Well, another Hoagies & Stogies has come and gone. The unanimous verdict of those 29 hardy men (is that what Hardy Boys grow up to be?) who braved the cold and risk of rain was, “that was a lot better than I expected!” So kudos to our two debaters (Pr. Mark England of SDRPC, and Jonathan Goundry, Gene Cook’s right-hand-man at Great Oak Church and The Narrow Mind) for their excellent preparation and presentation.

Some highlights:

Mark England opened with a case for exclusive psalmody. One direction he went early on was to explain Col 3:16: “singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” Those three greek words, psalmos, hymnos, and ode, show up most frequently in the Septuagint (greek old testament) in the titles of the Psalms (I hope I got those right — I couldn’t find any online Septuagint search utilities with psalm titles). Conceding that Psalm titles are not necessarily inspired, and that a statistic is not exegesis, he argued that the original hearers would have heard that triple-iteration as meaning “the three things you Christians need to know about singin’, are Psalms, Psalms, and Psalms!” (As other examples of emphasis by triple-iteration, he gave Lev 16:21 (iniquities, transgressions, sins), and the very common triplet commandments, rules, statutes).

Jonathan Goundry took us on a whirlwind tour of redemptive history, showing how the regulative principle has had varying applications throughout scripture (Adam and the Sacramental Trees, Cain & Abel’s sacrifices, Noah’s clean animals, etc.). Is 42:9-10 shows how, every time God does a new redemptive work, his people are supposed to respond with a new song. In the same way, he argued that “in all wisdom” in Col 3:16 relates to to the whole emphasis of earlier Colossians, that Christians are the recipients of the “Mysterium,” the greater revelation of Christ that the Jews did not have fully, and our worship should reflect the greater body of New Testament truth. And even if “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” refers to the book of Psalms, it cannot be an exclusive command, because in the context of interpersonal relations (not public worship), it would mean that Psalms are the only thing Christians can sing in their whole lives — not just in church!

Anyways, this is just a nutshell of a recap — if you are interested at all, you should listen to the whole thing. If you’ve already heard it, you can drop comments here about your impressions.

You can listen directly from The Narrow Mind Aftermath blog, or you can download from (or subscribe to!) the Unchained Radio RSS feed.  Or you can read a little about it, and discuss, here.

Without belaboring my obvious recent absence from the blogosphere, I’ll just provide a number of links that you might find interesting:

RiffTrax: Don’t you miss MST3K? Years ago, Forester had the idea to make his own MST3K-type spoofs, but the original MST3K guys ended up beating him to the punch. Now, for only $5.98, I’ll be able to watch the Star Wars Episode I and II DVDs that came packaged with Revenge of the Sith!

MythTV: One reason I’ve never plumped for a TiVo or other type of DVR is that I would rather buy a device, than buy a device AND pay a subscription fee. Turns out you can take any old Intel box, add a special card for converting cable signals into digital video, install Linux, and (voila!) MythTV turns your computer into an open-source DVR. Program information is free over the web (for instance, from zap2it), and the bigger the hard-drive, the more it can store (about 1 GB/hour of non-HD television).

Finale Notepad: As a musician, I’ve occasionally had the need to jot something simple down. For instance, when I got married, one of the hymns that I wanted as part of the service was not in the hymnal of the church we were using. I managed to enter and print the hymn as a leaflet inserted in the bulletin, using a 30-day evaluation copy of some software or other, but I wish there had been (or I had known about?) Finale’s Notepad back then! As the name implies, Notepad is a lightweight, free music composition software. I say lightweight because it is a limited version of Finale’s full software, but the limitations are surprisingly unrestrictive. You can have up to 8 staves, you can enter lyrics, you can have all manner of special notations (tuplets, slurs and ties, fermatas, repeats,…), you can perform transposition, there is MIDI playback, you can save and print — I really think Finale has gone overboard in their free offering, such that I might never have a need to pay for anything better!

On a more serious (and less geeky) note,

The PCA: Following the OPC (my church’s previous denomination), my denomination has produced a report about Frank Valenti. The PCA report is smaller than the OPC’s report, probably because it narrowed its focus on standards rather than scripture. The report has not yet been adopted by GA, but it concludes quite clearly that all of the following hallmarks of FV are contrary to the Westminster Standards: monocovenantalism, temporary “covenantal” election, denial of ICAO, denial of merit, imputation subsumed in union, baptismal regeneration, saving graces without perseverance, and final justification partly based on works.

Good Grief: My sister recently wrote a very personal, very touching post about our sister that we both lost. If you have ever lost anyone, I think her post will be edifying for you.

This is interesting, in light of recent rants of mine about CCM.  Some highlights:

No one can dispute that the contemporary-style worship has helped churches grow by pulling in “unchurched” young and middle-aged people, who tend to like the informality and rock-influenced music. It’s still far more common to see a mainline church experimenting with a contemporary service than a contemporary-style church trying out tradition.

But some students of the contemporary style say that much of its music lacks the melodic sophistication of enduring hymns, or the poetry and doctrinal depth of lyrics penned by such writers as Charles Wesley (“Love Divine, All Loves Excelling”); Isaac Watts (“When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”); Fanny Crosby (“Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine”); or Thomas Dorsey (“Precious Lord, Take My Hand”).

And while traditional worship can be stiff and uninvolving, the contemporary experience – music, big screens, mood lighting – is often derided as “church lite.”

…

Nelson suggests that the biggest difference between hymns and contemporary praise songs is that hymns are theology-based, while contemporary songs are experienced-based. “I really believe that people are hungry to come back to what it is that we believe, and the hymns express very clearly what we believe,” he said.

Others echo that. “When done incorrectly, contemporary services are all foam and no root beer,” said Nathan Lino, pastor at Northeast Houston Baptist. “They are entertaining, fun and high energy, but you leave with no sense of having had a meaningful time of worship. I do think churches are beginning to realize that there is a growing desire for a shift back toward a more traditional style.”

Thanks to a tip from sheet-music, I hereby smackdown the urban myths (leveraged by the smacked-down commenters in this previous post) that

• Luther stole hymn tunes (in particular, A Mighty Fortress) from popular drinking songs of his day
• Luther ever said “Why should the Devil have all the good music”.
• If Luther said that, that he meant “let’s get secular-style music into the church”

Here is a quote, from Leonard Payton, Reforming Our Worship Music, Wheaton: Crossway, 1999 (p. 205), sent to me by sheet-music:

Many Christians who appropriate the goods of popular culture cite Luther as a precedent. A common claim is that Luther used tunes “from the bar.” However, musicological research since 1923 is weighing in heavily for Luther as the composer of his own melodies. Luther did use a musical form called a “bar” form. But this is a technical term referring to the architecture of music, not, as would normally be expected, a place where alcoholic beverages are consumed. Others mistakenly cite Luther’s famous question, “Why should the devil have all the good tunes?” When Luther spoke of the devil metaphorically, it was directed at the pope, not the pub. To rephrase what Luther was saying, “Why should we leave the great old hymns to the Roman Catholics?” It was an apology for the traditional, not the contemporary!

In searching the web, I found an excellent (and longer) article by one Paul S. Jones, organist and Music Director at Tenth Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, PA. The webpage itself was not available, so I was able to read it only from Google’s cached copy. Since it would be unfortunate indeed if this article were to perish, I blockquote the whole thing now, and I will eagerly replace it with a link if it ever appears in a live web page again.

Luther and Bar Song—The Truth, Please!

by Paul S. Jones, D. M.

If I had a dollar for every time I have heard that Luther used tavern music for his hymns and that “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” was a drinking song, I would be a wealthy man. However, such assertions are simply not true. These are falsehoods perpetrated on the evangelical world in an effort to support the CCM (Christian Contemporary Music) industry. Supposedly Luther’s hymn was a “bar song” which evidences use of secular music in church. This purportedly corresponds with a question attributed to Luther, “Why should the Devil have all the good music?” On this basis many have championed the use of popular music in the church provided it is “sanctified” by adding sacred text. Their conclusion: as long as the words are Christian, the music is of little consequence; and worse yet, the world’s music is the best way to win people to Christ. The careless acceptance of these errant ideas has done great damage to the integrity of church music and worship in our time. There are at least four errors to counter.

First, Luther’s battle hymn, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, is NOT a tavern song, nor is it based on one. Luther composed both the text (based on Psalm 46) and the original tune for this chorale in 1529. Luther was a fine composer and none of his tunes can be traced back to drinking songs. While some were derived from Gregorian chant or other pre-existing compositions, only one was even based on a secular folk song—his Christmas hymn, “From Heaven on High I Come to You” (Von Himmel Hoch). And this tune was replaced after a time because “Luther was embarrassed to hear the tune of his Christmas hymn sung in inns and dance halls.”[1] Perhaps this is the source of some of the confusion.

Overall, Luther was careful in his choice of music for the church. And his purposes for composition are completely other than secular and as confirmed by his own words:

Therefore, I too, with the help of others, have brought together some sacred songs, in order to make a good beginning and to give an incentive to those who can better carry on the Gospel and bring it to the people. . . .And these songs were arranged in four parts for no other reason than that I wanted to attract the youth (who should and must be trained in music and other fine arts) away from love songs and carnal pieces and to give them something wholesome to learn instead. . . .[2]

The primary mistake made was confusing tavern music with “bar form.” Bar form is a standard form from German music and literature of the Middle Ages consisting of three or more stanzas. Each stanza was divided into two Stollen (the “A” lines) and one Abgesang (the “B” section). This resulted in an AAB structure, or other variations such as AABA. Bar form is used for many strophic hymns, perhaps most commonly in hymns from Germany and the British Isles. For example, in the famous tune by Beethoven from the fourth movement of his Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, the “Ode to Joy”, to which we often sing the words “Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee,” the “A” melody line is repeated forming the first half of the hymn. The “B” line follows contributing further melodic and harmonic development. Then the “A” section is repeated to close the piece. Such is also the case with Luther’s ‘Ein’ Feste Burg (A Mighty Fortress) although the repeat of “A” at the end is modified slightly. Bar form has nothing to do with drinking.[3]

The second error is in believing that the statement “Why should the Devil have all the good music?” (as applied to Luther) has anything to do with pop music, or for that matter has anything to do with Luther. Pop music did not even exist in Luther’s time; it is a phenomenon of the twentieth century. Did secular music exist? Of course it did. There was music of the courts, music of the bards and troubadors, and folk/dance music of the common people. But this music was not mass-produced with the intention of making vast amounts of money, and it was not used in the church. The only association the statement has with pop music is that Larry Norman wrote a song by that very title. He and others used this song as a means of championing their music within the Christian church.

The third error has to do with the statement’s attribution. It was actually the Rev. Rowland Hill (1744-1833), a London pastor and evangelist, who said, “Why should the Devil have all the good tunes?”[4] Hill was concerned over the lamentable quality of music in his church (Surrey Chapel, built for him in 1783) and he wanted do something about it. So Hill wrote hymns and compiled/published five collections of psalms and hymns, three of which were specifically for children and schools. In spite of readily available documentation, the statement has been misattributed to Luther as well as to both Wesley brothers, Isaac Watts and even D. L. Moody.[5] In the January 1997 issue of Concordia Theological Journal, James L. Brauer offered a $25 reward to any Luther scholar who could find the quote in Luther’s works. No one met the challenge.

But even if Luther uttered such a statement, it would not have been in an effort to bring tavern or folk music into the church. It would have been directed at the Roman Catholic Church and its pope to whom Luther frequently referred as “the Devil.” In other words, “Why should the pope (i.e., the Roman church) have all the good church music? Our Protestant churches should have it too.” The music that Luther loved and redeemed for the Lutheran church was music written for Rome by Josquin des Prez, Orlando di Lasso, G. P. da Palestrina, and other master composers of the day admired for their musical skill and attention to text. In other words, if the question was Luther’s, it would support the idea that artistic music of great composers should be employed in worship—the polar opposite of what many would like it to mean.

The fourth error is the belief that adding sacred text or Christian words to a tune makes it worthy of use in worship. Adding scriptural text to a ‘heavy metal’ tune does not make it any more appropriate for worship than sprinkling confectioner’s sugar on moldy bread will make it suitable for communion. Its potential for harm remains undiminished. While some people will be fooled and will put themselves or their congregations in harm’s way, careful consideration will uncover the truth. A related error is the notion that as long as the words are inoffensive the music is of little consequence. The music used in worship is of great consequence because it communicates at a level deeper than words. In fact, the musical message may be more powerful than the verbal message in a particular song.

Text and music should match each other well. If the text is trite and meaningless, it has no place in worship. Yet, at times, profound texts are wed to music with inferior structure or harmony, so that “the aesthetic form communicates fun and good times to most people rather than the worship of Almighty God…”[6] This does not mean that all light or popular music is “bad”; rather, it suggests that not all music is appropriate to worship or to particular thoughts and ideas about God.

Our heavenly Father deserves and demands the best we have to offer. Our lives are to be living sacrifices (Romans 12). We are told to think on whatever is good, lovely, and virtuous (1 Thessalonians 5). This requires making choices about what is good, lovely and virtuous. As literature or art can be critiqued according to certain standards, so music can be judged according to objective parameters, specifically melody, harmony, rhythm and form. While some judgments will be subjective, absolute principles governed by the laws of science and nature and born out in human experience inform our knowledge of good form, artistic content, and musical excellence. Our relativistic, pluralistic society says otherwise, of course, in direct opposition to the gospel and to biblical standards for godly living.

Everyone will have an opinion about music and will know what they like, but a trained church musician with theological understanding will be best equipped to make decisions about what is “good” church music. One of the primary responsibilities of the church musician is to be a steward and protector of the church’s praise. This points to our need for musically educated, theologically astute church musicians who will care for us in this regard. It also points to our need for congregations and pastors who will search for and value these kind of musical leaders. Such is the kind of person Luther commended, and such is the quality of music that he sought for the church. Any other myth that abuses Luther and others in support of trivial, commercial, ‘pop’ music in worship should be put to death. Spread the word.

Copyright © 2003 by Paul S. Jones.

All Rights Reserved.

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[1] Paul Nettl, Luther and Music, (trans. F. Best and R. Wood) Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1948, p. 48.[2] Martin Luther, from the foreword to the first edition of Johann Walter’s Geistliches Gesangbüchlein, 1524. [3] This does not mean, however, that Luther did not enjoy good beer.

[4] See John Bartlett, Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 10th ed., (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1919), p. 861 as well as the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University press, 1979) and E. W. Broom’s 1881 biography of Hill, The Rev. Rowland Hill: Preacher and Wit, all of which attribute the quote to the famous preacher.

[5] Mark Nabholz, “Give Luther a Rest” in The Journal of the Church Music National Conference, Fall 2002.

[6] Leonard Payton, Reforming Our Worship Music, Wheaton: Crossway, 1999, p. 14.

Another in my periodical, sporadical, and occasional series on Hymns (the first of which can be found here), I nominate, for the prize of Best Hymn Tune Ever, O Sacred Head Now Wounded.  By clicking this link, you will be able to listen along in a separate browser as you read.  The words are not exactly chopped liver either; you will also find 11 (!) verses of the original poem — although Trinity Hymnal #247 uses only 1, 2, and 6, I recently attended a memorial service for an ardent hymn-lover where I think we sang all 11!  Originially written in 1156 in Latin by Bernard of Clairvaux, the text is closing on 1000 years of meaningfulness and relevance. 

Not composed by J.S. Bach himself, he apparently did harmonize it, and it certainly sounds worthy of him.  The so-called “passion chorale” was included many times as a choral interlude in his St. Matthew’s passion; the music always commands an air of solemnity and penance that is a remarkable aid to reflection on Christ’s suffering, and our relationship to it (as causers and beneficiaries).

After my junior year of college, I had scrimped and saved my money to buy what I considered an awesome-quality budget stereo system (Adcom GTP-400 preamp, GFA-535 amp, Celestion 3 speakers, driven by some Sony CD player that has since bitten the dust).  The Baltimore summers being too hot and humid for human habitation, I set up shop in the air-conditioned apartment of my blogroll buddy. I remember that one night another friend that lived in the building started listening with me to St. Matthew’s Passion (London/Solti/Chicago), reading along in the booklet to understand the German, and more than three hours, and many pots of tea later, we ended up listening to the whole thing. 

More recently, one of my many started-but-not-well-persisted projects was to start to teach #1 hymns, so he could begin to participate with us in church.  The idea was to learn one hymn tune & verse each week in advance of the service, and eventually he would build up a useful repertoire that would allow him to worship meaningfully with us, not just struggle with unknown words and music, or tune out with books or drawing. 

Well, given that you are reading this particular post, you can probably guess what hymn was first up to bat.  You might be interested to know, however, that I chose to work first not with verse 1, but verse 2, in particular because of the line

mine, mine was the transgression, but thine the deadly pain

As I hoped, #1 got a kick out of singing about “deadly pain”, and I think that met my goal of teaching him about substitutionary atonement. 

I here inaugurate a periodical, sporadical, and occasional series on Hymns that mean a lot to me. All of these will have a link to a page with MIDI accompaniment to the entire Trinity Hymnal (it’s a little groovier if you imagine a nice rhumba or bossa nova synth beat in the background).

As a first entry, I must cite a hymn that was instrumental in my, um, recommittment? (In terms of Heb 6 I believe I was a Christian all along). For a while in grad school, I was in a spiritual funk (partly due to loss of my undergraduate fellowship of InterVarsity friends). Comparing myself to the attitude and demeanor of brothers at my home church, and Rock Church (Baltimore), etc., I was feeling guilty for not feeling emotional towards God (Albino Shaq may remember in particular a certain lunch at Claim Jumper where we discussed this at length). Did I really love God? Was I really saved, or just faking it?

Well, God’s answer came to me one Sunday in the Fall of ‘94, at Faith Christian Fellowship Church, Pen Lucy (Baltimore) MD (the PCA I had been attending with The Forester and some others at the end of my undergrad). I was down in MD visiting college buddies over a random weekend. One hymn that Sunday morning: O Love That Will Not Let Me Go. Singing those words for the first time, I realized that I cannot love God, except with love that he gives to me. I needed to stop worrying about manipulating my emotions to be like what I think somebody else thinks they should be, and just be thankful for His sacrifice, by whatever means His Holy Spirit stirs up in me to respond. And at that moment, the Holy Spirit moved me to sit down and cry in church (that’s a cataclysmic deal for me).

Ever since, I have always turned to this hymn as an incredibly concise statement of how God first loved us, and how we cannot lean on our own understanding or trust in our own strength or attain our own righteousness. We must count all of those as dung, and cling only to God’s works for salvation.

As a few side notes, I played this hymn, solo violin, at Dacia’s memorial service, since it also expresses well (the title, at least) how God maintains his claim on his elect, despite our rebellious struggling, which was a comforting thought to me during a tempest of questions and doubts about the state of Dacia’s soul. Also, mom made and framed this hymn for me (with calligraphy and gold-highlighted music that looks like a medieval highlighted scroll–here’s a picture of it). And at my wedding, this hymn formed the framework of my Dad’s toast. All cherished memories. I wish my church would sing it more often.

Anyhoo, here is a link to the music for the hymn, which you can listen to as you read my favorite three stanzas right here.

O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.