Comments on: Calling a Truce in the Worship Wars

By: Cerulean Sanctum » The Best of Cerulean Sanctum 2006

Cerulean Sanctum » The Best of Cerulean Sanctum 2006 — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 07:17:29 +0000

[...] Calling a Truce in the Worship Wars [...]

By: Dan McGowan

Dan McGowan — Sat, 25 Feb 2006 05:43:00 +0000

Wow - more wonderful thoughts to consider… glad to have stumbled upon this blog! I’ve linke to you from mine (www.commonsaints.blogspot.com).

Blessings,
Dan McGowan

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 00:27:00 +0000

Interesting and something I’ve wondered about for years. I love the traditional hymns, the Bach chorales, and the peaceful meditation they bring. I’ve tried and tried to make myself listen to Contemporary Christian music, but overall I just don’t like it, other than an occasional song. Perhaps it’s because I grew up in the late 60’s/early 70’s and I can’t separate the whole drug culture mindset from the music. And I liked rock! Jack Black told his students in the movie “School of Rock” that rock music is all about sticking it to “the man” and that gives me pause to put Christian lyrics to it. I can’t separate the sex, drugs, rock n’ roll mentality from the music, and so have trouble listening to it in the context of worship.
That said, I don’t think we need to throw out the baby with the bath water, which I fear happens too often on both sides. Balance needs to be the key. I know several churches that use nothing but traditional hymns, but others that feed their flocks a steady diet of only praise bands/rock tunes. I think we can’t shy away completely from the new, but there is such a wealth of beautiful church music from years past, we also need to exercise caution lest we discount all that because it isn’t trendy and hip.

By: HeavyDluxe

HeavyDluxe — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 14:52:00 +0000

Dan,

Thanks for the nice, insightful blog entry. For my part, I was born/raised Methodist, spent my young adult years in the Assembly of God, and now attend a (we’ll say, ‘mildly’) Reformed Bible church.

I’ve been reading a copy of “Give Praise to God”, a tribute book for James Boice written by a lot of the new Reform people and focused on reclaiming regulative, Biblical worship in the modern church. As I’ve been reading it, I’ve posted little ‘thoughts’ on my blog that sound a lot like your thoughts.

These two, here and here, in particular.

Anyway… Just a shout out from a similarly-minded soul!

In Christ - Dluxe

By: Dan Edelen

Dan Edelen — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 18:21:00 +0000

Kent,

Thanks for visiting.

I purposefully kept the scriptural citations to a minimum for two reasons:

1. Both sides of the worship wars cite Scripture to support their contentions. The problem there is that neither side is listening to the Scriptures the opposite side is offering. Heaping more Scriptures on the pile is not going to make a difference if people refuse to hear them.

2. Few topics encompass the whole of Scripture more than worship does. You can’t dole out a few Scriptures here and there and make a point on a topic that spans the entirety of Scripture! The opposing camps do this with alarming ease and like I noted above, if they are unwilling to listening to the other side, tossing more verses at the issue is NOT going to solve the problem if the whole counsel of Scripture is not taken into account.

So many problems we have in Christianity are not due to a lack of Scriptural citations, but the hardness of the human heart to the truths found there and in the entirety of the Bible. I’m not going to be able to solve that issue here.

What I am posting here is an appeal to common sense. God gave us brains for a reason. This is why I’m pointing out the logical inconsistencies on both sides using their very own arguments (which they claim they base on Scripture) to prove that they are guilty of the very same problems they accuse the other side of.

Most Christian can find the truth if they wish to humble themselves before the Lord and His word to us. But if people aren’t willing to do that because they have some culturally-ingrained blindness that makes it impossible to see, then you have to take a different route. That is what I’ve done with this post.

If you hang around here long enough you will see that the posts I put up will sometimes be loaded to the max with Scriptures and sometimes they won’t. In those cases that there’s not truckloads of citations, I’m either talking to people who should know the Scriptures behind what I am saying, or I’m appealing to logical consistency. Jesus didn’t always cite an OT Scripture for everything He said and did, but He stayed true to the whole counsel of Scripture. Whether I cite a lot of Scripture or not, that is always what I have as an undergirding to anything I write here.

I hope that helps.