Leaving out the band

Back in the days of the early Church, individual churches didn’t use musical instruments – they sang everything a cappella. These Christians avoided instruments for two reasons. First, because other religions commonly used instruments for their worship, the early Christians felt that their worship should be clearly distinct from any other religious worship of their day and age. Instruments were guilty by association, so to speak. Second, these Christians considered instruments less glorifying to God than the voices of the congregation because they believed that only the human voice can adequately express the worship of one’s spirit. Even to this day, most Orthodox churches and a handful of Protestant churches continue this tradition of banning instruments during worship.

Tooting a few horns

Through the centuries, as the reasons why the early Church forbid instruments seemed less relevant, Western churches gradually introduced instruments into their services, while the Orthodox churches continued without instruments. The Western Church’s rationale was twofold: The Old Testament shows support for praising God through instruments, and nothing in the New Testament forbids them. As a result, people began playing the organ in medieval Catholic cathedrals, and by the 15^th century, the Catholic Church widely accepted organ music as part of the service. However, instrumental music at that time was for performance (a singer singing to the congregation) and didn’t involve the congregation joining in and singing along with it.

Although the Catholic Church permitted limited instrumental music during this era, the Protestant Reformation (see Chapter 11) brought about considerable change in terms of congregational singing. The “Golden Age of Hymns” began soon after the Reformation, as Protestant songwriters combined theologically rich words with organ or piano accompaniments. They wrote many of the classic Protestant hymns (traditional songs of praise to God), such as Amazing Grace (see Chapter 3) and Holy, Holy, Holy, within this era. At least within the Protestant community, both liturgical and free worship churches used similar hymn-based music as part of the service.

Different Protestant groups held a growing variety of perspectives on music. Lutherans welcomed instruments (such as organs and pianos) and congregational participation, while Calvinists, like those in the early Church, avoided instruments but encouraged everyone to sing. Over time, nearly all Protestant churches began to allow instrumental music in the church, seeing it as a legitimate way to worship the Lord. And, as time went on, the Catholic Church, too, began to allow more congregational participation in musical worship.

Revolutionizing praise and worship music

During the tumultuous cultural changes of the 1960s and 1970s in North America and Europe, people in free worship churches began bringing music styles that originated outside of the Church into the sanctuary, particularly in the United States. Advocates saw this as a way to draw people into focusing on Christ without getting hung up on the barriers of tradition and “old-fashioned” music. As time went on, churches started to display song lyrics on giant screens using overhead projectors rather than using the now passe hymnals.

A musical genre known as praise and worship music (or simply praise music) was borne as a result during the late 1960s. Praise and worship music combines contemporary musical arrangements, often including guitars – even electric ones – and drums with words that express praise to the Lord. The meteoric rise of praise and worship music’s popularity within Protestant churches in North America since its birth has been nothing short of spectacular. Even individual churches within liturgical denominations are moving to a more contemporary worship style using praise songs. In many evangelical churches across North America, the debate is already over – praise music rules. In fact, walk into almost any evangelical church service, and chances are high that you hear at least some praise music accompanied by a guitar, drums, and keyboards.

One of the criticisms that people often have about praise songs is that the theology the words express is weak, dumbed-down, or self-oriented (rather than God-oriented). However, praise music lovers say that plenty of contemporary songs have as much “meaty” theology packed into them as the average hymn does.

In order to cover both musical grounds, some churches provide blended worship by mixing older, traditional hymns with newer, contemporary praise songs. Their aim is to give the congregation the best of both worlds and be relevant to people of all ages and musical preferences.

Crossing Cultures with Worship

Although Christianity originated in the Mediterranean region and spread initially throughout Europe, it’s a world faith that transcends cultures and ethnic groups. And while Christian worship is transcultural, it also makes a home in churches that are part of a given culture. Some Christians believe that Christian worship shouldn’t conform to the world around it, but should retain its own distinct flavor. Many other Christians disagree; they believe that as long as the culture doesn’t conflict with Christianity, Christians can use the culture to better express the purpose and meaning of worship to the people in that culture.

Take, for example, the African American church. As Protestant Christianity spread through the African American slave culture in the 19^th century, African American Christians began to form their own unique form of Christian worship – combining Christian teaching with African rhythms, chanting, and cadenced preaching (rhythmic preaching in which the congregation frequently repeats the preacher’s words). A cappella songs were an important part of African American worship as they created and sung spirituals, songs that had a twofold message of hope in God’s salvation and their future freedom from slavery. Becoming popular within these churches, the ring shout was a West African group dance performed by shuffling around in a circle while answering a preacher’s shouts with corresponding shouts from the congregation. Although many changes took place among African Americans after the Civil War, many African American churches have been able to retain a strong flavor of that unique form of Christian worship to this day.

African Americans aren’t alone, of course, because other non-European cultures have also faced the tension between cultural music and values and the Christian Church’s Mediterranean/European heritage. Caribbean, African, Latin, and Asian Christians have all struggled with how to best combine indigenous expression with true worship that honors God.

Some early Christian missionaries to these regions viewed local culture with suspicion and had a tendency to westernize new believers and develop indigenous churches using a western mold. Through the years, however, local churches in these areas and expatriate missionaries have done a much better job balancing indigenous cultural expression and Christian teaching to create a worship experience that’s meaningful in these local churches.

See Chapter 14 for more on how Christians debate about how they should relate to the cultures around them.