Because some churches of Christ promote the
Willow Creek performance model of musical worship teams, we will look at their
need for someone to facilitate worship. We
will look at some of the scholarly comments which connect musical
facilitation to ancient and modern beliefs that one can move the many into the presence
of God. This means that we should give
second thoughts to adopting destructive "paradigms" just to triumph
over the old "patterns."
All musical terms and names of
instruments are rooted in Satan, warfare, prostitutes or sacrificial
systems.
There is NO hint that music can be used in the
church which is a synagogue or school of the Bible.
Paul defines the assembly in terms of the
synagogue and 'there was no praise service' in the synagogue. As the
Qahal or "church in the wilderness" Numbers 10 outlaws it.
On the contrary, all of the contemporaneous
literature, the Babylonian tablets, the classics and all churc
fathers repudiates music and associates it with perverted
religionism.
If you are interested in how the God of the
Universe has His Words mutilated in order to justify musical praise
teams, you may want to look at these two:
Typical Proof-Text for Praise TEAMS
Team
Praising of God? Ephesians 1
As the new pastor person to facilitate the God
connection is contrary to the will of Christ the old dominant pastor
scheme usurps the role of the one
another ministry as one of the things
for which Christ died:
And I myself also am persuaded of
you, my brethren, that ye also are full of goodness, filled with all
knowledge, able also to admonish one
another. Ro 15:14
Nothing is more insulting and debilitating than
the growing theology that the Clergy Musical Worship Team must
facilitate
or perform the worship for the congregation. This leads to a total
weakening of the body as a one
another teaching ministry. It also
restores the "burden" laded on the backs of the spirit-poor in need
of instructions for whom Jesus Christ died. Therefore, any new method
of worship not defined by Scripture but being promoted into churches of Christ should be thouroughly researched to determine whether
the change will do more harm than good. While we do not attempt to
judge, it is clear that our non-celebrative churches are condemned as
unfit and even destructive for the twentieth century. However
destructive many of our churches may be because of failure to teach,
true scholarship knows that music was always suspect as a means to
call the worshipers into the presence of God because as-
Karen Armstrong
said so perfectly of 1 Kings 19,
"Unlike the pagan deities, Yahweh was not in
any of the forces of nature but in a real apart. He is
experienced in the scarcely perceptible timbre of a tiny breeze in
the paradox of a voiced silence." (Armstrong, Karen A History of God, p. 27)
(I love that)
There is a continuous "regrinding" of these
notes to eleminate sharp or judgmental edges. The goal is not to
convict or convert; it is to expose the independant reader to
historical perspectives which warn against a restoration movement which
goes past Christ and back to ancient history for its "new" patterns.
As Revelation 18 warns, if we have completed the cycle and Jubilee
1998, 1999 or 2000 is the final Jubilee then we might expect that
ancient Babylonian paradigms of commerce and music will become
appealing and overwhelming.
It was prophesied that Jesus would never
cry out or
call assemblies for the watching world. When He went into temple or
synagogue it was to denounce the clergy whom He identified as
"children playing the musical fertility dramas of wedding and
funeral." This was why they could not identify God-Incarnate, their
Messiah, when He "attended their church services." Their purpose was
to force God Incarnate to perform the Dionysos choral dance and
lament to the tune of the flute which was to pollute. This would have
marked Him as just plain human and as gender-deficient.
Click here for the
details of the feminization of worship (male and female) being pushed
to the detriment of the masculine (male and female) model of the deep
study of God's Word. That is where the Bereans searched for Him.
"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, often
it's a FEMININIZATION of the church service.
Whereas, teaching is VIRILE and
MEATY and speaks
head-on to
males.
"God changes us through His Word not
first through worship
or even "preaching." (And I'm using the term PREACHING here in
reference to the emotional shouting, yelling, pulpiteering show biz
seen in many churches!) Worship is a RESPONSE to TEACHING. And PREACHING, it can be proved, means
"the proclamation of the truth," as in Evangelism. Pastors should
first see themselves as "teachers" not "preachers." REMEMBER:
"Pastors indeed Teachers," (Eph 4:11). (or Pastor-Teacher)
Click for more.
If the Corinthian "disunity in
diversity" would give up their singing and speaking in tongues, the
unchurched could find God in their "filling up with the Words
of Christ or spirit and then speaking to one another" in God's
revealed words.
Programmed Worship as
Virtual Reality Parable
When the masses called God in Jesus Christ to their mass
assembly He spoke to
them in parables because "seeing they do not see and hearing they do
not hear." Therefore, His message was coded so that only those who
come aside for
instruction can hear
Him. Scholars trined in theatrical production know that their customers are not interested in
truth.
If "wine is fine" then "likker
is quicker." When people dress, perform and create the
expectation that something mystical is about to happen then it
happens. That is, it is facilitated. Have you noticed that everyone falls madly in love
with the dirty, skinny, ignorant, drug-empowered rock musician who
cannot carry a tune? This happens with both sexes because the
emphasis is on movement and sound or noise. The promotion of the expectation that something special is going
to happens helps facilitate the thing by deliberately manipulating the minds of the
weak-willed.
However, experts note another
element of magic: people
are enchanted because they know that it is all an act. You might sing "at the cross, at the
cross" with sixteen, beautiful, talented people but the magic comes
from squeeky-clean, well-rehearsed theatrical performers actually
celebrating at the foot of the cross! The ancient
mysteries work because we know that, as with the crucifix,
no literal sweat, dirt
and blood is going to drip on us. Our research continues:
"This paper is
about live dramatic
performance as distinct
from the technology-based phenomenon known as virtual reality (not in
fact or name), which is the logical extension of film and computer
technology and which promises to enable us to 'perform' in dramas of our own
devising. I would argue that live dramatic performances are themselves models of a kind of
virtual
reality. That is, in
keeping with the etymology of the word, they are virtual in the sense
of 'resulting in the effect
but not in fact'
of something. Live theater also presents a kind of virtual reality in
another sense of the word; it is virtual because it exists in the mind, in the imagination...
"The
excitement of the stage
relies on the very fact
that
we know that what is on
stage is not true,
that we know these are actually actors, and that the actors know we know it. As Wendy Lesser has written in an attempt to distinguish between
theater and film: 'The central fact about theater is that it
places us in the
presence of fictional characters. In that element of fiction, it differs from
reality; and in that element of presence, it differs from film.
In church celebrations we
know that it is not the whole truth. If truth counted for anything then we would speak to
one another with the once-revealed Words of Christ which He said are
"Spirit and Truth" (Jn 6:63). Jesus speak to the gathered masses in
virtual sermons. His parables were performances to give the effect
but hid the facts from those blind and deaf.
A Mixed Signal about
Women
In the ancient circuses and theaters, the slave gladiator might be wined and dined and
held in honor for a time. Then, he was put into the arena with other
men or lions and fought for his life and usually died. The same thing
happened to tens of thousands in the Aztec model. The sacrificial
victims became kings and queens
for the year. Then they were ritually murdered to supply the blood to
fuel the kingdom for another year or for 52 years. That is,
the
Because the
Aztec model is used for church renewal
through slash and burn
techniques, it is
interesting that the Aztecs depended upon taking other people's lands
and crops. When they came into Mexico, part of the band was captured.
However, one Aztec warrior was honored
for his bravery even as part of the invasive attack and was offered a
gift of his choice. He choose the beautiful daughter of the king of
the invaded
tribes. Then, he sacrificed the woman, flayed her skin, clothed himself in her old
"wineskin" and invited the invaded king to a celebration--a jubilee
if you will. When the king returned for his daughter (like a million
talents of gold), he saw that she had been sacrificed to make a beautiful, feminine garment for the invader so that he could absorb the power of
the beautiful, rich and powerful feminine principle. You see, the
woman was given equality and honor only because she was being
sacrificed to put honor like a garment around the invader.
History knows that performance
was a way to give women "virtual" but not life-changing reality power. That is, if the women can be funneled
into spending time sewing magical garments, rehearsing song and drama
and being false prophesiers to "capture the souls of men in their new
garment" then they have been deprived of the reality power of a
Phoebe. History knows that this was the misogynist's
way of depriving women
of real spiritual power.
However, in the pagan contrast,
it was not real power because nothing happened to change the nation, tribe or congregation. Yet, the
talented were given honor, performed their thing on stage, were
admired (and more) and were retired to "head up the worship
committee" at the local temple of Diana. This allowed the women to be
in charge during the dramatic play which counted for nothing while leaving the men in
charge in the financial sense.
On the other hand, the women of
the Bible were not, according to Paul, to be put on token display as fertility
symbols. They had the
real power exemplified by numerous women such as Dorcas or Phoebe but
their power was not exercised "in church" as a form of tokenism where
no performance was allowed by men or women. In fact, the week has 168
hours and women and men are to come together in "assembly" for the
Lord's Supper and to be "equipped for the ministry" which cannot
really happen during that one hour. Afterward, the 167 hours
projects the "worship" out into the watching
world where women are the majority "ministers" and teachers of
others.
Did you ever hear a
beautiful, talented lady knocking on doors and singing Handel to the
person desperately in need of Christ?
The tokenism on Sunday may, in
fact, neutralize both
men and women for the
rest of the week if we equate excitement to bringing people into
God's presence. After
all, if God is found only under the facilitated influence of the
skilled musical and drama team then why should I look for the literal
presence of the literal Christ disguised as the poor, hungry and
thirsty? He may have once recited a Passover hymn. However, in His
pure Spirit form "in Whom we live, move and have our being" what if
Christ cannot carry a
tune?
In the following linked site, a
progression is made from total male dominance, to men acting in the performing roles of women, to men and women
performing the same roles, and finally, as Plato feared, women acting
alone with total authority. This would mean women "standing up" or
"standing over" the congregation as its musical pastor person. To keep things safe, the men dressed up in gowns
like women to restrain the power of the women by distributing and
diluting the feminine power. Plato also warned that the one hour
imitation or virtual worship may lead to the reality before the watching world where religion is parked
at the church doors while we "do that book deal" on Monday.
It is the musical churches who
may be the most "conservative" in the sense of passifying the
celebrative half of us to hold the rational part of us which is
"slowly slipping away." Remember that Jesus chided the childish
clergy and their followers by asking if they were looking for John
the Baptist because he wore soft
clothing. The implication is that they were looking for a male
prostitute of the king's court:
"According to the misogynist interpretation,
the form
is and was conservative and kept women
in their place. Plato, the first of the
anti-theatrical critics, on the other hand, thought that
all imitative
poetry was threatening to his ideal
state and ought to be outlawed for encouraging behavior in large part belonging to
women and therefore inappropriate to a
ruler or any male citizen: imitation leads to the reality. From Plato's perspective, theater seems to be a wild zone, a site where inappropriate actions might be
represented and volatile emotions aroused. If, as Jack Winkler (1990:
50) argues, gender was on a continuum for the Greeks, and there was a
risk that the normative male could by
being softened end up female, the male actor of female
roles might be one site of
crossover or leakage.
Plato called this "the second
incarnation." He meant that men who refuse to act like men will, at
their second incarnation, be literally females. Leakage seems likely in drama for some reason.
Because both male and female
have a male and female component to the brain. However, the
crossover or
leakage is a scientific
fact and has value. Science knows that the rational part of both male
and female brain is "put to sleep" so the ritual message can
leak by into the purely emotional mind without
arousing our thinking. Our witness on Monday, therefore, is plagued
with little tokenisms rather than our primary task of teaching and
serving.
Turning "church" into
performance
theater has always been
a way to facilitate the changing of the minds of the opponents of the group. By the use of music
and drama, "our team" is predisposed to see our side of the conflict between the theatrical paradigm of
church and the
old, conservative,
destructive pattern of
understanding. In bypassing the rational mind with music and drama,
our side of the story seems much more powerful that those dull
sermons and Bible classes. In the end, our team in the contrived
conflict wins
for a while as our "attendance count" is bigger than your "count."
However, in the end, it has to fall away to give room for the next
gladiators.
In the meantime, it is
impossible that our worship attention get beyond the highly visible
"in your face" team performing music and drama! The true teacher is
transparent. We cannot see him as he directs our gaze away from him
and toward Christ. However, when he performs the rituals of speech
patterns, pacing, arm waving and shouting, the goal is to direct
attention to himself and we have our mind shut down and cannot see
Christ. In the end, the goal and effect is that we worship the
performance team:
"Evidence from
Plato, Aristotle and Aristophanes suggests that the common belief was
that the poets
attempted to create
lifelike imitations, thus invoking Rabinowitz's narrative audience. But
tragedy was also a highly conventionalized form, with
masks,
chorus, elevated
language,
musical
accompaniment and
connection to
ritual,
all of which would draw attention to the play as a work of art
and to the authorial (the composer, arranger, facilitator) level of
audience
response.
"Our contemporary western
immersion in a realist
aesthetic, where
emotional
response is not only
crucial but also based on individualistic psychology,
predisposes us to see a conflict between the imitative
and the conventional
ways of viewing tragedy.
The two levels readily coexist,
however, if with Aristotle (Poetics 15; 1454a) we take the characters
as types not individuals. Thus, a slave, a barbarian, a woman were
kinds of
beings with appropriate
behavior (conventions) to be imitated, signs to be adopted.
In Romanticism we are assured that the music
did not bring people into God's presence. Rather, the secular
mind worshiped the music
and the musician. Therefore, while we
all yearn for true meaning found only in
God, the pragmatic expedient for
religionists is to appease the crowd and give them easy, but empty,
meaning. The facilitator under the head facilitator misdirects the minds of
the potential "old degenerates" still in the audience by
reincarnating art and theater into pseudo-spiritual roles.
This may be a subconscious need to keep control in a spinning-out-of
control pattern. In reality, it is mystical slight-of-hand:
"The artistic enterprise was
elevated to an exalted
spiritual role, whether as poetic
epiphany or aesthetic rapture, as divine
afflatus or revelation of ethernal
realities, as creative quest, imaginative discipline, devotion to the
Muses, existential
imperative, or liberating transcendence
from the world of suffering.
The most secular of moderns
could yet worship the
artistic imagination, hold sacred the
humanistic
tradition of art and culture, the
critics and essayists its high
priests.
"In art, the disenchanted modern psyche could yet find a ground for
meaning and value, a hallowed context for its spiritual
yearnings, a world open to profundity
and mystery." (Tarnas, Richard, The Passion of the Western Mind, p.
273).
Parable explained: "You
cannot make lions and tigers into vegetarians by feeding them raw
meat on Wednesday night."
Back to Reality - A Second
Incarnation
Perhaps responding to performance pressure in a
performance town, and to conform to the Willow Creek searcher
pattern, Woodmont Hills Church as one example seeks a Worship Facilitation
Minister as a surrogate who can lead
the musical worship team to perform the worship for the body. We
should be aware that performing worship for the watching audience
violates clear Biblical principles which stand opposed to the
performance worship of the Gentiles.
S/he must:
Provide leadership which
increases the congregational
awareness of a growing
theology of worship in the life of
Christians.
Assume the primary role for organizing and
directing
the worship programs of the church.
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. (Wow!)
Rehearse
presentation groups and work with volunteer directors to improve the
musical, dramatic and technical
excellence of our group worship
experiences.
Assist volunteer leadership in the periodic
planning and presentation of musical and
dramatic
productions which support the worship goals of the church.
This pastor person needs a:
Minimum of Bachelor's degree or equivalent
experience in performing
arts (music, drama, directing,
theatrical programming).
Affinity (fondness, attachment, affection) for wide range of musical a capella styles
(classical
to contemporary).
Note: musical a capella in the
Biblical sense is an oxymoron. Musical means: "for the creation,
production, or performance
of music.
Theatrical or film production, often elaborately costumed and
staged,
with dialog developing the story line
and an integrated musical score."
Contrary to the exhilaration created by wine,
Paul demanded that we fill up with the Words of Christ which He
defined as "spirit" (Jn 6:63) and then speak to one another. For the
pagan parallel Click Here.
As we will see in other fragments, these goals
are identical to those of the Levitical Worship teams under the king
and commanders of the army. They are also identical to ancient and
modern schemes to call the god into the presence of the worshiper or
the worshiper into the
presence of the god. The problem with
these goals is that they will not make the performance watchers any
more spiritual than the old participants, and the "dose" will have to
be increased and finally prescribed for Sunday. The danger new
paradigms is that they are usually repackaged old pattern:
"But perhaps nothing was more
characteristic of the mystery
religions than what they called
ecstasy.
Believers in the mystery religions sought to cultivate a
magical, sensuous communion with
the divine. They would do almost anything to get themselves into a
semiconscious, hallucinatory,
hypnotic,
or orgiastic spell in which they
believed they were sensually in contact with
deity. Some used wine to
assist in the euphoric experience, as Paul implied in Ephesians 5:18. Whether
from literal intoxication or emotional exhilaration,
when worshipers fell into a state of euphoria, it was as if
they had been drugged. They assumed
they were in
contact with God.
(MacArthur, John, Charismatic Chaos, p. 164. Zondervan)
Of the Feast of Tabernacles to which Jesus
refused to go until the performance was over:
"Today, this music and dance festival is understood as
the one remnant of the old Canaanite fertility rituals, which,
in the monotheistic pseudomorphosis of the temple ceremonies, was to
ensure an abundant crop of plants, animals, and even human beings." (Bigger crowds on Sunday night)
"This was perhaps the only occasion
where popular (contemporary) music-making was allowed to mix with the
otherwise sternly guarded prerogative of
Levitical music. Consequently, secular,
superstitious, even popular licentious elements were here introduced
in the performance of the temple's liturgical music." (Interpreter's
Dictionary of the Bible, p. 460, Abingdon).
The goal for "worship experiences which will
help bring worshipers
into the presence of God" may be a
gnostic search. Not gnosticism in the sense of knowing from learning
but knowing from the experience of wine and music. However, the
search for the lost god has always been the only true and fated
legalism:
"When a high value is placed on
personal experiences or revelations, Scriptures are then
unscrupulously twisted and misquoted. We find those who believe the
feelings of a congregation must be
hyped up in order to "feel" the Presence of the
Lord or else the church is thought to
be "dead".
Instead of music being used to worship and glorify God, it is used as
a means of "connecting"
or "feeling" the Presence of God. If
the "location" (or a feeling within) of God is not aroused and
sensed, the Spirit is said to be either absent or bound. To counter
this passive situation, worship is intensified, the devil is "bound"
and certain forms of excitement are encouraged until "God's Presence"
is "felt". Many times music is used as
the conduit for the "feeling". A
popular slogan to advertise a certain music company is:
"Feel the Presence of
the Lord". The church has been taken
down this primrose path for so long that they equate the Presence of
God with a certain feeling that they obtain
by doing
certain things. The "goose bumps" or the "warm fuzzies" or tears of
comfort, is their way of "knowing" that God is present. So what this
thinking boils down to is simply: "To know God's Presence you must
feel Him." In actuality
this is pure Gnosticism. (My Note:
these goose bumps are the result of injecting the morphine-like
endorphins. Click to read more).
"Worship is an integral part of the Christian
faith. Sometimes feelings of ecstasy are experienced. The Presence of
God is rightly acknowledged by true worship. However,
when emotional feelings become the doctrine of God's
Presence, then God has been reduced to
a "gnosis" form of Presence.
For many, the doctrine of "knowing the Presence of
God" is sought in a subjective
experience. An emotional experience, especially a repetitive one during a worship service, if not kept in proper perspective or check,
can lead to an
altered state of consciousness in which the capacity for rational
reasoning is greatly reduced.
At this point the congregation is
open to delusion and can be easily led astray. In many charismatic groups an
altered state of mind is explained as "getting into the Spirit" or as
a manifestation of the presence of
God. Uncontrolled spiritual feelings
transcend sound scriptural rationalism and give rise to the doctrine
of "the Presence of God" built on an experience. Travers and Jewel van der Merwe
Because the new models of worship appeal to old
computers and the Aztecs, it is interesting to see that they, too,
used musical worship teams to facilitate the demise of
the old and the promotion of the new. Because ritual dance is part of
the seeker model we should note that music and dance go together:
"The dance with music was to
seduce the gods; the fundamental, the raison d'etre, of the
dance, to the dancers as well as the watchers was
'mystic communion,' the fusion which made them one with the god they
hoped would hear their call.
Drumming was of supreme importance:
it soothed the soul and made the gods amenable.
Drumming also exerted a real mystical influence; it acted upon the
disposition of the unseen as it acted upon the spectator, so that
from the 'mystic point of view
the drum was an indispensable part
of the magico-propitiatory apparatus."
Identical to much of David's self-boast or
praise (halal), the Aztec professional singer gave out this to the
national Aztec god:
- I am Humming bird Wizard, the warrior,
- no one is equal to
myself,
- Not in vain have I donned my robe of
yellow feathers;
- for me the sun has arisen.
Now, hear David:
The Lord rewarded
me according to my righteousness: according to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me. 2S 22:21
For I have kept the ways of the
Lord, and have not wickedly departed from my God. 2S 22:22
For all his judgments were before me: and as
for his statutes, I did not depart from them. 2S 22:23
I was also upright before him,
and have kept myself from mine iniquity. 2S 22:24
Therefore the Lord hath recompensed me
according to my righteousness; according to my cleanness in his eye
sight. 2S 22:25
"The same movements repeated without number,
the volumes of sound, the ornaments and masks, all had one aim, one
religious aim--emotional
paroxysms in which all present were
robbed of their
self-possession and thus
believed that their wish
to secure the favor of the gods had been attained." (Von Hagen, Victory, The Aztec Man and Tribe, p.
97-99, Mentor)
Gender-Bending rather than worship was the
ancient power
In many cultures the necromancers, soothsayers
and diviners were women. Their most powerful device was their
self-composed songs which they claimed to be inspired. These became
the magical incantations which were enhanced with sound or musical
instruments. The witch of
Endor called up Samuel (she thought) by
the use of the owb or the empty
wineskin
which she sold as a familiar spirit
or a facilitator who had a
god-connection. This was, in fact, a musical instrument perhaps
placed over a hole in the ground. Up to the time of the "prophets"
from the high places and David, music was the arena of young girls
and women and only men like Jubal engaged in what is clearly magical
incantations.
These "Old Women" continued among the
Babylonians, the Hittites and the Hebrews right there in the temple.
Ishtar tried to arouse Tammuz and thus the women in Ezekiel 8
lamented for him while the men held their "sun-rise service" or
"Easter" (Ishtar) looking East.
"Certain members of a tribe, marked
out either by unusual skills or by some emotional abnormality,
ususally became particularly adept at these operations, and gradually
assumed specialized functions. Released
from the duty of hunting, and
concentrating on the practice of magic, the shaman, sorcerer, or medicine man was the world's first
professional." (H. B. Parkes, Men and Gods, p. 29).
To attempt to facilitate or manipulate a paying
group into the presence of the god is the task of the shaman,
soothsayer or necromancer. As such s/he will have to be trained in
the manipulative skills of the theater to program the team to program
the initiants seeking to grasp a view of the gods through the smoke
and mirrors of Greek theater at the pagan temples often flanked by
asherah poles or columns:
Of the Tower of Babel: "The Hebrews
"interpreted the episode as marking the origin of different
languages--the confusion of tongues--so that the builders were
compelled to cease work because they could
no longer
communicate with one another. Then
their defiant enterprise fell into ruins. The great ziggurats, of
which the tower (free-standing columns or steeples) is a reminiscence,
were the bond of union between earth and sky and were meant to assure
communication between heaven and earth. They were the first
cathedrals... To
maintain communication with God is
essential but man cannot reach him by and through material
structures." (Myers, Jacob M., Invitation to the Old Testament, p.
21, Doubleday, 1966).
- (1) I prayed to my goddess, but she raised
not her head.
- The Seer by his oracle did
not discern the future;
- Nor did the enchanter with a
libation illuminate my case;
- I consulted the necromancer, but he
opened not my understanding.
- The conjurer with its charms did not
remove my ban.
-
- (2) The day of honoring the gods was the
joy of my heart,
- The day of following the goddess was my acquisition of
wealth;
- The prayer of the king,--that was my
delight
- And his music,--for
my pleasure was its sound.
-
- (3) To honor the name of the goddess I
taught my people
- Reverence for the king I greatly
exalted
- And respect for the palace I taught the
people;
- For I knew that with god these things
are in favor.
-
- (4) What is innocent of itself, to god is
evil!
- What in one's heart is contemptible, to
one's god is good!
- Who can understand the
thoughts of the gods in heaven?
- The counsel of god is full of destruction;
who can understand?
- Where may human beings learn the ways of
god?
-
- (5) He who lives at evening is dead in the
morning;
- Quickly he is troubled; all at once he is
oppressed;
- At one moment he sings and plays;
- In the twinkling of an eye he
howls like a
funeral-mourner.
- Like sunshine and cloud their thoughts
change;
-
- (6) They are hungry and like a
corpse;
- They are filled and rival their god!
- In prosperity they speak of climbing to
Heaven;
- Trouble overtakes them and they speak of
going down to Sheol."
- --Barton, Ancient Near Eastern
Texts, p. 491-2
Will this, as the Willow Creek model promises,
bring in 4 times as many customers as brand X? You betcha! And, in
the end--
Nothing is clearer
in history than the adoption by successful rebels of the methods they
were accustomed to condemn in the forces they deposed.
--Will and Ariel
Durant
The Musical Worship Team Defined
It might be helpful to look at the words for
musical worship team:
First: Musical
means ""for the creation, production, or
performance of music. Theatrical or film production, often elaborately
costumed
and staged, with dialog developing
the story line and an integrated musical score." Translate: "entertainment." Or overseeing the
flock
Second: "Worship or reverence
for a Deity." God is worshipped in the "voice of a whispered silence"
according to Karen Armstrong in A
History of God. He is in His Holy
Temple--me--and I don't need you to speak or sing while I am trying
to listen to Christ in His Holy Temple.
Third: The word team is
totally consistent with the oppressive nature of loud music. A team
is "a pair of draft
animals." It is associated with a
"bridle"
or a "yoke
"It is a brood of young animals, especially ducks of pigs. A group of
people constituting one side
in a contest or competition." (Webster)
Antiphonal singing was denounced because it developed into
competition between groups--even to the point of murderous
internecine warfare which is a hallmark of all revivalism. Levitical
oversight teams have been called "menial worshipers."
Ezekiel, Edersheim and Josephus prove that
these Levitical
Musical Worship
Teams really never performed the
"worship" but they were nevertheless outlawed. Outside of paganism,
there is no "pattern" for singing with drama and instruments as a
way to bring people into the presence of the True God. When Israel
adopted Canaanite forms of worship music was used at first only for
sacrificial rituals:
"There is ample
evidence, both in scriptural and in rabbinical sources, that the
art of singing was diligently cultivated, especially in the temple. I Chr. 25 not only relates the initial organization
of the temple singers, but uses in its terminology the words
'trained in
song' and
'skillful." The Talmud even hints that lack of correct singing
annuled the value of the
sacrifice (B. 'Arak.
11a). The musical training of a Levitical singer took at least five
years of intensive preparation (B. Hullin 24a). (Interpreter's
Dictionary of the Bible, p. 460, Abingdon).
If you need help surviving the
new worship "inventions" Click Here where the writer notes that churches not designed
for performance worship can actually "do more harm than good."
Confusion and a lack of communication is almost guaranteed without
some redesign. The writer notes that:
"The worship space
has clearly evolved
over the ages from the intimate synagogues predating the dawn of
Christianity to the grandiose edifices of the medieval cathedrals, to present day
Protestant, evangelical and electronic ministries, which utilize acoustic / electronic contemporary music, dynamic preaching and the audio/video media.
"In addition to changing
musical
performance
requirements, the nature and size of the congregation has changed.
Many modern worship spaces have incorporated aspects of the
sound
stage, video and audio
recording studio, theatre, and concert hall. Fusing all of these new techniques into the worship
space is a formidable task.
"A poor acoustical environment
makes it difficult for choir or band members to hear themselves and other performers, leading to pitch problems and a poor sense of
ensemble. It may be a problem for the choir to synchronize with the
organ or other musical accompaniment. This is usually caused by time
delay problems resulting from poor positioning of the performers
and/or disproportionate sound levels.
"Poor
intelligibility of your
presentation may be caused by slap echoes of the sound system
reflecting off the rear wall of the sanctuary. This is usually
aggravated by a focusing or curved rear wall. Poor sound projection
into the sanctuary results in an inadequate musical support level
which discourages
congregational participation.
There is a better word. The
word is "worship has devolved" back to Greek paganism where the new Christian
church gave mercinary men trained in the Greek theater the job
opportunities to make a better living from "seeing godliness as a
means of financial gain."
From ancient history to
yesterday's news the performance worship attracted gender-searching
people so that in the temples the most important facilitators of worship were female or male prostitutes. When
they tried to get John and Jesus involved He question whether they
went looking for John thinking that he might be soft.
Jesus came preaching a gospel
of "spirit and truth" or mind and facts but the musical clergy wanted
emotion. This was clearly a conflict between the new, emotional
approach to getting the people to buy sick lambs and the old, factual
method of "going into all the world and preaching the gospel." This
was the Greek influence in the Jewish nation:
"One of the greatest of all Greek
dramas,
The Bacchae powerfully
dramatizes
the conflict between the emotional and
rational
sides of the human psyche. When the people of Thebes deny the existence of the god Dionysos, he punishes them by unleashing the full force of female sexuality,
thereby destroying social order and driving them to certain tragedy.
When Jesus refused to perform the ritual,
choral dance of Dionysos under the powerful influence of the
children's musical team, they murdered Him. When those seeking a
wholesale change to the nature of the church see themselves failing,
the only resort is to create such excitement that everyone will see
the superiority of the new paradigm over the old patterns. The
conflict with Jesus and with us is between the emotional nature and
the rational (spiritual or mental) nature. Therefore, to defeat the
rational nature of the old church, the full force of female sexuality
is unleashed but it is a sign of the end.
During war, the religious musicians were like
the Highland Bagpipers. They could create enough instrumental music
to panic
the enemy. Doesn't the hair stand up on the back of your neck when
you hear them? Of course, the Bible treats this as just
noise when
used to extort money or service out of people in a religious sense.
No warrior would go into the valley of death without being
tranquilized with the instrumental music drug. And, unfortunately, a
lot of those big efforts to, like Nimrod, corral everyone in one big
"pin" often resort to musical entertainment to pay the bills. David
added his Levitical musical worship team under the commanders of the
army to defeat Israel as he had defeated the enemy. This is the only
way a king can hold power and this is why it was against God's will.
Prozac and its relatives now solve the problems
of an overwhelming number who have been overburdened by men whose job
it is to create anxiety. This, they believe, is a way to make the
largely Biblical illiterate members feel that they have been in the
presence of God.
Jesus came to eliminate Sabbaths or rituals
which believers must serve. The burden laden upon the back by the
ancient and modern "Doctor of the Law" was:
Phortizo (g5412) for-tid'-zo; to load up (as a vessel or
animal),
figurative: to overburden with ceremony
or spiritual anxiety: - lade, be heavy
laden.
Jesus came to take that musical worship burden
off our backs and give us a yoke which is easy to bear. To take our
ease comes from a word meaning just the
invoke for the load which the modern,
oppressive pastor system seeks to load on the back of the "pack
mules." When the "images no longer work" it is tempting, in Joseph
Campbell's words, to invent new affect
images with more magic. However, music
as an instrument of control is not new:
"We need not shrink from admitting
that candles, like incense and lustral water, were commonly employed
in pagan worship and in the rites paid to the dead. But the Church from
a very early period took them into her service, just as she adopted
many other things indifferent in themselves, which seemed proper to
enhance the splendour of religious
ceremonial. We must not forget that
most of these adjuncts to worship, like music, lights, perfumes,
ablutions, floral decorations, canopies, fans, screens, bells,
vestments, etc. were not
identified with any idolatrous cult in particular; they were common to
almost all cults. They are, in fact,
part of the natural language of mystical
expression, and such things belong
quite as much to secular
ceremonial as they do to religion (The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 3, p. 246, art. "Candles.")
Under a different heading we will see that
musical worship is being subverted to put the rational mind to sleep
so that new theology can be fed into the minds of the congregation.
However, if science is right about church and some other forms,
musical worship can be destructive when it becomes the
instrument of mind control rather than for teaching the word.
A History of God : The 4000 Year Quest of Judaism,
Christianity and Islam
Hardcover
by Karen Armstrong At Amazon.com through this
not-for-profit site.
A History of God : The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism,
Christianity and Islam Softcover
by Karen Armstrong
Musical Worship
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