We tend to think the issues in our churches are contemporary issues that we alone have had to contend with. Yet when we read voices from ages past, we are often reminded that many issues come and go, rise and wane. This is the case with the music we sing at church. At some points the church is (rightly) focused on enabling the amateur voices in the pews and at other points (wrongly) focused on prioritizing the professional voices in the choir or band. This was of some concern at the end of the 19th century as evidenced in this little snippet from De Witt Talmage. Like him, when I hear many of today’s worship bands, “I would prefer the hearty, outbreaking song of a backwoods Methodist camp-meeting.” In many of the churches of Christ in our day, the music is simply a mockery. I have not a cultivated ear nor a cultivated voice, yet no man can do my singing for me. I have nothing to say against artistic music. The two or five dollars I pay to hear Miss Thursby or Miss Abbott or any of the other great queens of song is a good investment. But when the people assemble in religious convocation, and the hymn is read, and the angels of God step from their throne to catch the music on their wings, do not let us drive them away by our indifference. I have preached in churches where vast sums of money were employed to keep up the music, and … Continue reading The Music Is Simply a Mockery