Faith Based Musicing

 

Faith Based Musicing

A plethora of conflicting books either partially or entirely written about music philosophy from a secular perspective have been written in the last 100 years. It is unfortunate that so little has been written about music philosophy from a Bible basis or a faith basis. Most of the books written by Christian musicians that discuss music philosophy have only devoted a portion of their works to a serious study of music philosophy. It is also most regrettable that Christian authors have for the most part not struggled with many of the major concepts of music philosophy that the secular music philosophers have and are still dealing with in this century. So, there is much need for current philosophical writings about music from a Bible and faith basis.

What does faith basis actually mean to a musician? Acts 20:21 states, “Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.”  So, St. Paul testified that faith basis is  grounded in repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.  Faith based music philosophy of necessity requires true repentance of the musician’s sins and faith in Jesus Christ.  Without a life in Christ Jesus, a musician’s musical praxis i.e. his or her purposeful musical actions, which exude from that musician’s music philosophy, are “…as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal” “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof…” (1 Corinthians 13:1, 2 Timothy 3:5)  When a musician’s musical doing is done without having a relationship with Jesus Christ, that musician’s musicing is not truly faith based.