Musical Sounds: Moral or Amoral?

It's unfortunate that I am perhaps the only one arguing that (thought I doubt it ... I am the only here arguing that). The point is that you didn't say "use of guns." You said, "type of guns." And compared it to "type of music" by which mean "use of music." Those are two dissimilar things. A gun is not good or bad. The use of it is. Music is not good or bad. The use of it is. So just like you can use a gun badly, you can use music badly. But music is a different kind of entity.

Incorrect. All analogies are limited. They are not all flawed. An analogy works because A is like B in some way. An analogy is flawed when it says "A is like B" but in fact A isn't like B.

Do you dispute that? If you do, I think you are perhaps the only one who would.

First, if you accuse Crosby and Booth of using contemporary music, you are equivocating on the word "contemporary." They did not use "contemporary" music. That is a genre that did not exist in terms of "Christian contemporary music." Second, that author would in fact say that Booth and Crosby are guilty of that. I would not say that.

No, that's incorrect. Watts was "contemporary" but not in the sense of CCM. You are equivocating on the definition. CCM is not about time. It is about a genre.

 

First, I don't think the Amish were entirely wrong in their basic approach. I think they wrongly applied it. But my reasoning is quite different than the Amish reasoning. But even if they could, that doesn't make the reasoning wrong.

Becuase they are about the way we communicate and music is communication.

Your contention is that we cannot condemn anything that Scripture does not explicitly condemn. You have already contradicted yourself by condemning marijuana, but that aside, think about Christ's statement about adultery in the Sermon on the Mount:

The first part of that is clearly in the OT (ten commandments and elsewhere). The second part of that about lust is not in the OT. But Jesus is clearly making the point that those who limit the command about adultery to the naked words (no pun intended) have not understood the SCripture. Lust is a category that, while not stated in the OT, is clearly a part of the command that should have been understood.

So Christ did the same thing with lust that you say we should not do ... That is, he extrapolated from a clear statement to others things that are a part of that command even though they are not explicitly stated.

This is what you did with marijuana earlier. The question is, Why don't you do it with music?

 

But, Pastor Larry, Jesus' extrapolation is purely scriptural and the resulting command is a universal and inherent principle. Earlier you made this distinction in the arguments about the morality of music: "Whether that [moral] value is universal and inherent, or associative and cultural is a far different and more difficult question". This "difficult question" is not a question at all on the matter of lust in the heart. What Jesus said is a universal principle that is always true in all cases for all people in all situations in all cultures at all times.

And the sinfulness of marijuana is a terrific example of a sin that is not universal and inherent, but is associative and cultural. Now let me explain that before anybody thinks I'm secretly smoking weed (or currently smoking weed as I make this argument). Marijuana is a drug that comes from a plant that God made. The drug has no discovered redeeming value. The only use for it is recreational and the results of that use are harmful. So, our society rejects its use and has criminalized it. As Christians, we agree with society's judgment and we support it. Almost all drugs have harmful effects if used recreationally, but many have beneficial qualities if used sparingly or medically. So those drugs are accepted, though their use is regulated because of the danger of misuse. If a legitimate use for marijuana could be found, it would be de-criminalized and available to the public though with restrictions. And if the use were legitimate, I would support the de-criminalization. (Let me be clear here, I don't think marijuana has been proven to be medically beneficial and I do not support the decriminalization movement).

My point is that the judgments made about music are more akin to the judgments about the use of drugs; that is, the judgments are associative and cultural, they are not universal and unchanging as the command of Christ about lust is.

I repeat what I said earlier. If you can show from the biblical text alone that some musical sounds are evil apart from cultural and associative elements, then what you show is authoritative and binding on all Christians everywhere. But if associative factors are brought in, then the result is an associative and cultural rule that is not a universal.

 

Larry, my personal feeling at this point is that you're arguing the definition of "is."

I've answered Luke's original question as clearly and plainly as I can. I invite you to do the same.

 

I agree ... BUT IT'S NOT CLEARLY STATED IN THE OT. That's the point. Jesus could not point to a "clear explicit text." But he clearly says it is in the command against adultery.

That's the whole point ... Luke (and you I think) are arguing that if you don't have a clear text for it, you can't call it sin. But Jesus didn't share your view. He didn't have a "clear text" about lust, but he plainly declares it to be a part of adultery, and the legalists wanted to limit the command to "naked wordism."

In other words, some here want to say it's legalism to add a requirement not explicitly found in Scripture. But Jesus said it was the legalists who were limiting it to only what was explicitly found in Scripture. Legalists have an infatuation with words, not with biblical principles and applications.

So you don't think marijuana fits under the biblical teaching on intoxicating substances? Luke does. And I do.

Are you sure? Or might it be a result of the fall?

I think you are right in the first (that music is similar to drugs) and wrong in the second (that drugs are associative and cultural). They are mind altering and behavior altering. They are of the same type of issue as drunkenness, except that there is no moderation with it.

My point is that Jesus didn't live by this standard.

That's not true, strictly speaking. Something may be associatively and culturally wrong and also universally wrong. Something may be associatively and culturally acceptable and universally wrong. Something may be associatively and culturally unacceptable and still good.

My point on that is that while I believe there are some forms of music that are universally and inherently wrong, I don't need to make that argument in this culture, because the associative and cultural argument is easier to make, and more clear. And that's enough, I think.

Thanks again ... I really need to quit here.

 

Not at all. I think the distinction is essential. It shows the flaw in your analogy. I think you can make an analogy that works for your side. But you didn't make that analogy. The one you made has faulty comparisons which you are depending on to make your analogy work. If you were writing that for a class paper, it would be marked down for lack of critical thinking.

I would say your answer is insufficient to deal with the data that we have about the issue. But I have tried to answer it clearly without being simplistic, because it doesn't lend itself well to simplistic answers.

thanks for the exchange. As I say, I really need to quit.

 

[deleted because it was unnecessary]

 

I forgot this, and wanted to hit it quickly.

My concern and argument is not that people think things. We all do. It is that we have to have some type of value system by which we judge the credibility of people's thoughts.

I can say, "I think you have cancer," but why should you believe me? You have no reason, because I can't identify one symptom of cancer (except perhaps an unsightly bulge in some body part). But if a trained oncologist says, "I think you have cancer," there is instantly a different level of believability. But how do you know the difference between me and the oncologist? By looking at background, at studies, at training, at exposure to the material, etc. Our words look exactly the same. But the foundation behind them is entirely different and can only be determined by asking the question, "What is your background that calls on me to believe your thinking as opposed to someone else's?"

For me, saying "I think" is communicating that I don't know it all. I think some things, and I think I have valid reason to think them (and no one here has given me any reasons to change), and was trying to get other people to interact with the thoughts based on critical thinking.

I think we too often get involved in sloganeering instead of actual thinking.

 

I think no music is inherently evil or sinful, but there are cultural and local connotations that one must examine when pairing text and tune.

For instance, the vapid and sentimental gospel song "Coming Again" is an example of a bad text/tune pairing. The truth of the text, though simple and shallow, is that Christ is returning soon, but the tune is a weird waltz of a setting. It doesn't work because Jesus is not going to be waltzing back to earth.

 

I don't dispute your point. My point is that it is absurd to suggest that marijuana can be condemned without explicit teaching but other things cannot. If you can use a principle to condemn marijuana, even though marijuana isn't explicitly stated, you can't refuse the use of principles for other areas of life.

God intends us to actually believe his word and learn to think Christianly about all of life. He never intended for you to be a legalist. Jesus wasn't.

And BTW, you never interacted with how Jesus got lust out of a command against adultery. As you can see, Jesus did not use your approach to Scripture. He was quite willing to assert that the Pharisees who believed in your approach of naked wordism were wrong. They should have seen these teachings about lust and other things even though they were not explicitly stated.

Suggesting I am off my rocker because I don't agree with you is probably not a good tack. Perhaps you are unwilling to entertain the suggestion that maybe you don't know as much as you think you do, and if you knew a bit more, you might change your mind.

Calling it "mythical evil musical sounds" is a bad attempt to win the argument by labels. Calling it "mythical" won't make it so. That's an old atheist tactic, which we should all reject.

I was thinking of this this morning when I heard a radio station jingle about "good, good, good, good morning." This conversation came to my mind for the first time in a while because it reminded me how utterly absurd it is to think that any music can be used for anything. That little jingle would have been totally inappropriate at a funeral, or a ballgame. The music just didn't fit because music communicates.

I have shown this time and time again and you refuse to interact with any of it. Telling, I say. Telling, that you won't even venture an attempt at a response. I wish you would because I would love to see what possible answers you could come up with.

Allan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind disagreed with you about this. And he was an atheist, I believe. He was certainly no "fundamentalist" of any type.

How much wiser are the children of darkness ...

 

Not to derail the thread here, but since you chose to address this I am curious to ask a question or two/three. 1) Is it your assertion that one must establish their credentials before they can engage in a discussion on this board? 2) When will you be providing us with your list of credentials in the field of music/sound so that we can have the substance behind your "I think" positions? 3) What basis do you have for ridiculing Revmitchel's use of "I think" in relation to your own uses of the phrase?

 

No.

Whenever anyone asks. But why would anyone ask? Apparently I am the only one here who thinks that a person's knowledge level is important in order to judge whether we should take their comments seriously.

But in a nutshell, I have more than thirty years of playing experience on multiple instruments, a dozen or so years of leading music both congregation and choral, some teaching music (including music theory), as well as a fair amount of study in music and culture, communication, etc. My point is simply this: Give us an idea of why we should value your thoughts above anyone else's. Some guy who can't carry a tune, can't read music, and doesn't understand anything about culture and cultural expression is probably a thought that should be discounted.

Furthermore, I have made very few dogmatic statements, and that intentionally so. I don't want to be dogmatic apart from the self-evident proposition that music communicates without words, something that I think I have very ably demonstrated and no one has interacted with.

I wish someone would take a shot at it. I would love to see someone tell me why Pachelbel's Canon in D isn't the music of choice for an NBA championship celebration. I think there is an obvious reason that makes my point explicitly clear and irrefutable. And no one seems willing to suggest that the Canon in D would be appropriate for that. Why? Because it is obvious that the atmosphere created by that music does not match the atmosphere of an NBA championship. And if you put great words of NBA celebration with it, the music would still be inappropriate.

And that's my point: Music communicates before you put words with it. It doesn't need words to communicate. It is moral by its very nature.

That communication may be associative and cultural, as I explained, or it may be inherent and universal. I am positive about the former, less convinced of the latter, though I think there are some good arguments to be made for it being inherent and universal to some degree.

The sound of a lullaby is very similar all over the world, as is the sound of march music, or Waltz music. No one tries to waltz to the Stars and Stripes Forever, and they wouldn't in Africa anymore than they would in Tennessee. And no army goes off to war to The Tennessee Waltz or the Blue Danube. It is apparent at the very sound of it, before you ever hear a word of the lyrics (if there are any) that certain music doesn't fit in certain places because music communicates.

What makes you think I ridiculed him? I think a second look may be in order because I didn't ridicule him at all. I explained clearly what my point was there, I think. But in case it was unclear, let me try again: My point is that not all thoughts are equal, as illustrated by my cancer example. Quite frankly, if I offer a thought on cancer, you would be extremely wise to disregard it. You should not give it a second thought because (1) I don't know anything about cancer, and (2) I think every little itch or pain might be cancer.

Clearly, if you are going to form an opinion about a topic, you should try to learn from people who actually know what they are talking about. Not everyone's opinions are equal, not even in a democracy, not even in Christianity where we all have the Spirit. Some thoughts are simply bad thoughts.

 

Except this doesn't work in worship. Something "inappropriate" in worship is sinful. So that's clearly where the connection comes in.

Furthermore, the whole "appropriateness" issue is the morality of music. It is inappropriate because of its moral communication.

I am not hung up on it. You are. You constantly bring it up, claiming that since God did not explicitly condemn certain types of music, therefore it is okay. But through the use of Scripture I have pointed out how absurd that is. Your whole participation in this thread is based on the idea that God does not explicitly condemn music, and therefore no one else can.

When I point out that God doesn't explicitly condemn marijuana, you say it doesn't matter beacuse God gives principles about marijuana.

When I point out that God gives principles about worship and communication, you it doesn't apply here because it isn't explicit.

Can't you see the double standard there?

So why do you constantly object to my point if you agree with it? You have so far, to my recollection, refused to admit that Scripture does speak about certain kinds of communication and principles about communication, and that is the issue in music.

That is simply false, and calling it a "ridiculous notion" simply shows that you don't know what you are talking about. Your claim is the minority claim among people in the world of music. Very few will make that claim. And most don't care because they aren't concerned about morality. You, who should be concerned about morality, make the claim to protect something I guess. Who knows.

God clearly condemns certain kinds of communication, does he not? And therefore condemns that communication in music.

That's a totally nonsensical statement. The powerful effects of music on emotions is the morality of music. Again, this simply reveals my previous point, that your ignorance on the matter means that we should not take you seriously. You simply are not aware of what the issues are. (That's what "ignorance" means.)

Wow ... that's unbelievable. I hope that is a misstatement.

Some of it certainly is and you know that, which is why your above statement is nonsensical. When anger is aroused illegitimately, or for something illegitimate, it is sinful anger. It is never right. Illegitimate anger is inherently wrong. It's not even the same entity as righteous anger.

I haven't done that, although there are certainly good reasons to consider it.

But soft rock sung in worship to God is sinful, wouldn't you say? It is inherently sinful to use certain types of music in certain situations because the music cannot be redeemed for that purpose.

My guess is that you know that, and you have simply backed yourself into a corner from which you cannot gracefully admit the problem that most of us see.

I am not offended by it at all. I am pretty sure you care way more about this than I do. I would never bring it up here.

Nice personal attack there. Totally false, and a sad way to bail out here. Don't go down that road. I am not weak in the least. I perhaps am stronger than you are in that I recognize that some forms of music are inherently incompatible with Christian worship, and probably with Christian thinking. That's hardly weakness. My mind goes to Heb 5 where the author says that by the time some of you should be teaching, you are still spiritually immature and need someone to teach you. Some of these issues do require much more thought than some are willing to give it. I admit that.

Again, Luke, your comments here reveal that you have never given this serious thought. And when it comes to worship, that means this is a serious matter. In the Bible, God killed people for false means of worship. That means we should take it a little more seriously than these flippant attempts you are making here.

As I said, I am fine with you or anyone else disagreeing with me. It doesn't bother me in the least. This is, for the most part, a non-issue to me. If someone answers the questions differently than I do, I am fine with that. But we need to be asking the right questions and looking at the realities of things rather than ignoring the questions and living in a dreamworld.

Have you ever read Bloom's chapter on music? Have you done much reading on the site I suggested? Have you read Weaver's Ideas Have Consequences? Read much of Tozer? These are elementary starting points that should form a very basic introduction to these ideas. You won't agree with all of it (or much of it); I certainly don't. But it helps to form good thinking to interact with legitimate sources who actually know what they are talking about.

 

The appropriateness of music is determined by cultural designations in my opinion. Now I have played no instruments nor taken any music classes so I realize my thoughts have little to no value here. A lullaby has been given a cultural designation as music for children therefore it is inappropriate for use in a funeral setting. Not because of some intrinsic moral value, but because of cultural definition.

 

That certainly is missing the point. It's not that they have little to no value, but that we must take them as thoughts of someone who has not studied the subject. Again, just thnk about it in any other field. From mechanics to medical doctors, we all value the opinions of people who have studied over the opinions of those who haven't. Why would this be any different?

Are you sure it's cultural? I wonder your basis for saying that is culturally defined.

Do you think a lullaby in America might be interpreted as a victory dance in some other culture? Can you imagine a futbol team in Africa getting pumped up for a game listening to a lullaby? Or the Staples Center playing a soft lullaby when the Lakers beat the Celtics for the NBA championship? Or a nightclub in Japan using a lullaby? I don't think either African football, Pakistani warlords, Japanese clubbers, or NBA champions are going to have a greatly different understanding of a lullaby. I imagine that even across cultures, the sound of a lullaby is going to communicate similarly in each culture.

I would imagine that the sound of a lullaby is going to be sleep inducing or sleep encouraging across cultures. It isn't cultural. And very few in any culture are going to put their children to sleep with Queen's "We Are the Champions." I have been in a few other cultures briefly and the music has a similar affect in them.

Why do you think non-English speaking countries play American pop music? Wouldn't it be because the music creates a certain atmosphere without any words being understood?

 

No, I'm pretty sure that was exactly your point. A poor one in my estimation considering this is an open forum for the exchange of thoughts, ideas, and opinions.

I think it absolutely could be. Or it could be some cultures version of a wedding march. It could be elevator music in India.

Ummm because they are imitating our culture, and our culture has accepted certain styles of music as popular.

My mother used to put me to sleep with The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and Janis Joplin. In the culture of my home that kind of music had the same effect as a traditional lullaby, I went to sleep.

 

I won't interact with most of this because, quite frankly, it's to the point of utter nonsense. But I will say this. I know what you my point was because I believe it and I wrote it, and I am eminently qualified to say that you missed it. The problem may be that I miscommunicated or that you misread, or some combination. But when someone who holds the position/point tells you you missed it, you should acknowledge that.

I think you are being intentionally ludicrous to say that a lullaby might fit in any situation that I mentioned above (which wasn't a wedding or elevator music, and intentionally so).