Is Adiaphorous Religious Musicing Possible?
Christian musicians
who are trying to develop a congruent Christian music philosophy should
understand that many Christians, who are conservative in many areas of their
lives, consider the way that contemporary Churches music to be an adiaphorous
form of worship. They really believe
that the conflict over contemporary Christian music to be “much ado about
nothing”.
When I was mentioning some performance styles
and practices that I considered to be inappropriate for public wordhip, one of
my colleagues recently said to me, “I believe we’ve already lost that battle”. Just because the postmodern church musics a
certain way and furthermore, just because many conservatives have been so
conditioned by repeatedly hearing a style of religious music that they no
longer oppose it, does not make it a good choice.
The
“neither good nor bad” notion about religious music has become the slippery
slope that has finally led to style and performance practice capitulation. Although
his book was on a completely different topic, the title of Thomas Anthony Harris’s I'm OK, You're OK New York Times best
seller has been taken out of context in the development of a false notion by
the postmodern church. This philosophical fallacy has allowed these musicians
to believe a convenient falsehood rather than deal with an obvious truth. This
everything goes philosophy fits well with the adiaphorous philosophy of
contemporary Christian musicians. Many
Christians, including a host of Christians who are conservative in many of
their beliefs, seem to believe that all the possible ways that religious
musicers can possibly music are OK. Simply put, although there are wonderful
things happening in sacred music in this century, everything that is happening
in church music is not OK!
Thought
for the Day
Romans 12:2 “And be not conformed to
this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may
prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” Since God has an acceptable, good, and
perfect will, it is not unreasonable to believe that he has a will concerning
how a Christian musics unto Him.
No comments:
Post a Comment