Significant discontinuities exist between OT and NT worship, and it is important to note that each of these cases of discontinuity stems from the author… Read More »Jesus Christ as the Fulfillment of OT Worship
Here’s the reality: those of us blogging here fully realize that our positions are not popular. Not popular, I suppose, greatly underestimates the matter: for… Read More »Finding common ground in the missions debate
The purposes and positions of Religious Affections (the ministry and blog, not [necessarily] the book) are not obscure; this granted, I expect that our readers… Read More »Sola Scriptura and Form: What I’m Not Saying
In this discussion, I am using the term form, quite broadly, to denote those features of the biblical text that express (in additional to their… Read More »Sola Scriptura and Form: Biblical Form
In the first post of this series, I offered this thesis: “because the Bible is itself expressed in certain forms, and because the Bible is… Read More »Sola Scriptura and Form: Theology as a Problem
Dr. Matt Olson, president of Northland International University, opened a recent sermon on music thus: “What about the music? You know, it’s interesting, as we… Read More »Sola Scriptura and Form: Introduction
Benjamin Myers Elegy for Trains Village Books Press ISBN Number: 978-0-9818680-6-6 Over the last quarter century, poetry has done some rather public soul . Poets… Read More »Review: Elegy for Trains by Benjamin Myers
I continue to receive e-mails concerning seemingly more and more common explanations of Sola Scriptura that in effect strip it down to nothing more than… Read More »Is the Bible Enough?
So where does this leave us today? I will conclude with several brief suggestions of we should be striving toward in our choices of hymns… Read More »Hymnody Today: What Do We Do?
The dethroning of the Church by Reason and the creation of pop culture left the Church in an awkward position. Its cultural influence was non-existent.… Read More »Two Roads Diverged
This far in our journey we have witnessed an almost unbroken stream of Judeo-Christian tradition. From King David to Lutheran composer Johann Crüger (1598-1662) we… Read More »The Enlightenment and Christian Hymnody
When Martin Luther (1483—1546) sparked a Reformation of the Church by nailing his Ninety-Five Theses to the Church door at Wittenberg in 1517, he challenged… Read More »Reformation Hymns
Editor’s note: This article is posted partially in response to discussion of Scott Aniol’s post on medieval hymnody. I have suggested elsewhere that the civilization… Read More »How Christian Were the Middle Ages?
I’ve had some good questions about the Medieval Church resulting from my recent article on medieval hymnody. I’d like to make a few short observations… Read More »The Pre-Tridentine Roman Church
The hymnody of the early church was naturally an extension of Hebrew hymnody.1 Therefore, we can expect the hymnody of the early church to have the… Read More »Early Church Hymns
The Beginning The first mention of music in the Bible is in Genesis 4. Verses 17—22 list Cain’s descendants, and specifically those who began the… Read More »Hymnody in the Judeo-Christian Tradition
On the wall in my study I have three portraits. All three are portraits of theologians who were also heavily involved with music. They are… Read More »The Cultivation of Form
Musical form shapes content in very similar ways to poetic form, yet it is a bit more abstract and thus considerably more difficult to readily… Read More »Musical Form in Christian Hymnody
The next level of form is poetic meter and rhyme scheme. A poetic meter is basically how many syllables are in each line of the… Read More »Poetic Meter in Christian Hymnody
Word/Phrase Choice There are several different ways that content can be shaped within a hymn. The first is simply with what words are chosen to… Read More »Word and Phrase Choice in Christian Hymnody