Music, people’s expectations, and why we take things so personally. Amen.

Something that constantly amazes me is how much music stylings have changed in the last hundred years or so. I mean, most of the great operas in history were written withing a thirty year radius of the turn of the 19th century: now nobody writes opera, and hardly anyone listens to it (though I do). Suddenly, today most of the music created and listened to is pop music, a musical culture that has very little art in it; I’m sure a lot of people, on reflection, understand that Nirvana and The Clash represent a dumbing down of art on a scale unprecedented in music history.

That’s not to say, of course, that there isn’t wonderfully artistic music going on today. There is. But it exists on the fringes of the music-buying public’s consciousness, farther from the centre of the groupmind than art music ever has been before.

Another interesting issue is the art of the church. I’m going to be the first to admit that the hymns of yesteryear aren’t terribly artistic (when compared to, say, the psalms), and neither are the songs of our more modern “worship movement”. But I don’t think that great art is the final purpose of worship music — at least, not for corporate worship. The Roman Catholic church wrote some great religious music, but it was for performance, not praise.

The thing is, there’s no reason not to change styles with the times. That’s not to say forget our hymnic heritage, but to at least get to a point where we don’t sound like we stepped out of a time portal and were plunked down in the middle of the country. The music of the 1952 Psalter Hymnal — face it — isn’t relevant to today’s music. And irrelevant music is the last thing you want the youth of your church bored with; even I hate some of those old hymns. I can appreciate what they are, but that doesn’t mean that I actually enjoy singing them.

See, no one has a problem with Dalit Christians in India singing songs that sound utterly foreign to our ears; that is, after all, their culture, and who are we to change it? Hardly anyone, not even the esteemed and very wrong Dr Pipa, has a problem with African hand drums — as long as they’re in Africa, simple because the culture shock of Africans singing along to an organ deny what the gospel really is. The gospel is an adaptable thing, designed by God to stretch away from the children of Israel and their esoteric rituals, and to encompass the cultures and traditions of a thousand different lands.

And in a sense, the children of today are living in a different tradition than their parents. Why not treat their culture like any foreign culture?

I have a difficult time dealing with people’s expectations. I expect, for instance, that my life will hold some joy and some heartbreak, that I might not get married, that I might not have children, and that if I do have either of these, they will both bring with them good times and bad. But what I don’t expect is that my wife be a certain thing, or that my children be a certain way, or even that they make sense.

People that expect everything in life to make sense sometimes frustrate me. No one will ever be able to explain everything. In fact, the psychology of humanity will never be explained, as far as I can tell, and people will do stupid things that don’t make sense, or do perfectly wonderful things for no reason at all.

Frustration arrives with people that make up their own special rules and expect the rest of the world to follow along with them. I have some things in my life that I have as rules for myself that I don’t expect anyone else to follow: in fact, I don’t even expect my children to follow them, because they are simply not me.

Steve pointed out today how personally we take things. Why is that, I wonder? It’s like people have the slightest disagreement about something and suddenly become mortal enemies, unable even to talk to eachother without calling lightning down from heaven. I have this sometimes, too, but it’s something that bothers me about myself. I just don’t want to surround myself with enemies made over minor infractions.

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Posted November 22nd, 2004 in main.

One comment:

  1. Anonymous:

    i was wholeheartedly nodding along to your arguments until i reached the 4th paragraph. my responses to excerpts:

    “…get to a point where we don’t sound like we stepped out of a time portal and were plunked down in the middle of the country.”

    i don’t particularly WANT to sound like that, but there’s nothing really WRONG with being that way either.

    “The music of the 1952 Psalter Hymnal — face it — isn’t relevant to today’s music.”

    yes, but why would we care if our worship songs were relevant TO MUSIC? any music? we want our worship songs to be releveant to our Lord and our relationship to him. ultimately, tune matters little; rather it is words, motives, and feeling that do.

    “And irrelevant music is the last thing you want the youth of your church bored with…”

    why? these hymns are not to entertain us. these hymns are to praise God. it’s all about him, not at all about us. if people (and why are YOUTH stirring up the trouble??) get “bored” by the songs, they need to refocus. people, read what you’re singing, and mean it when you sing it. if you don’t mean it, shut up. stop singing. that is much more insulting to God than to sing insincerely.

    “…even I hate some of those old hymns. I can appreciate what they are, but that doesn’t mean that I actually enjoy singing them.”

    i know man. some of the tunes sound like funeral songs. and i am not against incorporating some newer songs with better music into our worship services. what i am against is incorporating newer songs into our services only by virtue of the fact that they are newer. who cares when they were written? Dax, you can’t understand people who want to keep old songs only b/c they are old. well it is no better to ditch them for new songs only b/c they are new. our songlists should not follow a cycle of REPLACEMENT as time goes on, but rather a cycle of ADDITION. and remember, that addition is not so that we don’t get “BORED”, but b/c this music is just as (or maybe more) useful in praising God.

    and moving along…

    “People that expect everything in life to make sense sometimes frustrate me. No one will ever be able to explain everything. In fact, the psychology of humanity will never be explained, as far as I can tell, and people will do stupid things that don’t make sense, or do perfectly wonderful things for no reason at all.”

    yes, very true. but there are two attitudes (or maybe more) that you can adopt in reaction. it goes along the same lines of fairness. you can say “life’s not fair” (very true), and so not bother trying to be fair; a classic example of application would be a father speaking to his child. his child wants to be treated fairly, but his father (who has more experience in living in a land of unfairness) doesn’t concern himself too much with it. the second attitude you can adopt is to realize that life is not fair because of sin, and it was/will be fair in paradise (except of course where gracious self-sacrificing mercy overrides it). i think we can learn a lot from children here: when we are young, we all want fairness (he got a cookie, i want one too). of course, we don’t care when someone else is on the short end of the stick, but that’s besides the point. when we are grown up, however, we have stopped trying. lack of fairness is a result of sin, and therefore is sin itself. according to Scripture, we are to strive to overcome sin, even tho it pervades our world. likewise, it is foolish to say since life is not fair, we shouldn’t bother trying to make it fair. the same thing applies to trying to make things make sense. our world is not all logical. but for the most part it is. and what isn’t is a result of sin. his it not an unChristian attitude to say that since the sinful world we inhabit and the sinful humans we cohabit it with are not logical, why bother trying to be?

    “Frustration arrives with people that make up their own special rules and expect the rest of the world to follow along with them. I have some things in my life that I have as rules for myself that I don’t expect anyone else to follow: in fact, I don’t even expect my children to follow them, because they are simply not me.”

    this i agree with. but if this paragraph and the last are meant to be thoughts on the same subject (which they seem to be), there’s a problem. there is vast difference between trying to find the sense in everything and finding a specific personal guideline and expecting everyone to follow it. the difference is expecting people to follow God or follow you. now obviously people will interpret Scripture differently, but it only makes sense to hold people to the standards of your interpretation — while remaining open to other people’s thoughts concerning interpretations. right?

    “Steve pointed out today how personally we take things. Why is that, I wonder? It’s like people have the slightest disagreement about something and suddenly become mortal enemies, unable even to talk to eachother without calling lightning down from heaven. I have this sometimes, too, but it’s something that bothers me about myself. I just don’t want to surround myself with enemies made over minor infractions.”

    i’m impressed whenever people see this in themselves. few people ever treat eachother absolutely horribly as result of differences in opinion, but ALL too often people get the cold shoulder suddenly, b/c they don’t happen to agree with someone. we tend to set ourselves up as gods in our lives. which of course goes back to what dax was saying earlier.

    please RSVP to this comment. i’d like to hear other peoples’ opinions. i shall also post this comment at mastak.blogspot.com

    :Kev:

    November 23rd, 2004 at 4:34 am

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