It has never made logical sense to me that, as many Christian musicians believe, words matter but the formal properties of the music do not matter. To them, only words are efficacious. If this were to be the case, which it definitely is not, Why all the fuss about having to drastically change music style to fit the needs of the post-modern seeker? Isn’t it self evident that style greatly communicates a message to the worshiper or seeker? It also seems self evident that, if the formal properties of the music communicates i.e. sends messages to the listener, that it is possible to send messages that are incongruent with the spiritual message of the text.
Another of my concern is that I do not believe that the music part of a piece of “music alone” (i.e. instrumental music without words) can communicate the concept of sex to an audience if a jazz, pop, or rock group performs it, and then become neutral, benign, and completely docile and ipso facto is incapable of arousing passion when it is played by a Christian. Furthermore, I find it impossible to believe that music that is composed with the explicit purpose of arousing passion and the lust of the flesh is a “better” musical vehicle than a traditional church music. Also, how can such a style represent the pure moral nature of a holy God when it is juxtaposed with religious lyrics? Believing such a thesis is without philosophical or scholarly basis because religious words are not capable of sanctifying the musical deed.
The objection to my reasoning will always be that a Christian composing or arranging religious music in styles that are most often utilized by secular musicians to arouse sexual passion, does not desire to send sexual messages or arouse carnal passion. Post-modern Christian musicians also object because they believe that the musician, not the music, makes the difference. So, to them, the emphasis should always be shifted from the music to the musician.
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