Saturday 2 January 2010

Music and Worship

What do you find sticks in your mind most after a church service? If there has been music, a hymn or a song may make the most lasting impression.

People have addressed God through music since Old Testament times, and there are several important references to music in the New Testament as well. For example, Paul wrote to the church at Colossae: ‘With gratitude in your hearts sing psalms and hymns and inspired songs to God.’ And there’s no doubt that music can be a very effective and important part of our worship today.

In this and later articles, I hope to look at some of the issues involved in the partnership between music and the worship of God. I’ll begin by posing a number of questions. There usually aren’t simple answers – each point is meant to stimulate thought and discussion.

Should there be special types of music reserved for church, or were such people as Martin Luther and the Salvation Army’s founder William Booth right when they imported well-loved secular (‘worldly’) tunes or styles?

Should we welcome a diversity of instruments and voices in our services, or can we sympathise with Pope Pius X when in 1903 he banned the piano and all ‘noisy and irreverent’ percussion instruments and forbade the participation of women in church choirs?

How do we respond to the music we hear, especially if it’s new or different? Also, would we mind if a traditional hymn such as ‘Praise, my soul, the King of heaven’ were sung to something other than its ‘normal’ tune? How would we feel if a late twentieth-century worship song like ‘Shine, Jesus, shine’ were set to new music? Should we welcome all new styles, or consider that only some are suitable?

Does the music we use enhance the words, or does it limit, even detract from, them? Are there even some hymns that would be better read than sung, perhaps because the tune takes too much attention at the expense of the writer’s meaning? Should there be a place for purely instrumental music before, after or even within our services?

To what extent should hymns and worship songs merely please and entertain us as human beings? Could music help to attract those not presently involved in the church?

Finally, could we sincerely agree with the great twentieth-century composer Stravinsky who is reported to have said that we commit fewer musical sins in church than elsewhere? Are we ever content to accept for ourselves, and offer to God, performances and compositions that are less than the best we’re capable of?

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