Church Voices

Ravi Zacharias has made the observation that the arts (music, photos, movies, etc) get around the normal brain functions and make their worldview by aesthetics rather than by arguments. For some reason the same thing happens when money gets involved. Inject money into a situation (no matter how little) and normally lucid individuals become outraged activists. Apparently the word “money” circumvents the rational part of the brain and strikes directly at the outrage center.

Here’s a prime example:

Contemporary worship songs, on the other hand, are a revenue stream for copyright holders and music publishers. They are aggressively promoted and now make up a significant share of the $4.5-billion Christian retail market…. And that, my friends, is a tragedy – another triumph of Mammon in the modern evangelical church.

In other words the fact that churches pay copyright holders is a horrible thing that elevates money over God.

What? Let’s ask a few questions. Why is it wrong to pay for materials related to singing, but its not wrong to pay a minister to lead the service and preach? Or, an even better question: is paying for Bibles with copyrights wrong? I don’t see how you can be consistent and take the position that paying for Bibles and paying a minister is a-ok, but paying for songs just crosses the line.

Ah, you say, the problem isn’t the principle of the matter, the problem is the way its gone about. From that same article:

Contemporary worship songs, on the other hand, are a revenue stream for copyright holders and music publishers. They are aggressively promoted and now make up a significant share of the $4.5-billion Christian retail market.

In other words, the problem is that they’re aggressively marketed.

That’s an interesting argument, but I don’t think its successful because Bibles and ministers are aggressively marketed. Open up any sort of magazine sold to Christians and in the ads you’ll see various translations of scripture being advertised, skip around the internet you’ll see entire blogs devoted to appreciation and analysis of translations of scripture.

On the minister side of things, I talked to a guy recently who had finished heading up the search team for his church. In a four month period of time they received over 200 resumes. Guys were sending pictures, CDs, DVDs, extensive resumes that included philosophies of ministry, personal theologies, and all of this came in neatly packaged folders and envelopes all designed to impress.

In other words, both ministers and Bibles are aggressively marketed.

But maybe you’re going to grant a special dispensation to ministers and Bibles as the author does. Lets look at that perspective.

Contrast this with the “old” method. Hymn books contain songs that are mostly in the public domain and have little or no licensing fees. They have historically been published by denominational publishers who make them available to congregations more or less at cost.

Absolute crap. You don’t run a publishing house, not even one that publishes hymn books containing only public domain music and sell at cost. Someone owns that publishing house, and they expect to get paid, and their employees expect to be paid as well. In fact, the only person not getting paid in this scenario is the actual author of the music (who is either dead or so old their use for money is based on their diaper consumption).

But even with all that being said most hymnal publishers have at least some copyrighted hymns. Brethren Press, Concordia (Lutheran) and United Methodist publishing houses are examples of denominational publishing houses that distribute hymns under copyright.

Given all this what possible reason is there to object to the use of copyrighted works during worship services?

Wait for it… wait for it…

If you’ve been to a church at any time in the past 30 years, you have no doubt been subjected to the “worship wars.” Contemporary vs. Traditional. Modern vs. Postmodern. The worship wars have been fought in virtually every evangelical church at some time during the past generation. Those on the traditional side say the conflict is ultimately a matter of theology. Those on the contemporary side say it is ultimately a matter of relevance.

I’ve got my own opinions about this question, and – just for the record – let me say that I’m a traditionalist when it comes to matters of worship.

And there it is. The author has found himself on the losing side of a preference issue. Most people (and that is to say reasonable people) have rejected the argument put forward by hymnophiles that the scriptures demand, as a matter of theology, the use of hymns. Once that argument was rejected, and people began to choose based on preference hymns quickly became used less and less frequently. And so a new argument had to be devised, and the form the argument is taking is that the specific type of music being used and how that music is distributed.

Now we’re getting into the area of judging motives, which can be tricky, but when excessive rhetoric like this is the conclusion of the article:

And that, my friends, is a tragedy – another triumph of Mammon in the modern evangelical church.

Ooh, I stand POWERREBUKED!!!! Mammon! That’s like the super triple fatality of rhetoric when it comes to money. Unfortunately its being sadly misused. And not just misused, but its being used in an anti-Biblical position.

Oh yeah, I went there. The stance taken in this piece is the opposite of Biblical teaching. Check it out:

For the Scripture says, “You must not muzzle an ox to keep it from eating as it treads out the grain.” And in another place, “Those who work deserve their pay!”
- 1 Timothy 5:18

Next time you walk into a church look around. Every thing you lay your eyes on was paid for either by the church or a generous donor, and no one would suggest things like chairs, projectors, pulpits or anything else inside of a church should be ripped off by the church. The people who made those things deserve to be paid for their efforts. No one would ever suggest that there was a “triumph of Mammon” because a church paid for everything inside of a church (and the church itself).

So why is it different for worship music?

This is unrelated to the main point of the rest of this point but something struck me as funny. Look at these two quotes from that same article:

The worship wars have been fought in virtually every evangelical church at some time during the past generation. Those on the traditional side say the conflict is ultimately a matter of theology. Those on the contemporary side say it is ultimately a matter of relevance…. When I hear people talk about relevance, I want to ask: “Relevant to whom?”

And then:

Indeed, no matter which side you are on in these “worship wars,” both sides can agree on this simple observation: for the most part, the traditionalists have lost this fight, at least in the evangelical church. Virtually every one of the 100 largest and 100 fastest growing churches on “Outreach” magazine’s annual list of the largest and fastest growing churches in America is a church that has one or more so-called “contemporary” services. Indeed, most of these churches have no traditional services at all.

Seems like he answered his own question there.