Myth busting is very popular these days. Last year, MythBusters from the TV busted the myth that ‘a man can attach 400 fireworks to himself, launch off a ramp, fly over 150 feet, and land safely in a lake’. I love evening TV.
This month’s article is going to be a myth-buster. Here’s the myth: music can split a church in two.
Disputes about music have caused much division and hurt in the church over the years. The main reason, of course, is sin, which tells us that only I know the only way that music should be used in church. It’s not music itself which is at fault — it’s human hearts.
Sin in the church
We know that this is true already, so the myth is already half-busted, but sin has even more devious methods. Sadly, when we want to press our musical position home, we know that there is hardly any foothold for our argument in Scripture, so we use another theological argument to try and justify our thinking — the doctrine of church unity. For example, ‘What’s the point of introducing guitars when it may split the church in two?’
I say ‘doctrine’, but the way the Bible’s teaching on church unity is often handled in cases of musical taste is very far from what the writers originally intended: real Christian unity is found as forgiven sinners are united in listening to and obeying God’s Word (Ephesians 4).
Disunity, therefore, only comes about as Christians refuse to listen to God’s Word and hold their own views on secondary issues (like musical style in this instance) with more authority than the Word of God.
Tradition, reason, experience
This can come in various forms. Usually, arguments are based on tradition (‘this is how we’ve always done it’), reason (‘this is how I think it should be done’) or experience (‘this is how I’d like it to be done’). The common factor in all these viewpoints, of course, is that it’s human wisdom calling the shots. So often we ignore the Bible’s view on what is right or wrong.
To illustrate, one person may say that he’d leave the church if (e.g.) guitars were introduced. But this is in effect saying that his confidence in God to work is resting in the style of the music rather than the Word of God (even though that person probably wouldn’t articulate this). Another person may say that introducing guitars is essential if young people are going to come to the church. We may recognise this argument more immediately than the first, but it’s just as dangerous as the first argument, as it betrays the same misplaced confidence as to what grows the authentic church and as to what constitutes true church unity.
I’ve heard all these arguments in my time, though they appear in various guises (and none have been in regard to guitars!). Sometimes there’s even a third party involved to put extra ‘unity’ weight to the argument (‘people are leaving the church because of the music’).
Winners and losers?
But you only have to use a small amount of human logic to work out that whatever decisions are taken about musical style, some will ‘win’ and some will ‘lose’. For an example, I’m going to stick with the guitar argument. Guitars can only be either present or absent — if they’re present, guitarphiles win, guitarphobes lose. The church doesn’t need to split. If there is a right submission to each other in love, patience and thanksgiving under Scripture, then the church is still totally united, whatever the musical style.
True church unity involves listening and obeying the Word of God as we love each other (John 13.35). We may have issues with the style of the meeting and its music, but if we are being fed the Word faithfully we have so much to thank God for that there shouldn’t be any space for sinful and selfish agendas.
My conclusion is that it’s not music that splits churches, but a refusal of people to sit under the clear teaching of Scripture to build each other up in the Word of God, and to serve rather than expect to be served. Myth-busting verdict? BUSTED!
