Free Chant: Resurrexi

Go here for a free downloadable album of Gregorian Chant done by seminarians of the Institute of the Incarnate Word ("IVE" in Spanish). An old friend from my military days is a seminarian with the IVE, and brought this resource to my attention. Very good!

'Musicolatry'

The PCA Magazine By Faith Online has an article about a new classical chamber group at Atlanta's Church of the Redeemer (PCA). This hip young ensemble hopes to reclaim classical music for its generation. The church's Pastor, expressing his fondness for the program, said, "The love for art is built into all of us. With art we symbolize our reality. Art can teach, rebuke, inspire and confound. It speaks to us as it speaks of us."

This made me wonder, if music as art symbolizes our reality, if it teaches and inspires, why not visual art as well? If a beautiful tune can be used to give depth to our prayer (say, the Doxology), why can't a beautiful icon be used to give depth to a sermon?

Martin Luther famously noted, "next to the word of God, music deserves the highest praise" (Preface to Georg Rhau's Symphoniae Iucandae).

What sets the works of Rachmaninoff ahead of those of Rembrandt? "Return of the Prodigal Son" gives depth to my appreciation for the forgiveness I receive every day from Christ. It (like Music) expresses something in a way in which words and the intellect remain mute.

Music is a gift of God, I certainly would agree. Dr. Harold Best, a former Dean of the Wheaton Conservatory said, we sing in worship because we are commanded by God to do so ("Sing to the Lord a new song" - Isaiah 42:10). It is this commandment that empowers music, he warns, and not the reverse. "When we attempt to empower God's commands with something even as wonderful as music we have stepped over a forbidden line, for there is such a thing as musicolatry. (emphasis added)"

What I like about Dr. Best's position is that it is consistent with a practice of exclusion of artful images in worship. What I dislike about Dr. Best's position is that it starts from a negative presumption: 'use nothing but what is explicitly commanded.' But "Sing to the Lord a new song" is hardly a clear commandment about the use music in church services. Can we use it only in the processional and recessional? Can the sermon be sung, if the pastor is particularly talented, to enliven the preaching of the word? What styles are appropriate? The Apostle Paul tells us about appropriate attire, appropriate conduct in communion, and the appropriate use of 'tongues' in church, but does not address contemporary music. Therefore, the position that we only use music because we are commanded to is open-ended, leaving so much room for interpretation that there is no rule at all.

I think he's on to something though, about musicolatry. Christmas concerts are an easy indicator of the passion for the music overflowing the banks of the text it is meant to enhance. Such is a problem, and would also be a problem in iconography, where love of the image takes primacy over enhancement of the imaged.

We use music because it affects our emotions and feelings. Beautiful music humbles me before God. Contemporary music, with its primitive rhythm patterns, excites the body and makes one sway and move. We use it because it affects us in a way in which we want to be affected. Why not do the same with visual art?

Interfaith Concert

To see the Hindi Pushpanjali Dance Group, hear a Mormon choir or experience the Washington Baha'i Chorale all in the comforts of a Basilica dedicated to the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, consider attending the 28th annual "InterFaith Concert"

I wonder, what are the rules of proper deportment when in the presence of an altar consecrated by the Bishop? Will the elements of the Eucharist remain present in the Tabernacle during these performances?

And who is really comfortable with this arrangement? I would guess that the faithful Muslim or Mormon is going to look forward to this event primarily for the opportunity to "poach" those of the others faith groups present... but I've always been a nay-sayer.

Repetative Mind-numbing Praise Music

Driving home from church early this afternoon, I had the radio tuned to a local Christian station. I heard a woman using seductive coloration in her voice to sing a song my church has done several times during our worship. Without thinking about the song's words, I decided I do not like 1) women singing Christian music in a fashion that mimics sex-dripping pop songs; and 2) the use of complex pop solo songs in corporate worship (no one person in my church could recreate those complex vocal over-stylizations, let alone all of us recreating them together).

Then I went home and looked up the lyrics. This song, Breathe, so ably typifies some other general problems I have with modern pop-mimic "church" music, namely 3) the repetitive nature, dulling and lulling worshippers into a mindless state so as to fail to consider the words which we are supposed to be professing corporately to God; and 4) the self-focused, vice God-focused, nature of praise music, commonly personified by the zealous use of personal pronouns.

Here it is:
"This is the air I breathe/This is the air I breathe/Your holy presence living in me

"This is my daily bread/This is my daily bread/Your very word spoken to me

"And I, I'm desperate for you/And I, I'm lost without you

"This is the air I breathe/This is the air I breathe/Your holy presence living in me

"This is my daily bread/This is my daily bread/Your very word spoken to me

"And I, I'm desperate for you/And I, I'm lost without you

"And I, I'm desperate for you,/And I, I'm lost without you,/I'm lost without you,/I'm so lost without you.

"I'm so lost without you.

"I'm so lost without you,

"This is the air I breathe/This is the air I breathe/Your holy presence living in me

"This is my daily bread/This is my daily bread/Your very word spoken to me

"And I, I'm desperate for you/And I, I'm lost without you."

To make my point seem more compelling than perhaps it is, I have put personal pronouns in RED, and GREEN was going to be repeat lyrics, but there were too many, so I put original lyrics in that color. With this exercise it occured to me that a personal pronoun appears in every line of the song (while God, the object of worship, was not so fortunate). Doulia, or Latria of the self?, one could ponder...