameters ministering as I do today), someone made a comment to the effect of, “well, it’s not like we’re going out and planting churches together.”

I think that’s significant.

Their vision, in effect, is not so much to make disciples from the entry point of the gospel, as it is to reform things within existing congregations. HOW we do church together is in the end more important than actually ESTABLISHING churches and making new disciples.

It was somewhat of an eye-opening moment for me. I’m still considering the implications.

Yup. That’s exactly the problem.

I think you missed Greg Linscott’s point. (Too many Gregs!) It seems to me that he is highlighting the specific focus of RAM itself to demonstrate they are not as dangerous as some think.

As to not fighting for what we want but what God wants, don’t be surprised that the folks at RAM agree with you on that goal 100%.

Speaking of which, you were going to codify your scripture-only-based principles for determining the appropriateness for music (apart from words[!] ) for worship. I know life is busy, but I’m still looking forward to seeing that.

[Alex Guggenheim]

[Bob Hayton]

but to complain that form is not to be taken seriously and cannot be a valid issue is to depart from historical and considerate theology and practice in Christianity.

That isn’t what Bixby is doing.

Is this genuinely representative of most fundamentalists? The answer, of course, is no.

He isn’t speaking of most fundamentalists. Read the comments over on his post for more clarifications.

And as for race baiting, us white conservative Christians make it impossible to raise any questions about race ever in such conversations. When is it right to say there may be some race-issues here? Why is it that whenever anything is spoken to us and our group we can never admit that it is valid to explore whether there are race-issues? That and prominent schools in fundamentalism have long held to no interracial dating and other race-problematic postilions. There are still fundamentalist schools with such rules!

When every culture’s music except for one (that of 18th/19th century Western music) is rejected, we should pause to make sure that racism/elitism is not the cause. It may not be, then again it may be an inadvertent elitism.

Sorry Bob, but Bixby was speaking “in general” quite often to most fundamentalists. He might have, at a few places, identified the “RAM Guys” but many of his comments were toward fundamentalists in general.

Jay,

since all the verbs are plural, and the sense of the passage is not simply exhortation but includes an imperatival force, while being descriptive, if a Christian felt that they could not join in on the songs being sung because of conscience, does that not matter? If we are using this passage and its corrolary to determine what kind of worship God wants, it certainly includes worship in which everyone believes they can join in with having no matters of conscience. Not preference, but a biblically taught conviction. That measure would help to draw a line for each Christian and each local church.

“My beliefs in this area” seem to be a rather important biblical idea, since we are to believe and practice the truth…In other words, what if what I want is for God to be worshiped properly, starting with me? It would seem this goes by the wayside in your description…or I am missing something.

[DavidO]

Greg, Bob H, Romans, Countrymen:

Demonstrate the pertinence or drop it. I’m white, I admit it. And I also don’t discount that my very white Wisconsin fundamentalist (almost Hylesian) upbringing has influenced my views. But I simply do not reject every culture’s music other than 18th/19th century Western. It isn’t true.

Numerous missionaries have come to our church and played portions of quite lively indiginous music from their overseas ministries and I’ve found it delightful and appropriate. Conversely, one missionary played a video of them attempting to teach an overseas choir a fundamentalist praise chorus and I found it an unseemly attempt at transplanting (an icky iteration of) Western culture where it just doesn’t belong. I have read other guys at RAM articulate some of these things.

So please listen more closely to what people there are saying. So many of the criticisms given are of things that were never said or intended by what was said. It gets tiring.

Here are a few examples I could find:

A comment by Scott Aniol under this post:

“Form basically expresses either transcendent values or self-indulgence. This is why, by the way, I believe that other non-Western cultures whose religions emphasize the transcendent, such as the Orient, have produced some cultural expressions that would actually be fitting for Christianity. Cultures rooted in self-indulgence, however, can produce only expressions that express such self-indulgence.”

He’s saying most cultures except for some, can’t produce anything good.

And then this whole post, but particularly this excerpt:

Should a missionary simply adopt a culture’s music when church planting?

…

No, when Rober surveyed the music of his own culture, western pop culture, or the western Classical tradition, his regenerated heart discerned “western,” “Classical” hymns to be the best expression of Christian values and worship.

…

This enlightening discussion with Rober confirmed something that had already been growing in my understanding: In missions endeavors (both in the States and abroad), the question is not whether or not we should use western culture in the expression and cultivation of the gospel. The question is what kind of western culture we are going to choose to use, either western pop culture (which has likely already invaded the “indigenous” culture) or culture from the western Christian tradition.

And as Rober so eloquently yet simply expressed, it won’t be western imperialist missionaries who change the pagans’ culture, the gospel will handle that all on its own.

And this from David de Bruyn in this post:

If someone would argue that a study of church history would be a study in Western thinking, my reply would be, well, yes. Do we think God’s sovereign oversight did not extend to this fact? Why did early Christianity in China and India so quickly turn to Nestorianism? Why did Christianity in Ethiopia and the Byzantine kingdom lose the essentials of the gospel? Why did Western Christianity experience a Reformation, while Eastern Orthodoxy never did? I do not know, but there was something in the West which God used to preserve biblical Christianity. To be embarrassed by this fact would be to disdain providence. God used the West to preserve the gospel, and to develop forms which best expressed it. It is no sin to be thoroughly acquainted with these forms and how they communicate. This is a helpful position to be in to judge both the Christian culture from which the missionary hails, as well as the culture to which he now goes.

and again in a comment under that post:

I’m going to argue that something in Western reasoning, imagination or tradition allowed the words of Christ, Paul and David to keep coming back up with their original power and cause conversions. Not saying the West is indispensable. Those same categories might be found in another culture. But I do think we should pause before saying the gospel is a neutral set of brute facts that can be extracted in free-floating form and given to another culture. I don’t think that’s a possibility, nor do I think it happens anywhere in the world.

Now in my view they aren’t explicitly teaching one culture’s view of music only - but they emphasize the one culture and the development of its pristine form (which came to culmination in the time period I mentioned). They come awful close to teaching something like this here - and I’ve seen others who have come out and stated this.

On my blog back in 2006, a pastor who is a prolific blogger, stated this:

I reject 10th to 15th century Euro culture. I reject present American culture. I reject Asian culture. I reject African culture. I accept essentially 16th to 18th century Euro culture and 19th century English culture.

So this mentality exists and seems to be furthered by the RAM articles I linked to here. The question is worth raising. How much of the current defense of European/English worship forms could be due to a refusal to accept cultural expressions different from our own - and finding some reason not to like them? I don’t know. But it is a valid question.

[SamH] Jay,

since all the verbs are plural, and the sense of the passage is not simply exhortation but includes an imperatival force, while being descriptive, if a Christian felt that they could not join in on the songs being sung because of conscience, does that not matter? If we are using this passage and its corrolary to determine what kind of worship God wants, it certainly includes worship in which everyone believes they can join in with having no matters of conscience. Not preference, but a biblically taught conviction. That measure would help to draw a line for each Christian and each local church.

“My beliefs in this area” seem to be a rather important biblical idea, since we are to believe and practice the truth…In other words, what if what I want is for God to be worshiped properly, starting with me? It would seem this goes by the wayside in your description…or I am missing something.

In a case like that - the brother in the Lord who has ‘liberty’ to do the things that they do not find objectionable should take into consideration the fact that he is causing his brother to be ‘offended’ and thereby offend him. He should never just ‘run over’ his weaker brother’s conscience. Again - it’s not about me or what I want…it’s about others and about Christ. Romans 14:10-23 was foundational to that understanding for me.

[Greg Long]

[Alex Guggenheim]

[Bob Hayton]

but to complain that form is not to be taken seriously and cannot be a valid issue is to depart from historical and considerate theology and practice in Christianity.

That isn’t what Bixby is doing.

Is this genuinely representative of most fundamentalists? The answer, of course, is no.

He isn’t speaking of most fundamentalists. Read the comments over on his post for more clarifications.

And as for race baiting, us white conservative Christians make it impossible to raise any questions about race ever in such conversations. When is it right to say there may be some race-issues here? Why is it that whenever anything is spoken to us and our group we can never admit that it is valid to explore whether there are race-issues? That and prominent schools in fundamentalism have long held to no interracial dating and other race-problematic postilions. There are still fundamentalist schools with such rules!

When every culture’s music except for one (that of 18th/19th century Western music) is rejected, we should pause to make sure that racism/elitism is not the cause. It may not be, then again it may be an inadvertent elitism.

Sorry Bob, but Bixby was speaking “in general” quite often to most fundamentalists. He might have, at a few places, identified the “RAM Guys” but many of his comments were toward fundamentalists in general.

No, they weren’t. They were directed toward the group he identified, starting with the very title of the post.

[Jay]

[SamH] Jay,

since all the verbs are plural, and the sense of the passage is not simply exhortation but includes an imperatival force, while being descriptive, if a Christian felt that they could not join in on the songs being sung because of conscience, does that not matter? If we are using this passage and its corrolary to determine what kind of worship God wants, it certainly includes worship in which everyone believes they can join in with having no matters of conscience. Not preference, but a biblically taught conviction. That measure would help to draw a line for each Christian and each local church.

“My beliefs in this area” seem to be a rather important biblical idea, since we are to believe and practice the truth…In other words, what if what I want is for God to be worshiped properly, starting with me? It would seem this goes by the wayside in your description…or I am missing something.

In a case like that - the brother in the Lord who has ‘liberty’ to do the things that they do not find objectionable should take into consideration the fact that he is causing his brother to be ‘offended’ and thereby offend him. He should never just ‘run over’ his weaker brother’s conscience. Again - it’s not about me or what I want…it’s about others and about Christ. Romans 14:10-23 was foundational to that understanding for me.

The original author of “The Religious Affections,” Jonathan Edwards, would be revolted… .

Might something similar also be said of Blaise Pascal as the original author of “Pensees”?

“schools that forbid it did so based on either wisdom or to the social disdain of their surrounding state.”

And we should take what you post here seriously ? Are you really stating that these are the only reasons why the institutes held such RACIST policies ? If this is the case then you are really unaware of the group of people being dealt with by Bob B. and Bob H.

I also fail to see how anything Bob B wrote could be taken as angry spewings of someone shooting at what he came from ( paraphrase).

I think we all need to face the facts here, the group being dealt with is not those who hold to fundamentalism or the fundamentals themselves , at least not in total, but instead the radical IFB sub-cultures that he as well as I and many others have come from. The ” do it our way in music ( which is really the last bulwark for those who no longer hold to the KJV only, dress standards, entertainment no no’s, but still desire to remain in the IFB club) and anything else we say as the ordained unquestionable MOG. ”

That’s who’s being dealt with and Bob has done it in a very thought provoking, solid way, especially considering the group he’s dealing with. Now with that said, I have some Shai Linne to listen to.

[Bob Hayton]

ing form and given to another culture. I don’t think that’s a possibility, nor do I think it happens anywhere in the world.

Now in my view they aren’t explicitly teaching one culture’s view of music only - but they emphasize the one culture and the development of its pristine form (which came to culmination in the time period I mentioned). They come awful close to teaching something like this here - and I’ve seen others who have come out and stated this.

On my blog back in 2006, a pastor who is a prolific blogger, stated this:

I reject 10th to 15th century Euro culture. I reject present American culture. I reject Asian culture. I reject African culture. I accept essentially 16th to 18th century Euro culture and 19th century English culture.

From which you stunningly deduced this is the collective mindset of fundamentalism? You scholarship is absolutely amazingly embarassing here to say the least.

[Bob Hayton] So this mentality exists and seems to be furthered by the RAM articles I linked to here. The question is worth raising. How much of the current defense of European/English worship forms could be due to a refusal to accept cultural expressions different from our own - and finding some reason not to like them? I don’t know. But it is a valid question.

Maybe they are defending Biblically invested forms which have, as their context, European/English forms? Hmmm? No, then you would have to acquiesce to the possibility they have a point, eh? Sarcasm? A bit but on purpose.

Your approach of constructed so prejudicially that it is ludicrous to begin with.

But since we are on Anglo forms, have you considered the possibility of their superiority? Is that possible? After all, in all other venues of life they seem to have advanced beyond the crudeness of the cultures of others. Tsk tsk, we better not go there, eh?

Elevated culture is not a spiritual phenomenon. It does not require spiritual eyes for one to distinguish simple and beautiful from crude and base or sophisticated, complex but organized and magnificent from busy and complicated but obscure and unrefined.

[WBailey]

“schools that forbid it did so based on either wisdom or to the social disdain of their surrounding state.”

And we should take what you post here seriously ? Are you really stating that these are the only reasons why the institutes held such RACIST policies ? If this is the case then you are really unaware of the group of people being dealt with by Bob B. and Bob H.

I also fail to see how anything Bob B wrote could be taken as angry spewings of someone shooting at what he came from ( paraphrase).

I think we all need to face the facts here, the group being dealt with is not those who hold to fundamentalism or the fundamentals themselves , at least not in total, but instead the radical IFB sub-cultures that he as well as I and many others have come from. The ” do it our way in music ( which is really the last bulwark for those who no longer hold to the KJV only, dress standards, entertainment no no’s, but still desire to remain in the IFB club) and anything else we say as the ordained unquestionable MOG. ”

That’s who’s being dealt with and Bob has done it in a very thought provoking, solid way, especially considering the group he’s dealing with. Now with that said, I have some Shai Linne to listen to.

“I do not believe they are. I am quite familiar with the groups to which Bob and Bob refer. I have interacted with them with great depth and familiarity.”

So, you are familiar and have “interacted with them” , and that means I am to take your word for it?

”. I believe you, my friend, are unfamiliar with arguments other than your own.”

in other words , I know more people than you and therefore you should sit down and shut up.

And I’m all to familiar with the “arguments” from the die hard IFB, and realize that they almost always end unprofitably. As is the case here.

thanks for calling me friend and then turning right around and exemplifying the very same attitude that you accuse Bob B. of, again, I’m supposed to take you seriously.

Thanks friend.

Just to be clear, Bixby called no one racist. Here is what he said:

[Bob Bixby] Edwards said it best: “The notion of certainly discerning another’s state by love flowing out, is not only not founded on reason or Scripture, but it is anti-scriptural, against the rules of Scripture; which say not a word of any such way of judging the state of others as this, but direct us to judge chiefly by the fruits that are seen in them.” And yet they would tell the African-American grandmother that sings her soul out to Jesus with Black gospel that she is diseased in orthopathy. She cannot feel rightly because she uses a form that is not classical European. They could not rejoice with the Burmese refugees that get up in our church from time to time to sing with a guitar and a crude rhythm instrument praises to God in a redeemed form of music that is reminiscent, yes indeed, of the pagan world they left behind. And because Black grandmother and Burmese refugees are unfamiliar with their prescribed iconic forms, Black grandmother and Burmese refugees are hindered in their worship. Along with most regular white people in places like Rockford.

This is EXACTLY what I was taught in Music Appreciation class in Bible College (for those familiar with where I attended college, it was NOT by the current Chair of the Music Department, but by his predecessor). He was not a racist, and Bixby is not calling anyone racist. He is addressing their arguments.

My alma mater still forbids interracial dating, although it is a small college not “prominent.”

But Crown College could claim to be prominent. Here’s their current rule about it from their handbook:

Interracial dating must be approved in writing and
verbally by the parents of both students.

My point isn’t that all of fundamentalism is racist. It is that some think along the lines of a culture that affirms the Bible [namely Western, European culture] produces inherently better musical forms. That position could be open to the charge of racism - it would certainly be good to explore if that could be lurking around the assumption that only particular worship forms (which tend to be the musical patterns of White Europeans) are acceptable for worship around the world.

My point is that it isn’t “playing the race card” to question the race side of the equation in all this. Someone else asked for proof that this mentality exists - that this group or others actually are about European music forms as opposed to others. I tried to demonstrated that this very thing seems to be hinted at in some of RAM’s writings and opinions stated by real people.

As for my point, you’ve helped prove it, in part. Is there not some latent racism in your comments here:

Your approach of constructed so prejudicially that it is ludicrous to begin with.

But since we are on Anglo forms, have you considered the possibility of their superiority? Is that possible? After all, in all other venues of life they seem to have advanced beyond the crudeness of the cultures of others. Tsk tsk, we better not go there, eh?

Elevated culture is not a spiritual phenomenon. It does not require spiritual eyes for one to distinguish simple and beautiful from crude and base or sophisticated, complex but organized and magnificent from busy and complicated but obscure and unrefined.

Don’t misunderstand me. This is probably more an evidence of elitism than racism. But certainly you can see how someone would look at this and see racism there. That doesn’t mean you are speaking from a racist heart - but you have stated things in such a way as to be open to being questioned about it. And to say so isn’t to play a race card. You are advocating the superiority of Anglo forms. Doesn’t that sound like it might be racist?

Personally I think the whole racist argument is a distraction from his main points.