Instrumental music

[rsr]

On a thread that has been moved to the Theology forum, an Old Regular brother posted some information on why Primitive Baptists and Old Regulars do not use instrumental music in worship.

That topic properly belongs elsewhere.

But a proper topic here would be to discuss at what point many Baptists began to accept instrumental music in worship. We can surmise that it was after the early 1830s because the Black Rock Addresses (1832 and 1834) make no mention of instrumental music among their complaints about what they see happening to contemporary Baptist churches.

Yet by the middle of the century Francis Wayland was concerned that the prevalence of organs and choirs was drowning out traditional Baptist congregational singing. (See Notes on the Principles and Practices of Baptist Churches, 1857).

Is anyone aware of specific points of time that Baptists embraced instrumental music?

 

[Old Union Brother]

From the minutes of the Philadelphia Association 1762:

1762
The Association met this year, October 12th, and sat to the 14th. There were messengers or letters from eighteen churches. The other eleven we heard nothing of. Rev. Morgan Edwards was moderator, and Rev. Abel Morgan, clerk. They met at the Lutheran church, in Fifth street, between Arch street and Race street, where the sound of the organ was heard in the Baptist worship. The business done was as followeth:

 

[Salty]

OUB, are you the one who took the minutes of that meeting? :smilewinkgrin:

 

[Old Union Brother]

sitting right next to John Gano and Jenkin Jones

 

[rsr]

I have run across I Will Sing the Wondrous Story: A History of Baptist Hymnody in North America by David W. Music and Paul A. Richardson, 2008, Mercer University Press.

The authors refer to the 1762 meeting (the Baptists were meeting at the Lutheran church because First, Philadelphia was remodeling its building.) Yet it appears, according to their research (based on David Benedict's history), that the first organ installed in a Baptist church was in Pawtucket, R.I., in 1819 and was originally for the use of the Mozart Society (which gave concerts there) but gradually began to be used in worship services.