Musical Edification or Musical Experience?

Posted: 26/Sep/2005AD @ 17:42
Categories: Foundation Cult

From Heaven on Earth part 2 of Music and Fashion by Andrew Ford, broadcast on Radio National 24 July 2005 (Read Listen ).

Andrew Ford: In most major Western cities, on any given Sunday, you still can probably track down a Palestrina mass, a Lutheran chorale, a hymn by Charles Wesley or Isaac Watts and, if you’re lucky some plainchant or maybe even an organ piece by Messiaen. But it will be far easier to find something like this.

[Music: Lift by Christian City Church]

Jeff Crabtree: In this contemporary style of church we react against the kind of teaching mode of the old hymns where there’s a doctrinal process that’s going on, and people are hearing doctrine and they’re getting taught really good stuff, really good theology. I think we react against that because we’re finding other ways for theology and doctrine to be transmitted, and because the music of contemporary church is meant to be about encounter, it’s not meant to be about edification.

AF: That’s Jeff Crabtree. He’s the principal of the School of Creative Arts at the Christian City Church at Oxford Falls in Sydney’s northern suburbs, and his attitude is quite simple. First, music itself is morally neutral – there isn’t one sort that is inherently holier than another. And second, as many a successful entrepreneur has reasoned, you have give the people what they want.

JC: So that if you want to speak to a contemporary audience then you have to speak in a contemporary language, and it’s a cultural thing. So we use pop music forms because pop music is what people listen to. So they come to our church and feel comfortable, we are hoping, because they’re hearing popular music forms.

AF: Some of the music played and sung at the Christian City Church and other similar ministries, and recorded, and marketed by them, is surprisingly vague. Sometimes God isn’t even mentioned and the words might just as well be those of a secular love song.

There is no clear message in songs like that, no hint of doctrine. As you listen, you might apply the words to God. But there’s nothing to stop you thinking about the attractive girl sitting in front of you.

[Music: One Desire from No Long 1 Christian City Church]

But if songs like this are ambiguous, there are other that send no message at all. In some modern Pentecostal churches, the idea of glossolalia, of speaking in tongues, has found a musical counterpart.

[Music: True from Prayerworks Christian City Church]

JC: Christian City Church developed a style of music called ‘Prayerworks’ which was its initial name. We’ve re-badged it ‘Sante’ which is a French word meaning ‘Health’, or an Italian word meaning ‘Holy’, or a Portuguese word with absolutely no meaning at all. And we don’t quite know what it is, we market the music, we perform it. It’s either music to live your life by, like a soundtrack to your life, or it’s music that accompanies certain kinds of ministry in our church, healing ministry, prayer ministry, or it’s kind of Christian chill-out music, and it’s unusual in that it defies all the things that I’ve been talking about to do with popular music, and audience, because it’s completely not popular music; the songs sometimes go for ten or twelve minutes, sometimes there’s no English in the lyrics, sometimes there’s no lyrics, sometimes there’s just the singer singing with an inarticulate cry of the heart. And we’ve discovered from feedback from our audience, that the music heals, that people contact God through it, that it’s a means of spiritual refreshment, rejuvenation, and they have it on playing all the time, in fact actually it’s flying on a major world airline, it’s part of their arrival guides, it’s finished up in all sorts of places, dental surgeries, doctors’ surgeries, taxicabs. It’s probably more widespread than mainstream church praise and worship in that sense, it actually has probably had more penetration outside the church community. I find that my contact with God occurs in a still, quiet place, and the Prayerworks music takes me to that quiet place, the journey takes me there, it takes me on a journey away from my stuff into a place where I can feel, I suppose, spiritually centred and feel like I’m actually – I feel like I have contact with God at that place.

AF: This is about as far from plainchant as you can get. Music in the mediæval church was a way of presenting scripture and liturgy as clearly and memorably as possible. In the beginning was the word. A lot of modern Christian music is far more concerned with establishing mood. But in terms of musical fashions, the question remains the same as ever. Is music responding to theology, or is it the other way round?

Andrew Ford’s analysis of the problem with much pentecostal music is as accurate as his non-christianity. The problem fundamentally comes down to a question of purpose, what are we trying to acheive through our singing together? I think the scripture makes it clear that the purpose is edification not experience.

Will we have many words or few words? Will the music be complex or simple? I don’t think there are clear cut rules about this — context is important — but the measure for deciding is, as with any church practise: what will best equip the people of God for works of service?