Supporting Theological Reflection and Conversation that Strengthen the Ministry of the Church
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Public Lecture:
Religious Music and Secular Music:
What Is the Difference?
Lecturer: FRANK BURCH BROWN
Frederick Doyle Kershner Professor of Religion and the Arts at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis.
Dr. Brown is author of four books, including Religious Aesthetics (Princeton Univ. Press, 1989) and Good Taste, Bad Taste, and Christian Taste: Aesthetics in Religious Life (Oxford Univ. Press, 2000), which was chosen by the Association of American Publishers as one of the three “most outstanding” academic books in religion and philosophy for the year 2000.
A composer with twenty commissioned works to his credit, Brown is former Director of the Master of Arts in Church Music program at CTS. Brown has lectured widely, having given multi-media presentations at academic institutions such as Cambridge, Yale, U of Chicago, Northwestern, Union Theological Seminary (NYC), and seventy others. In 1994 Brown gave the Walter Hussey Lecture in the Church and the Arts at Oxford University. He is also a consultant to churches and arts organizations.
(Because of the nature of this presentation, we have included links to as many of the examples Dr. Brown listed as possible. The links not only present you with a place to purchase the examples, but also to listen to snippets of the music.)
| Religious Music and Secular Music: What Is the Differencee? Frank Burch Brown Frederick Doyle Kershner Professor of Religion and the Arts Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis 1. Inclusive and Discerning In our ongoing encounters with the church music of our time, many of us have about reached the point where virtually nothing can surprise us. Some of us can recall when we first heard the astonishing mystical dissonances of the modern French composer Olivier Messiaen as his music came rumbling or twittering from an organ loft. We remember being startled by jazzy elements in Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms or, more recently, being almost equally startled by more traditional-sounding elements in Dave Brubeck’s new Mass: To Hope!—A Celebration (1996). Most of us have probably been rather taken aback (to tell the truth) by Christian rap and Christian heavy metal, and by the latest praise bands that dazzle us with the moves they make not just with voices but with hands and bodies. Even some Eastern Orthodox priests have opted for music that rocks—or so we hear from reports on NPR. We begin to expect the unexpected from the music that people offer in the name of Christianity. And some of us increasingly wonder whether any criteria remain for judging which music is fitting for church, or whether there is any room left for such discernment. Ever since my book Good Taste, Bad Taste, and Christian Taste, I have been emphasizing two things that, while frequently in tension, would in my view be good for music and for the church.1 The first is greater inclusiveness and diversity. The second is greater discernment, which entails more finely tuned discrimination (in a positive sense). The greater emphasis these days tends to be on inclusion—and perhaps rightly so. On the more conservative and evangelical side, an inclusive musical outreach is advocated as a form of evangelism, especially among the youth. On the more moderate or liberal “mainline” side, inclusion is embraced, along with diversity, as a form of openness, hospitality, and multiculturalism. I myself would not want to downplay the importance of seeking more inclusive and diverse musical traditions. That is certainly an important part of what I like to call “ecumenical taste.” But I am keenly aware that many of those who think of themselves as inclusive, musically, actually have a very limited notion of contemporary styles and exhibit a high degree of intolerance for anything they identify as traditional. In any case, I retain the sense—the conviction, rather—that discernment is important, too, and especially in a time when secular music of every conceivable sort is being put to religious uses. Where better to explore the idea of musical discernment than with people whose theology and worship have been informed by the Calvinist tradition? The Reformed tradition, after all, can certainly be counted as among the ones most concerned, historically, with maintaining certain standards and criteria for worship and music. At the very least, those of us with ties to Reformed worship and theology should not be embarrassed to ask the question of what kind of music is appropriate for church, for worship, for liturgy. At present one of our basic needs, in this regard, is to be able to discern better what it is that makes some music religiously fitting and other music less fitting—or even downright antithetical—to worship. It is in relation to that issue that I am asking us to ponder again a large but rather basic question: Is there a difference between religious music and secular music? If so, what might that difference be? Is it a matter of words only? Or does the music itself sometimes make a decisive difference? To approach this complex topic in a relatively manageable way, I start with some general considerations, then examine carefully some of the most pertinent of John Calvin’s own ideas. I will conclude by suggesting, succinctly, which of Calvin’s ideas we might well affirm and apply, and which we might do well to reject, expand, or otherwise modify. No one will imagine, in the end, that we have finished our inquiry. But perhaps we will have made a good beginning. 2. Sacred and Secular Styles Some music seems so sacred in style that we can’t easily imagine good secular uses for it. One thinks particularly of Gregorian or Eastern Orthodox chant, for instance, which seem peculiarly saturated with sacrality. Yet, according to certain major religious traditions, all music is so secular in character—so closely associated with worldly activities—that every kind of music should simply be left outside the house of prayer. In most forms of Islam, for instance, music as such plays no role in a mosque—although the recitation of the Qur’an is intended to be beautiful and can often sound rather musical. Then there is music that we Christians may enjoy personally but that we would rarely be inclined to associate with worship. My father liked to play tunes such as “Sweet Georgia Brown” or “Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue,” and he played them not only on the piano but also on the accordion—much to my mother’s chagrin. But he never had the slightest urge to play them in church. When someone suddenly tears down a commonly acknowledged barrier between sacred style and secular style, that can be unsettling, even these days. A former student of mine, who was a church organist, once confessed to me that, in the middle of the communion service one Sunday, he felt moved to play a soft, slow version of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” He never told me how his congregation responded, but he admitted his sly but not so discreet musical innovation would have been unlikely to heighten a sense of reverence at the Lord’s Table. In many instances the perceived difference between secular music and religious music is important. It affects how we worship, and possibly even whether we can worship at a given moment. Yet we all know that the barrier between secular and sacred is permeable. Many a hymn tune is taken from a popular ballad, a love song, or even a drinking song. Charles Wesley’s best-known hymn, “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling,” alludes to the words of an English patriotic song by John Dryden entitled “Fairest Isle, All Isles Excelling.” Wesley recommends using the very tune to which Henry Purcell had set Dryden’s poem in the opera King Arthur. Among Wesley’s contemporaries it was a familiar tune, and a secular tune, but Wesley evidently thought it touching and fitting. While the surprise caused by hearing secular-sounding music in church may be disturbing at first, it can result, in time, in an expansion of sacred style itself. J. S. Bach and other Protestant Baroque composers were frequently accused of composing cantata music that sounded too secular—too operatic and showy. Eventually, however, that music came to be regarded by many as the very peak of Protestant church music in a classical mode. Closer to our own time, gospel music of various kinds has not always been accepted as legitimate church music; nor have spirituals. Yet each has added something uniquely valuable to the repertoire of religious expression. There are many reasons for bringing secular styles of music into the church. One reason is the simple fact that, even in church, many people tend to become bored with singing or hearing the same thing in the same way, and want something new. That factor should not be underestimated. A second factor is artistic. For the past two centuries or more, much of the most innovative and creative activity in music, particularly but not exclusively in the West, has taken place outside the church. Accordingly, musicians composing religious music have frequently looked to secular styles in their search for new musical resources. There is also a sociological motivation for expanding “church style” in a direction that may sound unfamiliar and even secular at first. When a church becomes more interested in the lives, values, and desires of certain groups of people—perhaps people that were formerly disempowered or marginalized—then the church may become more interested in their preferred music as a form of church music. It happens that many styles that a given community has not been used to hearing in church will sound secular to begin with. Finally, a move toward styles previously identified as secular may occur as a response to a change in theology and liturgy affecting our perceptions of which attitudes and gestures and outlooks are pertinent to worship and prayer. If one has acquired a theology that is less suspicious of the body than much Christian theology has been over the centuries, then one stands a better chance of hearing religious meaning in music that is dance-like and overtly rhythmic. Similarly, what if one no longer accepts the judgment of John Keble and many other Victorians that true religion is always, at its core, “marked by a pure reserve, a kind of modesty or reverence”?2 Then one may invite music into the church that has a much wider expressive range, from outright lamentation to uninhibited jubilation. Historically speaking, however, churches have in fact typically insisted (rightly or wrongly) on a relatively narrow range of acceptable musical styles for worship itself. In particular, because of the close association of certain kinds of music with secular activities that the church has found immoral or at least devoid of piety—activities such as dance or theatre or inebriated entertainment—churches have often excluded or discouraged music they have perceived to be unduly exuberant, playful, dance-like, ostentatious, operatic, theatrical, or erotic. Not so long ago the Catholic church issued statements banning the piano from liturgical contexts because of its ostensibly secular character. Indeed, from the perspective of the earlier Calvinist traditions of church music—which had a great influence in various parts of Europe, England, Scotland, and the English-speaking colonies—most of what we have now come to accept as church music would have been banned from church. Many of our churches have long made use of purely instrumental preludes and postludes—something that Calvin never approved and that Karl Barth, within recent memory, likewise found unwarranted. Moreover, we often sing in harmony rather than in unison; we sing with instrumental accompaniment, rather than unaccompanied; and we feel free to sing texts that are sacred verse of “human invention” rather than only the metrical paraphrases of the Psalms. None of those ways of making music were tolerated in earlier forms of Reformed public worship, though some were found more acceptable in the home. At the moment we have moved in the opposite direction. All restrictions are being tested, and perhaps for good reason. The norms that still function, however, are insufficient. They are typically pragmatic and practical, above all, with a nod to the pleasure principle. Is the music the right length? Is it singable by a congregation? Will it fit a particular slot in the worship service? Is there enough variety? Most of all, do people like it—meaning: Is it the kind of thing they already enjoy listening to on the radio or at movies? Those questions all make sense. But they do not go far enough. And they fail to address adequately the crucial questions of quality and appropriateness. 3. Calvin’s Perspective It is customary in such discussions to invoke Luther at about this point, usually in order to remind everyone that Luther didn’t want the devil to have all the good tunes. But while Luther may have said that (we don’t know for sure), and while Luther had other interesting things to say about music, I find that, in relation to our question regarding sacred and secular music, John Calvin’s observations are particularly worth attending to. In his foreword to the Psalter, written in 1542 and expanded in 1543, Calvin writes that public prayer is of two kinds: with words alone and with song. Of sung prayer—which he thinks of as the singing of psalms—Calvin says that in truth “we know from experience that song has great force and vigor to arouse and inflame people’s hearts to invoke and praise God with a more vehement and ardent zeal.”3 After praising music in this way, however, Calvin immediately and characteristically cautions us: “There must always be concern that the song be neither light nor frivolous, but have gravity and majesty, as Saint Augustine says. And thus there is a great difference between the music which one makes to entertain people at table and in their homes, and the psalms which are sung in the church in the presence of God and His angels.”4 One often hears it said that for Calvin, and for the Reformed tradition more generally, the distinction between sacred and secular is constantly blurred, because God’s claims are said to extend to every corner of life.5 But when it comes to music deemed fit for worship as compared with music deemed unfit, Calvin’s distinction is sharp. Worship music is to have gravity and majesty, untouched by frivolity. It is music that is especially appropriate to be sung “in the presence of God and the angels.” But it is not as though Calvin thinks that only church music can honor God or serve a religious function. Calvin goes on to observe, in fact, that even singing in homes and in the fields can be done in such as way as to praise God and “rejoice in God.” While Calvin distinguishes clearly between church music and music that honors God outside the church, he makes an even sharper distinction between music that honors God and enhances life— whether in church or outside—and music that is indulgent and vain. Specifically, Calvin goes on to distinguish between the act of rejoicing in God and the act of rejoicing in “vanity.” Music can do either of those things, he suggests. And given our human nature since the Fall, Calvin says, we are drawn “to look for all manner of demented and vicious rejoicing,” associated with the temptations of the flesh and the world—all of which contrasts with spiritual joy.6 Music, Calvin declares explicitly, is a gift of God. It is one of the main ways—perhaps the principal way—in which people find pleasure and recreation.7 But for that very reason, Calvin asserts, we must be careful not to abuse the gift of music. We need to be musically moderate and to avoid licentiousness. We must not (in his words) allow our music-making to make us “effeminate in disordered delights.”8 For, as Plato observed long ago, there is “scarcely anything in the world which is more capable of turning or moving morals this way and that.” In fact, Calvin argues, our experience tells us that music “has a secret and almost incredible power to arouse hearts in one way or another.”9 We must not employ music thoughtlessly, therefore. Notice that Calvin is not saying simply that we should avoid sinful and obscene words in the songs we sing. We should also sing good, holy, and moderate melodies. And he argues that we should not put melodies of any sort to bad use. For when a melody is combined with evil words, Calvin observes, it “pierces the heart that much more strongly and enters into it; just as through a funnel wine is poured into a container, so also venom and corruption are distilled to the depth of the heart by the melody.”10 In making these particular comments, Calvin is evidently talking about music-making in general. But by now he has made church singing more or less the paradigm for all good singing. To be sure, music in the world—at home and in the fields—has a little more latitude in its style; we know, for example, that Calvin and his close associates permitted even religious music outside the church to be accompanied by instruments, harmonized, or provided with polyphonic arrangements.11 (This is evident from the various ways in which the music of the Genevan Psalter was arranged for home use). Such music outside the church has religious value, allowing us to rejoice in God. Truly worldly music is another matter, however. Worldly songs, Calvin states, are “in part empty and frivolous, in part stupid and dull, in part obscene and vile, and in consequence evil and harmful.”12 Since Calvin goes to the trouble of distinguishing between the words of a song and its melody, we might ask whether he thinks that music alone (the melody without words) could ever be harmful. And indeed, like Plato, he does appear to believe that music by itself can sound immoderate, disordered, dull, or frivolous. But, as we have seen, Calvin also seems to suggest that even a genuinely appealing melody can be harmful when its words are unedifying. In that case the melody can intensify the evil effect of the words and make them more seductive or debilitating, as when one pours wine through a funnel. While Calvin worries about the effect of combining attractive music with dubious words, he does not discuss the effect of combining good or devout words with immoderate and stupid music. I once wrote a parody metrical psalm—a versification of Psalm 23—to be sung to the tune of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Calvin did not address that kind of thing. But it is not hard to guess what he would say, if asked. He would surely say that setting a psalm to such a light and trivial tune would be indecent and unfitting, and a desecration of the sacred words themselves. This judgment is implicit in Calvin’s railing against using music of a frivolous sort in church. Presumably such music would typically have sacred words. It is now apparent that Calvin offers reflections on what turn out be four kinds of music: churchly music, explicitly religious music outside the church, secular music that can be enjoyed “in God,” and thoroughly worldly music that potentially leads away from God. In the process, as we have seen, Calvin offers several criteria for what would be good music from a Christian point of view—good for church and good for use in the wider world. As we try to decide what to make of Calvin’s ideas, we will want to keep in mind that Calvin’s own specific conclusions about the acceptable forms of church music have long been found too limiting even for most Presbyterians. I might add that Calvin’s more general principles regarding music and its Christian practice are likewise now widely neglected. But I have returned to those principles not as historical curiosities but to raise the possibility that we may have thrown the baby out with the bath water. The fact that we may have good reason to accept and promote various styles of worship music that Calvin himself would have rejected does not mean that his principles and criteria are simply impertinent. Nor does it mean we have been altogether judicious and discerning, ourselves, in how we have modified his approach. What I am attempting, therefore, is to suggest which of Calvin’s ideas about music (religious and secular) we might do best to recall, and which we might want to reject or significantly modify. 4. Calvin Reformed Very few living Presbyterians, let alone Christians in general, would be satisfied restricting themselves to church music that was as consistently grave, solemn, or majestic as that approved by Calvin. Worshipers in the Reformed tradition have in fact begun to fling their doors wide open to a whole array of musical styles, many borrowed directly from the world of secular entertainment. To promote greater discernment, I suggest we might do well to heed the following five ideas found in Calvin. First, music has powers that go beyond words. Like Plato, Calvin was convinced that music can move the heart and will in ways unavailable to words alone. That is one reason why, in his view, music is a great gift of God, and a specially joyful one. Thus, with Calvin, we should at least affirm, theologically, music’s gifted role in worship and in life as a whole. That we have music as a cultural resource is a significant part of human flourishing as provided for, and blessed by, God. Music would not matter so much if human beings could live and prosper by words alone. Second, however, Calvin reminds us that music as composed and practiced by fallen human beings is not inherently and perfectly innocent. Its powers can be used in ways that potentially feed emotions and desires and outlooks that tend to be destructive or unhealthy. Few people think this way anymore because we rightly recognize that we should not leap from the judgment that we are personally put off by a certain form of music to the judgment that a person who enjoys it is necessarily being corrupted by it. We have come to believe that things are much more complicated than that. It does not follow, however, that music itself can never have enervating or destructive or unhealthy effects, quite apart from any words it may have. Third, Calvin rightly argues that, precisely because music does have powers of its own, one cannot take just any kind of music and combine it with “proper” religious words and expect the results automatically to be suitable for Christian worship. Apart from the fact that one has a right to expect music and words to fit together somehow, there is Calvin’s insistence that some music is more fitting for worship than other kinds would be. This claim may seem obvious, but it directly contradicts the currently popular idea that worship music is simply a vehicle, an appealing package in which to deliver the gospel. Although Calvin did not put it this way, he recognized that not all music is generic and neutral in the pleasure it affords and thus in its suitability for sacred texts. The nature and design of the musical medium affects one’s sense of the message and its meaning. This is not to say that an ostensibly secular kind of music cannot be employed for religious purposes. The Genevan Psalter’s tunes, after all, include adaptations of secular French chansons. It is only to say that some music has a character or quality unfit for worship or, indeed, for any directly religious expression. Using an analogy that Calvin might have approved, we could say that a musical style or mode can have something like a “tone of voice.” I use one tone of voice to cheer a touchdown at the football game, another when talking with friend, another when telling my spouse I love her. There may be many different tones of voice, in fact, in which I express love itself. But to bring a business transaction voice or a sports entertainment voice to the bedroom can be a serious mistake. Likewise, to bring into a worship setting a kind of musical style or “tone of voice” that is closely attuned to the needs of the sports stadium or the bar can likewise be a mistake. Worship may allow various musical styles, but each must somehow be attuned some sort of worship activity, registering that we are specially aware in worship of being in “the presence of God and the angels.” Of course God is never absent. Calvin himself insists elsewhere on the importance of praying without ceasing, and in every sphere of life, as scriptures propose.13 But he knew very well that in daily life not every meal is a sacrament, not every bath a baptism, and not every song a prayer—however much we may strive for it to be otherwise. Fourth, Calvin’s discussion of music makes abundantly plain that, when it comes to deciding what kind of music is suitable for worship, it is not enough to say “I like it.” To think that the music one likes, personally, is always worthy and fitting for communal worship falsely assumes that a human being will only like music that is good, music that is worshipful, and music that others in a church community would be able to share as honoring God. But, as Calvin’s discussion suggests, each element of that assumption is flatly false. We human beings can fall for music that is inferior; we may like various kinds of music that have little or no connection with the requirements of worship. And, while Calvin did not consider this last point, it is pertinent to add that we often enjoy music, personally, that others in our church community would not find rewarding in any way, let alone a worthy and appropriate medium of prayer or praise. When asking about the quality and appropriateness of music for corporate worship, therefore, our personal likes are only one part of the overall picture. There is a fifth item on my list of things Calvin can help us remember about religious music and secular music. It is that music does not in reality divide neatly into just two kinds, religious and secular. There is church music, such as the singing of psalms. And there is music that differs in style yet directly serves religious ends in the world outside the church, such as religious music in the home or concert hall. There is also music that is indirectly religious in that it enhances and enriches our enjoyment of life in a manner blessed by God, but without specific religious words or goals. And finally there is music that has little or no connection with the religious ends of life and that in some circumstances can indulge emotions and inculcate attitudes that are potentially in conflict with the life to which God calls us. These four kinds of music apparently exist on something like a continuum, which helps us see why some music that appears secular may have religious potential that can be brought out specifically in church. All of these observations, which we have gleaned from Calvin, can help us develop greater discernment with respect to music and the Christian life, and particularly in considering music for worship. But I think we need to supplement those ideas, modify them in some respects, and explicitly reject other claims that Calvin ventures with respect to music. Without pursuing these emendations in detail, here, I will set them forth as five claims for further consideration.14 My first proposed corrective to Calvin is to state forthrightly what we have already noted: Calvin worked with too constricted a notion of properly worshipful moods, styles, and attitudes. Partly that was a result of Calvin’s attempt to remain literally true to New Testament practices. But since we have no clear idea what any of the music of late antiquity actually sounded like, we have no hope of replicating early Church music in any case. Nor, moreover, do we have any theological imperative for doing so. Nothing in scripture tells us that we disobey God if we change or expand manner in which the first Christians worship musically. In fact, the venerable Calvinist emphasis on God’s accommodation to human needs should allow, in principle, for greater appreciation of the casual and vernacular styles of worship music, in addition to styles that especially honor the majesty and Otherness of the Divine, as Calvin urged. Furthermore, with all of Calvin’s stress on the enjoyment of God and on the joy of music itself, we ourselves have good reason to introduce more festive and celebrative elements into the music of the church. No longer should Reformed worship be known as the most somber and joyless mode of worshiping known to Christians. My second, and related, modification of Calvin’s thought is to observe that the aesthetic implicit in Calvin’s rather austere approach to worship music assumes that, in true worship, the emotions will always be closely monitored and the body be rendered relatively immobile. While the effect of all that restraint can be extraordinarily beautiful, just as in medieval Cistercian architecture, the sense that such restrictions are necessary is evidently tied to an unduly negative evaluation of both the body and the emotions. Calvin himself wrote that the glory of God ought, in some measure, to “shine in the several parts of our bodies.”15 But his approach to church music did not register that fact. Religious—indeed Christian—music from other parts of the world, and from traditions such as African American worship, calls his approach into question. And even Karl Barth thought that heavenly music ought to include both Mozart and Bach—neither of whose music would have met with Calvin’s approval! My third point is to suggest that, contrary to what Calvin and many other Christians throughout history have assumed, we need to recognize that standards for what is musically fitting and worthy for worship inevitably differ to some extent, and sometimes greatly, among different communities and ethnic groups. Without falling into relativism, we should acknowledge the validity of a moderate contextualism. Some music, when given a chance, can survive and thrive in almost every cultural context and historical era. But that is relatively rare. Each community learns to use particular sorts of music in ways that are not always transparent to others. We need to be cautious in making judgments across cultural lines, therefore, and to rely heavily on the sensitivities and judgments of those most at home in a given style. This is increasingly true as churches and whole societies become more multicultural and varied. Fourth, even in the Reformed tradition, we may need to stretch our musical capacities and “tastes” if we are to worship together with people from many different backgrounds. Doing so expands our very capacity to relate with care to other human beings and it thus becomes a part of Christian love. None of us will never be able to enjoy equally all forms of worthwhile worship music. And we will probably need to reject some forms of otherwise “interesting” music as inconsistent with our particular identity as Reformed Christians. But we can learn to detect and better appreciate what others enjoy in their favored styles of music. And we can expand our own musical vocabularies in ways consistent with the Reformed heritage. Fifth, and finally, I believe we would do well to reaffirm Calvin’s high regard for music as a gift of God, but by enriching and enlarging our understanding of musical imagination itself. For one thing—by way of example—there is a cognitive albeit non-verbal dimension of music that Calvin failed to appreciate fully, for all his acknowledgment of music’s effects on emotions and will. Certainly music needs to be brought into the vicinity of words for its clearest religious meanings to register fully, just as it is true that—in Calvin’s view—the sacrament needs both sign and word. But the world of musical sound and expression is able both to orient and “in-form” our minds and beings in ways that the verbal and textual focus of Calvin’s humanistic training was not prepared to recognize. Musical modes of insight and understanding remain mysterious, to be sure. But its importance is indicated, for instance, by the fact that, for many Christians, the meaning of various scriptures finds a truly classic and indelible expression in Handel’s Messiah. It is not just that the music expresses how it feels to hear of the birth of Christ or the Resurrection or of the life eternal. It is also that the music conveys a fuller sense of what those and other sacred realities might really mean for us, beyond their conceptual content. That needs to be considered a kind of cognition or insight, and yet it eludes complete verbal explication. The exceptionally modest role that Calvin allows for music in the life of the church scarcely reflects, however, the extent to which music itself can enrich Christian understanding and imagination—and in that respect Calvin is not sufficiently discerning of the role of music in Christian faith. Obviously I am not about to conclude from any of this that there is no difference between religious music and secular, or that the church should simply embrace every kind of secular style of music uncritically. Rather, I have been interested in showing, in part, how the ideas of Calvin, when appropriately reformed, can help us better discern which secular music has a potential religious calling in the world. Equally important, as I have tried to show, Calvin’s thought, when modified and extended, can help us discern which kinds of music potentially belong in worship that has newly discovered reasons to be more inclusive, by the grace of God. Footnotes 1. See Frank Burch Brown, Good Taste, Bad Taste, and Christian Taste: Aesthetics in Religious Life (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2000). Return to text. |
 Olivier MessiaenQuartet for the End of Time
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Leonard Bernstein
Dave Brubeck
Christian Rap
Christian Metal
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