In my attempt to keep myself educated about, well, everything, I've been reading books on the history of Christian music and worship.
One is Oxford's History of Christian Worship and the other is a volume edited by a Tim Dowley called Christian Music: A Global History. But why the history Christian worship and music?
Because I think I'm right about how things should be done, but I want to see how other people think they're right about how things should be done so I can feel more comfortable thinking and feeling that I'm right.
Basically, I want to win arguments.
Petty, I know.
But something's that struck me as interesting are two remarkable consistent strands in the history of these subjects which are:
1) The Church's historical commitment to a form of liturgical worship.
2) The Church's battle between music that is pretty but un-singable v. music that is ugly but suitable for the vulgar tongue.
The first is unsurprising to me. I've always known that liturgical worship was existent in the Church and that America was wrong. Of course, nobody ever believes me because they want to have their feelings affirmed on a Sunday morning. I do too, but it's the difference between eating chocolate cake and eating your vegetables. I get satisfied knowing I get all my vitamins on a Sunday morning. A lot of Christendom my age in the West get satisfied getting diabetes.
But that's not the meat (no pun intended) of this "article". No, the meat of this article is a quote. From Dowley's volume:
""Palestrina: saviour of church music" is a frequently repeated myth that was even used as the the plt for the opera Palestrina... According to this legend, the Council of Trent was about to ban polyphonic music completely, and only relented after hearing a piece by Palestrisa... The Council of Trent aimed to reform the Catholic church, and as part of this policy a strong impetus built up to reject polyphony and return to the sole use of the chant. In 1562, the council ordered authorities to "banish from church all music that contains, whether in singing or in organ-playing, things that are lascivious or impure" and to reject the trend for complex vocal pieces: the text had henceforth to be clearly intelligible to all."
- Christian Music: A Global History, 77-78.
The book goes on to say that the genius of Palestrina was in having polyphonic music that was singable for the average person (78).
A different time (the Renaissance), a different genre (polyphonic chant), but the same complaints (is it appropriate for worship?).
History doesn't repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme.
This got me to thinking, or at least, to clarifying my objections to much of contemporary Christian music. We play electric guitars that are amplified and thus the voices are unable to be heard. Heck, when I visited the "traditional" service of a Presbyterian church in South Florida, I complained that the choir and organ were too loud. And talking to a missionary to Haiti helped me sharpen the fact that I'm not opposed to all instrumentation per se but rather I am opposed to bad texts and inappropriate settings for said texts.
Now, it just so happens that I think most contemporary Christian music (CCM) is bad and that I cannot be convinced otherwise.
Likewise, I share a commitment to a church singing the Psalter and appropriate hymns. A Psalter-Hymnal can go a long way in doing this.
But again, chocolate cake versus vegetables. Everybody loves cakes. Nobody loves vegetables. Like, at most, but not love.
But here we are, facing the same problems that the Church faced so many years ago.
Do I have a solution? Sure. Stop being electric, be creative with instrumentation to help enhance congregational singing, and stop writing such terrible songs.
Of course that will never happen. Because cake.
With no cake,
-SJG
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