Will Dudding (the Reforming Baptist) has a great post on music. He challenges fundamentalists regarding their stance on music. I don’t agree 100% with everything he says, but his post is definitely worth a read if you are interested in reforming fundamentalism. I am happy for any who are reforming and growing in relation to the word, whether they are fundamentalist still or not. Will’s posts are always a blessing and often challenging. Here’s an excerpt.

What I see is that we have constructed a culture in fundamentalism that is an extreme opposite of the ever-developing worldly culture within new evangelicalism. It’s an atmosphere of “us vs. them”. We wear suits and ties, they don’t; we use classical style music, they don’t; we use a King James Bible, they use everything else but a KJV; we make our women wear dresses, they don’t care what their women wear; and so on and so forth…

Let me make something clear from the beginning: I am no fan of the modern gimmicks and fads that the weak, luke-warm broader evangelical church has to offer! They must turn to all their new methods (or waves, as Rick Warren puts it) to cover up their inadequate, watered-down gospel which has made them irrelevant in the true sense of the word. On that same note, I am no more a fan of the man-made, manufactured traditions and taboos of fundamentalism that so many feel that they have to defend in order to stay holy and separate from worldliness. Just as the Pharisees were clean on the outside, they neglected the weightier things of the law and we tend to do the same thing….

Music has been another component in the Christian sub-culture of Fundamentalism. You can take the most un-scriptural, theologically bankrupt song and sing it with a piano, organ and an opera singer and the song automatically passes fundamentalist standards.

The post is entitled “Music -Style, Emotion, Instruments and Associations“. Be sure to read the whole thing.