I Will Sing of You Among the People

I ran across a long discussion yesterday on Mike Cope’s blog on instrumental music and our a cappella worship tradition. I won’t try to reconstruct the conversation. But I also ran across a website that was an affirmation of belief in a cappella only worship music. I won’t try to reconstruct that conversation either. But I did spend some time reading through some of the comments made on both web sites. Now my personal history in our heritage only goes back about 5 generations, but I guess there is something about this whole thing that I just don’t get.

Oh, I get the part about the richness of our cappella tradition. And I get the part about the beauty of human voices blending together in harmony. I can’t do it, but I do get it. (Wasn’t harmony made up about the same time and by the same people who made up the instruments in the church thing? Wouldn’t singing in unison be more theologically significant than 4-part harmonies going off in different directions at once? But then I digress.) And I get the part about the danger of turning participatory worship into a presentation or entertainment where the audience becomes only casual observer. (Though the temptation to “show off’ for the benefit of others is just as real for the guy singing tenor as for soloist or guy playing acoustic guitar). And I do get the beauty and simplicity of a cappella, congregational worship. As one of the praise songs that we sing begins, “There’s no place else that I’d rather be…” I have zero desire to change our a cappella worship music tradition. Zero as it none!

But what I do not get is the idea that heaven and hell rests on whether or not you get why you shouldn't use instruments. There are 17 verses in the New Testament that mention singing. Five of those are from Revelation (like the faithful holding harps of God and singing the song of Moses and the Lamb, Rev 15:2). Five are quotations from the Old Testament. Most of the rest simply say that someone (Jesus and the disciples, Paul and Silas, etc.) sang. There are no examples of singing in a church worship setting, except for 1 Corinthians 14:26, which sounds more like someone presenting a song solo, not congregational singing. The two texts we discuss the most (Eph 5:19 and Col 3:16) are not even in contexts discussing corporate worship at all—they are discussing personal spiritual living. We are a little short on data to know exactly how God wants us sing praises.

Even if I'm right in deciding that a cappella singing best fits the New Testament data (and I always think I’m right), can’t I at least admit that there really is a bit ambiguity here? Can’t I be comfortable in the choice that I make each Sunday while respecting brothers and sisters down the street who make a different choices? But since the data is ambiguous, should we not take the safest choice and sing sans the piano? Maybe. Or maybe we should say, “You know, there is ambiguity in what the New Testament says about church music, so let’s go back and see what clues God gives us about praise in the Old Testament.”

I don’t want to change our church music. I think there needs to be an a cappella music tradition in the kingdom of God, and I think we’re in a good position to help out there! But what we need to lose is the idea that God moved heaven and earth to send His Son to die on the cross to take captivity captive and make a public spectacle of the powers and authorities … only to see most Christians go to hell because they missed the fine print (or the absence of a fine print) about pianos and organs. If we think that faithfulness and salvation depends on us figuring everything out correctly-- or that we can have no fellowship with anyone who figures things out wrongly-- then we are doomed to spend the rest of our church lives arguing over praise teams, children’s classes, Bible translations and whether we can eat in the church building. I would like to think that there is room in our churches for those of us who really do prefer singing a cappella praise…. but who really don't think it is such a big hairy deal when someone else doesn't.

I met last night with a couple who are placing membership with us. They came to us from a background that uses instruments. They said that they had some reservations about coming to a church that doesn’t have music because they really enjoy that, but then said, “I was ashamed that I had worried about that because the singing here is so beautiful and worshipful.” That's the point, right? At that moment my phone rang—my ring-tone is the chorus of Philip, Craig and Dean’s worship anthem, “You are God alone. From before time began You are on Your throne. You are God alone.” That’s is the point, isn't it?