(I know I’ve been posting a lot of videos recently. Once I recover from whatever this plague is from which I am suffering, I’ll get back to actually writing again. In the meantime, please pass me a tissue and a gallon jug of Nyquil)
496 thoughts on “Scientific “Proof””
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I looked up Helioseismology. I do not think that means what he thinks it means.
I have no idea what he’s trying to communicate on most of what he said. I’m still baffled by what he’s saying that C, E & G are essentially the same note?
Ahh Nyquil… The Christian Jack Daniels. 😀
I don’t drink as a rule but at this moment I’d be willing to give it a try if I thought it would help.
I do not think that it helps but it certainly makes the flu more enjoyable.
There’s always the old German cold/flu remedy… Hang a hat on one of the posts at the foot of a four-post bed, then drink an alcoholic beverage of your choice until you see two hats. You will no longer be bothered by the symptoms of the cold. 😀
Get well soon. Your razor sharp analysis of the fundy follies is sorely missed. I usually don’t watch the videos, because the illogic-to-outright-idiocy makes my head explode.
I do hope and pray you will be better soon. Nyquil shooters do make the time pass more quickly.
Our old home remedy was Jack Daniels (or Maker’s), honey, and lemon. The honey works as a natural expectorant,and the Jack helps you relax.
Well, that the ONLY Jack in fundydom that will help you relax… 😉
“IT’S A GIANT ORGAN!”
We could go soooo many places with that… all of them dirty.
I was babysitting a little girl the other night. I went into the kitchen to get the devotional book so we could read it while we ate dinner. While I was gone, she got the remote for the television. It’s really for the DVD player since they don’t watch television. The only channel they get is the local liberal public television station. Somehow, she figured out how to turn the television on and watch that program. Since I was in the kitchen, I could only hear snatches of what she was watching and assumed she was watching one of her parent’s choir DVD’s.
Imagine my utter shock and surprise when I returned to the living room to find that she was watching LAWRENCE WELK!!!! I didn’t even know what to say except to turn it off. They were dancing and smiling and everything! From the kitchen, it sounded just like some of the choir specials we have sung at church. It just goes to show you that the Devil can come disguised as innocent band music!
Hilarious!
You poor innocent thing! I can’t imagine the trauma all involved must be experiencing! I’ll pray for your full recovery from this unanticpated exposure to pure evil. I trust your boyfriend (who has met real live atheists) can be of great assistance?
Whoever posts CMG is psychic. Because what was just typed out above is (and I’m not kidding) the kind of thing I find my friends posting on their blogs, almost word-for-word, all the time. Hmm.
Satire, thou strikest close today. :/
(Another Drive by comment) I was out at my favorite store today (Goodwill) and almost bought Lawrence Welk’s “Dance Party” album. If I had a turntable that would output in MP3 I would have bought it.
BTW I’ll take GnR over Garlock as well. Guess I’d better break out my copy of Hell’s Bells 2 and watch it again. 😯
@Don
You really have an Appettite For Destruction
CMG, play that DVD backwards. You’ll never believe what you see and hear!!! You’ll have to spin the disc really fast, though.
Musical proof for the existence of the trinity … wow … this guy is something else.
Um……he wasn’t proving the trinity, he was providing an illustration or analogy to it.
Yeah, and it makes no sense whatsoever. None of those notes sounds anything like the other notes. They may harmonize, but harmony isn’t an illustration of the trinity. That analogy is a complete & total failure.
Is this sound doctrine?
😀 ❗
Sure it’s sound doctrine! It proves his point, (at least in his mind) doesn’t it?
hahaha good one!
“SOUNDS” good to me!
😀
I like his STYLE.
Christians should develop a taste for high quality music. Just as some foods do better things for the body than others, so too does some music do better things for the mind. Just as great books reward careful reading and other books are nothing but entertainment, so too is great music something that can be studied and appreciated on an intellectual and artistic level.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom: teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and SPIRITUAL songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. Colossians 3:16
I’ll take Guns n Roses quality (high) over Frank Garlock quality (very very low), 8 days a week.
Yeah, I had a strange epiphany a while back when I realized that you can learn better history from Iron Maiden than from most “history” included in Fundy sermons.
“Rhyme of the Ancient Manner” and “Run To The Hills” are not history primers
😮
Actually, “Run to the Hills” is about the Indian Wars fought in the Great Plains. It’s one of their most famous and obvious historical songs. “Aces High” is about the Battle of Britain. “Brighter Than a Thousand Suns” and “2 Minutes to Midnight” are about the Cold War arms race and the Doomsday Clock. “The Trooper” is about the Crimean War. “Tailgunner” and “Where Eagles Dare” are about World War II, “The Longest Day” is about D-Day of Operation Overlord specifically, and the titles of the latter two allude to movies about the war. And then there’s the obvious “Alexander the Great.” I’m not surprised you miss the allusion to Coleridge in “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” because it’s an adaptation of his poem with direct quotations set to music. And in the literary vein, the source of “The Flight of Icarus” is obvious and the much-ballyhooed “Number of the Beast” is an adaptation of Robert Burns’s “Tam o’Shanter,” which you probably haven’t heard of, either.
All of which is to say that they know more about history and literature and can more skilfully incorporate it into a message than your average Fundy preacher.
JMP WIN!
Oh, no! I’ve never listened to Guns and Roses, but all those historical and literary references have me intrigued, especially “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” Slippery slope! Slippery slope!
Yeah, I was never big into Iron Maiden, but am thinking I’ll be checking them out on youtube soon.
Oh! Maybe it was Iron Maiden not GnR. See? That’s how much of a neophyte I am. But I love history and literature!
@pw, yeah gnr not that historically minded. Personally, I’m a huge fan of chuck d, and public enemy’s telling of history from a black perspective (most of their heroes don’t appear on no stamps). 😉
GnR glorification of drugs, sex, and self loathing better than “Rejoice In The Lord” and such?
Oooooookay then.
You prove the Biblical point.
Or is that what you were trying to do?
Said it, meant it, sticking with it. GNR > Garlock.
@Rob
Bruce Dikinson is not a historian LOl Steve Harris? Maybe. 😉
What’s your point BTW?
I pointed out that I did NOT miss the allusion to Coleridge in “Rime of the Ancient Mariner†I brought it up, remember?
(And realized I spelled it Rhyme too, but you caught it) 😆
“Seveth Son Of A Seventh Son” is still their best BTW
Dickinson is, in fact, an amateur military historian (amateur in the sense that it is not what he does for pay).
Then so am I!
Har har. Dickinson has training but does not have a seat in a university. I have an advanced degree in European military history but am not using that to make a living, which technically makes me an amateur. Stop making me think less of you.
Jordan
You are such a elitist legalist!
😉
I’m more of a Pink Floyd fan, myself. They were amazing.
I think I need to check my medication. I’m finding John growing on me.
I don’t like Garlock at all. Or his music.
But what you say about certain types of music…classical..etc..is very true. And a biblical principle (see Saul/David).
Western classical music is not the only “good” kind of music. I won’t listen to some music because of the lyrics, but any style is fair game (except for country and rap or hip hop or whatever we’re supposed to call it now). One can’t prove from the Bible that any (sub)culture’s style is better than another, though I’d kind of like to see someone try, just for kicks.
Physiologically as well as mentally there is both food and music that is better for you.
Junk food will keep you alive, but you will fare better with healthy natural foods.
There is a reason that certain music styles are attractive to immoral and idolatrous people, and certain styles are a turn off to them.
This is universal. Marching music makes you want to march–even if you have never heard it before, and hip hop makes you want to dance in sensual ways.
One is very much in intentional denial of reality to not see this.
Just as with movies (or meals) some music is better for you than others.
Again the flawed food/music analogy. Food you need for sustenance, ie, minimal calorie intake. How about I go on a 1 year music fast, you go on a 1 year calorie fast, and we’ll see who comes out better?
“Just as with movies (or meals) some music is better for you than others.”
Exactly how do you determine which though? How do you know that Bach is better for you then Beethoven? Or Beethoven better than Animal Collective? Even if your statement is true it breaks down when you try to apply that statement to anything. At the point that you do you’ve strayed from the Bible (Saul/David) to nothing but extra-biblical philosophies based upon taste and preference which is learned and personal. Basically it means what is good or better for you is only that…good and better for you. The Bible doesn’t condemn or commend any one style over another. There is a good reason why it didn’t, but it is sad that so many people try to infuse their selfish preferences on the Bible.
And really the bigger flaw is this. Food is bad for you because it could make you sick or fat. A movie would be bad because of its content. But you wouldn’t say that Indian food is bad because its style is biblically wrong (you could say its style doesn’t suit you) and you wouldn’t call art house bad.
Same with music. If there is bad music it is because the content within the music is bad not the style the music uses. The reason this doesn’t get preached is because it is hard. Every song must be analyzed and the words must be considered. It is much easier just to say that a style of music is wrong and be done with it.
The content makes music objectionable not the style.
@RobM
Um, it’s an analogy Rob.
🙄
A distinctly and irreparably flawed analogy.
@Mark R., “The reason this doesn’t get preached is because it is hard. Every song must be analyzed and the words must be considered. It is much easier just to say that a style of music is wrong and be done with it.” YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! I’ve seen people apply this to movies, clothing, books, and more as well as music. It EASIER to just hide from all of it. It takes time and discernment to evaluate things.
“There is a reason that certain music styles are attractive to immoral and idolatrous people, and certain styles are a turn off to them.”
I sense a hint of self righteousness and pride in that statement. You make a great fundy.
It’s just another thin disguise for racism.
Racism is really at the heart of the whole thing with classical music-onlyism. Another attempt to “prove” that the European culture is superior.
@beth from your lips to God’s ear(s)
It actually is about racism. Study the history of Jazz…or if you don’t want to the history of Gershwin and you’ll quickly realize why Jazz too so long to be recognized. It was racism.
So really those immoral and degenerate people listing to it were just the progressive people who realized that the art was good despite the color of the performer (those horrible people). Unfortunately the church was not immune to the racism. It makes their position all the more dubious.
John said: “There is a reason that certain music styles are attractive to immoral and idolatrous people, and certain styles are a turn off to them.”
I say, Nonsense poopy pants. I was listening to VanHalen’s *Best of Both Worlds* Love the beat and guitar but don’t like the lyrics a whole lot.
John, you like to come off smooth but you still, in the end, castigate people as immoral and idolatrous who don’t hold to your preferences. I like this kind of music on occassion, how do YOU know I’m immoral and/or idolatrous? You know NOTHING about me.
Loren: While I agree that classical music has definite value, are you aware that there is a lot of modern music which is also influenced by classical music? European heavy metal often has some serious classical influence, as does some ambient music (often unfairly lumped in as “new age”). Some groups have also combined rock and classical music into a new style of music with both classical beauty and rock power. I actually used the symphonic prelude of one of these songs in my wedding, and it worked perfectly.
Not to mention too much focus on Western classical does ignore some amazing stuff from other parts of the world. I have some Native American traditional chants combined with both modern and classical styles of music, and it’s seriously good stuff. It’d never fly at Fundy U, but so what?
My husband was a music major back in the day (but at a secular school), and he has taught me a lot about different types of music that I never would have learned in Fundyland.
That is if you can say what is good and what is bad. Or what is better and what is worse. What is high art and what isn’t. That is if you can say that there is a universal level of high art vs low art. If you could say any of that then this man might be a genius. Unfortunately you cannot. Music is a learned appreciation. We like what we’ve been exposed to. It is developed at an extremely early age (before 1 year old) so that by the time we reach an older age we’ve already been conditioned to a certain style of music. African tribal dances might sound odd to you and low art but that is because by the time you were 2 you were conditioned to like triads and Bach styled harmonies. To the African it would sound completely normal and our music likely sounds low or ‘less good.’
What really gets me about the Fundamentalists music position is the arrogance and ignorance that it takes to have that postion (and here I’m talking about Garlock not you John, preference is one thing, but Garlock isn’t arguing preference which is why he is arrogant and ignorant). Essentially Garlock is saying that his style of music is specially ordained by God to the exclusion of other styles. This would be cool if our style of music had been around since the beginning of time, never changed, and or were universal throughout cultures. But that simply is nowhere near the truth. So in the end Garlock is arguing out of an ethnocentric fallacy that one style (my style) is better than any other style. How absurd.
Style is itself content, and as you say, it CAN be bad.
@Mark,
Forget Garlock for a moment, let’s talk BIBLE then….
(BTW if you visit Missions fields you will see still a marked difference in Music that –styles and syncopation etc. between Chrsitians and non-Chrsitians…it IS universal …and I am talking specifically about Africa)
Music should FEED the FAITH – noth the FLESH
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom: teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and SPIRITUAL songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. Colossians 3:16
Many in our modern age have gravitated from great, grand, and glorious hymns to silly choruses that glorify men not God. And of course, the music must be loud enough to break streetlights a block away.
Souls swing and sway while singing three verses of thirty-three times- it’s like chewing gum- a lot of motion but no substance! No NOURISHMENT!
Sing forth the honour of thy name: make his praise glorious. Psalm 66:2
Again, I am not saying i agree %100 with Garlock, I certainly do NOT (Our Church’s music would likely cause hima corenary), just pointing out the parts he got right.
😎
they are called 7/11 songs, you sing the same 7 words 11 times.
@John,
Style would only be bad because you make it bad. We react to style based upon learned cultural responses not because of an inherency to the style itself. Garlock is arguing for a universal truth within music and that simply is not the case. There is no inherently good or inherently bad style. Either the culture defines that or the person does. Either way that makes the entire process subjective and impossible to nail down. One day culture ‘might’ make it bad but the next day they accept it. The latter is what Garlock does *he* is the one objecting to the music. He doesn’t like it so therefore it is wrong. Well since I don’t need to listen to him he will distort and contort scripture to meet his narrative. Pure and simple. Garlock has vered from scripture to personal preference. It is fine if he or you have a preference, but the Bible doesn’t pure and simple.
“(BTW if you visit Missions fields you will see still a marked difference in Music that –styles and syncopation etc. between Chrsitians and non-Chrsitians…it IS universal …and I am talking specifically about Africa)”
Not in the mission field I support. In fact, this was another thing I always hated about Fundy missions. They’d come back and show you pictures and video and the people looked like us they acted like us they talked like us and they sang like us. That IS NOT missions. Maybe your church supports missionaries like that but mine doesn’t. Christ did not listen to Bach, Brahms and Beethoven and not just because they didn’t exist yet. We are called to save people not westernize them. If you really think missions is about Anglicizing their culture than that is just sad.
By the way OLD 100th (Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow) among many other great Hymns of old was originally a French Tune that was included in the French Psalter. The tune would give Garlock a heart attack it was so syncopated. What happend? Well the Brits Anglicized it by taking out the syncopation….because they had a problem with syncopation? Nope because they are just boring. As with most traditions it usually just becomes. Not because God ordained it, but because someone had a preference. Unfortunately with time it becomes a doctrine…and that is sad.
“Many in our modern age have gravitated from great, grand, and glorious hymns to silly choruses that glorify men not God. ”
Now two things. First you are falsely exalting the hymns. I’ll tell you now that there are some that get sung in Fundy land that ain’t so great and ain’t so grand and certainly not glorious. But beyond that you obviously don’t know what truly gets sung in said churches. Oh to be certain many churches lack depth in their congregational singing, but I’ll tell you that not every song with a beat is therefore shallow nor glorifying to man as apposed to God.
My favorite church used 50% hymns 50% contemporary. It was refreshing to worship God using both old and new (the way its been done in churches until the mid 20th century). My current church performed Brahms last Sunday but won’t shy away from newer contemporary things as well. Until this century that never would have been an issue. Outside of Fundyville it still isn’t.
@ Mark
Actually, if your church does the Doxology (hymn tune “Old Hundreth”) the way it’s meant to be done, it’s a nice lilting dance. You are right about what we western music snobs do to music. Find a United Methodist Hymnal and look at what they did to Amy Grant’s and Michael W. Smith’s “Thy Word.” They took all syncopation out and it’s duller than dirt. I call “hymnification” of a song.
@Mark
Until the >i>previous century it was not such a problem for many differnt reasons, some I referred to before.
Remember that RocknRoll and Jazz are new inventions and were rejected by all but the most immoral at first.
Like all things, music waxes “worse and worse” as is evidenced by just looking and listening.
Association is a result of affinity.
It’s really obvious to all but the oblivious.
Sorta like the guy who says “Smoking pot doesnt hurt anybody and it isnt hurting me”
Right.
🙄
@John,
“Remember that RocknRoll and Jazz are new inventions and were rejected by all but the most immoral at first.”
John, the reason why both were rejected early on (particularly jazz) was because of racism. It was seen as n* music. Rhapsody in Blue…yea that went over like a ton of bricks why? Well because the world was racist and refused to accept music brought over and largely performed by people of color. Rock n Roll had a similar issue as well as the fact that the young whiper snappers liked it. But really even your statement is totally false. It was rejected by all the racists, but that didn’t mean that the immoral were the only ones listening.
Fortunately God himself is not a racist and for the most part the US and world has moved on. Jazz is great music. Rock n Roll has developed…and really there isn’t much being created today that categorizes as Rock n Roll. Calling anything with an electric guitar and trapset rock in roll is about as accurate as saying every house is built of wood. Plus both genres have evolved and both are widely recognized today. If there once was a good reason for such a standard today those reasons are gone. Things change and that is ok. History tells us that at some point even the fundiest of fundies will be using electric guitars in their church.
Mark nailed it! As with many fundy golden calves (idolizing pre civil rights acto, or the antebellum south, praising solely white preacher, or criticizing any kinds of music that might have the slightest of associations with something associated with unforgivable blackness, there’s truly a long strain of overt and/or latent (although it’s painfully obv to the unsaved world) racism.
So, John, what do you think about artists like Trip Lee, Lecrae, and Shai Linne? Some of the most doctrinally packed music I’ve ever heard and as my husband says “In their music, Christ is Lord, not their girlfriend” but it’s rap. So is the lyrical content of their music trumped by your “style content”? If you haven’t listened to their 13 Letters series, which is a musical exposition of the Pauline epistles, you should and then let me know what you think. My personal favorite is this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Rny8qet-IQ.
I can somewhat agree with you on the lack of nourishment point simply for the fact that when I’ve spent time listening to music outside of spirituality, I find myself wanting more substance and gravitating back toward it, but that doesn’t make all but spiritual music wrong! I also love music from other religions also, Matisyahu-Hasidic Jewish reggae artist, Trevor Hall- Hindu and nicer and more spiritually focused than most Christians I have ever met by the way, and I can pull Biblical ideals and truth from their lyrics as well even though we believe differently.
God created all of these other cultures and because of that I believe that we should celebrate their art, music, food, dress etc…
FACE THE MUSIC guys.
No box making or trap setting here, just logical discourse.
Not calling anybody in particular immoral or idolatrous, just pointing out that such people like such music because it is appealing to those appettites of destruction 😎
The Rock/rap artist who sits down with the intention of creating a lewd immoral song and then design APPROPRIATE music to acompany it (And there is and isn’t appropriate music) has used creativity for evil.
Not having ANY biblical standard of music is unbiblical.
Saying that having any standard is wrong, is itself , wrong.
I use the Bible to guide me, not my tatses or carnal desires, or maybe that’s just my STYLE 😉
Oh great, not the race card
🙄
Elvis was White, remember? SO where the Beatles? It wasn’t just “where they got their music from”
Honestly guys, it’s like talking to athiests.
Is the Bible not even an issue with you concerning this?
I already pointed out how that in Africa there is a difference–and this is first hand not anecdotal and I ain’t talking about white western music either.
They weren’t playing Brahams, but they knew a voodoo beat and a spiritually benefical beat when they heard one.
So do you.
As for the Christian rap groups mentioned, I have only heard one of them (Lacrae) and couldn’t make out the lyrics–and I was trying.
Again, music is a language that communicates. Words and music should be speaking the same language-not oppossing or obscuring.
BTW I thought the lyrics were really good and I am personally glad they are out there as an alternative, but in no way is the style not a hindernace to the message overall.
To say that it is evangelistically effective is no excuse (and I argue that it isn’t–I spent 4 year sin CCM as an artist and saw the “fruits” of it) for doing more harm than good.
John you can’t see how fundy you are even when you write it yourself. You called a whole group of people immoral and then defend yourself because you didn’t name them by name. John you are a fundy and the more you deny it the more it shows. You post in such a manner that you come across as a holier than thou sanctimonious prig. You are the very definition of a fundy self-anointed, self-appointed m-o-g. You are not funny, you incite but you are not insightful. We don’t all think like you (praise God) and we don’t want to think like you. (Amen?)
That’s rich John, now you are the martyr? Because you stick to the issues? RobM was spot on leading up to your whiney comment. Follow the Money! CCM is a business and the business is to make money in the Christian Music Market. They are in it for the profit and there is nothing wrong with that. Garlock and his ilk are in it for the money as well. If it didn’t pay well they would have gotten real jobs long ago. The difference is CCM is upfront about it, whereas the empire builders call it their due as m-o-g’s.
Just like IFB preaching! No NOURISHMENT!
@John,
The race card could have been played from the very beginning. I hesitated the entire time because I thought you’d understand reality without it. I figured that you’d understand that a style of music cannot be superior over another style of music. But the racist card is absolutely valid in certain situations. The *fact* is that racism had everything to do with Jazz and early Rock n Roll being overlooked, ignored, or castigated by the professional community, decent people, etc.
The fact that there were some white performers doesn’t change the race issue. First they didn’t come until the middle half of the century well into the civil rights era. The fact that young people like Elvis and the Beatles were willing to listen and perform such music is probably a testimony more to the changing tide of culture then to the fact that racism wasn’t involved. But I mentioned Gershwin. That is when you get the real sense of the role race played. Gershwin was white, but he wrote a piece that relied heavily upon Jazz and black music. Today we celebrate Rhapsody in Blue as a triumph of classical music…that is today then it was anything but success. And all the history books will tell you why. It was several decades later that Elvis, the Beatles and many others would come out.
“I already pointed out how that in Africa there is a difference–and this is first hand not anecdotal”
John you realize what anecdotal means right? You have a few stories about how missionaries you know work in Africa. That *is* anecdotal. Now if you can pull a statistically viable sample and it proves your point we might be in business. But really as I already said your missionaries might work that way, but not the ones I support. God did not give the great commission and tag at the end, “by the way clean up their culture, sanitize it, colonialize it and make it sound and look just like you.” What you are describing is bad missionary work.
As for the rest of your post about CCM you have a false dichotomy. You assume that there is the music you like and approve of that comes from your niche group and then there is CCM. So anyone who has a more contemporary style then yourself is therefore CCM and hey that is an easy balloon to pop. Fortunately that isn’t true. CCM is an open field anyone can create music and call it CCM, but not every contemporary piece that a Christian writes falls into this category and not all CCM is pointless, for the music, or vain repetition. There is some great stuff out there. You may think the music mismatches, but as I said that is entirely learned not inherent. I’ll say the same thing to you as I would to Garlock. Keep your preferences to yourself and your church. Leave the rest of us alone. We’ve been given the Holy Spirit for a reason.
@Mark,
You should be ashmaed of yourself you racist.
See how easy that is? Wrong? yes. Easy? also yes. And now the opposition is treated as racist instead of a viable opinion.
It’s okay to admit you have run out of argument.
YOU brought up race to begin with, and have accused everybody outside of your opinion as racists. Now who’s the racist?
Oh, and DOn thanks for admitting I was right about the money issue. Kudos to you.
@John
Tell me where I called you a racist? Tell me where I said that anyone who thinks like Garlock is a racist? Tell me? You won’t find it. What I said was that in the early days Jazz and Rock n Roll was not listened to or widely recognized because of racism. This was because you said that people weren’t listening to it because only the degenerates were listening to it. That simply isn’t true. The music has always been good and little has changed, yet now the music is recognized…what changed?
I never called you or Garlock a racist. Having the opinion that you don’t prefere that type of music doesn’t make you a racist. You can like or dislike any type of music you want. All I said was when Gershwin wrote Rhapsody in Blue why was it not well received? That is because of racism.
Just mentioning race or racism doesn’t mean that anyone is being called a racist. Fact is we had a very dark time in our country. Fortunately we’ve all moved on. Now people are free not to like a type of music. Race is not involved in that preference, but then neither is the Bible…the fact that you think the Bible does say something about it is just sad.
Come back when you learn to read posts with understanding.
I agree. The “better for you” thought is subjective. Personally I like gospel bluegrass better than classical music. For me it is “better” in that it resonates in a special way emotionally. Hard to ‘splain. In additon to the lyrics, the music itself is very uplifting. Once again subjective, personal.
That was @ M.R.
Mark, your comment about missions brought back something that happened on a mission trip to Mexico.
As part of the service, three young local fellows brought their (acoustic) guitars on stage and played an incredible song. I couldn’t necessarily get all the words, but the way they played did some talking for them. They played their hearts out, and the sheer power of their playing and their desire to give it to God could be felt in the room. It was the best, even if it would never have checked at school. Afterwards, our missions director snobbishly pooh-poohed it off. Oh, they’re new believers, they’ll get into line with their music soon enough. WHAT!?
Looking forward to the Garlock troll finding this post on a random google search. I’m guessing this was part Garlock bait?
I could only stomach half, did he get to the part where scripture clearly lays out the use of piano and organ as the only ordained musical instruments to be used in worship? Also I’m curious as to whether he is a red hymnalite or a green hymanlite. If he is in the green hymnal camp I have a hard time believing anything he says.
Please do not check the above post for spelling too closely… 😉
And he’s a premier fundy music standards apologist. In an act of self-torture I listened to this whole series a while back, and it’s all this whacky, some more so. How he gets a pass on making up “facts” out of thin air is beyond me … but that’s not uncommon in fundyland.
(E.g. the planets’ distances from the sun vary throughout each planet’s “year,” and NONE of them is precisely double the distance of their neighbor. Some are hundreds of millions of miles off from being double their neighbor’s distance.)
It would be laughable if so many people didn’t actually look to him for authoritative instruction.
I assumed he was talking about the mean distance (the average over one orbit) from the sun to each planet. But he’s still wrong. See the table I linked to below.
The first statement on this video is patently false. The distance from the sun to each planet is not exactly double the distance from the sun to the next planet nearer the sun. I don’t know where he got this idea, but it’s just plain wrong.
This web page has a table (about halfway down the page) showing the distance from the sun to each planet:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/astronomy/planets/
I’m not very musically literate, but I’m pretty sure it’s also false that each note contains three other notes, or whatever it was he was saying about the musical scale.
He’s getting it mixed up with the formula for the expansion of the universe. I can’t give you specifics because it’s been a couple years since my general astronomy class, but I recognize it.
I knew I could trust someone to find a chart of that. Just a general outline of the solar system you can see visually none of the distances are double anything.
Well he’s not totally off, although I agree it’s a very poor analogy. If he knew anything about harmonics, he would know that the first is an octave. A second voice plays the octave above or below, and you hear a fifth. Third voice plays the fifth and you hear a third, etc. Case in point, each note isn’t made of a major triad. So I hope all you non-music majors made some sense of that. 😛
EVEN IF each note made a triad, the overtone series doesn’t follow equal temperament. So, Garlock’s music still wouldn’t qualify as the only Godly music because all his 5ths and 3rds would be off.
The problem is that I think he does know about harmonics, which means he is deliberately twisting, manipulating, and making up “facts” in order to make his points.
A member of piano faculty at BJU was traveling to a competition, and as the van drove by a rundown abandoned shack, he pointed to it and said, “And on this side of the road we have the Frank Garlock School of Composition!” Even Jonesers know that Garlock is full of it.
I am musically literate and have no clue what he’s talking about. I understand the harmonic series, but equating that to the universe is simply delusional. 🙄
The WordArt style was a nice touch. Much better than something an evil graphic design program would have come up with.
I had to stop at the Stravinsky quote. The idea that Stravinsky was some kind of musical conformist is simply not true. The riots that broke out after the premier of The Rite of Spring attest to this. Darrell, is there some sort of fundy rule by which you have to re-imagine iconoclasts as traditionalists?
Also, I have to admit that I did enjoy the irony that the man Garlock called “the best composer of the 20th Century,” based his most famous piece around a pagan ritual. But we still can’t listen to CCM because of its pagan roots. Gotta love fundy logic.
I THOUGHT that Stravinsky was the Rites of Spring guy. Like he’s usually the one fundies beat nonsensically for believing/practicing musical CHAOS, not following rules maniacally!
Yay, the fundies have totally double standards. I love classical (as well as blues, jazz and some folk), but there isa lot to say about the lives of some composers that the fundies ignore. Tchaikovsky was gay, Chopin was a revolutionary, Liszt a womaniser, Briiten possibly gay, Wagner a neopagan (and possible anti-semite) etc etc. Personally, I say – so what. But the fundie double standard is so obvious.
Also, the moral outrage induced by the introduction of the waltz, especially by Lehar and the Strausses was considerable.
My understanding is that Britten was openly gay, and Wagner was openly anti-Semitic and a German jingoist.
But I don’t think music (without words) can be gay or straight or anti-Semitic or anything else ideological. It’s just music, and it stands or falls on musical terms, not political or philosophical terms.
I made it all the way through…
It’s irritating that he uses the most Homophonic section of Handel’s Messiah as “good” music.
Handel didn’t need a back beat because all of those crazy rhythms that Garlock hates are written in the polyphonic sections.
And repeating things like a mantra? Garlock fails to mention the Amen cadence at the end of Messiah.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32Df_GJMdmo&p=6F0A75124F0A7449&playnext=1&index=13
My choir is singing Messiah this semester.
Maybe I’ve missed it, but the homophobic parts of the Messiah? I remember hearing (am not planning to listen a second time) the Hallelujah Chorus, but I can’t think of anything homophobic about that or the rest of the Messiah. I’ve missed things like that before though. Please enlighten…
read it again slowly, RobM. 😉
Ah N not B. Was curious if I’d missed something all these years. PHEW!
(Dang stupid double reply hosed me again)!
Sorry to laugh at your expense Rob but that was a very funny misread.
Does this guy know that the “style” he loves so much, that communicates the “right” message is the same style that the LDS church loves so much? Seriously, does that mean he wants to associate himself with them?
Quite alright. It was indeed quite amusing. And I was genuinely trying to figure out what I had missed! 🙂 I don’t really even know what homophonic vs whatever other phonic is. 🙂
Homophonic = all voices have the same rhythms. Like hymns, where people can have different notes but say the words at the same time. (Homo = same)
Polyphonic = all voiced have their own distinct line. If you listen to my example above, you’ll hear each of the four voices coming in at different times and doing their own thing until they get to the end. Then they go back to homophony and sing the last Amens together.
(poly =many)
I’m utterly confused on the point he was trying to make in the last half of the video. He presents two songs one each with “traditional” style and one each with more “modern” style (though they still don’t sound anything like we have at my church on Sundays). I’m just not sure what the point of it was? Was he trying to say one style was good and one was bad even though the words and message were the same? Can anyone explain what he was actually trying to express because it made zero sense to me.
He’s leading up to the idea that styles carry with them certain ideas/themes regardless of the words. Eventually, he’ll come out and say that listening to CCM will give you impure thoughts because the rhythms are inherently sexual.
This supports his idea that he can judge what kind of person you are based on your music preferences. So, if you like Jazz, ragtime, blues, and similar things he thinks he could call you an apostate pervert who feeds his flesh.
I know several people who take his word as gospel. They went through his whole series on Wednesday nights at my ex-church and I got several earfuls about the flaws in my musical opinions. 😕
I love old Delta blues, so if the kind of music you like tells what kind of person you are, I must be a black sharecropper in Mississippi, circa 1940. I’d have a tough time convincing anybody of that, though, except for Garlock and his followers.
Garlock like many fundies is trying to establish himself as the follower/teacher of the only true way, and that all other ways lead to chaos and are against God. Those other styles aren’t just different they are EVIL.
PS, there’s some of the few music you can trust you not to turn you into an atheist for sale in the back.
Is a nutritionist wrong or judgemental to tell people that somethings are btter for you to eat than other things?
Or trying to be helpful?
Same goes for “food for thought”
No, a nutrionist wouldn’t be wrong in doing that. He would however, have solid scientific evidence to support his claim that it WAS better for you.
This guy isn’t giving anything other than his opinion. It would be like me telling you that the way to good health is by eating 3 apples everyday while at the same time making sure you abstain from eating pears. You would tell me that I didn’t really know what I was talking about.
In the same vein, if singing “praise songs” leads the singers to a closer, more intense relationship with Christ, shouldn’t we be celebrating that rather than condemning them for it?
@Jon
No disagreement there. If it truly brings you closer, have at it.
My point was that Garlock is doing what he does with the intent to HELP.
Judging his motives to be legalist is itself, legalistic.
Legalism always purports to help.
That’s what is so dangerous about it.
Except Garlock isn’t saying his way is better he’s saying any other way is EVIL. Very few (and extreme) nutritionists would say that bacon is EVIL, it’s just not good for you. And all the “not good for you” claims Garlock makes are generally easily disprovable. Looking at you plants in a room w/ rock & roll music.
He might be doing it because he thinks it helps but he’s actually leading people into bondage. There is a reason that Peter and Paul decided amongst themselves not to put the oppressive rules of the Jews upon the new Gentile believers. It’s because we have FREEDOM in Christ not slavery to a new set of rules.
Seems like at some point in this meeting (in the video) someone should have stood up and told him that what he was preaching was wrong and he should sit down (“let the prophets be subject to the prophets).
I don’t know, this seems a LOT like the system of rules that Jesus spent so much time preaching against while he was here.
Let me clarify though: if hymns, pianos, organs, choirs and the like are the style most conducive for an individual to worship God then that individual should seek out a place where they are doing things that way. To rail against another’s genuinely expressed worship (no matter the style) is just wrong no matter how you slice it.
I know I asked you this on another post and didnt get a response, but didn’t you go to school with Phil Kidd? In the spirit of honesty and love, I must say almost everything you type royally pisses me off. Pray for me. I am just not spiritual enough in my walk to ignore your defense of fundy BS.
@Tony P
I DID reply Tony, you must’ve missed it– and said No, same school but not at the same time, and that Kidd is why I LEFT that school too.
It appears you have a lot of kid and Kidd in you considering your vulgar language and bitterness, (and I am not trying to be fundy, just pointing out an obvious)so yes I will pray for you.
I kind of thought that’s were he was going, his argument makes no logical sense though. I mean if you want to go all biblical then because there are NO musical instruments mentioned in the NT we shouldn’t have them at all in our churches (I know some groups believe this). The idea that his preference in musical style is some how better than another is illogical at best. His quote by Stravinsky about music having rules applies to ALL music. Even rawk music has rules that govern it’s composition. More to the point, where does his biblical proof that pianos, organs, and choir music are of God come from?? It’s a pretty well established idea that MOST hymns were originally based on tunes of pub songs of that day. Even if a tune wasn’t directly stolen from a pub song it certainly was the “style”.
What is it with people from all denominations and faith communities not having to have basic, logical, common sense arguments that are biblically based? Stop trying to “proof-text” everything and start reading what’s ACTUALLY being written.
(Sorry, rant over)
“The Star-Spangled Banner” is sung to the tune of an older drinking song, “To Anacreon in Heaven” (Anacreon being the god of wine).
@Big Gary – didn’t know that. Makes sense though, we Americans are like (personality-wise) a big, loud, rowdy pub crowd! (in both the good and bad ways).
I like how he asks “What changed? The song? The words? The melody?” and he answers himself “No, the style.” Actually, it is a different song with different words and a different melody. Sorta sad when he can’t answer his own question correctly
wow that was boring. I used to have to listen to that in Christian High School.
I got to listen to sermons like these on tape. As punishment for talking about the Beach Boys.
Well PCC girls are really nice
I enjoy the culottes they wear..
And the BoJo girls with all their hose,
They impress me when I preach there.
The man-o-gawd’s daughters really make you feel all right,
I would’ve spent more time with them
but they go on prison extensions at night.
I wish they all could be fundamental
I wish they all could be fundamental
I wish they all could be fundamental girls….
The bible college has the spirit
and the girls all get so pure
I like a gentle helpmeat,
like clones lined up in the pews.
I’ve seen all the knowledge in the world
and I’ve seen all kinds of sin
but I couldn’t wait to get back to Fundy U,
Back to the most sheltered girls in the world.
I wish they all could be fundamental
I wish they all could be fundamental
I wish they all could be fundamental girls….
(Doesn’t rhyme exactly, but neither does the original song.
)
Perfect. 😎
What’s this? I’ve found an Internet. You may have it.
Mmmm . . . help meat.
Brava! Brava!
Ah N not B. Was curious if I’d missed something all these years. PHEW!
He’s done the same schtick for 40 years. Isn’t time to retire? Your son-in-law can cover for you.
Where can I sign up for a class in Garlockian Logic? I gather it’s a very esoteric discipline.
Does anyone know whether he ever argues his case before a critical audience?
Certainly not while he’s being recorded!
And then he probably distributes the recordings to churches he doesn’t know. (Where people might actually question him.) It’s hard to demand explanations from a recording.
I just died a little inside. Here is the thing. If you do real research, and you start looking at the very core of how we cognate music. I’m talking fundamental core you’ll quickly learn that there are no universal universals 🙂 to music. We like what we like, we understand what we understand, and we respond how we respond due to learned cultural queues, queues that are learned at a very early age. You’ll learn that there is no special anatomy or physiology to our hear or auditory system that makes western *style* better or superior to any other style. If you couple that with studying various cultural styles of music you’ll learn some eye opening things. And it all comes down to this. Western music has no special or mystic properties that makes it better or superior from other music. And that there are far more styles and variations to scales, rhythm and even the fundamental organization of music itself (music theory) then what western music represents. IOW western style music is but a blip in time and geography that we still use because we’ve been programmed by culture to use and react to.
So…understanding that basically what this man is saying is this. God ordained in the Bible before western music was even able to be invented that all music following the Bible for all time and all eternity ought to adhere to standards that yet would be developed over thousands of years and in *one* cultural context to the exclusion of the millions of other cultural contexts including those cultural contexts that existed in both the old and new testament (basically he is saying that if Jesus listened to music and sang music in the Bible he’d be sinning).
It is not just absurd to call Western style music God ordained it is just plain outright arrogance and ethnocentricity to the point of nausea. If western music were truly God ordained there would be clues for this within our anatomy or physiology. One would also guess that most other cultures would trend towards that way of organizing notes and that hierarchy. Instead we find the opposite. Our style of music is learned not physiological and this style of music is one small blip compared to the music of the world.
If you want some very good, albeit very heady, information on music cognition that would help enlighten you on this topic read this http://www.amazon.com/Music-Language-Brain-Aniruddh-Patel/dp/0199755302/ref=pd_4 I wish I had read this in college. Boy did it clear up a lot in my head.
Totally agree! 😎
I took music psychology in college. Really fun class that challenged a lot of my perceptions.
HAY-MEN!
(no, seriously, that was great!)
George was in my mouse, making me hit the wrong reply button. 😳
I see this George is getting more and more in the occult. 😐
@ Mark – very well said!!
Very well put, Mark. Which means, all Garlock has done is tell the choir that serious Western music composed mainly by white dudes is superior than any other thing on the planet. Mmm.
They don’t grasp true grace and virtue, so they have to invent false virtues. False virtues are handy tools. They feed your ego while giving you excuses to alienate and demonize the people Christ died for.
Oops. Got an error message after the first one. Sorry for the double post.
@Pita, do I have your permission to repost this? That’s GOOD!
Sure, PW. LOL – I tried to keep it shorter than usual. 😳
@Mark, Don’t agree with you about science, but I must say some very good points here. Touch’e
@Greg…totally understand the science thing. But at least we can agree on certain things 🙂
Bravo!
Don’t you feel sorry for God? Until Bach came along, he had no music he could really enjoy listening to!
Also the planets don’t actually have circular orbits. They orbit in an elipsis which is to say that there is no *exact* distance from the sun. It varies depending upon their solar year. I’ve actually looked through NASA, but this table is easier and pretty accurate http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_distance_of_all_planets_from_the_sun
Even if you take the median distance from the sun and double it by the time you get to earth you’ve overshadowed the maximum distance earth is from the sun by well over 50 million km. That is a far cry from exact especially since the orbit itself isn’t exact to begin with (failed from the beginning). At Jupiters closest orbit to the sun it is over 3x the distance of Mars’ furthest and that assumes that those two distances (max and min) line up more than once every few thousand years.
Someone give this guy a real education. Eastman is a great music school, but apparently it was horrible at science and musicology not to mention cognition etc.
If those eliptical (sp?) orbits were to make an actual music notes Garlock is implying they make it would sound more like the riff in Humpty Dance than whatever Hymn/Harmony Garlock thinks they would sound like! 🙂
I wonder if he ever got busy in a Burger King bathroom? Or do you think he likes his oatmeal lumpy? 😀
Glad to not be the only fan of such wonderful music! 🙂
Ah, but Eastman is a good music school, which is why he mentions it so much. He’s name-dropping in order to give better credibility to the nonsense he’s spewing. I doubt he learned any of this drivel from that school, or any school for that matter. Even at BJU, after his presentations, our conversations in the music faculty lounge were centered around one question: “Um, what was he talking about?” with the implied question being, “And was he on LSD when he ‘discovered’ these ‘facts?'”
Actually, I know someone whose father-in-law was at Eastman when Garlock was there. He never heard of Garlock. Now, I’m not saying Garlock didn’t go there, but the way the BOB publishes their faculty’s CV, he may have only been there for a workshop or class or 2.
Saw a Xianity Tweet the other day. It said something like Dr. Frank Garlock hopsitalized(something about heart trouble)for accidently tapping his foot on the off-beat.
WOW… boring church service! Glad I wasn’t there!
I didn’t hear alot of Bible being taught. I listened to the next three videos and heard more from “experts” but not the Bible, but then at the end he tells us to decide our music on the Bible’s principles.
Not everything he said is out in left field (or right field). Music is a language that communicates. When the words and the music are speaking the same language, then you have appropriate music.
Well put.
Wrong. Music communicates only emotion, and it does a pretty poor job at that (try asking a room of people to decide on precisely what feeling a given piece conveys). So yes, it might be possible to have a mismatch between the intellectual (verbal) and emotional (musical) communication in a song, but that would just be bad music, it wouldn’t be evil. Besides, when Garlock is talking about such mismatches, he’s not talking about a song that sings of the joys of salvation set to a mournful tune (though I can think of a few hymns with mismatches like that). He wants to say that a style of music is flat-out evil. Style has nothing to do with emotional communication, and most styles can be used to communicate most emotions. None of those are inappropriate or evil. The rapture will probably happen before fundamentalists ever begin to understand this concept.
Well said, and I’d add that what music communicates is learned culturally not inherent universality. IOW our reaction to music is based upon our experience and cultural upbringing not the inherent principles of the music itself. Garlock believes that the music inherently have certain properties just like our solar system supposedly has certain properties. Unfortunately sound research and science completely disagrees with that fact. Good music is only good because we like it and are comfortable with it. Someone from a different cultural context would have completely different feelings.
When music is involved, Fundies are quick to quote experts and slow to quote the Bible. When it comes to creation/evolution, Fundies are quick to quote the Bible and slow to quote the experts.
P.S. I believe in creation not due to science, I believe because of faith.
Stuff Fundies Like: discounting anything said by the darkened minds of unregenerate people… but then using their quotes as an example of profound insight to support their arguments
So simple, yet so profound. I can’t figure out why I didn’t realize this when I was younger…except maybe that I was so afraid to question the system. Too bad; waste of life. :/
If I had to listen to any more barbershop quartets (God’s other ordained style of music), I was going to go insane.
My wife already did. I used to listen to “The Brothers” from Hyles Anderson all the time. You know the one that has that really high pitched singer and the really low pitched singer. They weren’t even real brothers.
She hated them. She just wanted to listen to her Greg Long cds and some other guy (BJ something.. not Bob Jones.. maybe BJ Thomas or something?) but since I had never heard of them, I said they were not God honoring. I was such a nark.
Now, we both enjoy Casting Crowns, Kutless, FFH, and she likes some of the less punk Supertones and Five Iron Frenzy. I still don’t like Greg Long (but it’s because he is better looking than me, and my wife sits and stares at the cover haha – just kidding, she loves me)
Ugh, this whole “only one narrowly-defined and recently originated style of music is pure and holy and God-pleasing and the rest will send you straight to hell even though nothing in scripture explicitly addresses this issue” crap is one of my biggest pet-peeves. Fortunately I was never really subjected to this pathetic excuse for theology but I had the misfortune of being at a friend’s house and watching a video on why rock music (including CCM) is the devil’s music. *Vomit*
Seriously, if it was that big a deal wouldn’t you think Jesus might have spent some time talking about it? Instead he just wasted his earthly years of ministry talking about love and grace and stuff. Silly Jesus, dropping the ball like that.
I can’t stop now, my ire has been raised. Know what REALLY bothers me about this schtick? It’s just another facet of fundydom’s famous Culture of Fear. It seems that the goal is to take any minor issue at hand and somehow manipulate it into being some great hellish attack against your eternal soul. It’s music! No more, no less.
*Breathes deeply*
Better now.
Like. Really like.
I thought he was explaining the ‘Close Encounters” tones there for a moment…Then he quoted some one from Notre Dame and The New York Times . Totally invalidates his “conservative” viewpoints
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUcOaGawIW0
Where would Weird Al Yankovic fall on the “Christian” to “Satan’s” music scale?
Weird Al’s lyrics are [fairly] clean, but his music has a backbeat, so it’s clearly straight from the pits of hell. 😈
Well, he *is* a Jew…
Actually I don’t think he is. At least not according to Wikipedia.
He isn’t. Father was of Yugoslav descent, but I can’t tell if he was Croatian, Slovene, or Serbian. First two would likely mean Catholic, the last would be Orthodox. Since his mother was of Italian descent, odds are he grew up Catholic.
In any event, he keeps his shows family-friendly. I saw him a few years back, and he was a hoot.
I’ve got to like anybody who goes by the name “Weird Al.”
Never mind Weird Al, how about Spike Jones? He made fun of classical music.
I’ve loved Spike Jones since I was a kid. I have some of the old collections of Spike Jones and His City Slickers.
Same here..and my kids love him too !
My upbringing was anything with drums is wrong. The beat feeds the flesh (not the sinful nature, but the literal flesh…Fundies also conflate those two regardless).
Also, the performance of the song was of the greatest importance. Singing breathily, vocal riffs to show off your talent, etc. was all wrong.
All this is is personal preference with no TRUE Scriptural support.
As a musician, I have done a good amount of study over the years on what is “good” music and what is “bad” music.
To me, the “best” music is the music that maximizes and combines the different traits that music as one of the Arts can potentially carry.
It is known that classical music is commonly accepted as the “best” music civilization has produced. It usually the musical genre (often called serious music) that best combines traits such as beauty, technical achievement, variety of musical forms (not just songs, but the symphony, sonata, rondo, opera, scherzo, etc.) overall attracts the most accomplished musicians, and the style that has most improved music as an art form over the centuries.
However, I am NOT saying that Rock, Pop, Jazz etc. are bad. I am just asking you for a moment to think about the form that by-and-large these styles utilize. The SONG.
A song can be beautiful (many of the best pieces we have today are songs), but a song is very small compared to the larger forms possible in music. That is why a composer distinguishes himself (and proves himself a master of his art) if he produces larger forms. That is why Rock and Pop are at a disadvantage. They are working from a form that is already limited. Most songs you hear on the radio are only 2 1/2 to 3 minutes. It does not demand much of the listener… or the writer of the song. Often in Rock and Pop music, you will not find all the qualities that music can potentially have because the writer only concerns himself with the base problem of “does this sound like a catchy tune?”. There is MUCH more to music than that.
Occasionally writers in these more accessible, commercial styles can write a work of such beauty that it is on a equal plane with classical music, (see many songs by the Beatles, certain songs by Billy Joel, Nillsohn, Chicago, Carol King etc.) but this is a rarity.
Don’t misunderstand me. I LOVE Rock and Jazz and Pop, listen to it almost daily. But it is very telling that I can easily “get” a 2 minute rock song by Billy Joel but most people can’t make it through a Symphony by Beethoven. It simply requires a different level of knowledge, familiarity with the music, and ability to follow musical development etc.
Classical music is the “best” overall combination of music’s greatest qualities in one genre of music. Rock and Pop (by virtue of the the tiny form they utilize) cannot hope to compete in any way on a serious level with it…although that doesn’t make it “bad” or “morally wrong”.
I TOTALLY disagree with Garlock about the morality of music. His insistence that the beat determines the morality of a song is just simply untrue. Music can be “morally wrong” if the lyrics talk about killing you mother etc. (however, that is the words) but the argument that somehow he can tell you if a piece is “bad” is stupid. The only “bad” pieces are the ones that are poorly written and performed.
A pop song and a Mozart concerto are both music in the same way that a newspaper comic strip and a van Gogh painting are both art.
They have their place and their intended audience — but only one of them can be rightly called a masterpiece.
Like the great works of Dilbert, Garfield, The Wizard of ID and Snuffy Smith. I totally agree with you on this one Darrell. 😀
What no Peanuts?! 😯
Don’t forget that Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach WAS pop music in their day. Just like Shakespeare’s theater was a place where commoners went and paid to see a good story, just like a modern theater, not a place that literary scholars valued (they were too busy studying the Greco-Roman classics to bother with any of this modern-theater kitsch). And of course, the fundies of the day viewed Shakespeare as ungodly trash and even managed to shut down his theaters for a while, as I recall.
For those upthread who think that “classical” music is ascetic whereas “modern” music is sensual, they apparently don’t listen to opera…and if they do, they must not understand the language. And don’t get me started on the deep and beautiful sensuality in a lot of Baroque music…nor is sensuality evil (the Song of Songs comes to mind).
At PCC, I always felt like smacking my head when someone would lift up the hymns they sing (“Oh that will be glory for me! glory for me! glory for me!”) as SO DEEPLY spiritual and full of meaning, whereas CCM (say, Michael Card singing Psalm 23 or 121, or Casting Crowns) is SO shallow and meaningless. 🙄
@Darrell
That’s what I’ve been trying to say
You said it better
If you are insinuating that all music won’t be held up to the ABBA standard I must take my stand here sir! 😉
I disagree. Comparing a symphony to a pop song and using that as proof for “classical” music is like comparing a yummy juicy apple to a slimy rotten pear and saying that apples are better than pears.
Schumann, Schubert, Hugo Wolf, Wagner, Mahler, Faure, Debussy, Ravel, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and many others wrote art songs that are similar in time duration to pop songs. I admit that many of these songs are part of the longer form of the song cycle, but most of them stand alone.
Haydn and Mozart made great strides for the art song and Beethoven wrote the first Song Cycle (An die Ferne Geliebte). They thought the song a valid form of musical expression, so to dismiss it because of a few bad examples (or decades/centuries depending on how picky you are) is a bit presumptuous.
And saying that a composer is great because he distinguishes himself in the larger forms is wrong. Schubert’s and Schumann’s Songs require an intense collaboration between pianist and performer, making them extremely difficult to interpret correctly. Just like listening to a longer form (such as the sonata or symphony) they require an educated listener who can follow the interplay between vocalist and pianist and understand the symbolism behind certain musical and/or poetic phrases.
/Lecture. I took a course on the history of the Art Song in college. 🙂
I don’t think anyone would consider the Art Song or song format as unworthy. It’s also important to remember that most of the art song composers you mentioned we’re well-rounded composers who distinguished themselves by their ability to compose in several different forms. That’s what made them masters of their art.
Although the art song might be similar in duration to a pop song, there is a difference in quality, as is evidenced by the name “art” song. Pop songs are songs of the people, the musical descendant of the folk song…music to work to, drive to, dance to, etc. There’s nothing wrong with that at all, but the purpose is different. That’s why pop music, similar to pop art, is easily accessible, easily marketed and commercialized. Like you said, to fully appreciate an art song, you have to be a somewhat educated listener. I would suggest that that is not so with a pop song. Really, its the quality (I mean musical quality – nothing to do with morality) that sets any piece of music above others, not necessarily.
I meant for that last line I posted to say “not necessarily duration.” Somehow I forgot to add the last word!
My response was to David Hume’s remark that classical composers distinguished themselves by writing in “larger” forms, which isn’t true. Like you said, most (not all!) composed in many genres. That’s why I pointed out that Art Songs last about the same amount of time as pop songs. I wasn’t saying that they are the same.
And there are composers that mostly composed Art Songs. I believe Hugo Wolf is one, but I don’t have my Music History textbook to double check.
I see your classical symphonies and raise you 40-minute-long epic progressive metal…whatever they call them.
Or, for the best of both worlds, Symphony and Metallica.
Yes! (no, I mean the band)
I used to lament that there was no “Christian Progressive Rock” (at least that I was aware of), but now I listen to Dream Theater, Symphony X, etc. without [much remaining] guilt. 😈
yea, if it moves your feet before it moves your heart, watch out.
What if it moves your head? 😈
Josh: Hubby and I should adopt you 🙂
One other thing to add. Garlocks position and anyone who sees merit in it. It is about as valid as the KJVO position. The idea that somehow God specially ordained a version of the Bible or a style of music both of which had yet to be invented is just crazy. And then to somehow think that any culture/language outside of the KJVO or Western music is therefore wrong or of less value is just absurd. Western Music couldn’t exist during the Bible and English wasn’t even a language. Yet some how we believe that today at this given time KJV is the only version and Bach and Brahms are the only valid styles God approves of. Even if Garlock doesn’t believe in KJVO his beliefs in music is the KJVO of music.
“Don’t forget that Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach WAS pop music in their day.”
This statement is simply not true.
Bach wrote exclusively for the Church, which was FAR from accessible from the common peasant in the village.
Mozart wrote for the social elite of his day. The people attending his operas and hearing his new compositions were of the highly educated class. There was no middle class for Mozart to write for. The lower classes simply didn’t have access to this music on the level that the elite did. The only way was through the church. And often times the church put so many restrictions on what was “acceptable” (sound familiar?) that it was difficult for for composers to further their art.
Haydn wrote the overwhelming majority of his music for the Esterhazy estate. Esterhazy was a very educated royal that did much to encourage the furthering of the Arts.
Beethoven also wrote for the “elite” although he at the same time despised them. He paved the way for the musician to brake free for the need to have a “benefactor” in order to live and work.
The “popular” music you are talking about would have been the folk songs of the people. Even Beethoven had people ridicule his music as “too dissonant” and “not understandable” and “musical excrement” by those who had no true knowledge and appreciation of the arts.
Your statements about Shakespeare are true. But remember the spoken word is MUCH more accessible to the masses because of its medium. Music is very hard to categorize. Not at all like The spoken word. Music’s “meaning” is very elusive.
Interesting post David Hume(Is that actually your real name?)
Didn’t realize that about the musicians; thanks for the correction. My field is the written word.
Still don’t agree with Garlock, though. I enjoy a Western classical, but I don’t view it as morally superior to music from other times and cultures, including our own.
I’ve had all day to reflect on this post and I’ve been remembering some good ones from my childhood.
“If it moves your feet before it moves your heart, it has no place in church”
“The difference between heavy metal and light rock is the same as the difference between beer and whiskey: they’ll both kill you but one will do it quicker”
“Cows give less milk if rock n roll is played in the milk barn”
So I guess satan hates milk? Or was this experiment done on Fundy cows?
And on a side note, I was listening to Alistair Begg the other day and he said he always asked young people at the mall what they were listening to on their headphones. He then proceeded to rail against what the kids were listening to these days and began to defend his obsession with the Beatles saying I wanna hold your hand is nothing like I want your sex which I’d like to point out came out in 1987.
I hate what the kids are listening to these days as well and as much as I would like to think that it is because it all sucks (I think it does), it is probably just because I am getting old (I am.)
By the way…. sorry for the rabbit trail.
I actually met Grank Garlock not too long ago. Nice enough guy…. recruited me to write for Majesty Music. He obviously had no idea that I think he’s the “Kent Hovind” of the music biz.
“He obviously had no idea that I think he’s the “Kent Hovind†of the music biz.”
Classic. I was just thinking the same thing.
This thread is a great example of why fundies hate blogs. Fundyism is all about the Ruling Class- to borrow a phrase Darrell used recently under a picture with a white piano that I could not see for forever- dictating to their followers what to believe. Here on this thread we have a wide variety of responses from people who care passionately about music and from others concerned about music’s impact on the church and, among other things, a great song from Lizzy (thanks for sharing; it made my day). The collective wisdom of the body of Christ makes the self-anointed bright lights of fundyism appear very dim indeed. Fundies only appreciate the Internet when they can squelch any dissenting voices.
That’s why I like it here. Except for a few trolls, the personal attacks are kept to a minimum and people argue reasonably well. I always feel like my IQ is rising a few micro-points every time I come here. 😎
Why are fundies as a whole so hostile towards musicians, actors, performers, dancers, filmmakers and tattoo artists and other “artistic” careers? Why are they so set against creativity?
It’s the carnality not the creativity that is the concern.
Unless the creativity is “Christian” (as defined by the Fundy rules of Art and Creativity) then it is carnal, and worldly and has no value. Art must portray Christian themes and only Christian themes. Forget the fact that God told us to love him with all our heart, all our strength, all our soul and all our mind. God made us in His image, Imago Dei, and he gave us minds with which to think and create. I recently heard a speaker, and I wish I had his name to give him prpper credit but he said, “God is honored and glorified just as much when I create, or think, as He is when I pray. When I study as when I read scripture, for He is glorified when I use the gifts He has given me.” (paraphrased)
But the fundy declares, “God loves my standard best!” And they proceed to speak for God and declare themselves the standard bearer for the Almighty. Disciples of Diotrephes who declare their subjective preferences are essential doctrine.
So Don,
…is ANY creativity carnal?
Is ALL creativity good then?
Yes, the man who created the gun was evil and carnal and anyone that owns one… well….
This feels like you’re trying to lay some kind of fundamentalist trap tactic that is only clever to other fundy drones, but I’ll take the bait and run with it. Creativity is a good thing in and of itself, I’m surfe you can come up with corrupt uses of creativity, but the Creator God designexd us to be creative as part of being his Image Bearers. IDK how fundies can pull a 6 literal 24 hour day creation out of Genesis, and miss one of the main points like that. I’ll happily go so far as NT Wright, and say that creative works of music, art, dance, etc are not just the fancy cherry on top of the main thing (preaching) that many treat them as, but are deeply meningful ways of our expressing ourselves to God and others, of summing up the glories of creation back to God, and telling the redemptive story to the world.
@John
Why does it have to be ANY or ALL? Can not each one discern? Are we not led by the Holy Spirit? Can we not listen to our conscience? Can we not use the wisdom God has given us and listen to His voice inside of us to make decisions?
Why must everything be put into a neat little box and why must you be the one deciding which boxes are good and which are bad for everyone?
It’s funny, God gave man the instinct to tap his/her foot to a beat that is pleasurable as well as the built in ability to bob your head and move your body to a beat…and it is evil? If one were honest, only the *content* of one’s speach is regulated (Phil 4)and there are no prohibitions to dancing or anything regulating what KIND of music we are listen to and if there are it’s only infered or as the preference of the Preacher, evangelist, Sunday School teacher spoken as if God said it Himself…then this becomes idolatry. In the end, what we have is a Fundamentalist-Talmudic Christianity, a sorta “fence” around The Faith…”if you don’t break our rules, you won’t be violating the rules of the Faith”.
Ultimatly, preaching standards constantly is really showing a lack of confidence in the Holy Spirt to govern the lives of the Believer and a lack of trust in the flock to be sensetive to the Leadership of the Holy Spirit. Some may protest and say that preaching standards is biblical and should be a staple of the church, to exclude preaching of standards would cast the church into godless living and so forth and give examples of preaching standards by the Apostle Paul. However, one would be hardpressed to find the same type of standards Paul preached and what is passed off as “standards” today. As a matter of fact, any argument over preferences can be answered with a simple question: “How do you know?” If some Preacher is going to lord over you, you have the right and responsibility to make that man PROVE his case and NOT by inference, fourth hand knowledge or by cramming a string of passages together and out of context. If the said Preacher resorts to “I’m the MoG and you need to be submissive”, well, you have a first class hireling who thinks he’s some sorta Prophet trying to make it big in the Fundamental subculture.
John you missed the point again in your rush to “provide balance.” Your god in a box mentality is showing.
Why? Because most are afraid to admit that, deep down, they like much of what they condemn. It’s peer pressure under the giant thumb of Fundamentalism.
FACE THE MUSIC guys.
No box making or trap setting here, just logical discourse.
Not calling anybody in particular immoral or idolatrous, just pointing out that such people like such music because it is appealing to those appettites of destruction
The Rock/rap artist who sits down with the intention of creating a lewd immoral song and then design APPROPRIATE music to acompany it (And there is and isn’t appropriate music) has used creativity for evil.
Not having ANY biblical standard of music is unbiblical.
Saying that having any standard is wrong, is itself , wrong.
“Nonsense poopy pants!” There’s about as much logic in your discourse as there was in the witch trial scene in Monty Python’s Holy Grail.
So instead of calling specific individuals immoral, you’re calling everyone in the thread who’s expressed any affinity at all for modern music immoral. Attempting to argue around this only makes you look like even more like the self-righteous bigot that you are.
Yet an artist could create an instrumental rock sock, or they could write wholesome lyrics to rap or rock or country accompaniment, and it would be a perfectly good use of creativity. Of course, you won’t agree, but my salvation and right standing with God depends on Him only, not on the approval of petty, small minded individuals who try to force the world to live inside the minuscule box that they’ve prepared for themselves.
Not having any Biblical standard of architecture is unbiblical? NO! You talk about logic, yet you clearly wouldn’t know it if it hit you on the head.
An instrumental rock song, not an instrumental rock sock. George, I vote you off the island!
george sorry, george apologize… still friends 😕
The Rock/rap artist who sits down with the intention of creating a biblical, moral song and then designs APPROPRIATE music to acompany it… has used creativity for good. “What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.” KJV for you, John.
Shudder. I remember those sermons, and bought them hook, line, and sinker way back when. Now I enjoy all kinds of music, depending on the occasion or the mood I’m in. Love http://www.pandora.com Gasp! Pandora’s box open?
On a serious note, I have a very difficult time finding a church I’m comfortable with because everything is so darn loud. Love CCM, but don’t love it loud. Don’t like organs too loud. Same with hymns, rock music, whatever. The loud volume hurts my ears, and makes me so nervous (because of my upbringing, loud=angry). I have to pick between going into a service after the music (which rather defeats the purpose of going to church), or not go at all. Mostly the latter these days. And my husband has tinnitus, and actually suffered measurable hearing loss from our old church. Our profoundly DEAF daughter suffered physical pain from the volume. (Did you know that the hearing impaired suffer more pain from loud sounds because their inner ear is already damaged? But I digress…) Loud music — the new forbidden subject in the churches where we live. It you don’t want to damage your hearing, you’re an old foggie (sp?) or told “just wear ear plugs”. Hmm, you want to deaf kid to wear ear plugs? Ooookaaayyy…
I know this distracts from the real thread here, but I’d like to know some of your thoughts. I have no problem with a variety of church worship music, but I’ve almost given up on going to church. There’s a hearing loss epidemic out there, folks, and many churches are burying there heads in the proverbial sand. Please consider the link: http://www.hear-the-world.com/en/experience-hearing.html
Arguing over styles of music seems to me a waste of time. But hearing loss is nothing to take lightly. From my daughter: “I do find it shocking though that other people, who still have that gift of normal hearing are so flippant with protecting their hearing”.
Our building’s not very big, so we’ve probably sometimes gotten too loud, but I know we’re not doing it on purpose! I just wish more of the offended ones would just let us know so we can adjust the sound level. Instead I’ve seen people walk out or complain about it later or refuse to come back to church. I wish they’d just slip over to the sound booth and say they thought it was too loud. We’re all just amateurs (it’s a little church.) We’re not going to perfect. We need some input.
Now, if they’ve already come to us and we refused to hear them or were rude or unaccomodating, I wouldn’t blame them for stepping out, but we’re not that way, and I wish people would just come to us with their request. Then again, if 98% of the people are OK with the sound, maybe the one with sensitive ears should wear earplugs.
I totally get the loud = angry thing too! For me, it’s more loud voices than loud music though.
Anyway, we’re all part of the body and should all be loving each other and meeting each others’ needs – and some people might need it a little more quiet!
I don’t think most do it (crank up the volume) to purposely hurt someone. But I think our culture is, as a whole, blissfully unaware of the facts regarding hearing loss. We did approach the sound techncian, as respectfully as possible. He was really nice about it, and adjusted the settings to a safer lever — still plenty loud. So then, a lot of people jumped all over the poor guy for turning “our music” down. Then we were told to wear ear plugs or “get over it”. Nice. Ear plugs for the deaf kid? You don’t know how we have agonized over this situation.
I’m glad to hear that you are sensitive about the volume. But I wonder, do you know for sure that some did not indeed ask for the volume to be turned down? Your comment is striking: “Then again, if 98% of the people are OK with the sound, maybe the one with sensitive ears should wear earplugs.” Are 98% of the people who are okay with the (loud) sound aware that they will very likely loose part of their precious sense of hearing? 1 out of 5 teenagers aleady have hearing loss.
I respectfully disagree with your premise. Would you say that if 98% of the people don’t mind others smoking during the service, that the ones who have sensitive noses should wear masks? It’s the same thing. It makes me so sad. We’re taught to take care of our “temples”, we watch our diets, try to avoid cigarette smoke, put on sunscreen, etc. But we happily risk losing the precious gift of hearing. I cringe when I see small babies in a service with high decibel levels. Their little ears are so vulnerable!
In its landmark study, “The Impact of Untreated Hearing Loss on Household Income,” The Better Hearing Institute estimated that the annual cost in lost earnings due to untreated hearing loss was $122 billion, with the Federal government losing $18 billion in taxes… also reports that America’s hearing loss population is growing at a rate of 160% of the overall population growth.”
Encourage your friends and family to spend just a few minutes with this page and hear what damaged hearing sounds like. I still can’t listen to it often; it hurts too badly because of my daughter, and so many like her.
Maggie: I hear ya! Really, I do, my rock-band past notwithstanding. At over-loud Christian concerts, I’ve often thought, “If the light guy aimed the lasers at people’s retinas, he’d be arrested. Why is it okay for the sound guy to do the aural equivalent?” That said, ever sat near the horn or percussion section of a full orchestra? 😯
The percussion section? Not on purpose! 😉 But I went to an outdoor summer concert, and found myself right next to cannons, ready and waiting to fire during the 1812 overture.
Please pass this forward:
http://www.hear-the-world.com/en/recognize-hearing-loss/what-hearing-loss-sounds-like.html
Wow, this reminded me of every sermon I ever heard in fundy land. It’s just craziness that doesn’t make sense to me. Yet, you see this guy is so obviously pleased with his perceived cleverness.
I heard him at bju several times. His powerpoints were always atrocious. Poor guy. Needs to just give it up….maybe get a real job.
Not sure you meant to, but therein is the reason really dumb, arcane, and truly marginalized ideas/teachings/etc persist: the propogaters of such have built lucrative careers out of maintaining and perpetuating them. Garlock has built an empire around tricking people into what is an obviously counter nature and logic trap, whether he realizes it or not, he’s now deeply financially incentivized to never ask if he’s been right or not, in fact is deeply financially, emotionally, and (I’m guessing he thinks) spiritually as well invested in not ever honestly evaluating the teachings he’s perpetuating.
Yeah, just like CCM artists
Actually, John, wrong again.
Here in Nashville, we used to have a fellow around named Steve Camp. You’ve never heard of him, I’m sure, but he was a Christian rocker back in the 80s. Even though he was quite the popular person, he re-examined a few things in his life including his music. He realized some of his early theology wasn’t so hot and started challenging the system. I even had a poster of his updated “95 theses” (which turned into 107) back at my old apartment.
( http://www.a1m.org/page.php?page=template10.php&pageid=fcf54d19dd342ec4d0b163b23018f777 if you’d like a look at the theses. )
There are a few more out there like him.
LmcC,
You say:
” Steve Camp. You’ve never heard of him, I’m sure,”
Yeah actually I most certainly have, and used to own some of his music. Also familiar with Phil Keaggy and some of his commnets on CCM. How presumptous of you.
Though he and I would disagree on degrees, I wish there were more like him.
So ..what’s your point?
I’m supposing you refer to RobMs last line?
My point was that it was wrong to say such about Garlock, trapped in a financial system etc. as if it didn’t apply to CCM also—it does and Camp proves it.
Not trying to come across harsh, but y’all treat me like some backwoods uneducated hillbilly and then smugly congratulate yourselves on doing such–when you are wrong not only in doing so, but in the facts themselves.
I used to play in a Christian Rock band locally and subscribed to CCM magazine and went to concerts….in fact I saw TobyMac live this past July.
I love most of what Casting Crowns does and play their songs on guitar (!) at Church (!)
😯
So lay off it please, and stop the insults and stick to the issues.
Thanks
Not presumptuous, just recognizing that you believe yourself to be so much more spiritual than the rest of us. You should be pleased that I did not link you with some of the things that some of the rest of us like (well, those of us over 30, anyway… ).
Wait, what? YOU? In a Christian rock band? And you still look down on us?
Wow, and people thought I was odd.
Presumptuous again, I do not think myself “so much more spiritual than the rest of us.”
Or “look down on” you. I am a sinner saved by grace and struggling like the rest of the saved people here (and by admittance, not all are saved). That’s all.
Why is a disagreement here met with so much judgement and labeling?
@John, “Why is a disagreement here met with so much judgement and labeling?”
I think there’s a backlash from your first comments and how you first presented yourself.
Most of us come from churches that taught that you probably weren’t even saved if you were in a CCM band! Many of us wouldn’t ever dare openly admit we liked Casting Crowns lest we be fired from teaching at our Christian school, much less go to a Christian concert. My parents refused to let me listen to Steve Green in the house (and I hadn’t even heard of him until my boyfriend at BJU let me listen to his tapes – during winter break because you could be shipped for listening to that music in college). You’ve experienced a LOT more Christian liberty than most of us ever have, and you don’t seem to understand how being raised from childhood under extremely rigid legalism affects people. (Sorry to repeat this from another post. I just wanted to share with John why people might be frustrated.)
What PW said.
If you want us to stop treating you like you think you’re better than everyone else, more spiritual than everyone else (and therefore begging to be taken down a few pegs), then quit acting like it.
Quite honestly, you do come off as someone who thinks you’re all that and a bag of chips. Which, of course, makes it that much more interesting when someone you have treated as less than you ends up getting under your skin.
@Pastors wife
Agreed about the backlash. I have contemplated star
ting all over agin under a new name, but I wanted to see if I would be treated with grace and forgiveness after apologizing.
Sad that so many have been hurt by their past (though it was good enough to lead you into the Kingdom to begin with)
but I have lived long enough to see many who ran away (and into the arms of liberalism) see the rror of their ways and come back to common sense Chrsitianity.
There is such a sense of bitterness against parents here that saddens me, though i am not surprised as I have seen what you say to be so in many cases.
That doesnt justify the attitude or actions, but it explains it.
🙁
LMcC
Acting like I care what the Bible says? That’s my crime ? Well then take me away cuz I plead guilty.
Who have I treated as less than me?
And if anybody gets “under my skin” be sure and let me know, okay? 😉
That is the kind of catch-all judgmentalism we are talking about John. You are in no position to make a statement like that. Some attitudes and actions are justified by what people have suffered through. If you really love people quit judging them based on your preferences and how you think thay should act and just love them for who they are. The love of God is better shown by loving someone in their hurt and pain than by “righting” them to your doctrine,theology and dogma.
@Don,
I re-read this twice to make sure you were serious.
Bad attitudes and actions are justified by what people have suffered through???
You really said that? you really believe that?
If so, then be quiet about mine! According to you, my atttiude and actions are worng, but I have a right to feel and act this way and you have no right to correct me Don/John or anybody! So there!
🙄
Yes God loves us for who we are, but to much to leave us that way (cliche or not–still true).
The love of God is best shown by loving someone in their hurt and pain and then OUT of it, not coddling them IN it and excusing it!
Is doctrine a bad thing Don? Is theology wrong?
No single post here has made me angry that I recall, though many have made me sad (the color yellow, does not BTW)..yours is the first to really shock me though.
I am going to chalk it up to you didn’t really mean it like it came across.
And now, I must get my Barak costume ready
“Sad that so many have been hurt by their past (though it was good enough to lead you into the Kingdom to begin with)”
BACK UP THE TRUCK.
This is not true. Many of us have come to faith in Christ in spite of the hateful antics of Fundamentalists, not because of them. If I had truly to Christ because of Fundamentalism,
How dare you?
beep…beep….beeep (truck backing up)
I think the majority here would agree. Most were saved while in fundamentalism
You said : “If I had truly to Christ because of Fundamentalism, ”
????
(Hm, George got my last post.)
Who have you looked down upon? Everyone who doesn’t jump into line behind you. Everyone who doesn’t agree with you.
Guilty of “acting like [you] care about what the Bible says”? Trust me, that’s certainly not your crime. If that were the case, there’d be a lot more SFL regulars who would be far more guilty of it than you. Guilty of acting like things that aren’t in the Bible should be in there? Now that’s more like it.
There’s a difference between coming to Christ while in Fundamentalism and coming to Christ because of Fundamentalism. Someone hears a snippet of truth that God uses to get to their hearts, and it happens to be in a Fundy church? Great. Not every Fundy is a train wreck. There are a few decent folks still in there. Some are attempting reform, and others have somehow found a way to remain civilized in spite of the garbage. Unfortunately, they’re not usually in charge.
Someone comes to Christ because of racism, misogyny, power-tripping preachers, poor schools, requiring people to read a Bible many of them cannot understand, church staff doing some kiddy-fiddling, and/or a host of many other issues within Fundamentalism? I’d be asking who their “Christ” really is.
I screwed up on editing. Gonna send me to Hell over it? Good thing you’re not the final authority.
What a jerk. go back a read what I said!
You really are a self centered sanctimonious puss bucket!
That’s not what I said. I said sometimes attitudes and actions are justified by what you have experienced and small minded jackasses like you are in NO position to stand in judgment.
As the self appointed saviour of the hurting masses you know best John,you self-righteous prig. Where and how is the contemptous diatribe that you spew leading anyone anywhere but further away from the god you claim to preach?
Let me help you out.
“The love of God is better shown by loving someone in their hurt and pain than by “righting†them to your doctrine,theology and dogma.”
The key word is “your”. It’s _your_ doctrine, theology, and dogma. Not necessarily God’s.
Well said LMcC, well said.
“The love of God is best shown by loving someone in their hurt and pain and then OUT of it, not coddling them IN it and excusing it!”
This honestly makes no sense coming from you, John.
The fact is that many of us _were_ loved out of Fundamentalism. I certainly was. Amazing what happens when someone is truly loved by an “enemy”, and it turns out that “enemy” was really a true friend and brother or sister who was more Christ-like than anything one had ever experienced before.
You couldn’t care less about loving any one of us in any of our “hurt and pain” and then out of it. If anything, you want to shame us right back into the very extra-biblical doctrine and practice that caused harm in the first place.
No, thank you.
I got your back, Don. Thanks for speaking up, bro. 🙂
Pastor’s Wife, well done. 😀
Really Lmcc?
“Who have you looked down upon? Everyone who doesn’t jump into line behind you. Everyone who doesn’t agree with you. “
Wow-you know me pretty well. And my heart too!
You really are the judge of what is, aren’t you? No hypocrisy there at all. 🙄
And of course, lack of Bible is no problem since YOU are the authority.
I see now. Saducees are better than Pharisees. It’s all clear.
Don, Don, Don
Resorting to name calling and chidlish insults again are you? Have I ever done this to anybody ever on this site?
And I’m the bully? 🙄
Why do you resort to such slander and then think you are holier than thou for doing so? It’s admittance that you have no argument, only assaults.
“go back a read what I said!”
” I said sometimes attitudes and actions are justified by what you have experienced”
No Don, no you didn’t.
Go back and read what you said yourself!
” Some attitudes and actions are justified by what people have suffered through.”
“Sometimes” refers to WHEN, “Some atttiudes and actions” refers to WHAT.
Next time before you go off all half cocked, read slower LOL
And , you are still excusing such attitudes and actions….including your own.
Without any need to give my opinion, your words speak for themselves.
I am sure you are leading people to God by the droves with your mean spirited, insulting and hateful bitterness toward Him and His word.
Surely I am the one in the wrong and am a bad person.
As the self appointed spokesperson of the “right to be bitter” brigade you know best Don.
Now that you have made yourself clear, after I gave you the benfit of the doubt, it is clear indeed and far, far sadder.
Pitiful really.
And you are already on my prayer list Don. In fact, you just moved up a notch.
Wow, just saw the existence of this thread, and I hadn’t even tried to poke John on that comment. Too long to read the whole thing, I’m just gonna score it @Don +4. @LMcC +7, @John 0. Someone correct me if I’m wrong.
yep, you’re wrong it’s John + 40
😎
And with points removed from Don for insults (unsportsman like conduct and loss of self control)
“jerk”
” self centered sanctimonious puss bucket!”
” small minded jackass”
“self-righteous prig”
Not to mention vulgarity, puts him in the minus catergory.
LMcC hasn’t scored yet.
(Chill out guys!)
I suppose Don could have said
Serpent
Brood of vipers
Whitewashed tomb
Blind leader of the blind
Hypocrite
Child of Satan (you are of your father, the devil)
Not applying these to anyone – just saying sometimes Jesus resorted to some fierce language when he saw the self-righteousness of the Pharisees.
I also thought this verse was interesting – Luke 11:53b-54: “The scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things: Laying wait for him, and seeking to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him.”
This got too long so I moved my response to the end of the comments and started a fresh string.
@Pastors Wife
BIG difference between descriptions and insults. Jesus indeed referred to theri actions as being similiar to certain aniumals etc. but he never resorted to insults or characteer attacks like Don.
“jerk” “prig” etc.
It’s one thing to say someone is self righteous, another to say that thye are a self righteous ______ …that goes form descriptive to insulting.
It’s one thing for me to refer to a Jehovahs Witness as a deceived misguided works based religionist.
It is entirely different then me saying he or she is a deceived misguided works based religious doofus.
Imagine for just a moment if I had insulted anyone on here what a double standard would be applied to me agressively.
The longer I stay the more apparent this becomes.
.
I also thought this verse was interesting – Luke 11:53b-54: “The scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things: Laying wait for him, and seeking to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him
Prig n. someone who thinks that they are better than other people because they always obey strict moral rules.
“Imagine for just a moment if I had insulted anyone on here.”
But you do, John. You constantly do. You insinuate and imply and then pretend you’re not doing what you’re doing. Your passive agressive comments are a constant judgment of the readers here.
Oops. I was too quick to “submit.” Forgot to spell check!
@pastors wife
See above comment
Also, I have never insulted anyone here by name calling.
(self) Vindicated again eh John? So predictable. You really can’t see yourself for what you are can you John?
No brag, just fact Don.
I was accused and I defended.
You hate facts now too?
😉
And if my consistency is predictable, then so be it.
Josh, that’s pretty much what I was meaning to say in less words.
I was tracking up until 7:25. There’s nothing wrong with saying that God reveals himself in the world, in the created order, and since he is the Creator, music also comes from him. Like anything else, music can be misused. (There are some bands that don’t play music; they scream into microphones.) At or around 7:25 he starts to play “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus” and says that the slow, melodic music is the kind we would want in our churches. That’s where I take issue with him. Nevermind that the music is pathetic and the men singing sound like girls with extra testosterone. That song is ridiculous and not exactly scriptural. It is an anthem for people who want to feel like they’re doing all the right stuff. Churches need to quit focusing so much on the perfect style of music (drums vs no percussion, guitars vs just piano) and start looking deeply into what kind of music is scriptural, meaningful, and not full of vain repetition. I for one am sick of churches where the band is louder than the congregation singing along.
I should quit now before I break out in hives. 😕
Considering all that’s been said above: That’s why I favor lite Jazz, it’s good music with just a hint of carnality sprinkled in for flavor.
**Bethany** You make very good points and observations and I also like your cheeky disposition, it really warms my heart 😛 The church needs to stop competing with the world because they will NEVER beat the world in their own game. You mention that the men sound like girls with extra testosterone..THAT BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATES WHAT I’M SAYING! Rather than trying to match or beat the world at their own game, the church needs to be…well, the church. Instead, the church has “Christian”: rap, rock, jazz, grundge, ska, krump and the like, why? It’s kinda like you expect your parents to ACT like your parents in public and not like you. Does that mean we expect the church to act in an uptight and orderly fashion? No, but the church is meant to be a gathering of God’s people…not to be entertained and not to be “preached” at (again, if you’ve not had the “pleasure” of listening to Dr. Keith Gomez, I invite you for the biggest downer of your life) from the pulpit about how bad you are, they are and everyone in between is, but is simply for edification and uplifting of each other. Instead, the church has been turned into a sanctified ‘members only’ club by agreement and baptism. Sorry for the rant Bethany, I just wanted to say how awesome your post was. Ditto on the hives.
Michael says, “You mention that the men sound like girls with extra testosterone..THAT BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATES WHAT I’M SAYING!”
It’s like, if we sing softly, and sweetly, and slowly enough, the world will know that we’re holy and want to be like us.
Yeah, no. They won’t, actually. 😯
Ah my church is being featured here!
I love Dr. Garlock (and the Hamiltons for that matter). Thankfully their preferences and standards are their preferences and standards and are not forced upon me or anyone else in the church.
BTW this must be a somewhat old lecture since I have never heard that at Calvary (I’ve been there for 4+ years). And the powerpoint is horrible looking.
As far as music goes. We take CCM songs and clean them up and put them on powerpoint to sing. We don’t have drums or electric guitars but I don’t condemn those. I believe we can worship God with or without them since we worship God in spirit and truth not pianos and drums.
My preference is to worship God publicly without drums and electric guitars. I guess I just feel comfy with that.
I fully support your worshipping without drums or guitars! It’s how I’m most comfortable, but I’ve been learning to enjoy a more contemporary sound too, even though it’s not what I’m used to. For a long time, we too would use CCM but play it in a more conservative manner (with piano, etc.). As long as you know your position is just your preference and not a law binding all Christians, I have no problem with churches using a more “traditional” sound.
I listen to CCM sacred and secular music. So I don’t have any problems with drums. In fact I rock out in rock band with the drums (my wife more than me on the drums). But for some reason we prefer more traditional style of worshipping on Sundays. I guess that’s how we grew up and that’s what we prefer. But either of us have no problem going to North Hills and worshipping there with friends and family (my sister-in-law goes there).
Q’s:
1) How are drums & guitars dirty that need to be “cleaned up”? (I think you meant alter not clean up, I won’t make the case for ruining, although I suspect many would, and I am thinking it)
2) Not sure you can say so definitively that *noone* is being hampered or harassed about their musical preferences, I would bet they are and you just aren’t aware of it?
3) How is Garlock who regularly describes all other music as EVIL, in anyway saying this is just a preference? You clearly aren’t making that case, but believe me Garlock has not suddenly stopped making that case just because you haven’t heard (or noticed) him making it. I’ve noted in the comments on here already, he’s made a semi empire out of defining his style of music as Godly and all other as Evil, he has every incentive to keep it up, and none to deviate. You may not have heard him continue this, but he still is.
1) I meant to say “clean”. We don’t really alter the songs. We just don’t play them with drums and electric guitars.
2) It’s true. I can’t say noone. But I have never felt “harassed” by Frank Garlock and his stance on music.
3) I call it a preference. Frank Garlock wont call it a preference. I see the flaw in Frank Garlock.
Let me just add. Ron Hamilton is the music pastor. He is in charge of the music in church. I am totally fine with what Ron Hamilton does with the music at church. But that’s the extent of Ron Hamilton’s power. He never told us or the church what we should or should not listen to at home. Same thing with Pastor Taylor.
Having said that I don’t agree with the lecture that Dr. Garlock gave. There are leaders in the church and missionaries that we support that disagree with Dr Garlock. One time a missionary came in and had a song clip of “give thanks” with drums and all in his presentation. You know what Pastor Hamilton did? A few weeks later we sang that song without drums in church.
Again I disagree with Frank Garlock. I still think he has the right to argue and use secular arguments to come to his conclusion. The reason you can’t use all scripture is because scripture is not black and white on the topic of music and music does change over time. In his mind drums are evil. He was allowed to lecture on music in church and he expressed his thoughts and opinions on music. Take it or leave it.
one small note. He is standing behind a lecturer not a pulpit that we normally have for preaching.
@RobM, about “ruining” CCM – 🙂 Yeah, probably anyone really familiar with the original songs would have cringed at our renditions, but I was just happy that we would be able to sing “God of Wonders” or “Indescribable” aloud with other Christians not just by myself along with the car radio. We were also trying to prove to people that the music – words and tune – were GOOD if they could just get past their horror of the drums and guitar. Some fundies live in a self-created imaginary world in which they’ve fully convinced themselves of such things as all CCM is shallow and sensual and all evangelicals deny the sufficiency of Christ. We wanted them to see that there are new songs out there that are powerful and worshipful and biblical. (BTW, I noticed the “cleaned up” wording too!)
@pvr cool Just wanted to get some clarification. I don’t think anyone has a problem w/ those who prefer hymns, and most churches that play straight CCM will mix in hymns (often contemporized).
@PW I don’t really mind the altered versions, it grates me to call them cleaner or cleaned up. Psalm 150 for a “proof text”.
Confession time, here. I’ve gone around with my nose in the air about the good old hymns and the horrible P&W music for years. I’ve played piano for church for 40 years. Until recently I also played guitar and sang for 25 years in a cowboy/Western band that had both a traveling ministry side and a public concert side. We often played in churches that did P&W songs. We stood awkwardly on the front row as guest musicians unable to sing the songs. I stewed about that for years, and I didn’t think the songs we heard had much going for them, just 7-11 songs. So we didn’t bother to learn them. Wouldn’t have done any good. Learn one and it falls out of popularity, so that was brain cells wasted. But God has a way of changing hearts and minds. After moving to England my husband and I ended up at the base chapel where they do P&W. After several months and two of the praise team members being reassigned to other bases I swallowed my pride and volunteered to help out. The gal that plays the keyboard is an awesome musician. Although she doesn’t play guitar she has coached me in learning to play a style that my fingers aren’t accustomed to and to hear chord progressions that are not common in hymns and cowboy/western music. And I am astonished to find a wealth of songs that are worshipful, songs that turn my heart to God, songs that bring tears as I sing of Christ’s sacrifice and love and grace. And some of these songs really rock! I have been brought down one or two pegs and humbled and I am glad that I can admit to y’all of my former arrogant attitude. This is God’s doing — that a 56-year-old hymn-playing cowgirl singer is the sole guitarist in a praise & worship team. Will wonders never cease?
BTW, in the 80s we did “clean up” CCM when we were a trio and only used piano. Amy Grant, Imperials, and Petra to name a few. Once I covered the Imperials song book with white paper so people wouldn’t see what is was. People loved the songs. 😆
@Kate, beautiful testimony! I love how God keeps teaching us! I noticed you mentioned “humble” a couple times – I think that’s so key! I am realizing how very self-righteous I have been in the past; I repent of that. I truly want to be humble. (P.S. I get to play “Revelation Song” along with the worship team tomorrow morning! Yay!)
Really? For what Sunday in the liturgical calendar were the Brandenburg Concerti written. The Orchestral Suites? The keyboard music? The flute sonatas? The keyboard/violin concerti? The secular cantatas?
Or the KISS Symphony (one of my faves).
http://www.amazon.com/Kiss-Symphony-DVD-KISS/dp/B0000ARSSI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1288363865&sr=8-1
Dang that was a reply to Toodles above about Metallica and Symphony.
The most liberating experience for me came right after BJU. I joined a church that had conservative roots (Plymouth Brethren) but had far out progressed their denomination. Anyway their philosophy was while there is nothing wrong with newer music there is also good reason to keep the older music around. So they did 50% hymns and 50% contemporary and used a praise band. The guitars were mostly acoustical only because that is what was available and no one had a trap set so we used bongo drums among other things. The end result something sort of the middle between outright rock band and organ music. It was great and allowed Lynn and I to ease into life outside the bubble. I like this approach a little better then churches that have traditional and non-traditional services. Kids need to be exposed to the old hymns. But at the same time there is some great stuff that has come out outside of the fundy world and it deserves to be sung. And any style issues is jut plane wrong to begin with.
The next one in the video series (6 of 7) would have been far more effective, IMHO, to demonstrate how some of the more “fundy” types lack logic and are prone to jump to radical conclusions (such as, if Mickey Hart [of the Grateful Dead] wrote a book on rock music and drums, then rock music and drums are therefore evil).
Okay, correct me if I’m misinterpreting this incorrectly. According to this particular segment, Garlock states that each star has its own distinct sound and no two sound alike. Just like no two snowflakes are the same. Taking this form of logic a step farther and we can definitely say are no two humans alike on this planet(just look at the human DNA0. Yet, any type of music outside his own definition of “proper” music is out of the question. Am I missing something or does this make no logical sense? If there are so many variations in nature as well as in the human realm, it would stand to reason that there will be variations in music.
He doesn’t make any sense to me.