Click to see
the sin of bringing instruments into the Holy Places.
Adam Clark on
Instrumental music and
Amos
Click for more
mind control.
Click
for David Lipscombs False Claims
Musical
Worship Teams as
Heresy
See the
MUSIC connection to HERESY in the Greek
language
See
how Tertullian connects rituals to
heresy.
What
we
call RESPONSORIAL
singing was someone quoting a part of the DIRECTLY COMMANDED RESOURCE
(THE SCRIPTURES) and others repeating it one to another with the
OBJECT of TEACHING and ADMONISHING.
The
musical PRECENTOR was required only after
SINGING became an ACT of
worship in the year 373. However, that did not mean congregational
singing but done totally by the CLERGY PRECENTOR with perhaps an
amen.
"The
McClintock and Strong
Cyclopedia not only speaks, in general terms, of 'heresy largely
pervading the church
and making rapid headway' at that very time, but it specifies 'the
appointment
of singers
as a distinct class of officers in the church' with 'the
consequent introduction of profane music'; and why should not
instrumental music have been
introduced if the carnal wishes of the people called for it"
(Kurfees, M. C., Instrumental Music in Worship, p. 123)
"They
were taught the doctrines concerning God, creation, providence, sacred history, the fall,
the incarnation, the resurrection, and future rewards
and punishments. Their books were portions of
the Bible...
When
the ecclesiastical spirit
overcame the apostolic
and Gospel teaching,
the
study of the
Bible was
largely
displaced by ritual
ceremonies
and
priestly
confessionals.
A few faithful continued
to teach the
Bible,
as the Waldenses
and the Lollards." (Shaff-Herzog Religious Ency. , Sunday schools, p.
159).
This urge for "play" or
drama is the evidence
of lostness which can be somewhat relieved by pretending a form of
worship to replace the never-realized goals of a few minor
gods:
"It
is symptomatic
of structures that have lost their elasticity, becoming too rigid to accommodate further
development,
to
intensify the
semantics of self-reference as a sort of final act of
self-reassurance.
The
patterns of self-reference
by drama to drama
as we see them in The Bacchae
of Euripides
reflect
a
crisis in the very
genre of tragedy, in the context of drastic changes in Athenian society
toward the end of the fifth
century; the prospect is one of abrupt confrontation and
loss." -- Nagy, Pindar's
Homer p. 388
Music had its magical -
religion beginning in
Babylon and is reflected in the story of the fall of man and the
establishment of religious institutions invented to enslave the
masses. Therefore, there is no tradition other than that Satan (the
serpent)
invented musical choirs and instruments to teach his change agents
how to seduce those who loved God's message.
As modern religion gets it
polytheistic spirit
as "the little man (spirit) in the big man (me)" from Africa, it also
gets its modern revival of "tower of Babel" music, which had been
preserved in Africa and elsewhere, from Africa which includes a
component of the magic of voodoo:
"But
vocal
blues
are
essentially
racial, and the
language employed is shot through with words particular to the
subculture. It has been pointed out that: Few whites would be
familiar with the voodoo
terms such as 'black cat bone' and 'John the Conqueror root... In
effect, the language of blues is a cultural code,
in the sense that few whites would grasp
its sexual and
racial levels of meaning. Terms such as 'jazz' and more recently 'nitty
gritty' have been assimilated by the white
population." (Frank Tirro, Jazz, a
History, p. 177)
The Britannica notes of
the Spiritual that "A
second source was the singing of hymns (as opposed to psalms only),
reintroduced by such 18th-century religious dissenters as John and
Charles
Wesley, the founders of
Methodism.
Hymn
verses were
composed and set to borrowed melodies, often secular folk tunes. Many of these evangelical hymns passed into oral
tradition.
""In
the late 18th century and
up to the mid-19th, there were several waves of religious
revivalism. The resulting camp meetings
and revivals were marked by spontaneous mass singing. It is not completely
known how the camp-meeting
songs and revival spirituals were sung; but it is thought that they
were sung unharmonized, the tune typically begun by the high male
voices, the women and basses joining in an octave (or other
comfortable interval) above or below. A call-and-response pattern (as in lining out) may
have at times
been used. Melodies were apparently ornamented.
A
19th-century offshoot of the
spiritual was the gospel
song.
Influenced by
"correct" European music, it had composed melodies and texts,
was sung with
instrumental accompaniment, and (unlike the folk
hymns) was written to be harmonized.
"After the Civil War the black spirituals were "discovered" by Northerners and
either developed toward
harmonized
versions, often sung by
trained
choirs, or, conversely,
preserved the older traditional style, especially in rural areas and
certain sects.
It is also noted
that religious
slave-ownerns know that music works to keep the "audience" happy and
that makes the master happy. From Jazz A History:
"The
transfer of
these West African
tribal traditions to
the slave fields, railways, and rivers of the southern U.S.
was
of
advantage
to oppressed and oppressor alike,
the
slave obviously
taking solace in the cultural memory of his own collective past, the
slaveowner encouraging work songs in the same spirit as
an infantry general might approve of military bands-- for the stimulus they gave to work rate.
Many
of the early examples of
primitive vocal jazz relate closely to the labours being performed, and the content of the
lyrics is a
reminder that not only the cotton plantations but also the
levees and railroads of the Deep South were
created and maintained by
slave
labour.
The
"musicians" were
particularly useful in "setting forth" the slave labor to build the
temple.
"After
that discovery, G. P.
Jackson traced the considerable influence of revivalist and evangelist songs
from the early 19th-century camp meetings of the Southern white
population.
Jackson claimed, using hundreds of comparative examples, that
many
black spirituals
were adapted from or
inspired by these white spirituals. Thus it can be assumed that
African
musical
traditions were amalgamated with the religious songs of the white
South, which had many
sources, to produce a form of folk music that was distinctly black in
character.
The
black spiritual
is, above all, a deeply
emotional song. The
words are most often related to biblical passages, but the
predominant effect is of
patient,
profound
melancholy. The
spiritual was directly related to the sorrow songs that were the source
material of the blues (see
jazz). A number of more
joyous spirituals
influenced the content of gospel songs (see gospel music).
Collections and arrangements have been made by Rosamond Johnson and
J. W. Johnson, R. N. Dett, George L. White, John A. Lomax and Alan
Lomax, Roland Hayes, and others. See G. P. Jackson, White Spirituals
in the Southern Uplands (1933) and Spiritual
In Israel's history When
Israel "fired" God and
demanded a king like the nations so that they could live like and
worship like the nations, the king organized the Levites and
later we see Solomon building the temple with slave labor under the
Levites as overseers:
David
(king), together with
the commanders
of the
army,
set apart some of
the sons of Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun for the ministry of
prophesying, accompanied by harps,
lyres and cymbals. Here is the list of the men who performed this service: 1 Chr.25:1
Their "service" was not to be
musicians but to drive the temple system:
Abadah
(h5656) ab-o-daw'; from 5647; work of any kind: - act,
bondage, / bondservant, effect, labour,
ministering (-try), office, service (-ile, -itude), tillage, use,
work, * wrought
Abad (h5647) aw-bad'; a
prim. root; to work
(in any sense); by impl. to serve, till, (caus.) enslave, etc.: - * be, keep
in bondage, be bondmen,
bond-service, compel, do, dress, ear,
execute, / husbandman, keep, labour (-ing man), bring
to pass, (cause to,
make to)
serve (-ing,
self), (be, become) servant (-s), do (use) service, till (-er),
transgress [from margin], (set a) work, be wrought, worshipper.
David
summoned all the
officials of Israel to assemble
at Jerusalem: the officers
over the tribes, the commanders of the divisions in the
service
of the king, the commanders of thousands and commanders of
hundreds,
and
the officials
in charge of all the property and livestock belonging to the king and his sons, together with the
palace officials, the
mighty
men
and all the
brave
warriors. 1 Chr.
28:1
Of the Black music
of slavery:
"By
adapting his
own
ritual
music
to the liturgy of
the Christian
Church, by
contributing, as a member of a congregation, to the creation of
new
tunes,
or by making his
own
variations on the
existing ones, the slave
and his emancipated descendants developed the spiritual to the point where, in
the form of hymns,
ring
shouts, revival chants, camp songs, and
funeral songs, it
gradually merged into a semi-secular tradition.
Significantly,
ragtime, that coarse yet disarming bridge between the old songs
of slavery and emergent jazz.
"Its
connections with the
brothels of Louisiana and the saloons of Chicago tell only
half the story, for jazz has
been concerned with sanctity as well as with sin,
has
been a
sacred
music
as
well
as a profane
one.
Its
links with
Christianity and
particularly
with
the act
of
worship and the
rituals of birth, marriage, and
death have
proved so durable that they remain unbroken to this day.
In
the modern sense of Post
Modern being a point of crisis between the old order and the new,
Joseph Campbell in Myths to Live By noted that religions in turmoil
having lost its connection with its founder and foundation principles
tends to revert back to the archaic. For instance, one result of the
y2K hysteria where people believed that the rules of the universe
would suddenly change, the urge for Levitical Musicians and
restoration of the Jubilee denies the atoning work of Jesus.
As a
result of the end of
slavery and great northern wealth, a crisis period brought pagan
forms of music into many churches. For instance, it wasn't until 1878
that anyone tried to justify the restoration of sacrificial "music"
by recourse to an ancient but failed argument.
"The
latter
third
of the 19th
century was a crucial point in the prehistory of jazz--a time when
jazz was interacting with church
music,
with
the
white
commercial world of
dances, soirées, drawing-room
ballads,
and concerts, with opera,
with
the
theatre, with vague occasional
wisps from the European
tradition, and a time when the Southern black was learning how to live with uneasy freedom; during this period the
traditions of jazz were
slowly forged.
The marriage of the sexual or theatrical
world to
enslave people is fully documented in the Old Testament including the
Kingdom period which the Bible faithfully records as the worship and
music like the nations because they told God they didn't want to hear
any more of His words.
Pagan Musical worship teams
were involved in
sexual deviation to call the worshiper into a knowing presence of god
in the pagan temples. Both male and female prostitutes acted as
priestessess using wine and music to seduce the worshipers both
sexually and financially. Making the leaders or boy singers into
clergy was the first heresy widely adopted in the Christian church.
This end of the period
bringing on hysteria is
not new:
"The
first
change in the
manner of singing was the substitution of singers who became a separate order in the church, for (or
replacing) the mingled voices
of all ranks, ages, and sexes, which was compared by the great
reformer of church music to the glad sound of many waters" (H. H. Milman, Hist.
of Christianity,
Vol, iii, pp. 406, 409) (These were young, male, dressed like female
and there is evidence that they were emasculated to keep them so.)
Therefore, without a tiny
knowledge of the
history of religion, human philosophy may inadvertently signal the
feminization of
the church
and the
fatally terminal period of the
church growth schemes. Isaiah warned that this would be
"women and
children ruling over you" which, to him, meant women who prophesied
or sang out of
their own
mind. The
"women" and "children" does
not deny the value of women but it warns against men making the
church effeminate. Jesus identified the first century Jewish musical
worship clergy and all of their followers as musical children playing
the fertility games. They were trying to manipulate the person of
Jesus, Who was God Incarnate, into the singing and dancing chorus of
the female Dionysus cult. Most women and almost no man got involved.
Ezekiel also warns
against women as musical prophesiers.
The implication of a male in
the Dionysos
choral or chorus was that Jesus would reveal a bent-gender and they
could, as at Sodom and Gomorrah, "know
him personally" which
is to say, sexually. They hoped that John's methods meant that he
wore the soft garments of the male prostitutes of the kings
court.
Jesus knew what attracted the masses to what seemed like
"entertainment" but they found a fully-clothed man wearing garments
of hair preaching repentance to a Dionysos-influenced people.
Psalm 41 said that Judas,
whose bag carried the
mouthpieces of wind instruments, would not triumph over Jesus.
This triumph was
outlawed
by God when Israel gathered for that short period in
congregation which was for instruction (Nu 10:7). This triumph which
Judas would not force upon Jesus was:
Ruwa
(h7321) roo-ah'; to mar (espec. by breaking); figuratively to split
the ears (with sound), i. e. shout
(for alarm or joy): -
blow an alarm, cry (alarm, aloud, out), destroy, make a
joyful noise, smart,
shout
for
joy,
sound
an alarm, triumph.
Unless going into battle or
celebrating victory
this triumph or alarm was not proper. Therefore, Moses knew he heard
"singing." This was the seemingly spiritual but hopeless panic of a
people who felt that their God was lost and they needed someone to
guide them back to the old, comfortable worship of Egypt.
Under another heading, we
note that women
normally gain or have gained control of charismatic churches.
Bruner, in
The Holy Spirit, identifies most modern church music as
"low-level
glossolalia." If
it isn't speaking the Word of Christ as He has
delivered it then it is not Spirit and is therefore speaking in
tongues. LeGard Smith notes that if "women quit speaking in tongues
then speaking in tongues would cease." This does not speak of the
majority of sober women but of a certain mental level.
The problem is not with
music as such. The
problem is incorporating women on the basis of musical talent to
preach over or stand
over the
congregation while preaching
with a tune. The evidence seems to say that this is still tokenism
while reserving the key role for a
key man. Plato
notes that the Greek
women were semi-tolerated because they produced the "increase" or the
reproduction of members of a society. However, he notes that the
roles usurped by men and grudgingly given to a few, talented women
was really a way to control the remainder.
Woodmont Hills seems to have
left the churches
of Christ and adopted the Willow Creek
model
musical worship pattern
which, in its own congregation, demands conformity to the idea of a
leading role for women. Woodmont has advertised for a Worship Facilitation Minister. We honor any church's right to change if they
have
decided to change democratically based upon Bible principles.
However, if it has to be facilitated we should
warn
other churches of
Christ that they
should not be ignorant
of the change methods which works when good people remain silent
under the mind-harassing influence of sound-good controlling forms of
music. It is adulthood and not, "demon-possessionr" or
"Satan-Sifting" to object to new, but ancient, forms of worship being
sold as the normative for churches of Christ.
Because this is now being
sponsored by the Zoe
Group it is important to understand that the Local Zoe Group follows
the pattern designed for legitimate changes in corporate
structure.
These corporate change methods are quite identical to those espoused
by Lynn Anderson adopting secular methods to changing churches
against their will. It is also quite identical to the change methods
used in witchcraft to produce a "high" which, as in Christian
churches, is believed to be the presence of the gods. For more
information you may Click
Here.
The hidden affect
image really has
motives which may not
be understood. For instance,
Facilitation means 2.
Psychologically "increased ease of performance of any action
resulting
from the lessening of
nerve resistance
by the continued
successive
application of the necessary
stimulation."
(Webster).
This theatrically-trained
facilitator will
repeat the ancient role of presuming to present the musical
worship to "them whot pays them." s/he will--
"Work
with the worship
planning committee, the preaching minister and worship
presentation groups (music, drama and technical) to
facilitate
group worship experiences which will help bring worshipers into the presence of God. (The Jubilee Theme)
Presentation means "performance, commerce, naming of a
clergyman to a benefice, the position of the fetus at the time of
delivery.
Psychologically: anything known by sense
perception
rather
than by description."
(Webster)
This, too, appeals to the effeminate (not female)
need for hand-clapping, arm-swinging, loud and void so-called
"musical
worship." However, scholars know that "real men don't dance in
church."
The ancient and end-time
Babylonian religion
(Catholic and Protestant) will be a marriage of religion and commerce
(See Re 18). The tool of seduction in making "church" into a huge,
"shopping mall" religion will be musical worship led by professional
"ministers." The fruit of this worship will be what their "heart
lusted after." Modern growth schemes are rushing headlong into
ministry co-ops and business
techniques
gained from the book sellers
of the world. The Musical
Worship idea has
produced a hugh growth
industry.
Lyle Schaller, leader of
much of this movement,
and other business builders for the church propose that to meet the
21st Century you need a leader to whom people stick:
Team leader (Pastor):
Full-time, paid. A magnetic personality,
networker, entrepreneur, who
attracts a diversity of people.
Worship
leader: Full-time,
paid. Recruiter of various types of indigenous music.
The primary responsibility is to recruit unchurched people who just
happen to like singing, playing an instrument, being involved with drama, running the sound
system, or generating computer
graphics. From.
Indigigenous means "produced naturally." That, too, fits the
ancient pattern.
Paul praised the Corinthians
because they were so "wise." In his harsh irony he really said to the
elite worshipers: "You just love to be fooled." In
bypassing the rational (masculine dominant half of all of us) of the
brain and steering the church through the emotional (feminine half) the
thinking ability of the leading
lights is put to
sleep
and they just can't see how
you are missing all of the fun.
The literate minority will
understand that what
we see is the accidental feminization of the church, the frying of
the rational (spiritual) half of the brain and truly "women and
children rule over you" perhaps without knowing what is being built.
In the case of Amos and Isaiah, the people who would suffer were the
righteous women and children who would hunger and thirst for the Word
of God but could not find it.
MOST
CHRISTIANS TODAY call the main
Sunday morning hour "the worship
service." This is dead wrong for several reasons! Though worship is
part of what the congregation should do together, "teaching" is to be
the driving activity of the Local Church. Too, and I must be careful
here, though worship is for all -- male and female -- the way it's
carried out today, is often
it's
a
FEMININIZATION of the
church service.
Whereas, teaching is
VIRILE and MEATY and
speaks head-on to
males.
It is clear that singers
under the sacrificial
system were male, of the tribe of Levi, at least thirty years old
(David changed this to 20), served only in connection with dedicatory
sacrifices, lived within the Temple, and were given a daily dole of food. The
authority for professional
clergy
singers is a
direct appeal to the Law
of Moses and reveals a total misunderstanding of the place of the Law
in the Christian dispensation.
As the method of reading the
Scripture and
family-like discourse was displaced by clergy-preachers, the
"singing" of Biblical sources was replaced by one professional leader
who was chosen for his unflawed skills to compete with the pagan
musical performances:
"In
competition
with pagan
musical art,
congregational singing began to wane. Basil states that he
had 'the Psalms rendered by
skilled
precentors after the
manner of the triumphal
Odes of Pindar, the
congregation joining at the closing verse, with the accompaniment of
lyres..." (Int Std Bible
Ency, Psalms, p.
2494a) (See the addition of the Precentor as it relates to heresy
by taking away the
one-another worship)
Early antiphonal or
responsorial singing
probably had its origin in the social and often daily early-morning
or late-night gathering of the monastic Jews and heretical
Christians. However, in time and alongside the other things
appropriated from the paganism and misunderstood Judaism, the
professional singer was seen as a priestly-class officer of
the church by whom singing
could be
performed for
the congregation much
like the Levitical singers. That is, singing was seen as an "act of
worship" and only the priestly class were able to administer the sacraments
and to do much of the singing. As the members participated in the
Lord's Supper by being able to eat the bread , only the priest could
drink the fruit of the vine (believed to be the literal blood of
Christ), the congregation participated in the singing only in a
responsorial way.
Again, notice that this
change to musical
worship teams was so
uncharacteristic of the New Testament principles that it was
considered heresy:
"The
McClintock and
Strong Cyclopedia not only speaks, in general terms, of
'heresy
largely
pervading the church
and making rapid headway' at that very time, but it specifies 'the
appointment
of singers
as a distinct class of officers in the church' with 'the
consequent introduction of profane music'; and why should not
instrumental music have been
introduced if the carnal wishes of the people called for it"
(Kurfees, M. C., Instrumental Music in Worship, p. 123)
The motive for the addition
of the musical
worship clergy leader was that singing was much like a
sacrament
and if the leader sang off-key then the "sacrifice" to God would be
flawed. Or perhaps the paying masses returned Sunday evening
"disguised as empty pews." Building a congregation of rice
Christians will not
survive.
The authority for
professional singers is a
direct result of an appeal to the Law of Moses and can be seen from
the place that liturgical singers had in church history. While the
congregation was allowed to sing, the clergy must do the leading and
much of the singing. Again, we note
that:
"The
first change
in the manner of singing was the substitution of singers who became a
separate
order
in the church,
for the mingled voices of all ranks, ages, and sexes, which was
compared by the great reformer of church music to the glad sound of many
waters" (H. H. Milman,
Hist. of Christianity, Vol, iii, pp. 406, 409).
The writer is comparing the
congregational
singing to "the glad sound of many waters" and decries their
replacement by professional singers who became an order of paid
clergy.
"The
lower
clergy were almost
universally the presenters, for the singing of the congregation was
regarded as such an integral part of the divine service that
only
clerical officers
should direct it."
(John Fletcher Hurst, History of the Christian Church, vol. I., p.
357).
Worship as the primary
purpose of the church
has little or no Scripture to recommend it. Rather, the elders have
the task of "equipping the members for the ministry." If leading
singing is a member hasn't the clergy stolen the right of every kid
to learn to minister?
This of course followed the
belief that the
local Pastor-Teacher must be replaced by professional preachers trained in Greek
rhetorical
styles. This was at first based upon seeing the church
in Old
Testament terms and later was based upon the fact that to pay the
bills and build the biggest cathedral one must have the best speaker,
soloist, or choir.
At first--
"They
were
taught the doctrines concerning God, creation, providence, sacred history, the fall,
the incarnation, the resurrection, and future rewards
and punishments. Their books were portions of
the Bible...
When
the ecclesiastical spirit
overcame the apostolic
and Gospel teaching,
the
study of the
Bible was
largely displaced by ritual ceremonies
and
priestly confessionals.
A
few
faithful continued to teach the
Bible,
as the Waldenses
and the Lollards." (Shaff-Herzog Religious Ency. , Sunday schools, p.
159).
Many modern churches even
have the ability to
turn Bible Study into a ritual where content matters not at all. Year
after dull year the congregation hears the teacher recite what they
already know in exactly the form learned fifty years ago. The legal
ritual is so rigid that a new idea from the Bible will not be
tolerated. Along with the demise of real Bible study and
research--
"The
bombastic,
rhetoric which had
ruled in the Roman
world since the death of Cicero was now introduced into the
Christian pulpit, and the congregation burst forth in
applause
extravagant
enough for a welcome to a chief returning
from the conquest of a new province."
(John Fletcher Hurst, History of
the Christian Church, vol. I., p. 357).
This applause was to affirm the showmanship of
the preacher or musical
worship
minister and not
as an endorsement of
the non-existent Biblical reading-exhortation. Preaching by the
direction of the Holy Spirit was fundamental in the forming churches
and reading the work-product of the Spirit through the apostles and
prophets with explanations continued until the very nature of the
church changed and it reverted to being priest-oriented.
"The
public prayers
had now lost much of that solemn and majestic simplicity, that
characterized them in the primitive times, and which were, at
present, degenerating into a vain and swelling bombast." (Mosheim, Eccl.
Hist., Vol. I., p.
303).
This formalism is the
inevitable result of
seeing prayer as an act of worship rather as a means of communicating
with God.
Seeing singing as an act of worship concedes defeat to those who want
to enhance the act as the outgrowth of ceremonial legalism which
imitates the ancient form condemned by grace.
"During
the early
Restoration Movement, Isaiah Boone Grubbs, Professor of NT Exegesis
and Church History in the College of the Bible, Lexington, Ky., in
decrying the secularizing influence of formalized music said,
"There
sits the
congregation, mute as
in death. Here the
godless
choir
and noisy fiddler
fill the air with soulless strains, while the preacher, precious man, speaks his pretty piece of poetry
as
musically as possible
by way of a solo, or as a sort of interlude." (Kurfees, p.
233).
In the beginning, changes to
the worship had to
pass the Biblical test. However, in time the professional clergy who
had taken control of the church over the opposition of the people
imposed liturgy which was a reflection of the growing return to Old
Covenant and pagan practices. This
meant that only the clergy could do certain things.
"We
laid it down as
a rule that one of the officiating ministers
should chant or
sing
the psalms of
David, and that the people should join by repeating the ends of the
verses." (Apostolic constitutions, Book ii, 57, Quoted by J.E.Riddle,
Christian Antiquities, p. 384).
Further comments from the Apostolic
Constitutions
show how the clergy
had been patterned
after the Law
of Moses, In addition:
XI.
Nay, further,
we do not permit to the rest of the clergy to baptize,--as, for
instance, neither to readers, nor singers, nor porters, nor
ministers,--but to the bishops and presbyters alone, yet so that the
deacons are to minister to them therein.
But
those who
venture upon it shall undergo the punishment of the companions of
Corah. (1)
We do not permit presbyters to ordain deacons, or deaconesses, or readers, or
ministers, or singers, or porters, but only
bishops; for this is the
ecclesiastical order
and harmony.
XVII.
We have already said,
that a bishop, a presbyter, and a deacon, when they are constituted,
must
be but once
married, whether their
wives be alive or whether they be dead; and that it is not lawful for
them, if they are unmarried when they are ordained, to be married afterwards; or if they be then
married, to marry a
second time, but to be
content with that wife.
which they had when they came to ordination.
(5)
We also appoint that the
ministers, and singers, and readers, and porters, shall be only once married. But if they entered
into the clergy before they
were married, we permit them to marry, if they have an inclination
thereto, lest they sin and incur punishment. (6) But we do not permit
any one of the clergy to take to wife either a courtesan, or a servant, or a widow,
or one that is divorced, as also the law says.
Let
the deaconess be a pure
virgin; or, at the
least, a widow who has been but once married, faithful, and well
esteemed.
See the
index on the deaconess in history.
It is clear that musical
worship team or
soloists is a way to gradually introduce women ruling over the flock
or officiating in the primary role of teaching. History is clear and
Paul implies that only "uncovered prophesying" which was usually with
musical instruments, that the women who participated were "just out
of paganism."
Psalmody thus came to be
increasingly the monopoly of trained singers, and the 15th canon of
the Council of Laodicea, 360
AD, proscribed that 'no others shall sing in the church save only the
canonical singers...who go up into the ambo and sing with a book."
(Int Std Bible Ency, Psalms, p. 2494a)
The addition of soloist,
choirs, organist, and
professional singers meant that they rapidly displaced the
congregation "speaking one to another." And this was always the
nature of responsorial singing--the clergy did most of the reciting
and the flock simply answered, or as in the Synagogues benedictions,
simply said Amen. And in the name of Divine justice, when the
congregation was squeezed out of their place purchased by the death
of their Lord they simply went out and reformed the church by
starting all over again.
It would be totally
unnatural that once a
soloist is employed to present the lesson set to music that those
responsible for filling the pews would not seek out the
most attractive and professional
singers or
musicians. This
happened when professional choirs and organist were
hired.
In
another example of Divine
justice a recent newspaper article lamented that there was a danger
that a large denominational church might shut down because the demand
for live music had so depleted the ranks of the professionals that
they could not hire an organist, choir, and orchestra.
The Lutheran scholar Lenski
seems aware of the
problem:
"All
of this music
with all its instructive and admonitory words resounds in our inmost
hearts when our lips sound it forth in the congregation. Many
church
choirs and many other
singers in the church might note this phrase. All this singing is to
be 'to God,' to His praise and His glory" (Lenski )
In later church history, the
preaching took
precedence over Bible teaching and study and rhetorical styles became
very popular. Church history is abundantly clear that placing the
emphasis upon pomp and ceremony--at the expense of the word of the
Holy Spirit, the Bible--led to various styles of worship services
which were to
attract crowds or cater to
the ego of the speaker.
"The
use of
polyphony was from the earliest
times restricted to major
feasts, often including
the patron saint of a cathedral or its dedication festival...
but
these (rules)
were often disregarded because of the
sensuous
appeal of the
new
art.
Professional singers
delighted in solo or duet virtuoso performances, accompanied by the
organ...
By
the 12th century, the art of
harmony had matured, especially
in France where
the early polyphonic tropes of Limoges had stimulated the later and
more spectacular
organs of Leonin and
Perotin" (MEMBERS: Britannica Book of Music, p.185).
The
Renaissance also witnessed
the growth of liturgical organ music, which was used
originally when there was
no
choir capable of
singing polyphony.
The
organist alternated
harmonized settings of plainsong hymns, canticles, and masses with
plainsong verses that were sung by the choir or by the congregation.
The rise of the verse anthem in England and of the Baroque motet in
Italy (genres that included elaborate vocal solos) stimulated the
organist's ability to
improvise accompaniments. In Venice, Andrea and
Giovanni Gabrieli and their
followers made dramatic use of spatial contrasts and opposing forces
of strings, winds, and voices.
"The musical culture of
the Hebrew peoples,
recorded from about 2000 BC and documented primarily in the Old
Testament, was more directly influential in the West because of its
adoption and adaptation into the Christian liturgy. Because of the
prohibition of Jewish religious law against the making of "graven
images," there are very few surviving artifacts or pictures.
Among the established
practices of
the temple service still current in the synagogue are the extensive
use of the shofar (a ritualistic ram's-horn trumpet) and
the singing of
passages from the Pentateuch
(the first
five books of the Old Testament), prayers, and songs of praise.
"In
all of these early cultures
the social
functions of
music were essentially the
same since their
climate, geographic location, cultural pace, and mutual influences
produced many more social similarities than differences.
The
primary
function of music was apparently religious, ranging from
heightening the effect of "magic"
to ennobling liturgies.
The
other musical occasions
depicted in both pictures and written accounts were equally
functional:
stirring incitements to military zeal,
soothing
accompaniments to
communal or solitary labour,
heightening aids to dramatic spectacles, and
enlivening
backgrounds to social
gatherings that involved either singing or dancing or
both.
In
every case musical
sounds were an adjunct either to bodily movement (dance, march, game, or
work) or to song.
Many
centuries were to pass
before pleasure in euphonious sound became an end in
itself. Ancient Greece
(Britannica Members)
Of the eastern
Mediterranean cultures, it was
undoubtedly that of the Greeks that furnished the most direct link
with musical
development in western
Europe, by way
of the Romans, who
defeated them but adopted much of Greek culture intact. Entering
historical times relatively late, c. 1000 BC, the Greeks soon
dominated their neighbours and absorbed many elements of earlier
cultures, which they modified and combined into an enlightened and
sophisticated civilization.
The two basic Greek
religious cults--one
devoted to Apollo, the other to Dionysus--became the
prototypes for the two aesthetic poles, classical and romantic, that
have contended throughout Western cultural history.
The
Apollonians were characterized by
objectivity of expression,
simplicity, and clarity, and their favoured instrument was the kithara, a type of lyre.
The
Dionysians, on the other hand,
preferred the reed-blown aulos
and were identified by subjectivity, emotional abandon, and sensuality. (See Greek music,
Apollo, Dionysus.)
Apollo
is Abaddon or Apollyon. He had a Seeker Center
at the Oracle of Delphi. Apollo is the father of musical worship and
the twanging of bowstrings to kill the enemy.
As
Dionysus apparently
represented the sap, juice, or lifeblood element in nature, lavish
festal
orgia
(rites) in his
honour were widely instituted. These Dionysia (Bacchanalia,)
quickly
won
converts among the
women in the
post-Mycenaean world.
The
men, however, met it
with hostility.
According
to tradition,
Pentheus, king of Thebes,
was
torn
to pieces by the bacchantes when he attempted to
spy on their activities,
while
the Athenians were
punished with impotence for dishonouring the god's cult. (charismatic music)
The
women, nevertheless,
abandoned their families and took to the hills, wearing fawn skins and
crowns of ivy and shouting
"Euoi!," the ritual cry.
Forming thyasi
(holy
bands)
and waving
thyrsoi (fennel wands bound with vine leaves and tipped with ivy),
they
danced by torchlight to the
rhythm of the
flute and the tympanon (kettledrum).
While
they were under the
god's
inspiration, (1 Cor
13 - 14)
the
bacchantes were
believed to possess occult
powers,
the
ability to charm snakes and suckle
animals,
as
well as preternatural
strength that enabled them to tear living victims to pieces before
indulging in a ritual feast (omophagia).
The
bacchantes hailed the god
by his titles of Bromios
(Thunderer in the pulpit no doubt), Taurokeros (Bull-Horned), or
Tauroprosopos (Bull-Faced),
in
the belief that
he incarnated the sacrificial beast. The worship of
Dionysus flourished long in Asia
Minor, particularly in Phrygia and Lydia, and his cult was closely
associated with that of numerous Asiatic deities. (Britannica Members)
(See our annotated The
Bacchantes By Euripides)
Did you notice that real
males were disgusted
with the worship of Dionysus just as God Incarnate was disgusted with
the effeminate Jewish clergy when they tried to get Him into the
choral dance with the other "girls" as the circular "team" sang to
influence the gods.
Did you also note that they Took to the Hills? Well,
women are increasingly deserting their roles as "mothers" to the
"brethren" to help in the development of masculinity, becomming
mediators between the god and the "audience" and LOOK TO THE HILLS to learn
how to manipulate the spectators which, in all societies where women
and effeminate men took to music, was sexual manipulation. Music
produces FIGHT (rouses opposition), FLIGHT (run from the seven hills
worship) or SEX (enjoy the mother stripped of the cover God gave her
to save her).
Click on Look
To The
Hills
for the restoration of this
Greek form of god manipulation.
Bacchanalia also called DIONYSIA,
in Greco-Roman
religion, any of the several festivals of Bacchus (Dionysus), the
wine god. They probably originated as rites of fertility gods. The
most famous of the Greek Dionysia were in Attica and included the
Little, or Rustic, Dionysia, characterized by simple, oldfashioned
rites;
the
Lenaea, which
included a festal
procession and
dramatic performances;
the
Anthesteria, essentially a
drinking
feast;
the City, or
Great, Dionysia,
accompanied
by
dramatic performances in the theatre
of Dionysus, which was the most
famous of all; and the
Oschophoria ("Carrying of the Grape Clusters").
Introduced
into Rome from lower
Italy, the Bacchanalia were at first held in
secret, attended by women
only, on three days of
the year. Later,
admission was extended to men, and celebrations took place as often
as five times a month. The reputation of these festivals as orgies
led in 186 BC to a decree of the Roman Senate that prohibited the
Bacchanalia throughout Italy, except in certain special cases.
Nevertheless, Bacchanalia long continued in the
south of Italy.
The
prevailing
doctrine of ethos,
as explained by ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato and
Aristotle,
was
based on the belief that
music
has a direct
effect upon the soul and actions of mankind.
As
a result, the Greek
political and social systems were intertwined with music, which had a primary
role in the dramas of Aeschylus,
Sophocles, Euripides, and
Aristophanes.
And
the
Grecian
educational
system was focused upon
musica and gymnastica,
the
former referring to all
cultural and intellectual studies, as distinguished from those
related to physical
training.
You must read Aristophanes
as he ridiculed the
superstition surrounding the musical worship teams. Click if
you dare - R rated.
To
support
its fundamental role in society, an intricate
scientific rationale of music certain
scales), and rhythms. The 6th-century-BC
philosopher and mathematician
Pythagoras was the first to record
the vibratory
ratios that established the series of notes
still used in Western music. From the total gamut (from
Kamut a god) of notes used
were derived the
various modes bearing the names of Grecian tribes--Dorian, Phrygian,
Lydian, etc. The rhythmic system, deriving from poetry, was based on
long-short relationships rather than strong-weak accentual metre.
After Pythagoras, Aristoxenus was the major historian and
theoretician of Greek music. (Britannica Members)
At
the same time that the
Gregorian repertory was being expanded by the interpolation of tropes
and sequences, it was being further enriched by a revolutionary
concept destined to give a new direction to the art of sound for
hundreds of years.
This
concept was
polyphony, or the simultaneous
sounding of two or more melodic
lines.
The
practice emerged gradually
during the Dark
Ages,
and
the lack of definite
knowledge regarding its origin has brought forward several plausible
theories:
it
resulted from
singers with different natural
vocal ranges
singing at their most comfortable pitch levels;
it
was a
practice of organists adopted by singers;
or
it came about when the
repetition of a melody at a
different pitch level was sung
simultaneously with the original statement of the melody.
Whatever
motivated this
dramatic
departure from
traditional monophony (music consisting of a
single voice part), it was an
established practice when it was described in Musica enchiriadis (c. 900), a
manual for singers and one of the major musical documents of the
Middle Ages. To a given plainsong, or vox principalis, a second voice
( vox organalis) could be added at the interval (distance between
notes) of a fourth or fifth (four or five steps) below. Music so
performed was known as organum. While it may be
assumed that the first attempts at
polyphony involved only parallel motion at a set interval, the Musica
enchiriadis describes and gives examples of two-part singing in
similar (but not exactly parallel) and contrary movement--evidence
that a considerable process of evolution had already taken place.
(Britannica Members)
In about 1400
As
one
manifestation of their cultivation of elegant living,
the
aristocracy of both church
and state
vied with one another in
maintaining
resident
musicians who could
serve both chapel
and banqueting hall.
The
frequent interchange of
these musicians accounts for the rapid dissemination of new musical
techniques and tastes. Partly because of economic advantages, Burgundy and its
capital, Dijon, became the centre of
European activity in music as
well as the intellectual and artistic focus of northern Europe during
the first half of the 15th century (Britannica Members)
The selection of a professional musician was
based upon the knowledge that pure gospel teaching can never (should
never) compete with idolatrous
exhibition. And
if "speaking psalms,
hymns, and spiritual songs" as a method of teaching cannot compete
with the drawing power of the temple of idols on the next streets
then McClintock and Strong are consistent in saying that the
heretical appointment of singers as a separate class (ministry) would
logically--and consistently--lead to the substitution of songs other
than the Biblical text. Again, we note that:
"Already
at the end
of the second century the Byzantine, Syrian, and later the Armenian
church showed a marked preference for
new, non scriptural hymns, despite all warnings
by the catholic authorities.
Even Canon 59 of the Council of Laodicea (360-81),
which
expressly
prohibited
non scriptural
texts, was
constantly circumvented and openly violated, as enormous hymn
literature of the Eastern churches demonstrate." (The Int. Std. Bible
Dict., p. 467) (Click for
Presbyterian emphasis upon Psalmody)
However much we seek the
restoration of "the
ancient order" we as a group have joined with a small but growing
group who have long abandoned the Bible as the non-charismatic source
of teaching in song. Musical worship led by others is the total take
over from the one-another ministry of a true church.
Even the most liberal groups
who used the
changing musical styles still took the Biblical text and translated
it into a poetic form so that when the church engaged in singing they
still obeyed Paul's absolute demand that singing be from Biblical
sources.
"It
was
Beza who completed the task
of putting the
Psalter into French
poetic form.
Marot and Beza's Psalter speedily achieved popularity and passed through many
editions.
Put
to music,
much of it
popular
ballad
tunes,
its Psalms were
sung on the streets and in services of public worship. With
alterations, Marot and Beza's Psalter long remained standard for
French Protestantism... paraphrases of the Psalms in English were to
be widely sung in the English-speaking churches of the Reformed
tradition." (A History of Christianity, Harper and Row).
"But
certain churches employ
the Psalms largely or exclusively. The most prominent of these has
been the United
Presbyterian, using a
Psalter adopted in 1912. But in 1926 a collection of hymns was
added...Other psalm-singing churches are the Associate Presbyterian
Church of North America, the Associate Reformed Synod of the South,
the Reformed churches of the Netherlands, the Original Secession
Church of Scotland, and the Reformed Presbyterian of Scotland,
Ireland, and America." (Int. Std. Bible Ency., p. 2494B).
Undoubtedly
much of this
deviation from the Biblical pattern naturally flows from
selecting
a
clergy-musician who
seeks out song books with songs which please the church and compete
with "pagan musical worship
art."
However, as
"Sunday School Boards" have displaced the Bible as a publishing
enterprise, historians believe that publishers have been very
instrumental in the demise of the Biblical text for "speaking to one
another"--After all, who is going to pay for a song book with the
Biblical text used for songs?
"The
large
displacement of the Psalter by other matter of praise in the Protestant
Churches during the
last
one hundred
years
has been due, not
so much to the lack of appreciation of the Psalms, as to the
commercial
enterprise of
music publishers." (Int
Std Bible Ency., Psalms, p. 2494B).
This, of course, is one of
the signs of
end-time,
Babylonian, prostitute
religion: the
religion of the Great
Harlot who probably will not live in Rome.
Men like Justin Martyr,
Erasmus, John Calvin, a
host of denominational groups, and Tertullian would be astounded by
our sad neglect of God's Word.
"We
meet together
in order to read
the sacred
texts,
if the nature of
the times compels us to warn about or recognize anything present. In
any case with the
holy
words we feed our
faith,
we
arouse
our
hope,
we
confirm
our confidence.
We
strengthen
the
instruction of the
precepts no less by inculcations..." Tertullian, On the Soul 9:4) ??
With the radical
introduction of preaching,
professional singers, singing styles and song content borrowed from
Judaism, the theaters, and the temples of idols it should be expected
that the more extreme ecstatic acts would develop.
Charismatic preachers have
deliberately
developed a loud,
hypnotic
chant; the
ability to express extreme
joy followed immediately with great sadness; a huge library of sad
stories (research shows that most are not real experiences but lies);
the hypnotic use of body movement and gestures; the claim of a
"supernatural call"; spiritual insight into the Bible; and an unholy
disregard for the Biblical context. On the other hand, God speaks to
us "in the voice of a whispered silence" according to Karen
Armstrong, in The History of God.
He is necessarily supported
by a huge emphasis
upon charismatic leaders with a large effeminate input into
decoration and music supported by choirs, soloists, and a strong
component of loud horns and percussion instruments.
The end-product as well as
the goal in many
churches is mild ecstasy from the sentimental poetry or the beat of
the music or
extreme
ecstasy in more
radical groups. The
arrogant goal is to help
bring the
worshipers into the presence of God.
A lot of research confirms
that mankind is
reached through the "windows" which Jesus narrowed to "hearing" and
"seeing" for intellectual and spiritual understanding and they can
find no "antenna" through which other information flows.
But
as for you,
continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of,
because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy
you have
known
the
holy
Scriptures,
which are
able to make you
wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
All
Scripture
is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking,
correcting and
training in
righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for
every good work. 2 Tim 3:14-17
Church music was largely a
product of monastic
Jews and Christians. Therefore, it is logical that:
"The
Prelate
loveth
carnal and curious singing to the ear, more than the spiritual melody of the gospel,
and
therefore would
have antiphony and organs
in the cathedral kirks,
upon
no greater reason than
other shadows of the
law of Moses; or
lesser instruments, as lutes, citherns and pipes be used in other
kirks." (Giradeau, p. 68, quoting Calderwood). See article about the
Presbyterians Giradeau and Dabney
Musical worship teams may be
the fad of failing
churches. On the other hand, like the song book, they are probably
the result of shoddy goods sold through tele-marketing schemes who
have their own printing presses running and ready to "fill your
orders."
All of this performance
"speak" of human wisdom
shows utter disregard for God and violates the principles even of an
inspired speaker:
This
is what
we
speak,
not in words taught us by human wisdom
but in words taught by
the Spirit, expressing
spiritual truths in spiritual words. 1 Corinthians 2:13
Click to see a
contrast between modern and Biblical songs.
Jubilee 99
Navigating The Winds With
Dionysus
Homeric
Hymn to Apollo
Lucian
The Oracle Monger
First Musical
Heresy Musical Worship
Teams
Musical Heresy
2: Hippolytus on Music and
Soothsaying
Hippolytus
Book V
Orphic Music
Orphic
Connection to Romans 14
Rhea-Saturn-Zoe
Connection
Classical
Index
Musical Worship
Index
Church Fathers
Home
Page
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