Articles

Singing

Written by Frank Jamerson.

One of the acts of worship that God authorized is singing. We are taught to “teach and admonish one another” and “sing with grace in your hearts to God” (Col. 3:16). Neither purpose even hints at entertainment or performances. Churches that have special groups (choirs) to entertain and use instruments of music, often employ people who are members of different denominations, or no denomination at all, to help in their entertainment.

Many people are surprised to learn how recently instruments of music have been added to church worship. Philip Schaff, a religious historian wrote:

“The use of organs in churches is ascribed to Pope Vitalian (657-672). Constantine Copronymos sent an organ with other presents to King Pepin of France in 767. Charlemagne received one as a present from the Caliph Haroun al Rashid, and had it put in the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle...The attitude of the churches toward the organ varies. It shared to some extent the fate of images except that it never was an object of worship...The Greek church disapproved the use of organs. The Latin church introduced it pretty generally, but not without the protest of eminent men, so that even in the Council of Trent (1545-1563) a motion was made, though not carried, to prohibit the organ at least in the mass” (History of the Christian Church, IV; p. 439).

John Girardeau, Professor at Columbia Theological Seminary (Presbyterian), said:

“It has thus been proved, by an appeal to historical facts, that the church, although lapsing more and more into defection from the truth and into the corruption of apostolic practice, had no instrumental music for twelve hundred years; and that the Calvinistic Reformed Church ejected it  from  its   services  as  an  element  of   Popery, even   the Church of England having come very nigh to its extrusion from her worship. The historical argument, therefore, combines with the Scriptural and the confessional to raise a solemn and powerful protest against its employment by the Presbyterian Church. It is heresy in the sphere of worship” (Instrumental Music in the Public Worship of the Church, John L. Girardeau; p. 166).

David Benedict, a Baptist historian, said:

“In my earliest intercourse among this people, congregational singing generally prevailed among them...This instrument (the organ), which from time immemorial has been associated with cathedral pomp and prelatical power, and has always been the peculiar favorite of the great national churches, at length found its way into Baptist sanctuaries, and the first one ever employed by the denomination in this country, and probably in any other, might have been standing in the singing gallery of the Old Baptist meeting house in Pawtucket, about forty years ago, when I officiated as pastor (1840)...Staunch old Baptists in former times would as soon tolerated the Pope of Rome in their pulpits as an organ in their galleries, and yet the instrument has gradually found its way among them” (Fifty Years Among the Baptists; p. 104-207; All quotes via “The Way of Christ Without Denominationalism,” by Samuel G. Dawson).

Acceptable worship must be “in spirit and in truth” (Jn. 4:24). We must obey from the heart the things God has authorized in His word.

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