Worship Wars ~Chuck Colson

Worship Wars
How Do We Determine Musical Excellence?

August 6, 2009 Chuck Colson

Longtime BreakPoint listeners know how I feel about church music. I
prefer the older hymns of the faith over modern praise choruses. Other
people feel strongly the other way. So I'm not surprised that
full-scale music wars have erupted in some churches.

But is there a right and wrong kind of music for worship?

One expert on church music says yes, there is.

Donald Williams is director of the School of Arts and Sciences at Toccoa
Falls College in Georgia. In his excellent Touchstone magazine article,
"Durable Hymns," Williams notes that there have been wars over
music almost as long as there's been a church. So what's the
answer?

Williams says we should study the music of the past to "learn the
criteria by which to discern what is worthy in the present."

Much of today's music is of poor quality, he writes. But so was some
music written centuries ago. The difference is the old hymns have
endured a centuries-long weeding-out process. If we hope to identify the
best new music, Williams writes, we must know "those marks of
excellence that made the best of the past stand out and survive so
long."

These marks of excellence "are not arbitrary." They "are
derived from biblical teaching about the nature of worship." They
come, Williams writes, "from an understanding of the nature of music
and how it can support those biblical goals."

Among these marks of excellence is biblical truth. Lyrics need not to be
literal Scripture, but they do have to be faithful to it.

Another mark of excellence—theologic al profundity. Think of how the
words to this great hymn encourage us to worship God with our minds:

Immortal, invisible, God only wise
In light inaccessible hid from our eyes

By contrast, some contemporary choruses are often "so simplistic and
repetitive that theological reflection never has a chance to get
started," Williams says.

A third mark of excellence is poetic richness. For instance, the use of
a question in the hymn "What Child is This?" helps us capture
"the wonder of the Incarnation. " In "Amazing Grace," the
word "wretch," Williams notes, is "a simple but
evocative" choice.

A fourth mark is musical beauty. In great music, "there are certain
contours, structures, and cadences that make for a singable melody."
And the right harmony "can make that melody more memorable . .
.," he writes. For instance, "Be Thou My Vision" "rises
and falls like an ocean wave or a sine curve."

Tragically, Williams notes, "more recent praise choruses seem to
ignore all the rules of good composition, giving us not well-shaped
melodies but just one note after another."

Now, some songwriters are creating excellent music today. But, warns
Williams, only those musicians who are musically gifted, and
historically, biblically, and theologically trained are qualified to
help churches choose the best new music "as a supplement to the
church's rich musical heritage."

I couldn't agree more. And—in the end—all sides of the music
wars can agree that we want to praise God by singing hymns and spiritual
songs that are biblically true, theologically profound, poetically rich,
and, yes, musically beautiful.