Musicians or the concert of instruments again appears in the end-time Babylonian whore
worship:
And the voice of
harpers, and musicians, and of pipers,
and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no
craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in
thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in
thee; Rev 18:22
This concert of instruments
was clearly a secular practice, was attempted to pollute or mock or
prostitute Jesus, is never related to Christian worship and will be
at the end-time exactly what it was for the king of Babylon and king
of Tyre as the male-but-prostitute agents of Lucifer (who is female
or bi-sexual).
It is
condemned.
In the New Testament
Singing is not the primary command.
Again, Paul never commended music
or
singing. The primary command was to "speak or teach or preach," the resource was
inspired Biblical text, and the melody was internal because external
melody means to strike or grind something or someone into bits or powder. The word
"sop" is
connected to melody and Psalm 41 connects wind instruments to the
attempt to triumph-over Jesus. Music is used to make the people feel
good but this is the result of a feeling of panic rapidly relieved by
a shot of endorphins (morphine-like) to relieve the anxiety with
enough lefto over to make you "feel the presence of God."
The early churches recognized this and spoke or
chanted the Psalms to, as Paul insisted, teach and admonish one another.
There was no pagan-like belief that one could seduce God or change
the "audience" with superstitious practices.
According to the early history it is clear that
jazzed-up forms of singing and instruments was an expression of the
most ancient superstition that the gods can be called to attention or
charmed (enchanted) with sound.
The Church is Not Praise Center but
Education Center
The word mistranslated as "church" is the same
as the Hebrew word for "synagogue. The early Christians patterned
their meetings after the synagogue, not after the temple; so
Christians would not have used musical instruments, since nothing is
recorded about the Jews using instrumental music in their ancient
synagogues.
"In his book Purity of Worship, the
Presbyterian M. C. Ramsay
writes: "Those who maintain that
Jewish worship had associated with it instruments of music fail
to appreciate the facts; and some of the facts are as follows:
"The ordinary worship of the
Jew was that of the synagogue, and it was
always unembellished.
"The men of Israel were commanded to attend the
temple worship only thrice
annually.
Throughout the remainder of the
year, Sabbath by Sabbath, they met for worship in their
synagogues.
Their wives and
children attended regularly the
synagogue where the services were marked by simplicity....
"Where there was
congregational singing, there was no
musical instrument. ... It is both interesting and informative to
notice that the instruments of music were first used in synagogues at
the beginning of the nineteenth century, that
is,
about the same time as they began
to be introduced into Protestant [i.e., Presbyterian] churches."
There was no 'praise service' in the synagogue and
certainly no instruments.
This was because synagogue (meaning
assembly
like church) was more school than worship
center.
Mowed (h4150) mo-ade'; or (fem.) (2 Chron. 8:13), mo-aw-daw';
from 3259; prop. an appointment, i. e. a fixed time or season; spec.
a festival; conventionally a year; by implication, an assembly (as
convened for a definite purpose); technically the congregation; by
extension, the place of meeting; also a signal (as appointed
beforehand): - appointed (sign, time), (place of, solemn)
assembly,
congregation, (set, solemn) feast, (appointed, due) season, solemn
(-ity), synagogue, (set) time (appointed
Yaad (h3259) yaw-ad'; a prim. root; to fix upon (by
agreement or appointment); by impl. to meet (at a stated time), to
summon (to trial), to direct (in a certain quarter or position), to
engage (for marriage): - agree, (make an) appoint (-ment, a time),
assemble (selves), betroth, gather (selves, together), meet
(together), set (a time).
The "church" is exactly the same in
meaning:
Ekklesia (g1577) ek-klay-see'-ah; from a comp. of 1537 and a
der. of 2564; a calling out, i.e. (concr.) a popular meeting, espec. a
religious congregation (Jewish
synagogue, or Chr. community of members
on earth or saints in heaven or both): - assembly, church.
The Greek word ekklesia, which came to mean church, was originally applied in
the Classical period to an official assembly of [adult males] citizens. In the Septuagint (Greek) translation of the
Old Testament (3rd-2nd century BC),
"the term ekklesia is used for the
general assembly of the Jewish people,
"especially when gathered for a religious
purpose such as hearing the
Law (e.g., Deuteronomy 9:10,
18:16).
"In the New Testament it is used of the entire
body of believing Christians throughout the world (e.g., Matthew
16:18), of the believers in a particular area (e.g., Acts 5:11),
and also of the congregation meeting in a
particular house--the "house-church" (e.g., Romans 16:5).
Because of this fact, it would be as silly
to have a musical praise team or sing self-composed and at times
blasphemous songs during the time the school board or physics class
is meeting.
The synagogue always existed in the various
communities where someone taught the Word of God. During the
Intertestament period it developed in opposition to the temple. Jesus
endorsed this as a place to read the word, sit down, and dialog or
explain it. There was no "preaching" in the sense of trying to change
or revive the spirit with self-composed lectures or book reviews, and
the Rabbis outlawed using the Scripture as allegorical or
"fit your needs" lectures.
At the same time Jesus warned against
performance prayers, directed alms to from my hand to the hand of the poor
and Paul defended this by making the "lay by" mean "lay by yourself"
until the opportunity to take it to the poor. He placed prayers in
the "closet" or private place and God would hear from heaven without
using His agents. This is exactly what happened when the Temple was
dedicated: when the music began the temple was filled with darkness so
that the priests (agents) could not
minister, the people outside the gate
or camp prayed their own prayers directly to God, and God heard from
heaven without having to go through the human mediators. Another can
pray their own prayer but they cannot lead me into prayer.
To be picky, there was nothing like what we
call singing for perhaps hundreds of years. In about 150 Justin still
has the Psalms being chanted because there was nothing like our
singing and our form of harmony would not fully develop until about
the time instruments gave the composers (secular) ten fingers to play
ten notes at the same time. The Psalms were not a "praise service"
but a way to memorize the Psalms so that they would be written "on the heart"
like commercial tunes we hum rather than Psalms. Rather, praise was
speaking about God or prayer.
When you get about 65 and your serotonin goes
whacky as it does in most older people you will find that all of that
"Harmony" (Harmony is not melody) is, like the musicologists admit,
abrading or grinding just like the external melody of the Greek.
Scholars note that "singing" in this limited sense was always secular
while "chanting" or speaking was a religious practice. By the time
the preacher gets up to have his say (without instruments) the minds
of most have been momentarily altered so that they cannot truly
engage in a learning process.
So, I don't see it as lawful or unlawful but
just destructive to spiritual health. Music is now known to generate
endorphins (morphine-like) which soothes the damage created by the
music with enough left over for the "high" which is just a drug high.
Exactly like a runner's high.
By Sunday night the high has worn off and the
"audience is disguised as empty pews" and we can do time for twenty
years and be Biblically illiterate. I have just posted some material
which says that adrenalin degenerates to
something like mescalin. This means that any excitement artificially created
is the
"burden laded" upon the congregation used like pack animals. Burden
means "spiritual anxiety created by religious ceremonial." Jesus died
to remove both the burden and the burden laders.
To restore it is to try to undo the work of
Jesus.
Jesus said that He would be in the midst of two
or three gathered in HIS name to give "rest" which is the image of
"beside still waters."
So, bottom line: Paul did not speak of external
singing or melody as we understand the term. And harmony
works because the abrading "dog barks"
or "water drips" -- which always happen
when you step from one note to another -- is masked by the overtones
of complex harmony. Nevertheless, the abrasion is still there or we
would not get "high" and believe that we have been "moved into the
presence of God." Harmony is not melody and it, like the instruments,
was added for us and to attract the crowds and not for God.
There is no such word as "church" in the Bible.
The term is "assembly." The synagogue and the Greek ekklesia met for
instruction and to conduct community business. To that God added
the Lord' Supper as a non-appetite-filling memorial and as a teaching
or 'showing forth' of our faith in Him. There was no "legal act of
giving" because only the prosperous were asked to
give and then only to the truly poor. The poor widow on wellfare
would never have been asked to tithe. If she wished to give her
widow's mite it would only be to shame the wealthy and
not an
"approved pattern."
In the same way, the "teaching or preaching
with the sense stimulation of music" was not the message of Paul nor
the practice of Jesus nor the early church until it had largely
deviated from the simple New Testament friendly assembly and
"speaking one to another" or dialog.
So, there is no Biblical "law" which authorized
music in any sense although singing paraphrased psalms with harmony
would at least fulfill the Old Testament practice and the practice
commanded by Paul as a "teaching" method and not a
legalistic paying of praise to God expecting some magic to happen.
The Jews rejected all but about a third of the Psalms as suitable for
teaching and these are a "poetic" version of the prose history. Therefore,
the psalms or other Biblical practice would give everyone a total
grasp of the Bible and honor God rather than the human composer
almost always distorting the facts to make the poetry work. As
polytheism, the girl's tunes even have us worshiping the "names" of
three gods.
God condemned a false Sabbath as doing
your own thing and "speaking your own words." (Isaiah 58:13)
Music is not evil but it is the usual replacement for
Christ's Word while He is trying to speak. So, in a religious sense
we have to ask whether ignoring His Words when He promises to be with
us is "lawful."
All of the ancient and modern science knows
that music is mind altering. So while we are claiming to honor God,
is it lawful to create a synthetic feeling with music, mescaline or
peyote?
The "musical worship teams" actually claim to
be the mediators to "lead you into the presence of God." Is it lawful
to replace Jesus as the one and only mediator?
I suppose the question is: "How much can I get
by with?" It seems to me that the more we turn to "praise tunes" or
performance teams or instruments the more the church shrinks and we
have been blinded and cannot find the answer. Amos 5, 6 and 8 along
with Isaiah 5 shows that music and "hungering and thirsting for the
Word of God" are the method and goal of Satan. Improvizing
or "making up your own songs" was a certain sin unless one was
inspired. In Corinth, anyone who claimed to speak or sing something
inspired must be judged by another inspired person. Unless we are
inspired then composing our own sings is exactly equivalent to
"composing our own Bible."
God will come with ten thousand saints to get those
who are more the agents of Lucifer than God.
Let me know if you have any pro or con
feedback.
Lyle responds:
Thank you for your kind reply, but I'm not sure
what the upshot of it is. Did you really type all that for me?
I am still not sure what is being said. Does it
mean that "singing" is not really "singing"? So, bottom line: Paul
did not speak of external singing or melody as we understand the
term. Is the "singing" merely "internal" if not "external"? Believe
me, I am not trying to be cantankerous, I'm just not sure what the
definition of "is" is. I see a lot of what it is "not", but what "is"
"lawful" music in corporate worship? It matters not what is allowable
to you or me, but what constitutes the sweet-smelling savor to God.
The Bible is a Law Book, not matter how antinomian we may wish to be.
Even "Pray without ceasing" is a law.
But, I don't see that as a
law. A law means that
if you don't do it someone punishes you. "If anyone is rich let him mourn" is not a law for
a legal "act" of worship. If someone is sad, in other words, don't
try to prevent mourning.
Without ceasing makes my
point: if someone
attempts to occupy every
microsecond of the
"worship service" then it isn't possible for me to worship. If you
sing to set the mood during Lord's Supper then I cannot, as in the
Passover, examine my own heart and "search for leaven in absolute
silence." Prayer is one "leg" of the two-legged worship "in spirit
and in truth." I pray to God and He speaks to me through His
Word:
Proseuchomai (g4366) pros-yoo'-khom-ahee; from 4314 and 2172; to
pray to God, i.e. supplicate, worship: - pray (* earnestly, for),
make prayer.
Without ceasing means that I
never give up praying. We have noted that I just simply have to cease
while someone else is doing my praying for me: you cannot do two
things at the same time.
Adialeiptos (g89) ad-ee-al-ipe'-toce; adv. from 88;
uninterruptedly, i.e. without omission (on an appropriate occasion):
- without ceasing.
If you have watched a loved one
die you know that they are never out of your heart. And when your
children are going through tough times you have a brick in your heart
continually. Paul explained this:
For God is my
witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that
without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers;
Ro.1:9
That I have great heaviness and
continual sorrow in my heart. Ro.9:2
Unwittingly or half-wittingly
placing the focus upon performed worship for the congregation
relieves them of the practice of the presence of God. If God is going
to meet the rest of us at the building then I may give up on having
him with me as I rouse myself from a serious medical problem
If harmony is not melody, and only melody is
proscribed, then harmony is "unlawful". See what I'm getting at? If
singing is not done vocally, how is accomplished, and what does it
sound like?
Paul was not prescribing a
law of singing. The common practice was to
drink wine and sing and play instruments. This always led to disputes
and disharmony. Rather than going to the tavern, Paul spoke of a "one
another" replacement: have your conversation filled with the Mind of
Christ which is the Spirit. Then you can dialog about the meaning of
the Exodus. The result will be rejoicing or singing in the heart or
mind. There is no greater sense of worship than dialoging with a
literate Bible student.
A law means, according to what
my father was told, that singing is the law, if you don't sing you
violate the law, if you violate the law you will go to hell. Yes, you
are under the law to sing or you are violating the law and not
worshiping. I never heard him carry a "tune" in his life but he "sang
in the heart." Hannah prayed to God, her lips moved but it was a
silent prayer. You cannot pray without ceasing if your lips have to
flap.
I am former Church of Christ, and am an
accomplished musician, both vocally and instrumentally. A capella
singing in corporate worship is no problem to me, but I get the
distinct feeling from your writings that what should be done is a
rather fuzzy concept. What I need is clear direction in execution. It
would seem that what is happening in the various Church of Christ
congregations in respect to music is outside of what you indicate,
since their is so much harmony.
I am an accomplished
scientist-engineer-inventor but I was never able to connect twelve
symbols to my fingers and then to the keyboard. If God needed my
talent then I can use ultrasound to knock a pigeon off a 120 foot
Seattle wheat silo. Or I can create the same "panic" feeling in a lab
and have people want to kill me. I can eat popcorn and do a great
"couch potato act" but this has been called "the idolatry of talent."
I envy you but there are many venues for using your talent.
Whatever one decides to do in
life the first principle is to love the truth. So what was the truth
about music in the New Testament. I fully know that after the "stream
have been muddied" we believe that whatever we drink is pure from the
Mind of God but it may not be.
What I am saying is not really
fuzzy: first,
I showed you from the Bible that "music" in the concert or symphony
sense was a purely secular activity. Modern harmony is the closest
one can get to a symphony of sound and still claim to to fulfill
Paul's command which is not truly related to "music."
Second, I showed you that the primary external
command is not to sing but to speak.
That same word is translated "preach." Now, ask your pastor if you can perform while he
is preaching.
The resource was the inspired Word of God. Scholarship and
practice agreed with this for hundreds of years when there was as
much division over introducing a self-composed song book as the
introduction of instruments. This would be like replacing the Bible
with a self-composed latter-day book.
The result was teaching and admonishing one another. Scripture clearly warns against the
ancient and modern effort to "ascend into the presence of God" with
music because, as Paul told the Athenians, He is here and He is not
lost. This "speaking" in Paul's mind was equivalent to the use of
Biblical poetry in the synagogue.
The internal effect would be "singing in the heart" because scholars note that "singing externally" was
a secular
activity in the Greek while chanting or speaking or preaching or
dialoging was a religious activity.
The melody was also internal such as "breaking the heart" as opposed to external
melody of the "get drunk on wine" crowd which carries the meaning of
grinding one into power: the idea conveyed by the SOP Jesus hand-fed Judas.
The modern meaning
of melody would limit us to a sequence of single tones or what we call "unison singing" or as Paul
told the Romans "singing with one voice."
Harmony in the modern sense developed along
with the organ and has no more authority than a pipe organ. This form
of singing is called "organum" meaning "after the organ" or in
imitation of the pipe organ. This does not mean that either is evil
but both "take away the key to knowledge." There is technically no
difference between a mechanical organ and an organic organ singing "A
Organum" but certainly not "A Capella."
Now, I told you that I don't
make laws. However, I can collect you an encyclopedia of information
to prove that this was the almost universal understanding of the
earlier scholars including the Catholic Encyclopedia. Here is Chrysostom on Colossians
3:16-17
What modern people add to that
may not be sinful but the evidence is clear from science,
musicologists and known even among the ancients that music works
because it creates drugs in the mind much like morphine.
Replacing the Words of Christ (Spirit) with silly, sentimental praise
songs may not be sinful but it probably answers to Jesus' definition
of vain worship.
The evil of it all is that the
teaching task is deliberately violated and many love to have it
so.
Help me out on this, please. Do you have any
"wav" files that demonstrate your point(s)?
Nope! But here is a midi of the
first recorded music I ever heard. Lived in a slave cabin and
listened on a Victrola since recovered:
Little David, Play on Yo Harp --- Or the Jubilee Singers
Silent Singing Has a
Biblical and Historical Basis
Gramatically it seemed to the
ancient scholars that Paul was not
commanding external singing but preaching the Word by the use of the inspired poetic sections which
were metrical and could be chanted in order to memorize them so that
they would be "written on the heart." Little Jewish and Muslim kids
still do that rather than learning little through cut outs and paste
ups.
This was so certain that many
groups spoke the words and then engaged in "silent singing" or mental
recitation. If you watch the old movies, David chants or recites his
poem and simply strums across the strings. Therefore, the tern
"selah" is thought to mark the time to "now think about what has been
recited."
"Selah. this is
probably a direction for the conductor that now a signal of the
cymbals shoud interrupt the even flow of chant... Most expressive
is... Ps 9:16, indicating the end of the main thought by a soft
whispering of strings, followed by a clash of cymbals."
(Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, p. 460, Abingdon).
"The oft-repeated, exclusively
Old Testament word 'Selah' is supposed to indicate a pause in the
singing, when the singers would meditate upon the august truths they
were singing about." `(Lockyear, Trades, p. 152)
Alfred Edersheim notes
Then, when the
drink-offering was poured out, the Levites sung the psalm of the day
in three sections.
After each section
there was a pause (probably marked by the term Selah), when the priests blew three blasts,
and the people worshipped.
ez
Basil A.D. 360
"But considerable
prominence was given to the hymns by the Gnostic, Bardesans, who composed a psalter of 150 psalms.
However, the 59th canon of the Synod of Laodicea, 360 A. D., enjoined
that 'No psalm composed
by private
individuals nor any
uncanonical books
may be read in the Church, but only... the Canonical Books of the OT
and NT." Int Std Ency., p. 2494
"In competition with pagan musical
art, congregational
singing began to wane. Basil states that he had 'the Psalms rendered by skillful presentors after the manner of the triumphal Odes of Pindar,
the congregation
joining at the closing
verse, with the
accompaniment of lyres."
Int Std Bible Ency., p. 2494A
This might agree with the word "Selah" in the Psalms which
was probably a signal for the singers to cease and give time for the
contemplation of the message. The response and strum of the lyre would
mark ther terminus of the song rather than an accompaniment.
Philo says what Paul said: He not only
eleminates instrumental
music as worship and even
audible singing is imperfect worship. The true worship, as Jesus said,
is in spirit (silence) and in truth (pure intentions) which leaves no reason
for "ritual" music. Paul demanded that we fill up with the Spirit
(Ephesians 5) which is the Word (Colossians 3) and then make the
melody in the heart because external melody is destructive to the
mind and soul.
Philo disparages instrumental in comparison
to vocal singing:
All the melodious
sounds produced by wind
and stringed instruments fall as short of the music that comes from nightingales and swans,
as a copy and imitation falls short of an original, or a perishable
species of an imperishable genus. For we cannot compare the music
produced by the human voice with that produced in any other way,
since it has no pre-eminent gift of articulation, for which it is
prized.
And
"And indeed though the
worshippers bring nothing else, in bringing themselves they offer the
best of sacrifices, the full and truly perfect oblation of noble
living, as they honor with hymns and thanksgivings their Benefactor
and Savior, God, sometimes with the organs of speech, sometimes without tongue or
lips,
when within the
soul
alone their
minds
recite the tale or
utter the cry of praise. These one ear only can apprehend, the ear of
God." (Everett Ferguson, A Capella Music, p. 40f)
"Philodemos considered it
paradoxical that music should be regarded as veneration of the gods
while musicians were paid for performing this so-called veneration. Again, Philodemus held as
self-deceptive the view that music mediated religious ecstasy. He
saw the entire condition induced by the noise
of cymbals and tambourines as a disturbance of the spirit. (Paul called it mad or insane)
He found it
significant that, on the whole, only women and effeminate men fell
into this folly."
"According to Philo, the gods of the pagans exploit
this weakness of men. For the sake of a better effect, and
with the intention of
more easily cheating their devotes, that they have set their lies to melodies, rhythms
and meters.." (Quasten, p. 52)
"Philodemus takes offense at the fact that, in
cultic music, the inner
sentiment is lacking while this
so-called worship is offered to the gods only for payment.
"Philo, too, stressed the necessity of
religious inwardness in preference to the cult of sacrifice:
"God has no joy in sacrifices, my
dear sir, even if one should offer him hecatombs, for everything
belongs to him.
"Since he possesses everything, he has need of
nothing. He takes pleasure only in a pious disposition in men
who lead pious lives. He accepts the sacrificial cakes, the barley
and the most modest gifts from them as if they were the most valuable
offerings. He prefers them to costlier thing.
"If they bring nothing more other than
themselves in the fullness of moral goodness, they present the most
acceptable offering, as they worship God their benefactor and savior
in songs and thankful homage.
Sometimes they do so with their
tongue,
but sometimes without it, whey they speak only in their
soul and
in their thoughts the confession and invocations which the ear of God
alone hears; for men cannot perceive such things with their ears."
Philo, De specialibus legibus (I. 271 (v 56)
Philo never mentioned
instruments in worship and supports Paul's statement about the melody
being in the heart
and directed to God:
O Lord and Master,
how can one hymn thee? What mouth, what tongue, what else of the
instruments of speech, what mind, soul's dominant part, is equal to
the task?.
Johannes Quasten, Music and
Worship in Pagan andd Christian Antiquity, notes of Philo:
"One cannot truly
offer thanks to God as the vast majority of men do, with
external effects, consecrated gifts and sacrifices..., but rather with songs of praise and
hymns--
not so much as the
audible voice sings, but such as are raised and
re-echoed by the invisible mind."
Philo saw that the high priest
had to lay aside his long flowing robe, set with little bells and
colorfully adorned, when he went into the holy of holies. This was an indication that one must
not worship God with music and colorful array; owe should rather
pour out to
him one's soul's blood
and offer him one's whole spirit as incense.
For if the soul has
opened itself totally in word and deed and is filled with God then
the voices of the
senses and all other
burdensome and hateful
noises cease..
"According to what has been
said, it can be seen that the doctrine of the 'spiritual sacrifice' not only repudiated bloody sacrifices but also rejected music, particularly instrumental music, as a means of worshipping God.
Although the 'spiritual sacrifice'
was originally
explained in terms of hymns of praise to God's goodness and majesty,
its logical development eventually considered singing unsuitalbe for divine
worship." p.
54-55
The Theologial Dictionary of the New Testament notes that:
"In the NT there is
still no precise
differentiation between
ode, psalmos, and
humnos. e.g., in
Col.3:16 or Eph.5:19, in contrast to a later time, when ode
(canticum) came to be used only for biblical songs (apart from the Psalms) used in liturgy. From the NT
passages we may gather the following elements in the concept or the
Christian ode as also confirmed from other sources.
(Our note: Sing in
Ephesians 5:19 is Ode
(g5603) o-day'; from 103; a chant or "ode" the gen. term for any
words sung)
"a. Odai are the cultic
songs of the
community. They are
not sung by the individual, out by the community gathered for worship...
Of a piece with
this is the anonymity or the early authors, as also the attachment to
OT tradition. Only in the 2nd century are the authors sometimes mentioned. In the
Didascalia, 2, p..5.29, we can still read: 'It thou desirest
hymns, thou hast the Psalms of David."'
"b. The ode is inspired. This is shown by the epithet pneumatikos, though it does indicate more generally its
religious character. . . . With the inspiration or hymns is linked their improvisation, e.g., in I C. 14:26
(cr. Acts 4:24); Tert. adv. Marc., 5,b; Apolog. 39,18." (Note: and condemned, we might add).
In Acts 1:20 psalmos is the book of Psalms and in Rom. 15: sing is
psallo.
- "Psallo is best translated by
chant,
- not
sing.
- The Greeks sharply
distinguish chanting
(psalmodia)
- from singing (tragoudi).
- The first is a
sacred
activity;
- the second, a secular one.
"In English, unfortunately, the
distinction is not sharp, and the word singing is frequently employed to refer to the sacred
activity of chanting.
A Greek would never, never say
tragoudo (I sing),
instead of psallo; the
two terms have connotations and associations which are
worlds
apart -
- the first is related to the earthly realm,
- the second to the heavenly." Constantine Cavarnos
The best that I can show you is
the evidence that what we call "the law of singing" is as widely
separated from the Biblical and historical fact as the use of
instrumental music. Too bad, but you are right. The simple "square"
music of Psalm-singing Presbyterians even with the organ is less
offensive than the churches confiscation of a very young "purely
American religious music" defined by musicologists as a product of
the "awakenings" which were strongly influenced by hillbilly or
mountain music with a strong dose of black jazz-gospel which is
fairly pure Voodoo. Click for
more voodoo.
More Lyle:
A manufacturer of bicycle tires
was the speaker at a businessmen's luncheon. In response to a toast,
he said,
"I have no desire
or intention to inflict upon you a long speech,
- for it is well known in our
trade that the longer
the spoke
- the bigger the tire."
Tis a fact, Lyle.
But, however long
the spoke,
sometimes it still doesn't connect to the hub.
Perhaps the tire would be smaller if you connect the spoke to the hub
first.
Know what I mean?
Ken
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