UPDATE: For those  who have been following this, I want to provide a brief update. You others, read the original post first and then come up here for more!

I  should point out the comments under Bixby’s post (linked to below) are worth reading. Also, Scott Aniol gives a post differentiating his beliefs  from the philosophical position mentioned in Bixby’s post—it is worth reading to understand Scott’s position more. I stumbled across a good summary post by Rick Pidcock which does a better job of chronicling the debate than I did (there are some good comments by Tom Pryde, Ken Fields, and  Rick in the comment section). And no less than Scott Aniol, pointed my attention to a really good, Christ-honoring take (by Phillip Gons) on all of this (although  Phillip  doesn’t really take sides with respect to the music debate).

Most worth reading, is Ken Fields’ newest post, where he reproduces the thoughts of Christian hip-hop artist named Shai Linne. Shai originally posted his thoughts in the first SI thread on this issue. I read them and appreciated them then, but forgot about them when making this post. Ken got Shai’s permission to repost them here. It is worth a read, as Shai responds in a helpful and gracious way. Shai sheds more light on the whole issue of Christian rap in his comments in the discussion under Ken’s post. Definitely, well worth the read—so thanks again Ken! (Sorry, I’m too strapped to fork out a shirt!)

Ryan Debarr gives some further thoughts about this whole controversy—his post is definitely not a “cookie cutter” argument defending CCM. He makes some good observations and expresses some proper concern over the flippant use of terms like “blasphemy and apostasy”.

Finally, Bixby chimes in again (we are still waiting for his “alternative” springing from the post linked to of his below) stressing a need to remember a Gospel Centered approach to worship. Worship is not primarily us giving back to God, but rather us experiencing the benefits of Christ’s vicarious humanity (and his death). Bixby helpfully points us to Parts One and Two of Dan Cruver’s Gospel-Centered Worship series. Do go check those posts out!

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Ken Fields will have to forgive me for using a line from his  recent post  for my title. There has been quite the blog storm recently, and those words were the best description I have found.Last Sunday, my church had Curtis Allen (a Christian rapper aka “Voice”) come to perform for our Aeropagus—a culture club of sorts—after the Saturday evening service at our downtown site. Since Curtis was present for the worship service, Pastor John Piper invited him to sing for the service, and he sang one song as a special number—a testimonial song that was quite tame as far as rap songs go. Well, as Ken said, “the people clapped, he sat down…and the fundamentalists went wild!”

Justin Taylor posted a video-clip  of that service, and Sharper Iron linked to it. One of the most heated (non KJV only) discussions  in SI’s history followed (it grew to over 30 pages in near record time). Other fundamentalist blogs joined the many SI posters in a loud disgust over Piper and any fundamentalists which would condone the use of rap music in worship (see here and here). More discussions were held on SI (here and  here), and an incredibly harsh post  was given by Scott Aniol.  Other fundamentalist bloggers joined SI posters in expressing surprise at the mean attitude apparent in some who were so vocal in their bashing of rap or CCM type music, see here and here and here. There was even an apology and a retraction. Lastly,  Bob Bixby offered a really good analogy regarding the  future “movement”  of some fundamentalists which stresses a “high view” of music. I really recommend reading his post, even if you skip all the other links above. [Note my listing of these links is not necessarily in chronological order–they all were from 10/31 through 11/2, however.]

I linked to all  of these discussions  on purpose. Some of my readers  may not be privy to all the “young fundamentalist”  blogs out there (and I am sure I missed some posts, too) and may have missed this whole discussion. But beyond that, I think this whole discussion is instructive. It reveals the sometimes shameful attitudes of some fundamentalists—I particularly was shocked by the willingness for many to just write off Piper completely because of this “wrong” decision. It also shows how so many refuse to let music be a matter of personal conviction. They prefer to make judgments on those who do not agree with their position, or worse to mandate a certain musical style—all this and yet no Scripture directly bears on musical style. Yes, we can apply Scriptural principles and we should, but such application is not equivalent to a direct command. Our interpretation and application of them is important for us but is not universally binding. And lastly, this discussion informs us concerning the musical debate. There were interesting arguments on both sides, and they may prove enlightening to some of my readers.

I would like to shift the discussion now  from the  recent  brouhaha to the music debate. And I would like to make three points. [Just in case you were interested, you can see my comments in the initial SI thread about this whole thing here.]

1) The “high” art vs. “low” art (or “pop” art) distinction.

Not everyone who has been involved in the recent music debate makes use of this argument. But many do (see Bixby’s post where he suggests that many who do major on this argument are part of a “movement”). This view posits that classical music styles are “high” art and thus more becoming of the worship of our God, than the crass “low” art styles.

Recently I came across some great articles by Kevin Twit (of Indelible Grace) where he argues that such a distinction is artificial and a relatively recent innovation. Let me provide a few quotes from him, as I think they bear directly on this point.

The dichotomy between high art and pop art is, at best, both unhelpful and musically and historically rather naive. Actually the historical basis of this is a rather racist argument. This distinction is really only about 150 years old, emerges during the 19th century as people try to separate themselves from the massive influx of Eastern European immigrants, and falls prey to a classic logical fallacy: just because something is popular does not mean it is of inferior quality! It may mean that it is of great quality and has connected with a large number of people for really good reasons! In addition, the attempt to make a big distinction between folk art and pop art fails to understand how popular art functions. (see William Romanowski’s recent book Eyes Wide Open pg. 72-75 for a wonderful discussion of this issue! Or if you want to study this even more in depth, track down Lawrence Levine’s “Highbrow, Lowbrow: The Emergence Of Cultural Hierarchy In America”) — from this article (see my recent post for a more legible version).

…the high art/ low art dichotomy….has become such a part of our vocabulary that it seems like a self-evident truth. Low art is said to be inherently inferior to high art. This is the crux of the arguments of people like Allan Bloom and Ken Myers. However there are a number of serious problems with this simplistic reduction.

First of all it is musically naive. As Lawrence Levine points out in an insightful study, most discussions regarding high and low art can’t define where the dividing line is. I would suggest that this is because the line is largely arbitrarily drawn….Music is cultural activity, as William Edgar points out….The attempt to find a universal music that is a-cultural is misguided. Yet this is often what traditional, elitist, Classical musicologists attempt to do….

The second problem with the elitist view is that it constitutes a misuse of language. Levine argues (I believe rightly so) that we shouldn’t use “pop” as an aesthetic judgment, rather we should use it literally to mean that a piece of music has popular appeal. But who says that popular art is necessarily bad art? We must be very careful about automatically equating high art with tradition and intelligence, and low art with the poor, ignorant masses. Levine shows how in the 19th century in America, Shakespeare was pop art! The shift in America took place around the turn of the century and is closely connected with racism and the attempt of one segment of the culture to gain control. William Edgar also picks up on this historical phenomena. The high / low dichotomy in art is not an eternal fact it is a cultural development.

Thirdly, as Edgar points out, this elitist view actually lowers the standards of pop music because pop isn’t taken seriously. Do we send the message that all fields are worthy of our best effort except pop music?….Surely we would be better off to take pop seriously and encourage talented men and women to invest their energy in this field, than to simply dismiss it as unredeemable. —from this article (underline emphasis was italic in original).

2) A Eurocentric Bias.

There is another bias besides the one which  views its music style of choice intrinsically “higher” than others. There is a racist bent toward claiming that eurocentric music is the pinnacle of music form. I was surprised that so many people reacted so strongly against this claim. It is often easy to be blind to our racism, I guess. But seriously, a eurocentric music style is what people are defending, and the music styles they are objecting to stem from non eurocentric cultures. The charge of racism is not really all that painful. It merely points out that one particular culture is being preferred to others, there is a racist bent to this eurocentric bias. I believe it is fairly clear. People who hold to that view might not be meaning to be racist, but their is an inherent racism in the argument that “white” music is always best.

Now Ryan Debarr helped by pointing out  that there is a point to be raised in favor of such cultural bias. He mentioned that the eurocentric culture has arguably been most influenced by the Gospel. However, as even he admits, to argue from this point that any aspect of eurocentric culture (like music for instance) is invariably better than that of non eurocentric cultures is to say too much. And along these lines, in a recent article that I quoted, there is a strong case made that much of the music (not lyrics, but music styles and even poetic structures) used for worship in the eurocentric culture has been borrowed from the pop (and non Christian) culture of that era.

At this point, I would like to reproduce a comment that was made over at Zach Nielsen’s blog in a series of posts he has made critiquing the book Can We Rock the Gospel? by John Blanchard and Dan Lucarini. The comment was placed at the end of this post on chapter 7, and I will reproduce it here below.

At the root of these arguments is an air of ethnocentricity. In other words, there is a core assumption that ones own preference and cultural heritage (i.e. conventional western harmony) is the most evolved form of music. Seldom do the writers of these kinds of books acknowledge that the ancient music forms in the scriptures preceded conventional harmony and tuning. To do so would be to admit that they would hate the music that David danced to.

3) A Matter of Taste.

Finally, I would like to talk about taste. Some speak as if taste does not matter at all—classical style music is just always better and should be singularly used in praise to God. And yet some speak as if music is only a matter of taste. Taste is definitely a factor, but it does not have to be the exclusive factor.  

I was really blessed by a helpful analogy I found made by “Keith” over at NeoFundamentalist. I want to reproduce Keith’s thoughts since they were so helpful to me. They may be worth discussing in more length in the comments here. The following comments  can be  seen in their original context here. They are so good, that I fear I will take away from them unless I reproduce them in full. I hope this will not be breaking blogging etiquette to do so.  

The recent debates between the various types of fundamentalists over music leave me confused.

I think I would be called a musical and cultural elitist by some, but I also see no reason to hyperventilate over John Piper allowing a rap.

But to the bloggers and commenters, it all seems so either/or, why?

How is it not self evident that some music is better, as music, than other music?

Similarly, how is it not self evident that, while we should respect and properly use the best, we are not required to always participate in the best?

Food is just one example. The food at a fine French Restaurant is beyond question better, as food, than the food at McDonald’s. Trying to deny that is to deny meaning and objectivity and absolutes. Even so, does that mean that McDonald’s must be forbidden?

The fundamentalists of various types SEEM (I’m trying to understand here) to think that I must either (A) Say the French food is better and therefore never eat anything else (the elitists) or (B) Say that there is no such thing as “better” there is only preference you like French, I like McDonald’s (the “young” crowd).

Why can’t I say that the French food must be considered better even though I might eat McDonald’s more often and properly so for a variety of reasons?