Electric Guitars? God Forbid!

I recently discovered a blog named Remonstrans, maintained by someone using the handle Dissidens.  Dissidens is a skilled and entertaining writer, and he has a keen nose for idolatry, as do many of his commenters, so I am pleased as punch to have found the blog.

When I first began reading his posts (like this one) about organizations with mysterious names like “Emergence” and “Northland International Overarching Entity”, I assumed the author was fictionalizing real-world entities to “protect the guilty”, and I enjoyed his posts purely in that spirit.  I even googled “Northland International Overarching Entity” and got no matches, so I assumed that the name was chosen to have the literary flair like “The Institute at Braxton” in C. S. Lewis’s “That Hideous Strength”, while being a stand-in for an unnamed real-world institution.  Little did I imagine that “Emergence” and “Northland International” were real names!

It turns out that reality is more bizarre than fiction!  Upon further research, I find that the topic of this post is quite relevant to something that has weighed on my mind recently.

You see, my brother recently pointed me to the web site of a church that forbids the use of electric guitars – and most other modern instruments.  Experience has taught me that different churches have different norms and preferences about worship music, but it never occurred to me that such differences would be rationalized as being THE WILL OF GOD.  How foolish I was!  This particular church explains, “Psalm 150 refers to a large list of instruments that we are commanded to use in praising the Lord.”  As idolatrous and unprecedented as it would be to claim that Psalm 150 commands you to use specific instruments in all worship services, the pastor is not satisfied with such innovation – he wants to read Psalm 150 as a law that prohibits the instruments not listed!

Mosaic law has grown to constitute 613 (recently 620) Mitzvot, or laws.  The 613 are comprised of 248 mitzvot aseh, things you must do, and 365 mitvot to la’aseh, things you are prohibited from doing (the 248 and 365 mirror the number of limbs in the body, and the number of days in a year, respectively).  Curiously, the mitzvot to la’aseh have never included prohibitions on non-Psalm 150 musical instruments.

The very premise seems ignorant and idolatrous to me.  Neither Jesus nor any of the Jews of antiquity believed that the Mosaic law prohibited use of instruments not mentioned in Psalm 150.  There is no historical precedent for such a wild claim.  Never in the history of Judaism or Christianity have Psalms actually constituted LAW.  The Psalms are hymns!  There is something very ironic about someone taking an ancient hymn and acting as if it dictates immutable law prohibiting modern hymns.  One imagines future generations throwing apostates in prison for violating precepts of “Amazing Grace”.

To be sure, I support the role of pastors to set rules for their congregants, and I believe that obedience to pastors is one way that congregants express obedience and love of God.  This is what Matthew 16:19 is saying, isn’t it?  As an example, my current church’s worship team regularly use electric guitars, but I would still attend the church if my pastor decided that electric guitars are prohibited at this church.  I would consider this prohibition to be a local norm or preference, and not some universal scriptural law or WILL OF GOD that applies to all Christendom,  but I would still consider it profitable for spiritual growth to obey.

If my pastor insisted on turning his own bizarre interpretation of Psalms into universal law, I might begin praying about how to rebuke this idolatry, “speaking truth in love”, and failing a change, start looking for a different church.  Thankfully, it’s purely an academic exercise for me.

The relevance to the Remonstrans post being discussed is highlighted in a comment from Unk, the proprietor of the blog named Unknowing.  Unk, like Dissidens, is a genius, and is in fact the reason that I discovered Remonstrans.  Unk points to “Evangelist Ken Lynch”, who apparently makes a career of being holier than you by using only musical instruments that adhere to the WILL OF GOD.  You, too, can bring Ken Lynch to your church and learn how to be holier than the dirty rabble in the other churches!

Apparently, these are not purely academic exercises confined to some random Michigan church found on the Internet.  Apparently these issues are cropping up in real churches attended by real people.  And apparently there is a relationship to some sort of nationwide “fundamentalist movement”.  Individual pastors doing wacky things, I can understand – we all do wacky things at times.  A national “movement” imposing wackiness broadly on churches?  That’s something I hadn’t considered.

The whole discussion raises more questions than answers for me.  But I do know idolatry when I see it, and I know that church leadership should not be imposing idolatry on congregants.