Technology and Musical Associations

We live in a different world today because of technology, and the technology allows people to easily communicate with and associate with musicians. Even when Luther was alive or Charles Wesley or Fanny Crosby or whoever, if you sang their music in a church, the members had no way to develop an intimate association with the hymn writers so that they could sit at their feet and be influenced by everything they believed and represented. That is not true today. When a fundamentalist church uses contemporary worship music, the people have ready access to the writers of the music through the Internet. They can read their blogs, browse their Facebook pages, follow their Twitter accounts, listen to their music on YouTube. They can surf the links from these musicians to their friends and associates and be influenced by the whole world of contemporary music. There is no doubt that this is happening in churches everywhere because of the carelessness and ignorance and lack of wisdom on the part of so many leaders. Contemporary worship music is a bridge to many dangerous things. It has transformation power. If the influence doesn’t come overnight, it will come eventually. If it doesn’t come to the older people, it will come to the younger ones. If the contemporary philosophy doesn’t permeate the church in this generation, it will in the next. For those of us who do still believe in biblical separation and therefore agree that lines must be drawn, why can’t we agree that the lines should be drawn at the safest place? Why not “approve things that are excellent” as opposed to borderline and questionable (Phil. 1:10)? Why try to find something good within the dangerous world of contemporary worship music? Is that wise? Is that godly? For the sake of the next generation, we need to keep all contemporary influences out of our churches and homes, and we need to do the work of serious education that will protect the people. Instead of mocking and sidelining and blacklisting those who are warning about these things, we need to listen carefully and treat them as wise friends of truth rather than fools and enemies.

​(Friday Church News Notes, September 14, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

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