Correcting Categories, Part 8 – Music and Emotion in the Church

A Radical Change

Protestants have historically been suspect of Dionysian forms of music, especially in sacred contexts, because they recognized that spiritual life resides in the affections and not in the physical feelings. They did not want to stimulate artificial experiences of the senses but rather nurture biblical affections through the mind and spirit. Presbyterians, Puritans, and Baptists especially warned of such dangers, which led them to formulate the Regulative Principle of Worship in order to keep extra-biblical Dionysian elements like icons and drama out of congregational worship.¹

Charles Finney was one of the first to significantly promote using Dionysian forms of music in the Church. Because Finney believed that conversion could be produced by human means, he sought to create certain experiences in his services that would lead people to accept the claims of Christianity. He found pop music as the perfect tool for creating such experiences because it was immediate, it stimulated excitement, and people naturally interpret such feelings as spiritual. Finney urged those writing and leading music in his meetings to look to the advertisers of the day for inspiration.

Those earliest forms of pop music may seem innocuous to contemporary ears, but that philosophy began a trend to use pop music to create emotional experiences in the Church that continues to this day. Later Revivalists followed Finney’s lead and progressively adopted the newest, most exciting forms of pop music in their services in order to create sensual experiences. This method created a source for making money, too. Following the lead of secular markets, Christians began forming publishing houses in order to produce more sacred music that would appeal to the greatest number of people and keep them coming back for more.

At certain points along the way various groups believed that lines were being crossed with the newer music. Especially with Jazz and Rock, some groups refused to follow the trend. However, these groups continued using the outdated Dionysian music to which the current culture was now desensitized, leaving them using music that was neither relevant nor truly spiritual. They began to defend such music as the standard of conservatism and grasped the music out of nostalgia and reaction against worse forms, not because it truly nurtured Christian affections. This is where many fundamentalists find themselves. They rightfully reject modern, more overtly offensive forms of pop music, but they fail to recognize that the music they defend is no different in kind; it is only different by degree. The underlying characteristics of their sentimental music is no different than sexual music. In both cases the aim is the creation of a sensual experience.

With the Charismatic Movement came the first theological defense of Dionysian music in the Church. Since they are continuationists, they believe that external, physical signs accompany true, spiritual experiences. Charismatics inexorably link physical feelings and responses with spirituality. As John MacArthur notes, since charismatics believe that baptism of the Spirit is an experiential event occurring after conversion, they believe that

those who get this baptism also experience various phenomena, such as speaking in tongues, feelings of euphoria, visions, and emotional outbursts of various kinds. Those who have not experienced the baptism and its accompanying phenomena are not considered Spirit-filled; that is, they are immature, carnal, disobedient, and otherwise incomplete Christians.²

If affection is defined as physical feeling, then it is only natural to use means to create such experiences in worship. Now pop music in church had a cross-denominational, theological defense, and  the Praise and Worship movement was born. Precedent for using pop music in the Church had been set long before, but with charismatic theology came a defense based less in Pelagian pragmatism and more in worship theology.

© 2009, Scott Aniol. All rights reserved.

Scott Aniol

Scott Aniol holds a bachelor's degree in church music from Bob Jones University (Greenville, SC), a master's degree in musicology from Northern Illinois University (DeKalb, IL), and has studied theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN) and Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary. He was ordained to to the gospel ministry by First Baptist Church (Rockford, IL) in April of 2004. As the executive director of Religious Affections Ministries, Scott speaks on the subjects of music and worship at various churches and conferences. His most recent speaking engagements include the Preserving the Truth Conference, Central Seminary’s Foundations Conference, International Baptist College, and Bob Jones Seminary. Click here to read and/or listen to important talks from Scott Aniol. Curriculum vitae

Endnotes:

1. See Scott Aniol, Who Regulates Worship? (Greenville, SC: Religious Affections Ministries, 2008). [↩]
2. John MacArthur, Charismatic Chaos (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing Company, 1993), 29-30. [↩]

Related posts:

1. Correcting Categories, Part 4 – Dissecting Emotion
2. Correcting Categories, Part 7 – The Nature of Pop
3. Correcting Categories, Part 3 – Music's Benefit
4. Correcting Categories, Part 5 – Biblical Anthroplogy
5. Correcting Categories, Part 6 – Dionysian vs. Apollonian