A Prescriptive approach-Part 5

                                                        A Prescriptive approach to Church music part 5

             The reason the church has historically taken a prescriptive approach to music ministry is that the monkey is on our back.  It is not God’s responsibility to provide a Bible verse that says, “Thou shalt not sing or play a certain genera of music.”  It is our responsibility to have spiritual discernment to only use music that is of good benefit and is well pleasing or fully agreeable to the perfect or complete will of God.

            With Romans 12:2 in mind, we can understand why a careful Christian develops a conservative musical conscious.  It is very possible for a careless minister of music to draw the line in the wrong place or to fail to draw any line and thereby fall into the error of synthesis thinking that there is no objective truth or “true truth” concerning church music.  This philosophy throws caution to the wind since church music is supposedly a standardless art with no absolutes.  Remember philosophically, direction determines destiny.  Once a church musician has accepted the world’s matrix of music, it seems only proper that the fads and trends of worldly styles of music are now the most appropriate for worship.

            So, what kinds of music should a church prescribe for public and private worship?  The answer to this searching question is not a simplistic one.  Many conservative Christian musicians have simplistically narrowed church music down to what I call “the seven songs God approves of”.  When a musician begins to specifically name the only arrangers, hymn and gospel songbooks, and the single style of music that is suited to the awesomeness and solemnity of worship, big problems emerge.  It’s virtually impossible to support such claims with Bible principles that govern music.  By this statement I am not capitulating my belief that there are styles that are or are not appropriate etc., I am simply pointing out that there is room for more than one style of music in public worship.