Some notes on modern church music

There are many debates about CCM (defined as a genre of music with a pop or rock sound and lyrics that are related to the Christian faith). The argument for it is that, since today's youngsters adore pop and rock (my hero didn't - another abnormality on his part), the way to get them into church is by incorporating that genre with the substitution of vaguely Christian lyrics, often complete with light effects, smoke machines and suggestive guitarist postures. Although our group eschews the bling and glitter, we do encompass some of their songs and sometimes either the lyrics or accompaniment is whacky enough that I cannot join in. And why does the drum kit have to pound away at my tinnitus ridden ears through the majority of the songs we sing? In the musical forms I am more at home with, as a general rule percussion is used for special effect rather more than monotony.

Stock photo

Ali and I once went to a "modern" Charismatic church with the whole works: light shows, smoke, the works, audience in darkness, musicians prancing around on the stage. A performance rather more than congregational participation. Actually I rather enjoyed it, trying to figure out how they achieved the various effects and immersing myself in the changing colours. But it wasn't what I consider praise or worship. But then I've also attended meetings in a Kenyan village, PA system distorted at full volume, African beat and gyrations - and that wasn't worship either IMHO. Which suggests that the fault here lies with me - for the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.

Prompted by a remark my son made I have been reading Dorothy Sayers' Gaudy Night which is set in the Oxford both she and I loved. She makes an interesting comment on "genuine music" which concurs with my own experience: He was wrapt in the motionless austerity with which all genuine musicians listen to genuine music. Harriet was musician enough to respect this aloofness; she knew well enough that the ecstatic rapture on the face of the man opposite meant only that he was hoping to be thought musical, and that the elderly lady over the way, waving her fingers to the beat, was a musical moron. She knew enough, herself, to read the sounds a little with her brains, laboriously unwinding the twined chains of melody link by link. Peter, she felt sure, could hear the whole intricate pattern, every part separately and simultaneously, each independent and equal, separate but inseparable, moving over and under and through, ravishing heart and mind together. I position myself on this spectrum somewhere between Harriot and Lord Peter - I'd like to say that I was closer to the latter but it would not be true.  But, like a good fruit cake, I know something I like when I hear it.

C. S. Lewis adds that an excellently performed piece of music, as natural operation which reveals in a very high degree the peculiar powers given to man, will thus always glorify God whatever the intention of the performers may be. But that is a kind of glorifying which we share with the ‘dragons and great deeps’, with the ‘frost and snows’. What is looked for in us, as men, is another kind of glorifying, which depends on intention.  Although he didn't think much of them he at least realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren’t fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit. 

So, returning to Christian praise, if such a thing as "genuine music" exists objectively (by which I mean is commonly accepted by the majority in at least most Western cultures and upbringings) then one would expect this very best attempt by mankind to be that employed in praising his maker. And of course musical repertoire down through the ages has, to some degree, demonstrated this. Then why do we have something inferior IMHO in modern churches? As I have already argued, is it because of a conception or misconception about modern youth?

So now I have a mental picture of our meeting room with an orchestra out front playing highly polished "genuine" music with the congregation now a choir, instead of the usual guitarist with piano and drums backup on the side. I am not sure if that was what I had in mind...

Cecil Francis Alexander

I was brought up on hymns and, in children's meetings, CSSM choruses. Many are slushy or nonsense but some are sublime. A high contender in my book is:

There is a green hill far away,

Without a city wall,

Where the dear Lord was crucified,

Who died to save us all...

for its simplicity in lyrics, doctrine and musical setting. Another favourite is:

Elizabeth Celphane

Beneath the cross of Jesus

I fain would take my stand,
the shadow of a mighty rock
within a weary land;

but, although the whole hymn is worthy poetry, for me it is in particular the words "a mighty rock within a weary land" (my emphasis) which conjures up peculiar emotions as does "O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. (Isa 54:11). The trouble is, in both cases the allusion is destroyed once you change Bible version or look the words up in Strong's concordance.  Therefore these word pictures which I like apparently have little or no actual value. Such is poetry.

Horatio Stafford

And then there is: His wife Anna survived and sent him the now famous telegram, 'Saved alone …'. Shortly afterwards, as Horatio Spafford travelled to meet his grieving wife, he was inspired to write these words as his ship passed near where his daughters had died. Although his Christianity was hardly conventional from then on.

When peace like a river, attendeth my way

When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well, with my soul…

These lyrics are packed with human emotion - is this what I am searching for?  When I should be bowing to an all powerful, eternal, changeless creator entity beyond my ken, god yet born in the likeness of men?

Sandy Thompson was an enigma in the church my parents attended. I was young at the time and so wasn't told the back story but I heard things whispered and knew enough to be intrigued: I gleaned that Sandy was something special in that he was an evangelist and constantly on the move, previously had had a ministry in the Holy Land, and only occasionally was seen in our church. Was he estranged from his wife and family who lived next door to the church? Was this because he was away from home so much, or was the tension because of a clash of doctrine?  It saddens me that doctrine can cause such a rift. Over the weekend we watched the fictional but true to life movie 7500 which unfolds the drama of extremist Muslim terrorists trying to seize control of a Berlin-Paris flight - that men could act like this in the name of religion is mind blowing. 

I'm sure the man in this video is the same man as I remember: the picture of him agrees with my memory, he mentions preaching at Andover which is not far from my childhood home, mentions a Brethren background but now seeing things differently, from which I infer differences over the baptism in the Spirit, an experience the Brethren church typically disagrees with, and he quotes a song (at 23 minutes) that I remember he teaching us and which made a deep impression on me back then if only because I knew that it described how any true Christian should be and yet I could not truthfully say it was my own experience.

For me to live is Christ

To die is gain

To hold His hand and walk this narrow way

There is no peace, no joy, no thrill

Like walking in His will

For me to live is Christ

To die is gain

Whatever my or your views on Christianity, there is no doubt that it has been and continues to be the inspiration for a significant and much loved part of the repertoire of "genuine" music. But as to what constitutes "genuine" surely is at least to some degree a matter of personal taste. And my own tastes with its love of evaporated milk, golden syrup and fruit cake are clearly not the norm.

Band-wagon, treason, the lot: Part 5

It has been observed by my younger daughter that my blog chain "Gunpowder, band-wagon and lot" did not reach a conclusion. Having pondered this I say my conclusion is that there is no conclusion. There cannot be a conclusion. How can mortal man judge the existence or character of God? 

And that is, of course, the argument both of theist and atheist. The atheist who asks why would God hide himself behind a wall that can only be penetrated "by faith"?  The theist who will quote that:

Without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. Hebrews 11:6

Isn't that the main point of that great story, the story of Job? Fundamentalists insist that Job was a real man and his story, as recounted, was literally true. Personally I find this untenable, it seems to me that it is fiction on the grand scale, a tale to top all cautionary tales. In it the unattainableness of God is repeatedly voiced, for example

Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens above - what can you do? They are deeper than the depths below - what can you know? Job 11:7 

and

God is clothed with awesome majesty. The Almighty - we cannot find him; he is great in power; justice and abundant righteousness he will not violate. Therefore men fear him. Job 37:22

My picture is a wood engraving by Gustave Doré. I have long admired his art. On one occasion my mother noticed me perusing a reprint of his superb illustrations to Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere and purchased the book for my next birthday. A book I treasured as much for her sake as for the pictures, but which got lost along with other treasures on the way to community.

(Go back to Part 4)

Gunpowder, band-wagon and lot Part 4

Winchester cathedral (stock photo)

If you have got this far in my diatribe you'll appreciate that I do not necessarily believe in a six 24-hour day creation. In our group we get around difficulties in OT exegesis like this by spiritualising. This technique is based on "now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come". We say the Bible is a spiritual book and can only be understood by spiritual people. Exactly what is meant by "spiritual" is a moot point but it's not literal, carnal, natural, physical, tangible or demonstrable.

This link quotes the sad story of Charles Templeton, one time popular evangelist to thousands and partner with Billy Graham only to go on to become an atheist, to demonstrate that any who deny six literal creation days will follow suit. Which theory does not bode well for me. But the argument is good in so far as it emphasises the need for solid foundation. Both parts of the Bible (and I make no apology for so often quoting it whatever I might conclude) have a lot to say about foundation, most notably that other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire... 

Winchester cathedral was built in the peaty flood plain of the river Itchen on a foundation of oak logs. The story goes how, after discovering huge cracks in the walls, a diver William Walker was commissioned to bolster up the foundations below the water table and so the iconic building was saved. My foundations, though hitherto I had thought adequate, are likewise causing cracks in the edifice I have built on them. All ye do-gooders that will, on reading this, jump up to utter trite encouraging words beware: you might have more on your hands than you bargained for! Because:

From 1906, Walker laboured under water below the Cathedral for six hours a day at depths up to 6 metres (20 ft). He worked in total darkness, using his bare hands to feel his way through the cloudy, muddy water. His huge, heavy diving suit took a long time to put on. So when he stopped for lunch, he’d just take off his helmet. It took him six years to excavate the flooded trenches and fill them with bags of concrete. When he’d finished, all the groundwater could be pumped out and the subsiding walls safely underpinned by bricklayers. By 1911, the team of 150 workmen of which he was part had packed the foundations with an estimated 25,000 bags of concrete, 115,000 concrete blocks, and 900,000 bricks.

If that story don't light your fire, your wood's wet - I'm tearing up after just copying that text. It's all the more apropos because back in school days I lived only seven miles from the cathedral and attended an annual service there in connection with Peter Symonds School. Like other European cathedrals it is a totally awesome building all the more so when one considers the limited equipment they had back then.

So what are my conclusions?  The mere idea that I should even consider conclusions about such momentous concepts seems preposterous. Who am I to dictate what should or should not have happened thousands of years ago?  But this much I will say.

Here's a board book I was reading at dinner time. Actually it is not mine - it belongs to my Thai granddaughter. It is a good example of the absurd. The artist has gone to great lengths to add strange detail in the yellow levers, green cylinder and various pipes, but they are all totally ridiculous and untrue. Why go to all that bother only to lie? Will a child as young as my granddaughter care? Probably not, but in a few years she will - I know because I was once a child, fobbed off with untruths and caring about it. Children are not as stupid as some adults (who apparently never had a childhood) maintain. 

Perhaps some of the Bible stories are like this. In an effort to simplify to suit our limited intelligence and yet maintain interest the accounts are indicative but not intended to be exact in every matter. I find that I cannot accept, and do not think I ever have since college days, the fundamentalist claim that the text of the Bible is literally true in every respect, for example creation in six literal 24 hour days? Or Noah's flood being global when it is more likely that it only covered the then known world: the fertile crescent and its curtilage. I realise such statements may offend some of my readers but, after all, this blog is a picture of Me and not Them and I can't help being who I am. Believe me, I have tried to change, to become a more conventional Christian. 

Compared with the OT stories I think it more likely that the gospel accounts are substantially true. It is apparently better documented than most things back then that a man we call Jesus lived, was crucified and started a sect we now call Christianity. Less well attested but hard to to dismiss are the claims of miracles and in particular the Resurrection. Of course, whether you or I think this or think that will not change what actually happened. It would be the ultimate arrogance to think otherwise. But some things in the here and now can be analysed. Here is a Sunday School favourite I have sung since a child:

I serve a risen Saviour, He's in the world today
I know that He is living, whatever men may say
I see His hand of mercy, I hear His voice of cheer
And just the time I need Him He's always near

He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today
He walks with me and talks with me
Along life's narrow way
He lives, He lives, Salvation to impart
You ask me how I know He lives?
He lives within my heart.

But I don't. I don't "hear His voice of cheer". I like to think that "He walks with me" but I do not know that he "talks with me" although I wish and constantly pray that I did. And those last two lines: that my proof that he lives today should be that he "lives in my heart": I do not even know what this means, or is it some sort of meaningless, gooey but feel-good poetic license?

I can, I guess I do, accept the divinity of this man Jesus and the Plan of Salvation that he wrought and its personal adoption by the likes of me by accepting the offer "by faith". And that so doing gives me meaning for living, a foundation to build upon.

I note that the act of "becoming a Christian", which evangelicals metamorphous into "four spiritual laws" or the language of the above song, was simple in the case of the Philippian jailer: Then he brought them out and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" And they said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household." 

(continued in Part 5)             (go back to Part 3)  

Church mountain and Celandines

Every year and about this time of the year I find it necessary to disprove that I will never again run there and back and climb Church Mountain (bare foot). And so, the weather being clement, yesterday I headed that way. It's not much of a climb but when you add getting there and getting back... So as not to be late for dinner I had to push myself - didn't even stop at the summit - and once home I was pretty tired and aching and thirsty.  But I did it! I'm not totally decrepit yet!

Stats: 14.5 miles, average speed moving 4.0mph, maximum altitude 538m.

Our lake in the distance

Other People on the ruins

Me

Wayside Celandines

Celandines always remind me of my mother.  We were having a picnic or perhaps just a snack on the triangle of land in the centre of the map below. I must have been very young and I guess my older sister was there too. Very proud of my horticultural knowledge I pointed out the buttercups only to be told by my mother that they were celandines. From that moment on I have always loved celandines for the memory but regarded them inferior to buttercups.

 

Gunpowder, band-wagon and lot: Part 3

It has been said, and is also patently obvious, that children will usually follow their parents' religious inclinations. The church our hero's parents attended was Bible based fundamentalist so he grew up knowing all the stories and believing them to be true. Thus he assumed all manner of notions on top of which were balanced precariously those of the movement he had stumbled upon, not realising how few of these were his own convictions. O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you?

But every so often he was brought up short when hearing some proposition or seeing an action that jarred or was evident nonsense. The reader will want examples but must understand that such can often be explained away so, at best, only loosely point to the core problem. 

Years previously he had remembered one of the leaders of the home church group he was then part of stating that the group was finally moving from "40 years going around the mountain" to entering the Promised Land. All hunky dory except nothing had changed - there was no such progression.  Or, in his present context, it seemed that folk too easily maintained that, as they were praying, "the Lord said..." whereas his experience differed - he only longed to hear God's voice. He found that apparent answers to prayer were often promoted whilst at the same time the more numerous failures were silently discarded. An example of confirmation bias. There was the much repeated "He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it" but should anyone dare to question its realisation this side of eternity "Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation". And of the songs that he found himself gaily singing in church, although many were praise-worthy and the nonsense in some might be dismissed as "poetic license", a few were decidedly questionable.

There was his treatment of his parents. True, back then having given all his money to the Christian community in the North that he was then part of, and with no income, he was rarely in a position of being able to travel at all but, all the same, he could have written more often, could have cared more dearly, but rather I suppose he figured that he that loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. It may well be true that your children will surpass you in that they'll learn much more than you'll ever know, but I implore you to forever honour your father and your mother.

And so began the impossible, Psyche-like task of sorting wheat from the tares. What indeed was the truth about Christianity? Recently there have been many public debates involving creationists, atheists, theists, evolutionists, big-bang physicists where each proponent has stuck firmly to their guns but often in a distasteful and bigoted way. How can love (a central theme in Christianity) be so distasteful?

The north wind doth blow,

And we shall have snow,

And what will the robin do then, Poor thing?

A few days ago Ali and I watched the film "Miracles from Heaven" which recounts the true story of a young daughter who had a near-death experience and was later cured of an incurable disease.  Undeniably things like this, though rare, do happen. Closer to home I could list my getting married at all, at all, the story of how a Thai baby became my adopted granddaughter, and the acquisition of the house we now live in as near miracles or, if to be explained by chance, one in a million. Two mature, educated adults can look at the same natural world around them and one will, with good reason, attribute it all to Darwinian evolution in which no god has a part, the other will be observing that the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse. One will claim divine creatio ex nihilo, the other that it all started with a singularity (what's that?) and brush off the question of "whatever preceded?" by claiming that such a question has no meaning. The truth is nobody knows for certain, but then there is an awful lot in that category. It seems that we humans are doomed to a finite and oh-so-restricted-an understanding of the world around us, just as a dog might adore his master but cannot attain to human thought or emotions.

But I do at least know for a certainty the turmoil that goes on in my inner being.  The turmoil that identifies with that man, remembered throughout all ages since, who retorted Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief.

To set the record straight I will add that the members of the community I am presently part of are loving, sincere, trustworthy good people and our lifestyle is in many respects exemplary. I have no bones to pick on that score apart from my own.

(To be continued in Part 4)    (Go back to Part 2)