ON A visit to Oxford University I was met at the station by an undergraduate who was to be my host during my stay. He was tall and slim, had long black hair, and carried a rolled umbrella. He was the epitome of good taste and Christian devotion.
In the course of our conversation I asked him what were the reactions of the students to the mass evangelistic meetings that had been recently taking place in London. He remarked that most of his friends thought that the preaching was good, but the music was something else again. "The massed choirs, the gospel singing . . . well, I suppose that was enjoyable for the older people, but we prefer something with a beat. We like Cliff Richard."
Sensing that my generation gap was showing, and knowing that he worshiped with quite a strict church, I asked what they would feel if they knew his views. He told me that his church had its own folk-rock group. Things had obviously changed since I was last at Oxford!
Hearing him express the views of a sizable group of young Christians whose intelligence and devotion I had no cause to doubt, and noticing the number of students who were listening to rock music on transistor radios, underlined the fact that we have a generation gap in Christian music.
There is great danger in thinking that what we are facing is merely a problem between Christian and secular music, or between youth and older people. To think so is an over-simplification that could have tragic consequences for the church in the future. The whole of the music world is in a state of change and confusion.
Henry Pleasants, who was trained in classical music at the Philadelphia Music Academy and at the Curtis Institute of Music and was for many years the European musical correspondent of The New York Times, has written that serious music has come to a dead end in recent years. He offers as his opinion that real creativity and pleasurable music is now in the so-called popular field. He further states in his book, Serious Music and All That Jazz, that future historians will record our present day as "the Afro-American epoch in the evolution of Western music."
Perhaps the most unfortunate fact of music as it is heard in many evangelical churches today and also on many Christian radio stations, is the fact that it is a strange hybrid that has evolved from our recent past and seems to be as dated as bobby sox. Much of the present gospel music is really a type that is a close relative to the bland kind of dance music that went out of fashion with the 'forties. Its great defect is that it is attractive to neither the lovers of classical music nor the modern youth, unless they have been conditioned for many years to appreciate it. It is one more evidence that in our attempts to avoid becoming too close to the world, we have built up our own little tribe complete with its own dialect and music. Many of us get much pleasure and benefit from listening to gospel music, but that does not mean that it is a good medium for today's youth to express their own devotion to God, or for us to use in offering the gospel to them.
Two Groups Worshiping
In Morocco I remember a small building that served as the home of three congregations one Arabic, one Spanish, and one English-speaking. What chaos it would have been if they all worshiped at one time, or if one group insisted that all the speaking and singing be in their most familiar tongue! Yet in most of our churches, with older and younger generations, we have two different groups worshiping. Although each has its own dialect and music, they worship together and use language and music that has very little relevance for one of the groups.
When the early missionaries went into Africa they introduced their converts to the folding organ and western-style church music. Dr. Eugene Nida has commented that it is a pity that the drum wasn't used instead, for the drum is the instrument indigenous to Africa. In the Moroccan church mentioned earlier it was striking to notice that although all three congregations used different languages, they all used the same tunes, tunes with which I was very familiar, and which had been introduced by the missionaries who supplied the hymnal books.
In the case of the Arabs this was particularly unfortunate. Their popular music in the market and their religious music in the mosques have little similarity to Western hymnology. Arab music in the mosque is characterized by a form of chant. In recognition of this fact, one English Episcopal missionary has tried to adapt old Anglican chants for Arab worship services. Although this innovation was well received, it did not succeed in breaking the monopoly held by the conventional hymn styles.
The pervading influence of Anglo-Saxon musical styles is also seen in Latin America. Attending an evangelical meeting south of the border can be an uncanny experience. The language, of course, is different, and the song directors show their Spanish features; but the gestures, tone of voice, and other little marks typical of evangelical song leaders in North America are strikingly familiar. In some cases I have had the feeling that, in spite of the language difference, I was attending a puppet show in another land where the old familiar dolls are used and the same hands pull the strings.
All of this is done with the best of intentions. I used to be such a musical snob that I would not choose hymns from the Sankey hymnbook (or indeed, any hymn that had a refrain) if i could help it. I quite sincerely held the view that only the "best music" of the church was adequate for worship and Christian growth. It is so easy to have prejudices and call them principles.
Many of us in the older generation do not like the music that is popular with young people, but we often seem unwilling to realize that our young people find the music of the older generation just as distasteful.
One of the tragedies of our day is to observe the great decline in congregational singing. It is sad to watch the average congregation during a worship service. For many people, congregational singing would appear to be just as much a spectator sport as is "special music."
Moreover, the modern music form does not seem ideally suited to improve this situation. Much of secular folk-rock is a spectator affair, not designed for community singing. In the Swiss Alps I was once in a group of young people who had come in from a day in the mountains. Several of them had guitars and it was easy to see that the pieces that they were singing were known internationally, but it was equally clear that they found it almost impossible to sing them as a group.
What We Can Do
Fortunately, there are exceptions. In re cent years some of our evangelical musicians have done some excellent work in adapting folk and folk-rock type music for Christian use. In worshiping a few months ago in the Village Church of Western Springs, III., I was greatly impressed by the youth choir singing "Take my Life and Let it Be" to a new folk-type arrangement. It brought the words home with a freshness that I would not have believed possible.
To improve congregational singing and musical communications between the generations, it seems that several steps are necessary at this time.
1. There must be a determined effort on the part of older people to encourage and, if possible, to enjoy new types of church music. We may not understand how a teenager can concentrate upon his homework while a disc jockey talks as if he is a 33 1/3 r.p.m. record played at 45 r.p.m. speed, and occasionally interrupts his spiel with the most distracting music; but the fact is that he can.
2. There should likewise be a real effort on the part of young people to under stand what is good about the music that means so much to many thousands of older people. Something that has helped so many cannot be all bad. It must be given a chance.
3. The church should embark upon an intensive program of education on behalf of congregational singing. By this I do not mean trying to make all of our congregations sound like choirs, but to have some sessions where new forms of musical expression are introduced. In a church I once pastored we did this. The session was held once a month after the evening service and was called the "family fellowship."
4. Far more attention should be paid to the uses of recorded music in our church life. Although the resources of most churches do not enable them to put on first-class performances of either the great religious classical pieces or good standard Christian folk music, for a relatively small expense untold riches of re corded music could be available. It has long astounded me that so little has been done in this way.
We are in a day of great change and difficulty, but we have available to us great tools. The next ten years could be days of rich development in the field of church music. Whether it is so depends upon us.
A final word of caution. We are living in a world of incredible change and music is only one of the areas where the church must grow. However, there are real dangers here. History records that the church of Christ has sometimes lost its influence through failure to change, but on the other extreme, it has often suffered through people who became so obsessed by the need for change that they failed to preserve the distinctive message that they once had.
It is not necessary to go to either of these extremes. The way in which the message is presented may need to change. But if, in the attempt to be in fashion, we change our message, we shall have betrayed our calling and failed our generation.
