To Sing or Not to Sing

Some interesting articles that caught my eye belatedly regarding an interesting (though I’d say hardly surprising or even new) trend in Christian worship – congregations aren’t singing.

As if often the case (when I remember to check their website) the good folks at GetReligion.org first caught my eye with this story. Which in turn led to this essentially same article, which in turn led me to this list of nine reasons one person thinks congregants are no longer singing in worship, in an ironic reversal of the Protestant tradition of congregational singing contra the previous Roman Catholic tradition of singing relegated to choirs rather than congregations. I think the list is very useful and accurate.

In my times worshiping in other Christian traditions the challenge of congregational singing is evident. Certainly in the more non-denom, big box environments where professional musicians, lighting experts, sound mixers, and special effects artist create a ‘worship’ experience to rival a lot of smaller-scale secular professional performers this is the case. But even in some traditional mainline denominational congregations I’ve experienced difficulty joining in the singing. One notable location plays familiar enough hymns, but the accompanist has the annoying habit of raising the octave with each stanza, so what began as a graspable but slight reach for my aging voice becomes near-impossible to sing by the third verse.

Is congregational singing an important or even necessary part of Christian worship? I posed that question to a small online discussion group this evening. We came up with several reasons why congregational singing ought to be part of Christian worship. Strangely enough, we came up with nine reasons :-)

1. Music is beautiful!
2. As such music is a near-universal part of the human experience whether on the large scale or individual scale. If we listen to music for simple enjoyment, and if we sing along in the shower or during our daily commute to the office, why wouldn’t we also sing in worship?
3. Congregational singing is very Biblical. Think of Moses and Mirian leading the people of God in communal worship after having been delivered from the Egyptians in Exodus 15. Think also of Revelation and the continual chorus of praise raised to God by angels and the saints.
4. Because of this, much historic liturgy and music is drawn directly from Scripture. As we sing together in worship we are joining with the communion of the saints who are doing the same thing, and practicing what we will be doing in eternity.
5. Congregational music is a way of teaching.
6. Music is often a good mnemonic device to assist people in remembering.
7. As an extension of this, I’ve had numerous parishioners over the years suffering from severe illnesses who reported that while they weren’t able to think or communicate much, they had hymns playing in their heads as they lay in ICU and these familiar tunes provided extraordinary comfort and peace in an otherwise terrifying situation.
8. Group singing is an encouraging experience – we grow in our willingness and even ability to sing praise to God as we join in with our brothers and sisters who are doing the same thing. This is true even in small groups (albeit a bit more timidly!) as it is in arenas.
9. Music is a part of liturgy and even when other aspects of the liturgy are somewhat lackluster, congregational singing can still deliver God’s Word and promises to people in an important way. As a pastor I take comfort that not all of my sermons will be good, but choosing some solid hymns is a way of ensuring congregants are still fed!

In my narrow Lutheran circles the argument is more often stylistic, with some preferring traditional (though no less arbitrary, just with a longer pedigree) forms of hymnody and instrumentation while others feeling more updated music and lyrics are necessary (particularly for “the young people”). Perhaps the focus needs to be more on how to engage communicants in singing than worrying about the instruments or tempos they’re singing to/with. And I’d argue it’s another good reason to reconsider building a stage and putting the praise team on it to “lead” worship. While this can work, I suspect it more often than not leads to less congregational participation in singing for the reasons articulated in the article above.

Well You Can Rock Me To Sleep Tonight…

If someone had told me 40 years ago that the lead singers of Kiss and Twisted Sister would be some of the lone voices of sanity in a sea of incredulous goofiness, I would have called you looney.

I’d have been wrong.

Another Good Article

I think I’m going to continue to enjoy seeing posts from this blog site. The latest installment has to do with singing the psalms.

To be fair, I don’t think I ever sang the psalms congregationally for the first half or more of my life. Nor did a pastor or other person chant them in worship. They were often absent, or relegated to the printout of the readings on the back of the bulletin. I was vaguely aware that some congregations might actually incorporate them in some manner, but never thought much about it. That was ignorance on my part. That has to do I’m sure with number 2 on his list of why congregations don’t sing the psalms any more. We are culturally conditioned, and unfortunately our churches have allowed themselves to be culturally conditioned as well, so more ancient practices are less common or non-existent in many places. If the church doesn’t counter-condition members, then some beautiful things preserved for centuries get lost in a matter of a few months or years.

Nor do I think singing the psalms needs to be liturgically mandated. Again, I’m probably guilty of number 2. There are others who disagree with me strongly on this and I respect their position and think I understand why they hold it. While I’ve learned a lot about liturgical history I’m not positive we know exactly how Jesus sung them. What pointings? What tones? And Jesus as incarnate man was also culturally conditioned to a certain extent – a pious (to say the least!) Jew of the first century. We need to carefully think about whether his worship style and practice is descriptive or prescriptive.

But I do believe the psalms have an important and useful place in worship, and the more they are used – and used in their entirety – the better. I believe the appointed psalm for a Sunday should also be considered when preparing the sermon – just as I think all the assigned readings in a lectionary ought to be considered and not just the Gospel reading. A lectionary arranges these readings to complement one another to some degree (depending on the liturgical season), and to ignore this loses some of the depth possible in preaching.

When I was younger I didn’t like the psalms. Or more accurately, I didn’t think they offered much. I’ve changed my mind on that. Perhaps I’ll change my mind on the importance of chanting/singing them (and chanting/singing them a certain way). For now I’ll simply lend an amen to anything that provides the people of God with more regular and broad access to his Word and how it can be lived out in their public and private lives.

Why? Because it’s God’s Word, and this is supposed to make people uncomfortable and question their predispositions and assumptions about the world, their neighbors, and themselves. It should drive them to meditation and prayer and repentance regularly – ideally daily at least! And if Scripture is making us uncomfortable, it’s even more important to understand why that is.

Soft Peddling Drugs

I hate articles like this. I have no idea who this guy is and have never heard his music or witnessed his lifestyle. But he’s dead and probably didn’t need to die according to the tone of the article, citing past battles over the years with drugs and alcohol. But this is glossed over with the following statement he was clean and sober of late.

We’ve seen no shortage of luminous, talented celebrities dying before any of us were ready to handle their absence. And in no small measure, a stunning majority likely had their battles over the years with drugs and alcohol, even if they had eventually given up such habits or bowed to the necessities of age in growing more moderate. Without fail, the articles about their passing never condemn drug and alcohol abuse as true contributing factors in any substantive ways. Even if autopsy results credit drugs and alcohol, this is often chalked up to the celebrity lifestyle, as if talent is some sort of immunity against the very physical as well as mental and spiritual debilitations of substance abuse, prescribed or otherwise.

Until success is no longer viewed as justification for such abuse, deaths like this will continue to occur. None of us knows the number of our days, to be sure. But certainly certain practices up the odds that we will leave this earth sooner that we (or others) might prefer.

Granted, the Rolling Stones are a singular exception to this, but exceptions by no means invalidate well-defined rules and expectations!

So it’s too bad this guy died. Too bad he might have come to his senses too late, after apparently considerable damage had already been done, and I pray his hope and faith was ultimately not in his dealer but in his Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ. I pray other rising stars take seriously these examples, and I pray the media-subset that thrives on celebrity lives and lifestyles would quit condoning and approving of such indulgences with a wink-wink-nod-nod sort of reporting style.

Death and Collective Guilt

I don’t consider myself a real aficionado of Texas-style (or maybe just more traditional American) folk music. A bit too twangy. But playing pool in bars with juke boxes for most of my life you pick up a taste for a little bit of everything, and all that absorbed country music made me a bit more open to the twang than I otherwise might be. I discovered Nancy Griffith in the mid-90’s hot on the heels of the success of her Grammy-winning album Other Voices, Other Rooms. Twang notwithstanding, I fell in love with Griffith’s story-telling. Songs like Love at the Five and Dime and Gulf Coast Highway are still some of my favorite songs for the powerful stories they evoke in the small space of a song. I had the pleasure of seeing her in concert in the early 90’s and it was a wonderful experience to hear that clear voice in person.

She died today and that’s sad, as all deaths are.

I went back to listen to some of her songs this evening. They still bring a smile to my face or tug the heart strings in a way few other songs or artists do.

By chance I happened upon another of my favorite songs of hers, It’s a Hard Life. I still love the song but what caught my ear, in the midst of the rising racial tensions in our country was the last verse, a sort of confession on Griffith’s part that:

I am guilty I am war I am the root of all evil

She believed the words and the visions and promises of some great people like Walt Disney, Walter Cronkite and Martin Luther King, Jr. She believed their promises that change could come and was coming. And decades later, realizing those visions had not materialized the way she had assumed they would, for everyone rather than just specific demographics, she holds herself accountable. Though she’s not at the wheel of control, by implication she is guilty for those who are at the wheel of control, either by her support of them or her failure to stop them.

It’s a hard confession to hear after her stinging examples of prejudice that occurs in every culture and can take myriad forms. She confesses guilt that this still exists and she has personally failed to prevent it.

In the way this kind of corporate confession is currently being wielded or demanded in our country, it’s erroneous. It is misplaced. It assumes that we individually are capable of preventing people from reaching power or using power if they are not worthy of it or misuse it or fail to use it to full capacity. And it assumes at a deeper level that these things – prejudice and racism of all stripes – can actually be defeated and destroyed by our own efforts. If we just have the right leaders. The right policies. The right educational systems. The right corporate policies.

Unfortunately for Griffith and you and I and those who struggle under the oppression of real prejudice and racism, this isn’t true. Not that we don’t work towards it. Not that we can’t make improvements. But to remove these things is beyond our control. It is not in us to do so. Or more accurately, like Griffith’s confession, the sin we would stand against is present within us as well. Perhaps not in the same forms or to the same degrees, but there all the same.

And in that sense the corporate confession is appropriate. We all share in the common affliction and malady of sin. None of us is capable of removing it from ourselves let alone another person. And so we continue to struggle with sins as old as humanity. Some people are constantly amazed that a particular program or regimen failed to root out a particular sin. That is a sinful error as well, though a well intentioned one. Anything designed by a broken and sinful person is going to turn out in one way or another broken and sinful and inadequate as well.

Griffith’s bleak confession would be the last statement in her life and every life if there were not a deeper, greater hope than our own visionaries and programs. Thank God, there is.

There is only one hope for the defeat and removal of sin. One hope promised long ago in a primal garden, and one hope accomplished 2000 years ago on a cross by a man who claimed he was more than a great teacher or a great moral model, an inspirational speaker or a worker of wonders, but in fact the very Son of God. Who promised that in his voluntary and innocent death and burial, the sin within us would be overcome. All we had to do was believe this was true and who He was and what He accomplished. And for an anchor for that faith and trust He asserted He would rise from the dead after three days.

That hope and promise remain today. I pray that Griffith shared in that hope. That her disappointment in herself and others was overcome by a hope and trust in Jesus Christ. I pray it was ultimately that hope that inspired her to write and to sing and to become an inspiring voice to others and future generations.

Because I’d love to hear that clear voice in person again someday when she can sing of victory instead of defeat.

Filling in Gaps

Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?

Remember how she said that we would meet again

Some sunny day?

Vera, Vera, what has become of you?

Does anybody else in here feel the way I do?

Pink Floyd, “Vera” from The Wall

I remember being blown away by the power of Pink Floyd’s The Wall when I discovered it in high school. The disturbing power of that album, the bitter disappointment and rage at the society that arose in Britain from the ashes of World War II were all heady historical commentary set to music. And as often as I’ve listened to this album – or most any album or book or movie – there are references and allusions I miss or never bother to track down.

Vera Lynn is one of them. I assumed at some level she might be a cultural/historical figure from the British World War II era, maybe a film star. But now I know she was a singer. A singer who was never able (or allowed) to move beyond her cultural mooring of wartime Britain, and who has now died at a very respectable age of 103.

Another brick in the wall of understanding.

Highly Illogical

Sometimes it’s the little things that are inspiring and surprising.

As a casual Trekkie and somewhat more than casual admirer of J.R.R. Tolkien, I found a curious blending of the two a few years ago after the Star Trek movie reboot.  Namely, a very delightful if slightly corny Audi commercial starring the original Spock, Leonard Nimoy, and his reboot alter-ego, Zachary Quinto.  It’s a cute commercial but I never understood the song Nimoy was singing.  I thought it was just a nonsensical sort of thing to compare his outdatedness with Quinto’s more with-it persona and car.

Now I find out  there’s a history to what Nimoy is singing about Bilbo Baggins.  A history that goes all the way back to 1967 when Nimoy, in addition to starring in a new series called Star Trek, was releasing musical albums.  Two at this point.  And he sang this original song called The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins on one of his albums, and then lip-synced it for a campy TV show during the summer of 1967.

Mind blown.  I respect the Audi commercial even more now for their attention to detail – even a detail many would miss!

 

Skynet Jams

In all the worries about robots and artificial intelligence (AI), one element we might have neglected to worry about – what will our robot overlords listen to as they attempt to eradicate humanity?  I mean, if humans use our musical jams to get us through workouts and other rigorous things, why not AI?

So here is a death-metal streaming YouTube channel.  The music is created non-stop by an online neural network.  Seems kinda appropriate for a bunch of robot warriors, doesn’t it?

 

Interpreting Authority

We had our monthly gathering of pastors in our denomination today.  We come together spanning a stretch of territory just shy of 100 miles in length, and we were at the far southern terminus of our area today.  The study we started briefly on had to do with proper pastoral authority.  What authority does the pastor have (and not have), and where does he derive it?  It’s a theological discussion with a rich tradition, but not one that I’ve had to have many conversations with lay people about.

But it coincided with some other thoughts on authority and how we interpret it.

Two out of the last three weeks I have worshiped in places that sing the song “Our God”  by Chris Tomlin.  It’s got a catchy rhythm and, while being somewhat vague on details, is a fun song to sing.  But both times it was used, the bridge got me thinking:

And if our God is for us then who could ever stop us

And if our God is with us then what could stand against.

Now these words are true, but I wondered how the people singing and swaying along to them interpreted them.  In both settings there was no further explanation of this very strong claims.  And barring interpretations, people are prone to filling in their own explanations.

The words  could easily be interpreted to mean that as followers of Christ we can’t suffer any setbacks, any failures, any disappointments, let alone any meaningful persecution or violation of the rights and privileges which we – as American Christians in particular – have come to enjoy and expect.

God is indeed for us and with us, and as such we are indeed conquerors in Christ.  But we need to remember that Christ conquered through his death, and his command to his followers was not to go out and dominate culture and society and politics but rather to pick up their crosses and follow him.  To expect the kind of suffering, even, that Jesus experienced and, perhaps, to even be killed for our confidence and faith in him.

That is a very real, very powerful victory indeed!  Satan cannot stand against us in any eternal sense.   Those  who cling to Christ may lose everything else – health, wealth, prestige, honor in the eyes of the world, even our lives – but we inherit so much vastly more.  It is a promise that has held Christians faithful on their way to the gallows or the shallow graves, in the face of guns and knives and fists and fire.

But is that how people today hear it?  And what if they seem to be stopped in their lives?  What if their jobs disappear or that promotion never materializes?  What if their family life is a struggle or they deal with the very real threat of sickness and disease?  Does this song support and encourage them to trust completely in Jesus and endure all things and all losses?   Or does this song leave them without a means of explaining their struggles?  Does it set up a false hope or point them to  the only true hope and definition of victory in Christ?

Only time will tell, I suppose.  But the rates at which people seem to be leaving their faith behind for the none category in survey after survey, the rate at which participation in worship continues to decline, I have to wonder if these kinds of songs – which can and should be so powerful and comforting when provided the proper interpretation – are leading people to a shallow, straw-man sort of faith in a god-djinni who grants wishes and offers protection rather than dies and rises again for them?

Those are the conversations I’d rather be having with my colleagues.  How do we equip our people to face real suffering and loss rather than letting their shallow roots wither and die in the blistering sun of an enemy?  Defending and explicating the proper role and use of pastoral  authority requires, after all, a congregation of people to explain it to and live  it out with.  That might require some more diligent preaching and teaching rather than letting them define their pop hooks by the world’s standards rather than God’s.

 

Vinyl Redux

In my garage are four large boxes of LPs (that stands for long playing, FYI).  Records.  Vinyl.  Black gold.  Cue The Beverly Hillbillies music.  I’ve been carting them around for almost 15 years now.  They’ve survived (I hope) a basement in St. Louis and several moves in California, after years sitting mostly neglected in our home.  I can’t bear to part with them.  They might be worth something!  But I haven’t owned a turntable in nearly 15 years either, and the idea of becoming linked in some way with a USB-turntable hipster dumpster diving through record piles is appalling.

But this?  This is actually tempting.  I have no doubt that audiophiles will decry it as woefully inadequate, but it’s innovative as heck!