Review of The Devil’s Music: How Christians Inspired, Condemned, and Embraced Rock ’n’ Roll - Christianity Today
Read Part 1.
At this point someone will certainly raise the objection that judging music is terribly subjective. For example, some musicians have taken traditional hymn texts and reset them in a contemporary style. Who is qualified to say whether the older or the newer style better accords with the truths in these texts? If serious and devout people cannot agree on these issues, is that not an indication that these are merely matters of opinion? There are several answers here.
Sustained disagreement, even among sincere believers, is far from an adequate reason to declare a matter to be mere preference.
Surely we realize that in matters of doctrine and practice, Christians of tremendous intelligence and piety have unresolved differences. The fact that such disagreements have not been settled—and show little prospect of ever being settled before the return of our Lord—does not justify our concluding that there is no truth of the matter. While reasons may exist for thinking that music is a matter of preference, a lack of consensus alone is not one of those reasons.
Scripture itself calls us to make exactly these kinds of judgments, and our progress in them is a decisive mark of spiritual maturity.
"Father Ogalo says he was simply trying to 'bring the youth closer to the church,' in an interview with local media." CNN
For discussion - does the New Testament allow women to lead music during worship services? What saith the Scriptures? I'm curious as to what this community thinks on this issue. In most fundamental-evangelical circles, this hasn't been traditionally done. Is this Biblical?
"The nuanced personal, practical, theological, and spiritual dynamics of Christian musicians negotiating their professed faith while pursuing careers in popular rock music is the subject of Mark Joseph’s meticulously researched book Rock Gets Religion: The Battle for the Soul of the Devil’s Music." National Review
Reposted, with permission, from DBTS Blog. Originally posted in 2013.
WikiAnswers poses the question, “Why does music exist?” then self-replies: “Because it brings happiness to people all over the world.”
We must grant that WikiAnswers is scarcely an authoritative reference source, but it does offer a window on popular culture. It reflects that a common reason (and perhaps the most common reason) for the societal “doing” of music today is to forget the pain, grief, anxiety, dreariness, and simple ennui of life and enter an imaginary world where one can have the emotional experience of his choice—usually a happy one. Ironically, the historically central idea of “music” (fr. the Grk. μοῦσα, to muse, think, remember, or reflect) has been transformed in the last century into its own etymological opposite—an occasion, whether active or passive, for not “musing,” or, supplying the alpha privative, a venue foramusement. This is not to say that music as amusement or as a means of forgetting is always bad (see in principle Prov. 31:7), but it does reflect a total reversal of the Western tradition concerning the central purpose of music.
