"THIS IS NOT A CONCERT!"
I was in a quartet that represented our college in churches, youth rallies, and summer camps. We stood stiff and still, our hands at our sides. No moving, no swaying. You never held a microphone in your hand. Our listeners nodded approval as we sang. If they enjoyed a song, they’d say “Amen”. If they enjoyed it immensely, their “Amen’s” were much louder. No one clapped in church -- ever.
Holding a microphone or clapping in church was “worldly”. That seems quaintly silly at best, absurdly wrong at worst. Why did Christians act this way?
Christians at that time were scrambling for a proper response to the revolutionary tidal wave known as “the Sixties”. If you didn’t live through the Sixties, it is difficult to understand how radical a change it was from everything we had known. It was every bit as disorienting as today’s gender revolution.
The Sixties cast away long-standing social norms (‘Society’ can’t tell you what to do!) and preached free individual expression. Conservative Christians defended traditional social norms as “Christian society”; aberrations and new norms were condemned as worldly and demonic, to be avoided by the faithful.
Rock music embodied the rebellion against the old norms, openly espousing sexual liberty and drug use. Conservatives responded by demonizing anything connected to rock – long hair on men, electric instruments, rock concerts (a new phenomenon back then!), and everything connected with such concerts, including free emotional expression and bodily movement (deemed sexually suggestive by default) by the musicians or concert goers.
This response, well-intentioned but without sufficient biblical basis, didn’t survive intellectual scrutiny. Didn’t Jesus have long hair? How can a musical instrument be evil? How can a rhythm, a note, or a chord be evil? Why can’t an electric guitar be used to praise God, but an acoustic played classically can? Why may a violinist (or pianist) who plays classical music be applauded for expressing feeling through bodily movement, but a guitarist, drummer, pianist, or singer playing Christian music may not?
I converted to evangelicalism in the mid-1970’s when these arguments were being fought through in churches and Christian colleges.
One of the most oft-repeated criticisms from traditionalists about contemporary worship is this: “This is a worship service, NOT A CONCERT!”
That criticism is stuck in the 1970’s, when you went to a concert to be entertained by professional musicians, to listen to them perform music, to observe the “show”.
Go to a Christian concert today and you are going, not to observe a show, but to participate in an enormous worship service. The band isn’t there merely to perform for you. Rather, the band leads the entire crowd to sing for a much more exalted audience: God Himself.
The concert is a worship service, and a Sunday worship service is a concert -- if you choose to participate and offer the sacrifice of praise to God (Hebrews 13.15).
Or you can stay aloof and criticize the concert.
Holding a microphone or clapping in church was “worldly”. That seems quaintly silly at best, absurdly wrong at worst. Why did Christians act this way?
Christians at that time were scrambling for a proper response to the revolutionary tidal wave known as “the Sixties”. If you didn’t live through the Sixties, it is difficult to understand how radical a change it was from everything we had known. It was every bit as disorienting as today’s gender revolution.
The Sixties cast away long-standing social norms (‘Society’ can’t tell you what to do!) and preached free individual expression. Conservative Christians defended traditional social norms as “Christian society”; aberrations and new norms were condemned as worldly and demonic, to be avoided by the faithful.
Rock music embodied the rebellion against the old norms, openly espousing sexual liberty and drug use. Conservatives responded by demonizing anything connected to rock – long hair on men, electric instruments, rock concerts (a new phenomenon back then!), and everything connected with such concerts, including free emotional expression and bodily movement (deemed sexually suggestive by default) by the musicians or concert goers.
This response, well-intentioned but without sufficient biblical basis, didn’t survive intellectual scrutiny. Didn’t Jesus have long hair? How can a musical instrument be evil? How can a rhythm, a note, or a chord be evil? Why can’t an electric guitar be used to praise God, but an acoustic played classically can? Why may a violinist (or pianist) who plays classical music be applauded for expressing feeling through bodily movement, but a guitarist, drummer, pianist, or singer playing Christian music may not?
I converted to evangelicalism in the mid-1970’s when these arguments were being fought through in churches and Christian colleges.
One of the most oft-repeated criticisms from traditionalists about contemporary worship is this: “This is a worship service, NOT A CONCERT!”
That criticism is stuck in the 1970’s, when you went to a concert to be entertained by professional musicians, to listen to them perform music, to observe the “show”.
Go to a Christian concert today and you are going, not to observe a show, but to participate in an enormous worship service. The band isn’t there merely to perform for you. Rather, the band leads the entire crowd to sing for a much more exalted audience: God Himself.
The concert is a worship service, and a Sunday worship service is a concert -- if you choose to participate and offer the sacrifice of praise to God (Hebrews 13.15).
Or you can stay aloof and criticize the concert.