Organ replaced with Guitars… Oh My!!!
- Posted by: Todd
- Posted on: Tue, November 29, 2005
- Viewed 137
- (77) comments so far
If we can't agree on everything; then we agree on nothing.
Everything was very judgmental and legalistic toward the end of the church I grew up in (yes, they were killed off by legalism while I was off in college). The issues: hair length; card playing; sending kids to public school... you name it; they had a problem with it. If you didn't keep the list; you were 'in sin' and don't even think about hangin' with anybody who broke the rules.
It seems there aren't as many separatists today as there once were (although I think most of them blog!)... but the movement is still alive and well. Here is a great example...
You can find the link to the following here... (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, , http://www.wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143):
The October 29 issue of the Chattanooga Times Free Press (Chattanooga, Tennessee) featured a picture of Tennessee Temple University students worshipping to contemporary rock music during a Wednesday evening service. The accompanying article said:
"Beneath the 90-year-old stained glass at St. Andrews Center, rock music blares as worshippers in jeans and T-shirts fill the sanctuary. The weekly Wednesday night church service has all the markings of traditional worship--music, preaching and praying. But the choir and organ have been replaced with drums and an electric guitar. 'Each generation has different styles of music, and what churches have to realize is that we've got to meet those younger generations' needs,' said Dr. Danny Lovett, who preaches at the service and is president of Tennessee Temple University."
Where does the Bible say God's people should use the world's style of music? To the contrary, we are instructed to have spiritual music (Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16), which means music that is set apart unto God from this wicked world. See 1 Jn. 2:15-17; Jam. 4:4; Tit. 2:11-14; Rom. 12:2. While it is a sad thing for older graduates of this school to observe, it is not surprising to see Tennessee Temple and Highland Park Baptist Church take such a dramatic turn to a worldly philosophy. Lovett recently came to Temple from Jerry Falwell's Liberty Baptist University, and it is New Evangelical to the core. Billy Graham, the Prince of New Evangelicalism, has spoken at Liberty and has been praised by Falwell for his 'faithful ministry.' Liberty students are not warned about the heresy of Graham's ecumenical evangelism or of his unscriptural emphasize the positive, judge not philosophy. Liberty has hosted conferences for the radically ecumenical Promise Keepers as well as for Rick Warren. Biblical separation is rapidly fading from the agenda of a large body of former fundamentalist Baptists who are moving in the popular contemporary direction.
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My goodness... take out the organ and put in a guitar (by the way, there were many stringed instruments in the Bible); and suddenly we crossed the line from spiritual to unspiritual; from Godly to ungodly.
But here's the problem... someone is determining what music is spiritual and which music is unspiritual... which music is godly and which is ungodly.
The songs song 20 years ago at Tennessee Temple University (when the school was 'godly') were not written in Bible times. They were new at one time (just like the songs they sing now).
The electronic and/or pipe organ is not a biblical new testament instrument. If anything, guitars are closer to the 'original'. But many churches viewed the organ as 'ungodly' when it was introduced. There are churches still today who don't use any musical instruments. Again, someone has made the choice.
But since The Beatles and other 'rock' musicians use guitars; guitars are worldy. Who made that decision?
I don't hear anyone saying that we shouldn't use pianos in worship because Liberace was gay.
Or that we shouldn't wear ties to church because the worldy business community also wear ties to conduct their secular drugery.
But here's the main thing I noticed when I was a part of a separatist church... the church tended to concentrate on the negative... and once it started on one thing, it lead to a list of other evils (all of which the church had something against). That's what intrigued me about the above quote. All that it took for him to go off was that the organ was replaced by a guitar. This lead to all of the following...
--this all happened because the leader came from Liberty
--Libery is NeoEvangelical
--Billy Graham has spoken at Liberty
--Billy Graham is a heretic (and the Prince of New Evangelicalism, btw)
--Liberty students 'haven't been warned'
--They've worked with Promise Keepers and Rick Warren (it ALWAYS comes back to him, doesn't it?)
--Few are left but us... even the fundamentalists are moving in the 'popular contemporary direction'
How'd he get all that from one newspaper article?
I guess you'd have to have grown up a separatist to understand that one. (And I think I do).
It's sad... but I think I do.
Any thoughts? Any separatists among us? Welcome, from a former separatist! 
Todd
I grew up as a conservative, separatist Baptist. (Yes, I survived.) We didn’t fellowship with any other church in town. Actually, there was only one other church that we acknowledged that existed (and we really didn’t care for them very much). We didn’t even play basketball with other churches. We didn’t ‘smoke, chew, or run with girls who do’. So I feel that I kind of understand the separatist mindset. It goes a little something like this…
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John Naples on Wed, January 25, 2006
Forget the debate over whether popular styles of music or traditional church choir and organ music should be used in church. You are sincerely wasting your precious time. There’s nothing wrong with either so long as it is done well. The trouble with popular style (rock, jazz, hip hop, r&b;, pop, etc.) is that it sincerely lowers the bar on how music is conceived, what music should accomplish and by whom. You can be sure that if Bach were playing hip hop, it would be great hip hop showing a multileveled arcitectural discipline which lies beneath the surface. The reason traditional classical church music survives the centuries is because it contains a degree of artistic merit that goes beyond style or fashions of any particular trend or fad. No less than years of concentrated study and delayed gratification go into the creation of great music whether it is organ and choir or electric guitars and keyboards. The point is, however, it is comparitively easy to create and attract interest through imitating popular sounds and sights of the latter medium and it is rightly suspect. On the other hand, it is another thing to show respect and gratitude toward those whose music respects a sense of the sacred through eliminating all reference to trend and fashion and instead raising the bar back up where it should be - toward all that is conciously developed and refined along lines of excellence for the EDIFICATION of people and the greater glory of GOD. Deal with it.
Bobby Carby on Sun, March 05, 2006
No musical instruments in the church?
“Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord”. Eph. 5:19 (see also Col. 3:16).
Some Christian’s use this scripture to promote their idea that we should only have a cappella singing in a church service. They claim that nowhere in the New Testament does it say that we should use musical instruments in worship so, therefore, we should not do it. “Where Scripture is silent, we remain silent”, they say.
The problem with their stand on this issue is that Scripture is not silent. This very passage properly defined refutes the notion that musical instruments should be banned from our worship service. Using Strong’s Concordance of the Bible, here are the Greek definitions of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs:
• Psalms – A sacred ode accompanied with the voice, harp, or other musical instrument.
• Hymns – To celebrate; to play on a stringed instrument.
• Spiritual songs – sing (voice only). (See 1 Cor. 14:15-17).
Comparatively, the Old Testament definition of “psalm” from the Hebrew is instrumental music and “psalms” is a song to be accompanied with instrumental music. Also it means to touch the strings or parts of a musical instrument, i.e. to play upon it.
These definitions of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs from the New Testament Greek and even the Old Testament Hebrew clearly promote the idea that a church worship service not only is permitted to use musical instruments in worship, but that they should be used.
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