One of my heroes speaks about the St Matthew Passion

James MacMillan is someone very, very rare in the professional music industry. One of the most successful living composers that we have, he is also a very devout Roman Catholic. And while there are excellent historical reasons for the Protestant Reformation and the ongoing commitment of many Protestants to Protestant theology, I have now learnt that as a very serious conservative, Bible-believing Protestant it is possible for me to have more in common with genuine and orthodox RCs than many liberal Protestants. That is very uncomfortable for many people, but it is nothing but the truth.

Here is an extract from an interview he did in 2008:

“The campaigning atheists, as opposed to the live-and-let-live variety, are raising their voices because they recognise that they are losing; the project to establish a narrow secular orthodoxy is failing.”

He added that the religious must carry on expressing their beliefs in the face of growing opposition.

“A smug ignorance, a gross oversimplification and caricature that serves as an analytical understanding of religion, is the common intellectual currency. The bridge has to be built by Christians and others being firm in resisting increasingly aggressive attempts to still their voices.”

He concluded by saying that our lives will become meaningless unless the “mists of contemporary banality” are penetrated and the idea of the sacred is restored.

“I believe it is God’s divine spark which kindles the musical imagination now, as it has always done, and reminds us, in an increasingly dehumanised world, of what it means to be human.”

What an absolutely monumental idea! It is a concept that I intend to return to in more ways than one as time passes, and it is also something which has contributed to my own conviction that the creative work of the composer/arranger/songwriter of sacred music is a work of incredible importance to both humanity and divinity. Both the theologian and the musician in me are getting fired up even as I write this…

But for now, I would like to point you towards some more writing by MacMillan, and this time he talks about a recent experience of listening to the great St. Matthew Passion by J.S. Bach – a work which if you are any serious sort of Christian musician, you need to try and listen to at least part of if you have never heard any of it!

On Tuesday night [April 3rd, 2012] I sat in King’s College, Cambridge, listening to a powerful performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion. Presented by the Chapel Choir, other Cambridge choristers, the Academy of Ancient Music, a squad of first-rank soloists and conducted by Stephen Cleobury, we were once again confronted with one of the greatest artistic achievements in history.

Why do the Bach Passions still speak to modern man? And why was the death of Jesus – rather than His joyous resurrection – the prime motivation for these masterpieces? St Paul writes, “if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain”. With that in mind, what is it about his death that has so gripped our culture?

I have just received John Butt’s book Bach’s Dialogue with Modernity. Here he examines the Bach Passions in the context of modern man’s fascination with glories past. Such masterpieces provide a firm challenge to the contemporary conceit that the modern world is always improving. The growing popularity of hearing the Bach Passions leading up to the Easter season in our “post-religious” culture is an intriguing and exciting one.

The ritualistic recitation of Christ’s crucifixion probably began in the 4th century, and the singing of the Passion narrative has been going on from the 8th century. Singing has always been central to the Church. St Augustine said that those who sing pray twice. The “song” of the Church, Gregorian chant, can be traced back to the songs of the Temple and synagogue. It is an amazing feeling, knowing that people have been singing the Passion for at least 1,200 years.

It wasn’t until the 15th century that more complex versions of a sung Passion began to emerge, the earliest example of a so-called motet Passion being attributed to Obrecht. Later there were famous examples by Byrd, Lassus and Victoria. After the Reformation, Luther’s friend and collaborator Johann Walther wrote responsorial Passions which became models for the Lutheran church. Within this environment the development of the “oratorio” Passions of the 16th and 17th centuries paved the way for J S Bach.

Before I encountered any of the great Bach Passions, I was aware of the crucifixion narratives. I’d heard them recited every year as part of the Church’s liturgy. On Good Friday we would hear St John’s account. Sometimes there would be a participatory aspect to the recitation, with the words of Christ delivered by the priest while other characters would be read by deacons or lay readers.

I have taken part in chanted Passions since my undergraduate days. Nowadays I am well used to singing the Narrator’s part in an English plainsong setting of the St John every year with a couple of Dominican friars in Glasgow, where my little choir interjects with the angry responses of the chorus. I am always awestruck at the stark, relentless nature of this way of doing it, and at the dramatic impact it has on the assembly as they relive the last hours of Christ’s mortal life.

To be honest, it is the spiritual highlight of my year, and I have real difficulty singing the final section. In the Catholic liturgy, at the words, “It is accomplished; and bowing his head he gave up his spirit”, the congregation fall to their knees and remain there in prayer before hearing the final part of the narrative, where the legs of the two thieves are broken and Jesus is pierced in his side. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus then take the body away and place it in a tomb. Every year I wonder if my voice is going to crack at the final phrase, which, strangely, is the only one which blossoms into a little melisma: “Since it was the Jewish Day of Preparation and the tomb was near at hand, there they laid the body of Jesus.”

It is not just the Bach Passions that are in ongoing dialogue with modernity. The figure of Christ himself, in his death and resurrection, is in constant, uncontrollable interplay with the mind of modern man.

Last week in Cambridge, I was in conversation with academics, theologians and creative artists about the St Luke Passion, which I am now about to set to music. We all found it curious that the great historical settings of the Passion seem to fillet a portion of Christ’s life, separating it from his early ministry and the post-crucifixion story. There were liturgical reasons for this, of course – the resurrection would eventually have its own musical treatment a few days later. But Bach’s greatest music is about the destruction of Our Lord; his resurrection music is not so memorable. (This could perhaps be said about most composers.)

Modern man, now more detached from his liturgical obligations than ever before, may be able, paradoxically, to see the crucifixion in wider contexts. Can a modern composer, in setting the great tragedy of Jesus, include the resurrection, the risen Christ’s early appearance on the road to Emmaus, and even the ascension? If so, why begin the St Luke Passion at Chapter 22 when Satan entered Judas Iscariot?

These are not simple questions. The “greatest story ever told” began with a terrified Jewish girl saying yes to a heavenly manifestation which brought news of her pregnancy. Bach’s music proves that the Passion of Christ has deep beginnings and profound resonance, even for modern man: he opened up a window on the divine love affair with humanity. The greatest calling for an artist, in any age, is to do the same.

What an incredible concept. The greatest calling for an artist in any age is to open up a window on the divine love affair with humanity…

Whether you write supremely sophisticated concert classical music like J.S. Bach or James MacMillan, or you write simple Scripture songs for one voice and guitar, or honest praise and worship choruses that really mean what they way, or whatever else…that is what we are supposed to be doing as Christian music artists.

That’s why to merely play and conduct other people’s music is no longer enough – I may be no genius, but I need to write my own song and tell my own story as a composer and I am so grateful God is opening doors for me to do just that. We cannot all be like James MacMillan, but we can certainly be who we are.

Afrobeats v. “Secular Music..”

Recently, a friend of mine on Facebook asked this question. It occurred to me that this was a good opportunity to write a proper post on something that combines Christian faith, music and culture in a very integrated manner.

“A question I’ve never got an answer to: why is it ok to not listen to secular music, but still listen to Afro beats? The content is the same (sometimes worse in Afro beats)…I really don’t understand…!”

Some clarification is needed. This is about the fact that there are African Christians (in the UK) who hold that no one should listen to what they describe as ‘secular’ music. In this community and context, ‘secular’ is taken to mean the commercial popular musics of Western origin – right across the genre bandwidth. R’n’b, hip-hop, nu-soul, pop, dance music forms of the modern club-craze variety and the rest.

Somehow, one is not sure whether many of these good people have considered whether secular classical music, jazz, folk music and other music genres should also be avoided on the grounds of their being ‘secular.’ Not for the first time in the history of language, a word has been taken and appropriated by a community, whose grasp of the word may not have been all that it might have been – and confusion reigns. As some who is black, Christian and a longtime church member here in the UK, I speak to my own community when I say that we African-Caribbean Christians specialise in these types of madness.

One of the consequences of this is the fact that many such Christians who speak against ‘secular’ music have decided that it really is OK to listen to artists such as Wiz Kid and D’Banj. Now, as someone who a) studied musics in and of Africa whilst an ethnomusicology student; b) had a professional performing career that has included playing African music of many types both here in the UK and in Africa, I am aware of the history of Afrobeat. As such, I asked my friend exactly what they were referring to; presuming that the Afrobeat-inspired sounds I have noticed recently would be what I would simply describe as ‘contemporary Afrobeat.’

But no, I am behind the times, it seems. For some reason, in recent times the Guardian (possibly the leading serious daily newspaper in Britain) has become a home for lovers of ‘music of black origin’ who write about music. That’s another story, but the relevance: this article (click here).

Here’s what you need to get: this word ‘Afrobeats’ (or neologism) came into existence somewhere around April 2011, courtesy of one of the hottest DJing properties in the UK: DJ Abrantee. Guardian columnist Dan Hancox writes:

Most people are familiar with the Afrobeat styles of Fela Kuti – Afrobeats is something different; with the addition of the letter “s” comes a whole new chapter in global pop music.

Abrantee’s neologism describes a new sound – a 21st-century melting pot of western rap influences, and contemporary Ghanaian and Nigerian pop music… “For years we’ve had amazing hiplife, highlife, Nigerbeats, juju music, and I thought: you know what, let’s put it all back together as one thing again, and call it Afrobeats, as an umbrella term. Afrobeat, the 60s music, was more instrumental – this Afrobeats sound is different, it’s intertwined with things like hip-hop and funky house, and there’s more of a young feel to it.”

My friend soon went on to clarify their position in various ways as people responded on their wall. It was understood that people were eschewing ‘Western’ popular music styles, but then listening to an ‘African’ version of exactly the same music and seeing nothing wrong with this – a position with no logical basis whatsoever, and yet a position held by many people in this community.

One of the respondents (whom from now I will refer to as “R” for ‘respondent’) pointed out that Afrobeat music used to be ‘clean’ – songs about life and so on, the kind of thing made famous by Fela Kuti. But it is an unfortunate truth that Western commercial popular media (with music and film being the biggest and most widely exported) has taught the non-Western world that there is a literal fortune to be made in selling the basest and most corrupt morality a human being can imagine. Singers and actors don’t stay in work by keeping their clothes on for too long these days, and now it has never been harder to remember the days when even pop music was more about music than it was about wanton, destructive self-glorification.

This Guardian article also points towards the fact that this new music is acting as a game-breaker for the generation gap in the diasporic African community here in the UK – the fact that British-born West Africans are going out to party to music that is indelibly linked to West African music of their parents’ generation(s) has led to a positive groundswell of pride in these communities, all the more so as youngsters begin to ask their parents about the ‘old music.’

Many British Christians of West African extraction are members of church communities that subscribe to a supremely parochial, rigid, heavily moralistic framework of external behavioural output that forbids the consumption of secular music (that previously was restricted to the sounds of Western commercial pop). This is in stark contrast to contemporary Anglo-European Protestant Christianity (of all denominations) which in general terms has embraced modern popular culture with more warmth than might be ideal at times. Therefore, there is a major, unspoken spiritual class war taking place across the culture gap but both parties try very hard to keep their real feelings about these sorts of things on absolute lockdown within their respective bunkers. However, Afro-Caribbean Christians who evangelise tend to proselytise towards a highly conservative position in life (but not always in theology) – whereas Anglo-Europeans who proselytise towards a rather more liberal framework for life-practice (but their theology is sometimes much more conservative).

As one wise man said, “where the world goes, the Church goes.” Suddenly, this new-wave African music is exerting such a tug on the emotions (and passions) of many African Christians that even those who genuinely have forsaken Western commercial music do listen to Afrobeats – with ‘vulgar’ lyrics, and they know quite well what the songs both ‘mean and imply.’ Many seem to think that this is acceptable – but my friend simply cannot see how this can possibly work.

My friend is absolutely right (along with R and others).  This position has more holes than a sieve – even more so when one considers the very origins and raison d’être of Afrobeats. Dan Hancox again:

According to Abrantee, the funky party sounds now emanating from Ghana and Nigeria are providing an injection of new energy into UK urban and US hip-hop. “The floodgates have opened. Music is always evolving, and everyone’s always looking for the next drug. Funky house has died out, grime is still there but it’s gone back underground, electro-pop’s got UK urban music in the charts, but that’ll die out too, it’s got a short shelf-life. So everyone’s looking for the next thing, the next hype – and people are finally noticing I’m getting 3,000 people coming out to dance to Afrobeats.

R (who is also a member of this community) commented thus:

“…really and truly anybody can fool themselves, and if it’s trending and there are so many others around them who think the same, then there’s nothing that will ever question that logic.. I also honestly think it boils down to a culture thing, you can get away with preaching for instance to your white friends about why they shouldn’t listen to western secular music, but those same white friends would never question Afrobeats, because they don’t understand it. It’s pretty much a safe zone.”

Having now visited Nigeria for myself and observed different dimensions of Christian culture first-hand, I was interested to see how for so many people the external religious fabric of Christianity was interwoven and integrated with all manner of other ideas (and ideologies). It seems to be altogether too easy for many people to take the bits of Christianity that suit them and ignore the rest. However, that’s one thing if you keep your faith to yourself. For at least fifteen years, Nigerian churches have been sending missionaries into the West – and Britain and Europe have been very important to these missions. The Redeemed Christian Church of God is one such church which has broken into the ecclesial scene in the UK and is now systematically trying to crack Europe, learning some extremely painful lessons about how European minds process the relationship between theory and practice and how the West African cultural mindset is uniquely unprepared for long-term evangelistic success here in Europe when there is no diasporic African community to tap into.

There is a type of latent hypocrisy at work here, driven by pride and self-absorption that leads people to literally abuse the grace of God who takes us as we are, and still loves us even when we refuse to grow and change to be more like Him – but whose heart breaks because He knows that if these are the choices we make now, we could never be free – and therefore never be happy – in heaven.

My friend went on to say this:

“During my church Bible study today we spoke about how the present church doesn’t call out sin anymore giving rise to situations where people now say,”Well I’m sorry, this is how God made me; accept me or leave me” when actually God DIDN’T make you stubborn, and your sin is pride and stubbornness which you must repent of and ask God to change your heart…. Another one is “I’m just so focused” when the truth is you’re just so selfish!

As this post concludes, there is one major issue to address. My friend offered up a spiritual definition of the word ‘secular’ – and here is how R responded:

“I think the whole secular thing is interesting, because I have been to churches where when the youths are mingling in the evening, or events for unbelievers and [at] the dining at the end etc secular music is played. Clean might I add, but secular none the less. I’ve also found that only really the black church talk about this whole secular music scene, and generally white dominated churches don’t care. Secular music that is [not] sexual/vulgar/foul is just not an issue. And the other [thing] I’ve heard is people saying that even in the Bible, during banquets etc music/instrumentalists played for the occasion so then what’s the difference between that kind of music and music that is non sexual/vulgar e.g. ‘feel-good’ music?”

We need to ensure that we understand what ‘secular’ means. In general parlance, and within the context of music, the semantic distinctions are between ‘sacred’ and ‘secular.’ To help us with that, here is www.thefreedictionary.com:

1. Worldly rather than spiritual.

2. Not specifically relating to religion or to a religious body: e.g. secular music.

3. Relating to or advocating secularism.

4. Not bound by monastic restrictions, especially not belonging to a religious order.

~

Under this definition, Afrobeats is a secular genre – so it seems that there are a number of people who may need to get their heads around this fact. That said, my friend and R would quite likely point out that deep down, many people in this community would not need to read a post such as this in order to know that. Some may never have thought about it – especially when the language is a mixture of Yoruba and English and they may have failed to grasp the nature of the lyrics. However, others have made a choice.

Christian music that uses Afrobeat rhythms is a complex area, but there is an argument to say that this music is not secular. In lyrical content, it points towards the gospel message – but the real issue is the spirit and manner in which it is played and sung. This is a massive technical issue needing its own post. However, any music that does not EXPLICITLY point to Christian faith is secular by definition!

That said, there is some secular music that has real depth and content and musical integrity, but it is not what we would call ‘confessional’ sacred music, so it has to be called secular. There is so-called Christian music that offers no Scriptural or theological depth (and sometimes rank heresy) that we might want to call ‘secular’ because it is so unspiritual – but it offers itself as Christian music, so it has to be assessed in that category. So in the past, when I played secular music, I had a scale of values that I used to determine if this was the kind of music I should be playing as a Christian. You know how it worked out? I found more depth of musicianship and commitment to integrity in the secular music world (outside the commercial sector, unsurprisingly) than I did in the professional Christian music world.

The seriousness of this matter of culture cannot be overstated. The vituperative attacks on secular culture that emanate from Afro-Caribbean Christianity in the UK are utterly reprehensible in light of the sheer rampant materialism that bedevils many black people inside and outside the Church and the wanton lasciviousness that takes place behind closed doors. It is one thing to be a hypocrite, but quite another to hector others loudly when you are less than clean in your own spiritual life before God. Even in writing this a post such as this, I am keenly aware of the areas in which I remain a work in progress. However, God has called some of us to speak up and speak out, and so I write this not in my own strength, but also knowing that I am not who I used to be and I am on a journey to becoming more than I am at this moment. Culture is one of the areas in which Bible-believing Christians are further down the road than ever before, but still nowhere near where we are supposed to be.

Einstein v. the Professor

The following ‘historical narrative’ was posted on facebook recently. It was not the first time I had read it, but this time I thought I would capture it for posterity on my own blog. I am unable to verify the actual historical reliability of this account, but the ideas themselves are well worth considering – whatever your take on the origins of life.

Professor : You are a Christian, aren’t you, son ?

Student : Yes, sir.

Professor: So, you believe in GOD ?

Student : Absolutely, sir.

Professor : Is GOD good ?

Student : Sure.

Professor: Is GOD all powerful ?

Student : Yes.

Professor: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to GOD to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But GOD didn’t. How is this GOD good then? Hmm?

(Student was silent.)

Professor: You can’t answer, can you ? Let’s start again, young fella. Is GOD good?

Student : Yes.

Professor: Is satan good ?

Student : No.

Professor: Where does satan come from ?

Student : From … GOD …

Professor: That’s right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?

Student : Yes.

Professor: Evil is everywhere, isn’t it ? And GOD did make everything. Correct?

Student : Yes.

Professor: So who created evil ?

(Student did not answer.)

Professor: Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don’t they?

Student : Yes, sir.

Professor: So, who created them ?

(Student had no answer.)

Professor: Science says you have 5 Senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son, have you ever seen GOD?

Student : No, sir.

Professor: Tell us if you have ever heard your GOD?

Student : No , sir.

Professor: Have you ever felt your GOD, tasted your GOD, smelt your GOD? Have you ever had any sensory perception of GOD for that matter?

Student : No, sir. I’m afraid I haven’t.

Professor: Yet you still believe in Him?

Student : Yes.

Professor : According to Empirical, Testable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says your GOD doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son?

Student : Nothing. I only have my faith.

Professor: Yes, faith. And that is the problem Science has.

Student : Professor, is there such a thing as heat?

Professor: Yes.

Student : And is there such a thing as cold?

Professor: Yes.

Student : No, sir. There isn’t.

(The lecture theater became very quiet with this turn of events.)

Student : Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don’t have anything called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.

(There was pin-drop silence in the lecture theater.)

Student : What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?

Professor: Yes. What is night if there isn’t darkness?

Student : You’re wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light. But if you have no light constantly, you have nothing and its called darkness, isn’t it? In reality, darkness isn’t. If it is, well you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn’t you?

Professor: So what is the point you are making, young man ?

Student : Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.

Professor: Flawed ? Can you explain how?

Student : Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there is life and then there is death, a good GOD and a bad GOD. You are viewing the concept of GOD as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, Science can’t even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing.

Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it. Now tell me, Professor, do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?

Professor: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.

Student : Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?

(The Professor shook his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument was going.)

Student : Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor. Are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a scientist but a preacher?

(The class was in uproar.)

Student : Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor’s brain?

(The class broke out into laughter. )

Student : Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor’s brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established Rules of Empirical, Stable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says that you have no brain, sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?

(The room was silent. The Professor stared at the student, his face unfathomable.)

Professor: I guess you’ll have to take them on faith, son.

Student : That is it sir … Exactly ! The link between man & GOD is FAITH. That is all that keeps things alive and moving.

P.S.

By the way, that student was EINSTEIN.

Another lesson from the secular world

There is a WikiHow article entitled, “How to Live a Long Life.” Here is no. 9 from that list:

Write a gratitude list. When you write a gratitude list, you will feel much better about yourself and you won’t think about what you don’t have. When you focus on what you have now, you attract more good things into your life. You will live longer because gratitude makes you feel happy.

Interesting!

The secular world has developed an affinity for the concept of ‘servant leadership.’ But where on earth does such a model come from? And who was the ultimate ‘servant leader?’

The secular world has also developed an affinity for the idea of ‘trust’ – which we could even call ‘faith’ if we were so inclined. While faith can play a part in most religions, we know how important it is to Christian faith (Hebrews 11:6).

There is an axiom: “cultivate an attitude of gratitude.” Where it came from, I don’t know. I first heard a preacher say it. But this is the thing. I have been a conservative, Bible-believing, Sabbath-keeping Christian for my entire adult life – and in that time I have had the opportunity to spend a great deal of time with many people who believe in completely opposite directions to myself. And you know something? Many of my secular associates and friends are more consistently grateful to a Something or Someone or even a God they do not know and have never met than many of my Christian brethren (of both sexes, multiple ethnicities and equally multiple denominations).

While it is true that this ‘point’ above is in fact worded in a very utilitarian way – i.e. one is encouraged to be grateful for what one has now as an effective means of getting more, there are many folk who would deny Christ but still accept that one would need to be grateful on its own terms for what they have, regardless of their prospects of increase. But here’s the thing: genuine gratitude can only be manifested through praise, and when God is the one being praised, that is no longer mere praise. That is WORSHIP!

If we want to be true worshippers of God, then we need to be as consistently grateful as possible – or else we simply cannot praise God and retain any integrity whatsoever.

So this is your moment: how truly emotively grateful are you for what you have? If you were to take the advice of Psalm 46:10 and use the quiet to ask yourself in the presence of the Lord how much you really value Him for who His is as well as what He does and what he gives – would you find transparent gratitude? Or would your heart reveal what you would never want anyone to find out about – friend or foe?

Originally published on another blog; click here for the link.

Sing the gospel, believe the gospel…

I have always wondered why so many people who do not believe the gospel message sing sacred music of all descriptions so well and so meaningfully sometimes that one is very hard-pressed to believe that they don’t believe!

WHY won’t more Christians sing like they actually believe? Do we sing what we do because we believe it, or do we sing hoping that as we sing, we will believe it?

Sometimes, that really is what happens. But if we only believe when we get the feeling that comes from singing music that speaks the truth about God, then we have less integrity than a person who sings sacred music because they enjoy the music. So if (for example) sickness came to us and we couldn’t sing…where would our faith be?

Secular people having MORE integrity whilst singing sacred music than those in the church?

Something to think about….

A few thoughts on prayer – Part 2

If you have not read Part 1 of this sequence, and you want to, please click here. However, while that would be good, this post will stand on its own, so if you are the kind of person who is easily distracted, then while I’ve got you, please just keep reading!

If you were not aware that the Lord’s Prayer is found in two gospels, then you definitely need to begin by reading the two different versions. I always suggest that those who are Christians say a short but serious prayer to God, asking the Holy Spirit to guide them as they read the Word.

Matthew 6:9-13

King James Version (KJV)

⁹After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

¹⁰Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

¹¹Give us this day our daily bread.

¹²And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

¹³And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

~

Luke 11:1-4

King James Version (KJV)

¹And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.

²And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.

³Give us day by day our daily bread.

⁴And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.

~

As you will have noticed, each gives a slightly different account – and here are some of the differences:

• Different endings; the ‘praise ending’ in Matthew is not found in Luke. This is a very significant issue on several different levels.
• Matthew uses ‘debt’ whereas Luke uses ‘sins.’ This is a crucial distinction, which we will explore in Part 6!
• Two different statements about the daily bread:
  • Luke 11:3 – “Give us day by day our daily bread.”
  • Matthew 6:11 – “Give us this day our daily bread.”

How very interesting!

Matthew’s account has six petitions; Luke’s has only five. The symmetry in Matthew is quite striking: three God-centred petitions, followed by three man-centred petitions. However, the Luke account leaves one of those petitions out – which is very interesting. Let’s look closely:

MATTHEW:

• God’s Name should be hallowed
• God’s kingdom should come
• God’s will may be done

–

• Provision of bread
• Pardon for sins
• Protection from both temptation and the tempter himself

LUKE: makes no mention of God’s will.

~

What is not commonly known is that whereas the way in which we 21st-century Christians think about God as a ‘father’ with relative ease (not everyone has known a father or father-figure, and not everyone has had good experiences of a father figure), this opening address to God (the ‘invocation’) – “Our Father” would in fact have been very startling to both the disciples and everyone else; in Judaism, calling God ‘Father’ was something one did not do under any circumstances. One did not even say the name of God, it was too sacred – and especially the name “Yahweh!” Even now, contemporary Orthodox Judaism continues the practice of writing the Hebrew alliteration of God as YHWH – so that the very name of God is not desecrated. This is serious stuff that most modern Christians have completely failed to get their heads around - because no one has told them about it!

And right there, we have the single biggest difference in the God-concept of Judaism and Christianity: for Christians who accept that Jesus was God, we understand that Jesus helped us to understand that God is serious about us knowing Him and being in a relationship with Him.

In short – God is a relational God. If you never really cottoned onto this before now, can you see why prayer is SO important? If you are a Christian, it is not optional!

The Lord’s Prayer offers model answers to the series of questions that God puts to us to shape our conversation with Him.

Q: Whom do you take Me for and what am I to you? A: Our Father in heaven.

Q: That being so, what is it that you really want? A: the hallowing of Your Name; the coming of Your Kingdom; to see Your will known and done.

Q: So what are you asking for right now as a means to that end? A: provision, pardon and protection.

Then the ‘Praise Ending’ wraps things up:

Q: How can you be so bold and confident in asking for these things? A: Because we know You can do it and when You do it, it will bring You the glory!

 Eugene Peterson says, “The Bible is the only book that reads us as we read it.” We have a great example of that here. Prayer is an activity that leads many to believe that when they try to do it there is no-one listening – and that our FEELINGS tell us the truth. We need to understand that God is in fact questioning us in the way described in the Lord’s prayer, requiring us to tell Him honestly to tell Him honestly a) how we think of Him; b) what we want from Him; c) why.

As God’s adopted children (John 1:12): a) we are loved; b) we are heirs; we have His Spirit with us; we must honour our Father by serving His interests; we must love our brothers.

As such, we give: a) thanks for grace; praise for God’s paternity; and c) we take joy in our status as children of God. These things should be prominent in Christian prayer.

So, what about the musical element in all this? Here is a quote from one of my favourite authors:

“As a part of religious service singing is as much an act of worship as is prayer. Indeed, many a song is prayer.”

We all need to continue to learn how to pray. However, if you are in music and worship ministry, you have to understand that without a prayer life that seriously works, your ministry is just not ever going to be effective, and God will be unable to do with you what He could have done if only you had been willing to follow Jesus’ example!

In Part 3 we will look at the one thing that hurts our ability to pray more than anything else. Something which we all know about but too often try to ignore…

something for junior Levites…

Some interesting ideas about hearing music…

This post has as its primary content a ‘white paper’ from a guy called Dyske Suematsu. As I have discovered that a majority of post-readers here at the theomusicology blog do not follow-through on hyperlinks, I am putting his thoughts directly inside this post.

Yes, there are all sorts of things which may make you raise your eyebrows – but stick with him, he may just say one or two things which make you think about the cultural poetics of hearing music itself. And that is only a good thing! Do feel free to comment below!

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Why Americans Don’t Like Jazz

by Dyske Suematsu  •  September 17, 2003

The current market share of Jazz in America is mere 3 percent. That includes all the great ones like John Coltrane and the terrible ones like Kenny G (OK, this is just my own opinion). There are many organizations and individuals like Wynton Marsalis who are tirelessly trying to revive the genre, but it does not seem to be working. Why is this? Is there some sort of bad chemistry between the American culture and Jazz? As ironic as it may be, I happen to believe so.

One day, I was talking to my wife about the TV commercial for eBay where a chubby lady sings and dances to an appropriated version of “My Way” by Frank Sinatra. The lyrics were entirely re-written, and “my way” was transformed into “eBay”. I told her that they did a good job in adapting the original song. Then she said: “Ah, that’s why I like it so much!” She actually did not realize that it was adapted from Sinatra’s song.

My wife and I have always known how differently we listen to music. I tend to entirely ignore lyrics, while she tends to entirely ignore music. We are the two opposite ends of the spectrum in this sense, and it appears that my wife’s side is more common. Many of my friends think that I have a peculiar, or plain bad, taste for music. Whenever I say I like this song or that song, they look at me like I am crazy. Then they go on to explain why it is bad, and I realize that they are referring to the lyrics, not to the music. I then pay attention to the lyrics for the first time, and realize that they are right. The opposite happens often too where many of my friends love a particular song, and I can’t understand what’s good about it until I pay attention to the lyrics.

The eBay example is an extreme case where my wife could not recognize the original once the lyrics were swapped. To her, if you change the lyrics, it is an entirely different song. It is the other way around for me; in most cases, I would not notice any change in the lyrics. The eBay song was an exception; I only noticed it because it is a famous song used for a TV commercial.

I believe my wife’s way of listening to music is typically American, and my way of listening to music, typically Japanese. If you don’t speak English, any songs written in English are instrumental music. Singers turn into just another musical instrument. These days, no matter where you live, you cannot get away from the dominance of the American music. This means that most non-English speakers grow up listening to a lot of instrumental music. In Japan, I would say, it constitutes about half of what people listen to. When they are listening to Madonna, Michael Jackson, or Britney Spears, they have very little understanding of what their songs are about. In this sense, their ears are trained to listen to and enjoy instrumental music, which explains why Jazz is still so popular in Japan.

To be able to enjoy instrumental music, you must be able to appreciate abstract art, and that requires a certain amount of effort. Just mindlessly drinking wine, for instance, would not make you a wine connoisseur. Mindlessly looking at colors (which we all do every day) would not make you a color expert either. Great art demands much more from the audience than the popular art does.

In this sense, the American ears are getting lazier and lazier. It wasn’t so long ago that most people knew how to play a musical instrument or two. Now the vast majority of Americans couldn’t tell the difference between a saxophone and a trumpet. Thanks partially to music videos, music is now a form of visual art. The American culture is so visually dominant that a piece of music without visuals cannot command full attention of the audience. For Americans, music is a background element, a mere side dish to be served with the main course. If they are forced to listen to a piece of instrumental music without any visuals, they don’t know what to do with their eyes, much like the way a nervous speaker standing in front of a large audience struggles to figure out what to do with his hands. Eventually something visual that has nothing to do with the music grabs their attention and the music is push to the background.

If you have written your own music, you have probably experienced this before: You play it for your friends to get their opinions. For about 10 seconds, everyone is silent. After 20 seconds, their eyes start to wander around. After 30 seconds, someone says something, which triggers everyone else to speak up. After 40 seconds, no one is actually listening to your music. I grew up sitting in front of the stereo with my father, closing our eyes, listening only to what came out of the speakers. This would go on for an hour or two as if we were watching a movie. It wasn’t just me; many of my friends did the same. Who does that anymore? In today’s living rooms, stereos are treated as accessories to television sets.

Visual dominancy isn’t the only problem. The bigger problem is the dominance of our thought. Most Americans do not know what to do with abstraction in general. To be able to fully appreciate abstraction, you must be able to turn off your thought, or at least be able to put your thought into the background. This is not as easy as it might seem. In modern art museums, most people’s minds are dominated by thoughts like: “Even I could do this.” Or, “Why is this in a museum?” Or, “This looks like my bed sheet.” Etc.. They are unable to let the abstraction affect their emotions directly; their experience must be filtered through interpretations. In a way, this is a defense mechanism. It is a way to deal with fears like, “If I admit that I don’t understand this, I’ll look unsophisticated.” This type of fear fills their minds with noise, and they become unable to see, hear, or taste.

This is why songs with lyrics in your own language and paintings with recognizable objects are easier for most people to appreciate. They give their minds something to do. It is like holding a pen in your hand when you are speaking in front of a large audience; you become less nervous because your hands have something to do.

Aesthetically, the paintings of Mark Rothko and those of Monet are quite similar, but the former is utterly unacceptable for many people even though they consider the latter to be a master. The difference is that in Monet’s paintings, you can still see things represented in them: rivers, trees, mountains, houses, and so forth. The audience interprets these objects, and projects their own beautiful memories onto the paintings, which makes the whole process much easier. In Mark Rothko’s paintings, there is nothing they can mentally grab on to. What you see is what you get; there is nothing to interpret. So, the audience is left without a pen to hold on to.

The same happens to instrumental music. If there are no lyrics, that is, if there is nothing for the minds to interpret, projecting of any emotional values becomes rather difficult. As soon as the lyrics speak of love, sex, racism, evil corporations, loneliness, cops, etc., all sorts of emotions swell up. Jazz to most people is like a color on a wall; unless you hung something on it, they don’t even notice it.

This rather unfortunate trend in the American culture seems to be irreversible. The popularity of Rap music seems to be a clear sign of this trend. I can appreciate Rap music for what it is, and I see nothing wrong with it, but it does not promote the full development of musical ears. If the song has any musical substance, it can be played on a piano alone (without a singer or any other instruments), and we would still enjoy it. The lack of musical substance becomes clearly visible if you would take many of today’s popular songs, and play them on a piano alone. Many of them would utilize hardly more than a few keys. Perhaps this trend would promote the appreciation of poetry, but it certainly would not promote the appreciation of music as an abstract form of art.

If we were to reverse this trend, we would need to make a conscious effort in promoting the abstract aspect of music. For instance, play more instrumental music in schools or teach how to play an instrument instead of how to sing. We could go as far as to teach kids in school instrumental music only, because their musical exposure outside of school would be dominated by non-instrumental music anyway. It would be a good way to balance things out.

This problem extends far beyond the American disinterest for Jazz; it is a problem for music in general. The dominance of words and visuals in the American culture has lead people to believe that listening to Rap or watching music videos is the full extent of what music has to offer. If this goes on, they’ll be missing a huge chunk of what life has to offer.

~

For the original link, click here.

Change of pace, change of direction…

Those of you who ever played high-school basketball seriously may recognise the words from the title of this post as being applicable to thinking about one’s personal offense with the ball in hand. Possibly one of the great unalloyed, uncomplicated joys of my teenage years was driving into the paint (having just lost my man with a nifty ball-fake), blowing past the opposition and dropping a reverse layup for two. The feeling of that was just amazing.

How times change.

And they are a-changing here on the theomusicology blog. I had no idea that people were really choosing to have more than one blog. But now that I have discovered this, it makes all the sense in the world.

And so, without further ado, the door to everything NOT covered under the banner of theology, liturgy and music will be dispatched elsewhere. And as a starting point, please do come a take a look at the first of the new blogs – please click here!

Many thanks for your continued support of our work here and in and advance of our work elsewhere. God bless you all.

I wish I knew how it would feel to be free

The song “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free” was written by Billy Taylor in 1954 and became one of the most popular songs of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and ’60s. Nina Simone covered the song on her 1967 album ‘Silk and Soul’ and is probably the best known version though this tune has been covered and recorded by over twenty major artists. The tune is also well known as the theme music for BBC1′s Film programe (something I used to wait up to listen to every week JUST to hear that song extract) and, I understand, also used over the opening and closing credits for the film Ghosts of Mississippi (which I have not seen). As a schoolboy, playing this piece was one of my favourite party tricks…

Here are the words:

I wish I knew how it would feel to be free
I wish I could break all the chains holding me
I wish I could say all the things that I should say
say ‘em loud, say ‘em clear
for the whole round world to hear.

I wish I could share all the love that’s in my heart
remove all the bars that keep us apart
I wish you could know what it means to be me
Then you’d see and agree
that every man should be free.

I wish I could give all I’m longing to give
I wish I could live like I’m longing to live
I wish that I could do all the things that I can do
though I’m way overdue I’d be starting anew.

Well I wish I could be like a bird in the sky
how sweet it would be if I found I could fly
Oh I’d soar to the sun and look down at the sea
and I’d sing cos I’d know that
and I’d sing cos I’d know that
and I’d sing cos I’d know that
I’d know how it feels to be free
I’d know how it feels to be free
I’d know how it feels to be free

So, this is definitely a gospel-influenced song – and one of my party tricks as a schoolboy was to play this song for my non-Christian friends. If one did not know the words, one might be tempted to think that this WAS a gospel song!
There is a similar situation to the song,”We Shall Overcome.”
There is a huge amount of room for a typically lengthy post that we seem to do here at the theomusically blog that takes us back into the history of Negro spirituals (now better referred to as ‘African-American spirituals, in case you did not know!!) and their origins in the antebellum South. We can also discuss the theological ramifications that emerge through some of the twentieth-century theories that have emerged concerning the true spiritual significance of these spirituals. We could talk about the fact that black gospel music’s founding father lived hand in glove with secular music throughout his career, and so the fact that a secular song about freedom has strong gospel music stylings is absolutely inevitable, and what that says about the appropriation of spiritual elements for secular artistic purposes in general.
But this morning I have been seriously wondering why more Christians who say that they are ‘free’ live such limited and desultory lives. Some think that their lives are rich and positive, but they have learnt their Christian life practice from their brethren, who may themselves never have actually experienced true spiritual freedom, but because the way their limited Christian understanding has worked for them, and because in so many cases the external fabric of a Christian lifestyle is more positive than what they had before, they think that what they have is freedom…
And for many conservative, Bible-believing Christian, there is such a huge emphasis to avoid certain elements of Christian life practice that are associated with ‘charismatic’ Christianity (etc), the benchmark for spiritual freedom becomes a set of (often unwritten) rules by which one’s standing in the community will be maintained. So the benchmark for spiritual freedom is not the personhood of God working in human life (the natural) through the Holy Spirit – even if this is claimed. It is whatever man-made criteria they use what whatever church you find yourself at where that’s how things roll.
Praise God, not all churches are in this quagmire. But too many are. Too many.
After a week of observing some deeply saddening church politics at very close quarters, I am more convinced than ever that the pursuit of true holiness is more lonely than most Christians will ever understand. Our first priority for true freedom is not the approval of others – it is the approval of God, who does not work like human beings – something which we know, but then abuse. How can we pray to God while abusing the very grace that allows us to still be alive and breathing?!
This morning/afternoon, as I see what ‘freedom’ has cost some people, I am renewed in my conviction that the only freedom that matters is that which the Holy Spirit gives.

2 Corinthians 3:17

New International Version (NIV)
¹⁷ Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
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How badly do you want to be free today? And are you ready to give up everything for a freedom that no human being can ever take away? How do you think Paul was able to be denied his physical and legal freedom and still write ‘Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice?” (Philippians 4:4) If you have accepted Jesus, are you looking to Him as the Author and Finisher of your faith, or have you been distracted by trying to keep up with your friends in church?
And if you have so far rejected Christianity because of what you don’t admire in the Christians you have encountered so far in your life – what are you rejecting? The external flaws of persons whom for all you know may never have met Jesus for themselves? Or the only truth that can set a person free forever – which you would never know if you did not choose to investigate it for yourself?