Preface

Preface (HomePage)

Americans love music as radio, television programming and the extraordinary sales of audio cassettes and CDs across the land attest.

We're not alone in love of music. Music is found in every culture.

The book of Psalms reveals the Israelites were a musical people, too. King David created choirs and a temple orchestra. Certain families were chosen to lead music and teach it to succeeding generations. The psalms exhorted the Jews to "Sing to the Lord a new song." Music has always been a part of the church and its worship.

Evangelicals love music and it is difficult to imagine a church service without it! However, there is evidence that music is dividing today's evangelical churches. Why should this be? Division in the past resulted from differences of opinion over theology. Today, churches are breaking up over differences in musical styles. A particular musical style at the center of much of the controversy found in evangelical churches today is 'rock and roll' or more simply, rock.

Can the church put its stamp of approval on this style?

The present crisis can be traced back to the counter-culture with its germination in the 1950's and its adoption of rock. Many proponents in today's evangelical church endorse rock groups and rock concerts billed as Christian. Its introduction in evangelical churches often results in polarization and division, principally between younger folk and the senior generation. Some churches offer two Sunday morning services, one billed as 'contemporary' if they use rock or rock-like music and the other as 'traditional' if they do not.

How can we avoid church division over musical styles and worship programming? We must look at the rock musical style as carefully and as dispassionately as possible. Rock is complex. To understand it requires considerable analysis and reflection.

Rock is music, music is an art form, and art forms and styles have a close connection with a people's culture. Music is a "universal language" only in the most general sense; that musical styles are generally not transcultural is a proposition critical to this study--music reflects or mirrors culture as well as reinforces it. A study of the musical style of a culture will tell us something about that culture's ideas and world view.

It may surprise us to learn that the counter-culture actually proposed some positive values and corrective measures. When they were rejected, the counter-culture prophesied doom. To make its point, the counter-culture resorted to extreme methods and as a result, positive values offered by the counter-culture were subordinated to negative ones.

The real surprise comes when we find that our own culture has been adopting the counter-culture's positive values wholesale and with a vengeance, but with no more balance than existed in the society before the movement began.

A culture needs balance in positive, paired values-a concept explored in this study. If there is appreciation for balance, musical styles will reflect that balance. If there isn't, musical styles will not only reflect imbalanced extreme values, but will also reinforce them!

Framing this central core of study about the counter-culture with its rock musical style reflecting its world view, is first, a brief survey of music in the Bible and church history with special emphasis on change and its effect on the church, and lastly, practical guidelines based on conclusions drawn from the study.

Whether we are pragmatically or aesthetically oriented, the result of this plan of study will allow us to discern if rock musical style is useful in worship and evangelistic services, and if so, to what degree. It will also allow for conclusions based on reason rather than just personal feelings. Above all, there will result a more peaceful spirit within a local church trying to handle change.

Since music incites powerful emotions, the reader is urged to work through the material from the beginning and resist turning directly to the suggested guidelines. The result will be a more sympathetic appreciation for the complexity of the subject while discovering important clues for developing consensus and practical guidelines. An in-depth analysis of the counter-culture will also allow for a better understanding of the mind of 'boomers' and 'busters' and thus make evangelism and edification more effective.

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