Archives For November 30, 1999
As someone who is not Catholic I would say that historical continuity and institutional unity are not good enough reasons for me to switch. The distinctive and controversial doctrines or practices of the Roman Catholic Church are all stooped in historical tradition. Purgatory, the mass, transubstantiation, indulgences, the treasury of merit, penance, the rosary, prayers to Mary, holy water, the papacy, and on and on. What you will find is that biblical exegesis does not support these traditions. Furthermore just because the Catholic Church has reformed itself since Vatican II doesn’t take into account the hundreds of years of false interpretation and downright un-Christ-like teachings of the past. Especially when the historical past is their go to justification for their claim as the “true church.” While true the divisions post-Reformation are not ideal for Christ’s church, a unity for the sake of unity at the expense of Christ’s teachings is just as damaging.
There are some who take the view that things outside of the Church are able to be redeemed for God’s glory. So rather than condemning contemporary music, they believe we ought to redeem it for God. They use this reasoning in many areas where culture meets the Church from music, technology, movies, etc. There are others who feel contemporary music is only about the feelings and doesn’t uphold the tradition. To me this argument doesn’t hold as much water since if we are truly going to go by tradition why not go further back than hymns and masses? Furthermore if you look at Church music from the Renaissance and Baroque periods you often see the borrowing of melodies between secular music styles and Church music styles. Why? Because people knew the tunes and could participate. There are some who also view that all verses not directly quotable from the Bible and involving instrument accompaniment to not be true Church music.
Personally I think its a silly argument from a musical perspective because the Church has always been using the best composers at the time and latest forms of musical development from polyphony, four-part vocal harmony, key signatures, music forms like cantatas and oratios, etc. Its just a matter of when you want to say enough is enough by drawing the definitive line which differs between Churches and denominations. For me I prefer some good Palestrina or Monteverdi over contemporary Christian but I don’t view contemporary Christian as not Christian.
Acerbity [əˈsɜːbɪtɪ] 