Not an aesthetic difference. . .

Ever since we accepted the phrase beauty is in the eye of the beholder every ordinary standard of beauty has disappeared and everything and anything goes.  Go to any modern art gallery and see what passes for art (never mind the crude and vulgar stuff).  The same is true in music.  My wife and I loved being season ticket holders at the Nashville Symphony for many, many years.  Then we began to notice that the classical repertoire seemed to repeat (how many times did we hear Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle -- lovely but repeats were not what we were paying for!).  Then we began to notice that half of the program was devoted to modern music -- typically non-melodic and experimental such as an electric violin.  We also noticed that when the modern half of the program was first, people came during intermission and the seats that were empty at the beginning filled up.  The reverse happened as well when we saw empty seats in the second half which was some sort of modern music which we endured rather than enjoyed.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder -- except that the people paying the bills knew the difference.  Even if you cannot quite put it into words, we all know the difference.

When it comes to church music the typical framework of the argument is over beauty.  I would argue that pop music in Christian form fails in the beauty department for sure but there is another realm of failure.  Church music is not simply beautiful but the servant of the Word.  So much of contemporary Christian music fails not only on the sound but the content.  How many times can you sing about what you want to do for Jesus or how He is your BFF or lover or whatever?  How many times can you sing about how Jesus has been there in hard times and will lead you to happiness or success?  The failure here is not the failure simply to be beautiful but the failure to accurately convey the church's song.  The actual charge is bigger than beauty -- it is triviality, banality, sentimentality, and discardable music that is meant for the moment rather than eternity.  This is the problem.  It is not an aesthetic that we are contending for but faithful and noble song worthy of the voices of God's people as well as the ears of God.

This is not a conflict between low culture which mirrors the entertainment sound on our playlists and the high culture of classical music.  This is about a genre of music which is even less than the sounds of our secular playlists.  Indeed, how many so-called contemporary Christian artists' music would survive the competition with the major players among their secular counterparts?  Few, to be sure.  It is not that the sound of worship has begun to mirror what we hear in our ear buds but that it is not even as good as that playlist.  Worse than this, we have become immunized against real church music with a solid message and what those who went before bequeathed to us has become an alien sound to people who listen to contemporary Christian music all the time.  It is not simply folk music that has replaced the church's song and even if it were folk music we can think of what Vaughn-Williams and Holst and Brahms and so many others have done in restoring and passing on the folk music of the past.  No, this is not about folk setting vs the concert hall but about the true and solid content of our song -- singing back to God what God has said to us.

We all know that there are modern authors and composers who have kept up the tradition.  This is rather about the names of those who have not.  They make us sing of ourselves and our feelings and our wonder instead of what God has said and done to save and redeem His lost creation.  They urge us to see God in the little things and miss the great revelation of the incarnation and holy life, the cross and empty tomb.  They address God in familiar terms that are meant to help us with a warm and fuzzy feeling about Him when there is no conflict between awe and love at all.  Don't fall into the trap of arguing over a moving standard like beauty or meaningfulness and stay on the sturdy ground of God's Word and the Gospel itself.  This is enough for any listening Christian (and Lutheran!) to say that most of what we hear today that passes of hymnody and a Christian soundtrack is unworthy of God and of us.