In this podcast, Scott answers several questions that have been posted in the suggestion box on www.religiousaffections.org, including: Granted aesthetic values r universals rooted n God’s nature y cant some rock music cant b beautiful? To put it another way, why does God’s nature automatically rule out rock/pop/jazz genre? What do you think of songs/hymns… Continue Reading
I have received several e-mails asking if parts or all custom writing paper of this series may be used in church newsletters, bulletin inserts, etc. You may feed free to use and reproduce anything on this site as long as nothing is changed and proper attribution is given! Full Paper (PDF) Part 1 – Introduction… Continue Reading
How can we conserve biblical worship? We can conserve biblical worship by regulating our worship by God’s Word, by learning to distinguish between ordinate affection and appetite and choosing worship forms that foster those affections for God, by cultivating those worship forms that have been nurtured within the community of faith, and by proactively transmitting… Continue Reading
Conservative Christians will be committed to transmitting these worship forms to future generations. This leads to my final point of discussion. If our goal as conservative Christians is to conserve biblical worship and continue to cultivate worship forms that best foster ordinate affection for God, then we must be committed to transmitting these worship forms… Continue Reading
My song is love unknown, My Savior’s love to me; Love to the loveless shown, That they might lovely be. O who am I, that for my sake My Lord should take, frail flesh and die? Sometimes they strew His way, And His sweet praises sing; Resounding all the day Hosannas to their King: Then… Continue Reading
Conservative Christians will be committed to worship forms that foster ordinate affection toward God. Commitment to the Regulative Principles of Worship solves the question of what we will include in our corporate worship, but it doesn’t necessarily address how we will do it. Conservatives have always recognized that while the Bible clearly prescribes what elements… Continue Reading
We recently received an excellent question submitted through the “Article Suggestions” module in the right column of this site: “What areas of aesthetics are preferences that are relative to individuals (if any)?” I recently argued in a post on this site (from a chapter in Sound Worship) that it is the responsibility of Christians to… Continue Reading
The following is taken from Sound Worship: a Guide to Making Musical Choices in a Noisy World. Part 1: Introduction Part 2: The Source of Beauty Part 3: The Marring of Beauty Part 4: The Redemption of Beauty The Judgment of Beauty Once a person becomes a Christian — once his capacity to recognize beauty… Continue Reading
I’m excited to announce the coming publication of my new book, Sound Worship: A Guide to Making Musical Choices in a Noisy World! This book is targeted for the average Christian layman. My first book, Worship In Song, is a biblical approach to tackling issues related to music and worship, but it’s quite technical and sometimes… Continue Reading
I’d like to highlight a few articles by Michael Horton, articles that were among the first to significantly shape my thinking on worship and music when I was in college. In particular, Horton confirmed some of the uneasiness I was already experiencing about what some might consider “traditional church music,” and he was the first… Continue Reading
Externalism is a sneaky error in which we insist that the outward appearance reveals the heart. Or, another way of saying it is that inward, heart realities will show themselves outwardly. Conservatives are often charged with externalism by progressives. The progressives claim (sometimes rightly) that conservatives place too much emphasis on outward appearance, forms, rituals, duties, and traditions… Continue Reading
I’ve been doing some reading recently from both Jonathan Edwards and Charles Finney. In most ways, these men, their philosophies, theologies, and practices are polar opposites. But as I studied, I couldn’t help but notice what appear to be similarities in what they said. And the deeper I looked, the more apparent it became that… Continue Reading
From Revivals of Religion (CBN University Press), 1978. Men are so sluggish, there are so many things to lead their minds off from religion and to oppose the influence of the Gospel, that it is necessary to raise an excitement among them, till the tide rises so high as to sweep away the opposing obstacles. They… Continue Reading
I’ve heard a lot of teaching recently on what makes a good sacred congregational song, and among qualities listed, “accessibility” is inevitably among them. I wholeheartedly agree with this point: for a hymn to be congregational, it has to be, well, congregational! The congregation has to be able to sing it. In other words, there… Continue Reading
Joy. What exactly is joy? I can say that I experienced the emotion of joy while riding a roller coaster. It’s this thrilling enthusiasm that sends tingles all up and down my spine. It’s an exhilaration that permeates my whole body. I can also say that I experienced the emotion of joy while worshiping. But is it the same… Continue Reading
Children learn to worship God primarily through participating in rightly ordered worship. Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. Any concerned, Christian parent is committed to training his or her child to be obedient to the Lord and His Word. From… Continue Reading
Fiction is good for the soul. Good fictional literature grips the imagination and shapes the affections, both important for the life of faith. For that reason, I regularly make it a practice to read fiction amidst all of the other theological, musicological, cultural, philosophical, and historical reading I do. I also make it a practice… Continue Reading
If the Church today is going to be able to rightly apply biblical principles to music and worship, it must recover important categories that are either assumed and implied or explicitly taught by biblical authors. Music communicates by means of emotional metaphor. buy viagra from india Spiritual response of the affections is fundamentally distinct from… Continue Reading
Today, the influences of Modernism, Revivalism, and Charismaticism in the Church’s understanding of the purpose and function of music in worship cannot be overestimated. First, because of Modernism, most Christian fail to understand the nature of emotion in human spirituality and worship. Most Christians see no fundamental distinction between a response of the affections and… Continue Reading
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,… Continue Reading