Steadfast Media Pick of the Week — Sins of Omission
January 18th, 2013
Sins of Omission
This interview with Dr. Leonard Payton starts off by using the Arian heresy as an example of how false doctrine can be spread through song. Then Dr. Payton delves into today’s contemporary praise music and how it fails by omitting essential Christian doctrines and what effects it can have.
Original Air Date: April 17, 2003
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Categories: Steadfast Media Pick of the Week
The issue of Contemporary Music boils down to two points. 1. Reflection of attention away from the Cross. 2. Abstract shallowness reflecting world views wrapped in emotional rhetoric and song.
Gene,
I like your boil down.
In addition, when looking at the motivation for COWO in a church that has been liturgical for 500 years, I boil it down to this. The pastors like the sound of the music. They think it is really cool that their teenage pop music can replace the hymns that bored them when they were kids.
@Gene White #1
1. Reflection of attention away from the Cross. 2. Abstract shallowness reflecting world views wrapped in emotional rhetoric and song.
3. Add in the people who encouraged these “entertainers” to go to seminary and discouraged those interested in being Lutheran in faith and practice, at a Concordia or in the ordinand’s first call.
@helen #3
The contemporary, CoWo, praise music leads people into the meansless heresy, thus creating a different Gospel for people to trust. When Baptism, the Lord’s Supper and declared Absolution are stripped out of proclamation a void is created. Many of the contemporary praise song proponents believe we can/should fill that void with our emotions.
But Sacramental hymns retain the theology of the cross—Christ drawing to Himself a people by showing His unmerited favor. Good hymns preach Christ filling that void with Baptism, the Sacrament of the Altar, and Absolution.
Contemporary praise music still retains the Papalist material principle—reaching the pontific vision of God, albeit dressed in happy-clappy garb. Sacramental hymns preach the material principle—justification declared outside of ourselves, by Jesus Christ.
Music is one of the popular venues where the correct perspective on Paul (expounded by Scripture and the Lutheran Confession, vs. the new perspective on Paul, expounded by Zwingli, N.T. Wright, and E.P. Sanders vie for the hearts and brains of Christians.
Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. And, He will continue do so through His means of grace rightly preached, taught, and administered for us.