A Cappella - Religious Traditions - Christian - Opposition To Instruments in Worship

Opposition To Instruments in Worship

Present-day Christian religious bodies known for conducting their worship services without musical accompaniment include some Presbyterian churches devoted to the regulative principle of worship, Old Regular Baptists, Primitive Baptists, Plymouth Brethren, Churches of Christ, the Old German Baptist Brethren, the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church and the Amish, Old Order Mennonites and Conservative Mennonites. Certain high church services and other musical events in liturgical churches (such as the Roman Catholic Mass and the Lutheran Divine Service) may be a cappella, a practice remaining from apostolic times. Many Mennonites also conduct some or all of their services without instruments. Sacred Harp, a type of religious folk music, is an a cappella style of religious singing, but is more often sung at singing conventions than at church services.

Opponents of musical instruments in the Christian worship believe that such opposition is supported by the New Testament and Church history. The New Testament verses typically referenced are Matthew 26:30; Acts 16:25; Romans 15:9; 1 Corinthians 14:15; Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16; Hebrews 2:12, 13:15; James 5:13, which reveal a command for all Christians to sing.

There is no reference to instrumental music in the worship of the New Testament or the worship of churches for the first six centuries. That being said, the reason for such absence is highly debated, though several reasons have been put forth throughout church history. The absence of instrumental music in New Testament worship is significant given the abundance of Old Testament references and commands. After several hundred years of Tabernacle worship without instrumental music, King David introduced musical instruments into Temple worship based upon a commandment from God. God commanded who was to sing, who was to play, and what instruments were to be used, as seen in 2 Chronicles 29:25–29.

Unlike the Israelite worship assembly, which was only able to look on during Temple worship as the Levitical Priest sang, played, and offered animal sacrifices, in the New Testament, all Christians are commanded to sing praises to God. This leaves those opposed to instrumental music in worship with the understanding that if God wanted instrumental music in New Testament worship, he would have commanded not just singing, but singing and playing like he did in the Old Testament. Though God commanded instruments to be used in Temple worship, and the daily life of Israel, the first recorded example of a musical instrument in Roman Catholic worship was an organ introduced by Pope Vitalian into a cathedral in Rome around 670. Thus, over time, the expression "a cappella" (Italian for "in the manner of the chapel") came to mean exclusively vocal music in contradistinction to the spreading use of the organ in cathedrals.

Instruments have divided Christendom since their introduction into worship. They were considered a Catholic innovation, not widely practiced until the 18th century, and were opposed vigorously in worship by a number of Protestant Reformers, including Martin Luther (1483–1546), John Calvin (1509–1564) and John Wesley (1703–1791). The fact that Christendom has periodically grafted instrumental music into the worship service probably obscures, for contemporary adherents, the long, general and conscientious teaching of a cappella. In Sir Walter Scott's The Heart of Midlothian, for example, the heroine, Jeanie Deans, a Scottish Presbyterian, writes to her father about the church situation she has found in England (bold added):

The folk here are civil, and, like the barbarians unto the holy apostle, have shown me much kindness; and there are a sort of chosen people in the land, for they have some kirks without organs that are like ours, and are called meeting-houses, where the minister preaches without a gown.

Read more about this topic:  A Cappella, Religious Traditions, Christian

Famous quotes containing the words opposition to, opposition, instruments and/or worship:

    A man with your experience in affairs must have seen cause to appreciate the futility of opposition to the moral sentiment. However feeble the sufferer and however great the oppressor, it is in the nature of things that the blow should recoil upon the aggressor. For God is in the sentiment, and it cannot be withstood.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    The ancient bitter opposition to improved methods [of production] on the ancient theory that it more than temporarily deprives men of employment ... has no place in the gospel of American progress.
    Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)

    We are all instruments endowed with feeling and memory. Our senses are so many strings that are struck by surrounding objects and that also frequently strike themselves.
    Denis Diderot (1713–84)

    You who were directionless, and thought it would solve everything if you found one,
    What do you make of this? Just because a thing is immortal
    Is that any reason to worship it? Death, after all, is immortal.
    But you have gone into your houses and shut the doors, meaning
    There can be no further discussion.
    John Ashbery (b. 1927)