Feb. 21st – Theology on Tap

On February 21st Pastor Duane will lead a Theology on Tap session called “Beer & Ballads: The Connections Between Theology and Music – Part II” Bring a song (mp3, cd, record, cassette, 8-track, etc.) and the lyrics to discuss ring a tall bottle of one of your favorite beers or other bev! At 7:00pm we’ll meet at Greg and Carrie Sandys’ house. Send an email for DIRECTIONS

To give you some food for thought in preparation for this, read the following excerpt from Brain Godawa’s book, Hollywood Worldviews. It’s written primarily about movies but everything said applies to music as well. So I’m just going to substitute “music” whenever he says “movies.” Here it is…

“Music Corrupts the values of society.” “Too much sex and violence.” “Music’s just a worldly waste of time.” Those are just a few of the refrains repeated by many of today’s culturally concerned Americans.

Our cultural psyche has been damaged by Hollywood’s defiant decadence and its relentless pushing of the envelope of common decency. But such sentiments suffer from a diluted mixture of truth and error.

Not only do they miss the positive values that do exist in much music, but also those who would completely withdraw from culture because of its imperfection suffer a decreasing capacity to interact redemptively with that culture. They don’t understand the way people around them think because they are not familiar with the “language” those people are speaking or the culture they are consuming. A communication barrier results, and these cultural abstainers often end up in irrelevance and alienation from others. I call these artistic teetotalers cultural anorexics.

But the cultural anorexics also endanger their own humanity. The arts are a God-given means of expressing our humanity. The creation of art, though flawed or imperfect, reflects the creativity and beauty of our Creator.

To reject any of the arts in toto is to reject the imago Dei, the image of God in humanity. Even though we are fallen, with our art partaking of this fallenness, we are still created in the image of God, and therefore our creations continue to reflect our Maker.

As Francis Schaeffer was fond of pointing out, that image comes through even if the artist tries to suppress it. This is so because all truth is, in one sense, God’s truth, no matter who is saying it, be he prophet, infidel, or donkey.

…While it is true that some music may be more influential than others, it is incumbent upon music listeners to understand what they are consuming and the nature of their amusement. It is not the least bit ironic that the word “amusement” means “without thought.” It’s original usage was to “delude or deceive.” Sadly, this is all too often what happens when the music goes on. We suspend our disbelief and, along with it, our critical faculties.

Let’t have some fun and put our faculties to work with the music we enjoy. This is always a great time to be together and a great night to bring some friends!