Yes, but how does that translate into music?
Let me put it like this. My very strong personal preference is for hymns, with the traditional words, accompanied by piano, organ, full orchestra, brass band,or any combination thereof, and pitched in keys where I can comfortably sing the alto line (which in practice means in the keys found in old hymnbooks rather than new ones). I have some liking for a very few modern songs, and those are the ones which have real tunes in reasonable keys (ie. lying comfortably within the range of a trained medium voice so not going below middle C and with the general range being mainly around the middle of the treble staff) with words that talk about something other than "me me me".
The other 95% of modern songs leave me stone cold, but then one has to acknowledge that there are plenty of hymns that did not stand the test of time either (Sankey is a prime example!)
Other than issues with the theology, or at least the "me-centredness" of the song, I have no scriptural grounds on which to object to anything. The fact that I don't like it, sadly, is no grounds to reject something. Four part harmony is the best thing in the world as far as i am concerned but I have to accept the fact that the great majority of the population are unable to sing in four part harmony, since it is an acquired skill, and that having hymns pitched high enough to allow comfortable singing of the alto and bass lines by medium voices requires the melody line to be pitched higher than modern congregations are generally able to cope with. Since the advent of the microphone, the tendency in popular music AND in all school teaching of music has been for songs to be pitched lower and lower (such that in popular music men and women frequently sing at exactly the same pitch rather than the expected octave apart). Fighting against this is an uphill struggle and one would need very good scriptural reasons to do it (and one would need to accept that it would immediately alienate most of the congregation)
The Bible makes no specification about what instruments we can or cannot use, and the fact that i might suffer a severe temptation to wrap the lead guitarist's lead round his neck and to stick the drummer's drumsticks up his nostrils is no grounds for Biblical rejection of the electric guitar or the drumkit. If one percussion instrument is allowed, why not a drumkit? If one stringed instrument is allowed, why not a guitar? I have to accept (week in week out) that my own personal preferences are only preferences, that probably in the UK there are no more than a handful of churches, of ANY type, that have music i would like, and that those which do have such music are likely to be unacceptable for other reasons (the best service, in musical terms, that I have been to for many years was in a very high Anglican church where the liturgy included prayers to Mary! I loved the hymns, and I even like chanting psalms as long as its the proper words from the 1662 prayerbook, but obviously I coudn't go again.)
For four years I belonged to a local choral society that is acknowledged to be one of the very best in the UK. Many of the works performed by such choirs are religious in nature and it would often feel to me that i was able to worship more through singing Latin or German religious works (as long as they were protestant ones!) with a choir, though it was a purely secular organisation, than in church singing modern songs in low keys at snail's pace because somehow it was regarded as spiritual to sing them at snail's pace. But I suspect that was a reflection on me rather than a reflection on the music!
Liz
