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TWO HEAVENS #3
WEIRD TUNES FROM THAILAND
Have you ever taken along your little portable AM/FM
radio on a trip to a VERY foreign country? Maybe in your overseas hotel
room, eight time zones away, you managed to figure out the voltage converter
and you plugged in your own radio from back home and tried to scan the
dial to see what was on there in that distant place?
Here in the year 2002 — I don't know — the way the world is shrinking,
and the way people everywhere can pull the latest hits right off the Internet,
you might hear the exact same songs they're playing on KISS FM back home
in L.A. On the other hand, I've done enough traveling around this globe
of ours to know that there's a lot of music in other countries that sounds
just plain other-WORLDLY to this California native. Music from South America
has its own unique rhythm. Songs they play in the hill tribes of Northern
Thailand, David tells me after his recent mission trip there, are played
on rather interesting instruments with rather interesting scales. Around
the world, there are radio hits, and cassettes, and CDs, and MP3 recordings
of music that, unless you LIVE in that culture . . . well, you can hardly
make heads or tails out of it. In a word, it is STRANGE.
On the one hand, you might like it BECAUSE it's strange. You're adventuresome;
you try new music the way you try new restaurants. But I suppose there
are many of the rest of us who get back to Los Angeles International Airport,
get back to our car, flip on the radio, lean back in the seat and say:
"Aaaaah. Now THAT'S music!"
Well, friend, what does this have to do with our music discussion of the
week, which we've entitled TWO HEAVENS? Christian churches everywhere
are being sliced right down the middle by what they call the "praise-and-worship"
music wars. Contemporary music is invading the territory of the saints;
amplifiers and drums and overhead transparencies are replacing pipe organs,
choir robes, and hymnals. And while some of those who are resisting the
tidal wave of change are simply sighing: "I hate that music!",
there are others who are using the "S" word for it, and the
"S" doesn't stand for "synthesizer" or "Steven
Curtis Chapman." To them, "S" is for SIN, and S is for
SATANIC, and S is for "Someone please get those drums out of MY church."
And you know something? I do not make light of that feeling. Here at the
Voice of Prophecy, we've wrestled on our knees for 70 years over what
music is acceptable to play here in this cathedral we call Christian radio.
We've put some songs on the shelf because we didn't think they would please
the Lord. In our recent Family Reunion Concerts, which are pure joy to
participate in, there have been endless hours of discussion about this
song or that one. Would God be honored or NOT honored by the contemporary
track on such-and-such musician's chosen solo? The question of "sin"
when it comes to Christian music is one every believer needs to honestly
face up to in his or her own walk with the God who created the gift of
music.
I said yesterday, though, that we were going to get into three points
about Christian music . . . and we really only got to the first two of
the three. First of all, I believe there IS music that belongs in worship,
and music that doesn't. Music is NOT a neutral thing; not all forms of
music CAN be baptized and brought into the sanctuary. We'll talk a bit
later on about some principles we can consider in making those hard, hard
decisions.
The second point, though, was that we sometimes DO say, "I hate that
music!", and decide that all music we don't like must be bad music.
Which . . . may not be the case. And today, our third and related point
is this: Friend, it doesn't always hold true that anything you or I might
find to be "(quote) strange" is necessarily out of place in
Christian worship.
In John Stott's book, The Contemporary Christian, he writes with a bit
of bemusement about how his own Anglican Church tried to take the gospel
message to some of the countries of Africa. He was baffled to find the
native clerics perspiring in AGONY, dressed "to the nines" in
the full robes and regalia the priests back in England were wearing. Out
in the desolate reaches of Africa were these tall, stone spires, these
cathedrals that looked as if they belonged on the Thames River. Stone
cathedrals. Scarlet robes. Pipe organs. And all around them, in the 95
degree heat, was AFRICA. The simple, pure joy, the elementary faith of
good African men and women . . . being smothered by the "correct"
forms of worship imported from Stratford-upon-Avon.
Would the tunes and instrumentations of Africa have sounded strange to
Stott? Probably so. On the other hand, did the funereal sounds of the
pipe organs probably sound strange to the farmers and the goat herders
from the little villages? Of course it did. And what both sides had to
realize, and what we all have to realize today, is that if something seems
"(quote) strange" to us, that doesn't for sure mean that it
is universally wrong for everyone.
We've been borrowing gratefully from a recent editorial by my friend Bill
Johnsson in the Adventist Review. He has this to say about his study of
the so-called worship wars:
"I learned much: that sincere Christians
. . . respond to music in sharply divergent manners. That music that sounds
STRANGE to MY ears may become a vehicle for devotion, adoration, and praise
to Jesus as Saviour and Lord."
Let me ask myself a question right here. Am I completely
sure that I can tell when something "strange" is also inappropriate
and wrong? Have my views over what is "strange" ever changed
in the past 55 years of life? As a Christian, are there things that seem
perfectly normal and wonderful to me which, to an outsider looking in,
might seem strange?
In a very well-written book a few years ago entitled Surprised By the
Power of the Spirit, author Jack Deere discusses very frankly some of
the controversial facets of today's charismatic movement. Speaking in
tongues. Miracles. Healings. Etc. And sometimes a person will reject unusual
manifestations happening in a church because they seem so strange. Downright
weird. Pastor Deere is the first one to confess that abuses do happen;
things take place that God doesn't direct or control. We need to be careful
and prayerful. But then he adds this observation, which has huge relevance
as all of us — carefully and prayerfully — try to decide what kinds of
music we should admit to the House of God.
"Strangeness is not a criterion for truth,"
he writes. "Nor is it a criterion we would want to use in order to
decide whether something is scriptural or unscriptural."
Are you with us so far? Then he adds this:
"There is much in Scripture that is EXCEEDINGLY strange. The prophet
Isaiah, for example, went naked and barefoot for three years as a sign
against Egypt and Cush (Isaiah 20:3). The prophet Hosea was commanded
to marry a prostitute (Hosea 1:2). The dead bones of Elisha actually raised
the dead (II Kings 13:21). Peter's shadow healed the sick person on which
it fell (Acts 5:15). Handkerchiefs and aprons that touched Paul's body
healed the sick and drove out demons (Acts 19:12)."
Pastor Deere goes on to take us into the mysterious
book of Revelation.
"Suppose I were to tell you that I had a vision in which I saw the
throne of God. In my vision there were four living creatures resembling
a lion, a calf, a man, and an eagle, each of whom had six wings and were
filled with eyes all around and within them. These creatures were saying,
‘Holy, holy, holy' as they flew around the throne of God day and night.
Who would believe that this was a legitimate vision if it had not already
been written in Revelation 4:6-8?" Then he adds this: "I am
not saying that we ought to believe every strange thing that is told to
us."
You and I could add: "Or accept as sacred every
strange tune that someone brings into the front door of the church."
But Pastor Deere concludes:
"I AM saying, however, that nothing should
be discounted as untrue or unscriptural simply BECAUSE it is strange."
Think with me about just one scenario. A totally secular
person, an atheist, let's say, who has lived his whole life apart from
the symbols and the trappings of church, peeks in through a window. Inside,
he sees people dunking one another in a little pool of water. "What
in the world is THAT?" he wonders. A moment later, he sees whole
rows of people, all holding the tiniest little cups of what look like
root beer. Or something. And they have little crackers, it looks like.
They are muttering something over these tiny, insignificant, INADEQUATE
snacks. Then they eat them, their eyes closed, their lips moving. Now
friend, if you're a born-again Christian like me, the Lord's Supper, or
Communion, is a WONDERFUL blessing. It's not strange! It's the body and
blood of Jesus shed for us, for our sins. It has meaning. It has value.
But to that Wall Street tycoon, that scientifically-trained atheist looking
through the window, it is weirdness of the highest magnitude.
It's no wonder that Jack Deere closes out his essay with this quiet observation
from the great John Wesley:
"From this time, I trust, we shall all suffer
God to carry on His own work in the way that pleaseth HIM."
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