(4) Belief and Formation of Music Style

(slide 1)

Belief and Formation of Musik Style

The Adventist Musicians’ Challenge

I introduced you to a telling aphorism:

That which rules the HEART, forms the ART.

It is a succinct summary of what can be observed many times in the study of societies and cultures. It is really
nothing new - the Bible said it long ago. (Prov 29:7; Luke 6:45). (slide 6)

”As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”

Proverbs 23:7
”Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.”
Luke 6:45
Significantly, religion becomes a major player.
e.g. Eric Gill wrote: (slide 3)

Whatever men do or make their philosophy and religion are at the back of it.
Eric Gill, Art and Reality, xiv.
(slide 4)
Religion as ultimate concern is the meaning-giving substance of culture, and culture is the totality of
forms in which the basic concern of religion expresses itself. In abbreviation: religion is the substance
of culture, culture is the form of religion.
Paul Tillich, Theology and Culture, p. 42.

(By the way this is true even in secular cultures. Sport can take the place of religion! So can hedonism, or
materialism etc.)
The trouble is that in West we are not quiet to acknowledge this truth. That culture is the form of religion; that, that
which rules the heart forms the art. We are much more willing to acknowledge sociological, geographical,
technilogical reasons.

Despite the apparent agreement that religio-philosophical ideas have a determining influence on the
arts as well as on other features of culture, little has been done by ethnomusicologists to bring into
focus the relationship between religions and music."
Al Faruqi, Diss. p. 136.

Writing of the study of Indian music Wulff noted:

Unfortunately, Western scholarly have here as elsewhere been far too narrow, with the result that most
works on Indian religions hardly make mention of music, whereas works on Indian music have by and
large treated only the technical aspects to the subject and ignored its religious contexts and
significance.
Donna Wulff, Diss., p. 136.

But let us explore this idea. How does it work? How does religion actually affect culture. The simple answer is: In
what we call style.
You see, it is well recognized that ... (slide 5)

The style of any artistic expression is always a vision, an attempt to express visibly or audibly what a
particular age, a particular society, a particular person has viewed as the true nature and essence of
reality.
Bruno Bettelheim in Aesthetic Aspects of Ancient Art, p. 2.

e.g. Cathedral - high structure

- echo - no carpets
- altar "out of bounds" - mysterious

Use else (slides 7-8)

Indian music is associated with religious exaltation and [it] consists of a steady, monotonous pulsation
sustained by percussion instruments and a wayward, ecstatic melody sung or played above it …
Scholars have pointed out that this tension is symbolic of the tension in Oriental religion between the
One and the Many, the static and the wayward, the timeless Negative and the temporal Vitality.
Erik Routley, The Church and Music, p. 14.

[I could also give you examples from Africa and Moslems countries etc.

The highest aim of our music is to reveal the essence of the universe it reflects, and the ragas are
among the means by which this essence can be apprehended. Thus, through music, one can reach God.
Ravi Shankar in Sacred Sound, p. 153.
To me, traditional African music is the phonic expression of psychic experiences generated within the
spiritual framework of traditional institutions, which, in turn, constitute the basis of society. These
psychic experiences belong to and are revered by all members of the society, a homogeneous unit with
common ancestry and a shared worldview.
Komla Amoaku, Toward a Definition of Traditional African Music, p. 37.
Religious faith unquestionably furnished to [the Muslim] civilization not only its common
denominator, but also its axis and fundamental aspect. All other aspects of life-material and spiritual,
political and literary, economic and social-bear this religious element’s mark, take color from its
reflections and develop under its influence.
Francesco Gabrieli in Unity and Variety in Muslim Civilization, p. 87.]

It is true that which rules the heart forms the art. Style becomes the embodiment of significant feature of belief. It is
not a chance product!
Even the way music is put together and performed in a culture is deliberately chosen. It doesn't happen by chance. It
reflects what that culture believes to be the ultimate reality.

This is particularly true in the worship situation:

It seems that there is an irresistable urge among human beings to search for compatibility or fittingness between their
beliefs and the character of the artistic expression they use in a worship or any situation. One writer put it this way:
Church music is really "the transformation of worship into music" (Oskar Söhngen "Music and Theology", in Sacred
Sound, p. 8) i.e. Again this supports the notion that style is quite a deliberate and designed product.
e.g. the concept that a believer has of what praise, confession and supplication to deity really is, is created into the
ordered sound of whorship music. (e.g. often use of music at a communion service tells a lot about what we perceive
to be the predominant feelings in the service - often sorrowful, doleful lamentation and grieving).
When we think of confession, it can be understood, as an admission of guilt offered in the confidence of forgiveness
or as object pleading for mercy. The music will reveal what the real belief is. Praise and joy can have a sense of
frivolity or respectful gratitude.

As we start thinking about our ideas of worship, it is important to not that one of the major factors that determines
the shape and ethos of worship is the conception of God in the religion - who He is; what He is like. (slides 14-15)
 The Concept of God Transcendence The Concept of God Immanence
(Emphasized in Islam, Judaism, and (Emphasized in possession rituals in
Christianity) pagan religions)

• Eternal existence • Omnipresent

• Omnipotence • Personal association

• Omniscience • Indwelling relationship

• Holiness • God’s accessibility to human

experience
• Perfection
• Blurred boundaries between the
• God’s difference from existence of God and humankind
humankind

How does these understanding of God translate into style? (slides 17-18)

One set of … religious beliefs predicates one kind of religious experience and, by extension, a
particular notion of suitable religious music. Another set of religious beliefs gives rise to a different
kind of religious experience and accordant religious music ... The examples of religious music are
then but reflections and expressions of the complex of religious ideas held in a given culture at a
particular time.
Lois Ibsen al Faruqi in Sacred Sound, p. 27.

(slides 19-24)

Characteristic of Transcendent Music

• No imitation of the physical world (with extremes of joy, pain, sorrow and swift changes
between)

• Avoids kinesthetic (movement) impulses

• Maintains an abstract quality

• Frequently linked closely to a text

• Predominantly melodic with limited pitch range and stepwise progression (large melodic
leaps avoided)

• Relaxed tempos

• Calm and continuous movement

• Rejects regular metrical rhythm, strong accents, beautiful harmonies, and changes in
loudness

• Non-dramatic use of the human voice rather than independent instruments emphasized in
performance

• Designed to assist contemplation and departure from worldly involvement

Characteristic of Immanent Music

 • Emphasizes those things that imitated or suggest the physical world

• Deliberate rejection of the abstract and contemplative in favor of the strongly psycho-
physiologically stimulating

• Repetitive rhythm emphasized over melody, and even harmony

• Percussive instruments often played loudly to induce altered states of consciousness

• Group participation and instinctive movement encouraged

• Words and phrases repeated to add to hypnotic effect rather than appeal to the intellect

• Dramatic, visual, and auditory stimuli are combined to increase impact on mood

• Experience rather than meditation is the ultimate goal

We have already noted that in other religions worship music style remains somewhat consistant. Whereas in
Christianity there is a manifestation of conflicting extremes as well as whole range in between. I would like to
suggest that this has much to do with an inherent paradox in Christian belief. God for us is both transcendent or
beyond us and imminant or with us in the incarnate Christ and the Holy Spirit. In Western Christianity there is
evidence that this truth about God has been very difficult to hold in tension and it has troubled artistic expression for
2000 years. (slide 16)

The Western Christian Concept of God

Can historically be characterized as a progressive emphasis from:

• God beyond us

• God for us

• God beside us/within us

God Beyond Us

At the beginning of the Christian era there was a strong transcendent orientation. In reaction to the strong
immanental focus in the pagan cults of the Graeco-Roman world Judaism and Christianity provided almost the lone
dissenting voices upholding the worship of ta transcendent creator God. Post Exilic Judaism had been cured of
idolatry and had gone towards the polar opposite. The Christians, because of persecution, had lifted their focus of
attention to the promises of the hereafter, rather than the present world.
As sacerdotalism and sacramentalism (the elevation of the meditorial role of the priesthood and the understanding of
the sacrament as means of grace) developed, congregational participation in worship was minimized. God seemed
even more distant from worshippers direct experience. The rise of monasticism with its ascetic rejection of the
physical world contributed to further encouraging the transcendent emphases. Humankind was to be taught about
Him and raised into His realm. Contemplation rather than involvement was the emphasis; idealism not realism;
instruction, not pleasure; spiritual meaning, not psycho-physiological power were the objectives. As people entered
cathedrals, they left behind their material lives and entered a different world.

"But it was a mysterious awe-inspiring world in which hope of salvation was mixed with fear of death
and judgement, and in simple comunities the chief accent was on fear."
Clark, Civilization, p. 238.

The emphasis in the understanding of God was as authority figure-ruler, lawgiver, judge. Hence the aesthetic
creations also inspired mystery, awe, reverence and sometimes intimidation. Because of the Church's pervasive
influence in Western civilization these ideals became a major cultural directive for over 1000 years.

The "God For Us" Orientation

The "God For Us" characterization depicts the 16th century. Protestant Reformation's retreat from the medieval
transcendence orientation. Through a fresh understanding of the doctrine of salvation, the "distance" between the
remote deity and humanity was reduced and a new appreciation developed for the more humanly accessible aspects
of God.
1) The mediatorial role of priests and saints was stripped away by the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers.
2) Access to God and His grace was proclaimed to be immediate upon the request of faith, unrelated to any
meritorious action on the part of the believer (i.e. sofa gracious)
3) Fear of an escating judge was replaced by emphasis on a loving God, who desired to save through the gift of
reconciliation provided in Christ.
4) The person and work of Jesus assumed a higher profile in the relationship of God to the world. Gradually it was
Jesus who became the One with whom believers identified as their Creator, Redeemer and Mediator.
5) God came to be seen more as "for us" than "over us". Although still recognized as above us, the shift in focus to
His "kind face" and His reconcilliatory activity for humankind clearly shifted the emphasis towards a more
central position between the extreme polar points of the Trans/Imman continuum.

Aesthetically, the remote feeling of awe and mystery was dissipated a little by increased participation of the people
in "eucharist" and congregational singing. The cold more formal ethos was replaced by increased warmth and
involvement.

The God Beside Us/Within Us Emphasis

From the 17th century to the present there has been a progressive move toward subjectivity in Christian thought.
1) As the inner experience of God's transforming grace became more significant in Christian thinking;
2) and a personal relationship with the Divine became the dominant thrust of Christian evangelism; the immanental
aspect of the divine nature and revelation was increasingly emphasized. With the development of Pietism in the 17th
century, Methodism and Evangelicalism in 18th C., Revivalism and the Holiness movement and Pentecostalism in
the 19th and 20th century as well as the trend toward existentialism - human experience of the divine became one of
the marks of religious authenticity. (People became preoccupied with what happens in us when we encounter the
divine.)
e.g. There was preoccupation with
1) the conversion experience
2) betterment/changes of the individuals heart and the increase in devotion and piety
3) holy living
4) the evidence of the work of the Spirit in believers
5) and even human psychology
6) Individualism became paramount - i.e. the real meaning of a worship service was measured by what happened
within the individual without reference to the body as a whole.

A major result of this shift to immanentalism was that a sense of divine presence came to be associated with "an
affective state". i.e. altering the subject's emotional mood into joy, or warm elation, inner contentment or even fear.
Often that emotional satisfaction and exhilaration was identified with the divine presence - it was the evidence of the
encounter!
Now there were 2 streams in this emphasis which have tended to merge into one another in the late 20th century
rather than maintain clear distinctions.
1) More "God beside us" - A more conservative outlook included Pietism (in its intial 17th and 18th century
phases), Methodism and Evangelicalism. They stressed more a daily, cooperative relationship with the HS.
2) More "God within us" - A more unrestricted approach that included 19th century American Revivalism, the
Holiness Movement and Pentecostalism. They placed the emphasis on abandonment to the Spirit's control.

While both highlighted the closeness of the divine the first one adopted a more reasoned posture whereas the second
favoured a more unrestrained intuitive approach. Whereas the first emphasized that "the heart ... must be affected, for
genuine religion is power and more than the verbal acceptance of doctrines. But the change of heart is not in the
convulsion, or the shout, the flowing of tears or the inner voices." (Jonathan Echwards, Religious Affections, Editors
introduction, p. 49; see Diss. chap. 4: Footnotes 58,59).

The second "was highly emotional, almost anti-intellectual. What was of most importance for the revivalist was a
gripping emotional experience. If one deeply felt his conversion, if one shed tears, or one had been stricken down, or
if one had been possessed by jerks, then chances were that one was converted." (Jerold Brauer, Protestantism in
America, rev. ed. p. 112; see Diss., chap 4, footnote 65.)
In fact Pentecostalism's emphasis on a total experience that appeals to all the senses, emotional and kinesthetic
involvement rather than contemplation, downplaying the philosophical and the abstract, using popular music that
would attract potential worshippers, accepting the coincidence of pleasure and worship demonstrates its immanental
and anthropocentric orientation. Because charismatic Christianity is so big, a proportion of total World Christianity
today - about 50 % - it is having a wide influence on present Christian worship trends. The "experience" has beome
the focal point.
The interesting thing is that as the secular world has developed its worldview since the 18th century the divine realm
has been denied and natural reality has automatically come to dominate life's perspective.

Martin Cooper has analyzed the trend very well: (slides 25-28)

In the Secular World

Man’s progressive deprivation of the supernatural, the progressive starving of an innate appetite, led
to a gradual depraving of that appetite, to cravings for strange foods and to attempts to satisfy by other
means an instinct which finds itself denied natural satisfaction. In place of food and drink for his spirit
man has looked in the arts for spices, stimulants, or narcotics. Taught to expect neither help nor
sympathy from outside or above himself, he takes to worshiping his own image and investing his own
emotions with an absolute value, rating them simply by their intensity and no longer referring them to
absolute standards of good and evil …
Man, no longer able to think of himself as his Creator’s darling, has been left with a sense of
diminished importance, of inferior status. Everyday life, no longer shared with his Creator or
illuminated by the supernatural, has come to seem colorless and uninteresting, only worth living in
moments of unusual excess, tragic or sensual.
Martin Cooper, Ideas and Music, p. 5.
(See Diss. chap. 4, Footnote 80)

Clearly, there is a convergence between the anthropocentric ideals of the religious immanental orientation and the
secular view of life. Both have a strong human focus and emphasize the value of the highly emotionally stimulating
experience.
It is no wonder that many Christians belonging to the "God within us" orientation feel quite comfortable
incorporating the styles of music, theatre, dance, and mime of the secular world into their own ways of expressing
their outlook on life. Ultimately the same source - the natural human realm - is the source of inspiration and what is
seen as the really real for both groups!

Part II:

The history of Christian music demonstrates the gradual shift, over 2000 years from the extreme Transcendent to the
extreme Immanent view of God in the Christian worldviews.
Briefly describe.

We need to decide as SDAs where we really are in our worldviews understanding of the nature of God re:
Transcendent/Immanent characteristics. Probably with our mouths and heads we say we believe in a balance between
the two.

Eric Routley has insightfully pointed out that (slide 29)

A church produces the music it wants and deserves. You can tell much about the ethos of a church …
from the quality of music it most freely accepts and approves.
Erik Routley, Church Music and the Christian Faith, pp. 92-93.

In other words again the arts are an accurate indicator. The type of music we most often use gives a more accurate
indication of what we believe that our words do!
I know that many Adventists churches in my home country are moving right over to the Immanental/Charismatic
styles of music with the justification that music is only a matter of taste + ... cultural acceptability should be what
determines what we do. They believe it is quite O.K. to use secular music, add religious words and call it sacred
music.
But Titus Burckhardt gives out a significant challenge when he writes: (slides 30-31)

Granted that spirituality in itself is independent of forms, this in no way implies that it can be
expressed and transmitted by any and every sort of form… A spiritual vision necessarily finds its
expression in a particular formal language; if that language is lacking, with the result that a so-called
sacred art borrows its form from some kind of profane art, then it can only be because a spiritual
vision of things is also lacking.
Titus Burckhardt, Sacred Art in East and West, p. 7.

I believe he is right. If we as SDA's are doing musically what everyone else in the Christian world is doing I sense
we have somehow lost our unique vision. Sadly today we are often followers not leaders in this area. Could it be that
our worldview is starting to lose consistency in this area? Is there no unique SDA witness in the area of music?
I firmly believe that P. T. Forsyth is absolutely right when he said: (slide 32)

Unless there is within us that which is above us,

we shall soon yield to that which is around us.
P.T. Forsyth

The trouble is that in Martin Luthers day it was easier to modify an extreme transcendent emphasis and make it a
little more immanent. That was what the whole culture was doing gradually anyway. So you could go with the flow
to a certain extent. Today, when we have an extreme immanent orientation in place, it is very hard to go back to
other way and add some transcendent elements to restore the balance. This is a counter cultural move!! This is our
challenge!!!

Frondizi is right when he wrote: (slide 33)

The essence of the moral reformer and of the creator in the field of the arts, lies in not adjusting to the
predominant norms, or tastes, but unfurling the flag or what ”ought to be” over and above people’s
preferences.
Risieri Frondizi, What is Value? p. 29.

If we try to do in our behaviour what our worldview really is, it may not taste nice to start with, but our tastes can
change and will.

In the music area as in others we need to pray for divine guidance and help. It is a spiritual warfare. But I believe
God will assure victory as we choose to stand for the right. Let us ask for wisdom and insight to deal with this
complex matter.
NB Rookmaaker's statement about our responsibility: (slide 34-37)

We may study the present situation, point to the fact that our culture is collapsing, not withstanding its
technical achievement and great knowledge in many fields… Yet we must never think that it is just
”they,” the haters of God. We must realize that we as Christians are also responsible ... To look at
modern art is to look at the fruit of the spirit of the avant-garde: it is they who are ahead in building a
view of the world with no God, no norms. Yet, is this so because Christians long since left the field to
the World, and in a kind of mystical retreat from the world, condemned the arts as worldly, almost
sinful? Indeed, no where is culture more ”unsalted” than precisely in the field of the arts … and that in
a time when the arts (in the widest sense) are gaining a stronger influence than ever through the mass
communications.
H.R. Rookmaaker, Modern Art and the Death of a Culture, p. 222.