# Aesthetic Preferences in Worship



## py3ak (Mar 3, 2011)

Here is an interesting article on the Reformation 21 blog. A few sentences particularly struck me:



> All that being said, I have had a nagging question in the back of my mind for some time now, and that question is this: Does at least some of the current interest in "traditional worship" have more to do with the postmodern turn to the aesthetic than with a principled concern for truth?
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I think it could be possible to go even a step or two further than the author does and suggest that aesthetics is the wrong category to use for evaluating worship; not because our worship happens in an aesthetic vacuum, or because there is no such thing as bad taste, but because in order to prevent the risks of regulative (or constitutive) principle confusion, of treating worship as a performance, and of failing to mortify our flesh at the crucial point where we come as a body to worship God our worship aesthetic should be simple and transparent.

Thus though at home I very much enjoy listening to Galuppi's motets, though that is the sort of music that does give me aesthetic pleasure, that is not what I want to hear at church. Or to put it another way, this quote is incredibly misguided:



> Art reaches its real perfection in worship, as an embodiment of devotion in beautiful forms, which afford a pure pleasure, and at the same time excite and promote devotional feeling.


Philip Schaff, _History of the Christian Church_, v.2, ch.6, §76, p.267


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## Peairtach (Mar 3, 2011)

> that a lot of evangelical worship is, by upper-middle-class standards, a bit tacky?



Where worship deviates from biblical standards it wil be tacky, cornball, subject to, and victim of, winds of fad and fashion, subject to being out-of-fashion, subject to being cringeworthily bad worship and/or entertainment, etc.

Simple biblical worship doesn't allow too much room for creativity, which is a good thing. E.g. with a less than strict adherence to the regulative principle of worship, there is a wide and uneven range of post-canonical songs to choose from, along with a wide variety of instruments and instrument combos, and musical styles. If dancing, clapping, hand waving and shouting are thrown into the mix as accepted as normal parts of worship, the scope for sung worship to descend into tacky entertainment is greatly increased. 

Much of modern worship grew in the Jesus People and Charismatic stables and is fuelled by the charismatic passion for the outward and dramatic and demonstrative as being signs of healthy "spirituality". 

Also Reformed worship is too "boring" for many that have been used to the contemporary Christian music, as I've heard from their own lips.


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## Notthemama1984 (Mar 3, 2011)

Richard Tallach said:


> Also Reformed worship is too "boring" for many that have been used to the contemporary Christian music, as I've heard from their own lips.



I completely agree. I have heard some pastors state otherwise, but it seems they have that opinion because of a very small number of people in their church have stated that they prefer it. Having a single surfer or hippie in your traditional service does not mean the young crowd is flocking to the traditional style services.

Just my humble opinion.


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## donk (Mar 3, 2011)

The turn has definitely been to an appeal to aesthetics in order to defend traditional hymn-singing with a piano against praise bands and worship teams. A good example of this is R.C. Sproul's series "Rediscovering the Beauty of the Arts" which is in fact almost entirely an argument for a certain kind of worship rather than a serious discussion of the arts outside of worship.

It is necessary to appeal to aesthetic standards from the Greeks or classical music because of course there is no Biblical argument from the regulative principle that can be made in favor of traditional hymns and pianos over against worship songs and praise choruses. The turn to increasingly informal worship in the 60s and 70s has been replaced by a turn back to greater order, but many coming from a broadly evangelical background think that artistic standards, good taste and liturgicalism are the way to bring order back.

The irony is that the aesthetic argument, made to defend the traditional Presbyterian worship style, in fact has destroyed it. If excellence and beauty are the standard, then a simple piano is no longer good enough. My PCA church down in Texas has to have paid professional musicians playing quartets during the collection. Low church liturgy must be replaced by high church forms. Sproul advocates the Gothic cathedral over our town hall-like church buildings, and beautiful written prayers are to be preferred to the simple unrehearsed prayers of the past. 

Although I am currently a member of the PCA, I grew up in the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Scotland and America. We never were in danger of worship songs and praise teams, but we didn't have to justify our exclusive psalmody by belittling the aesthetic sense of others. It was the Bible on which we stood. We were low church as all Presbyterians truly are. But these days the turn to high church forms and appeals to learning and aesthetics have resulted in some asking whether a Tradition must be appealed to. Hence, I have known many friends, classmates and professors who left Presbyterianism for Greek Orthodoxy, Catholicism or Anglicanism, usually with some comment about grounding the liturgy in a tradition or introducing the sensory and aesthetic element into worship.

Presbyterians forgot why they were who they were, and contemporary worship practices have exposed that ignorance. I think John Frame has made many arguments in defense of CCM music on the basis of the regulative principle which expose the weakness and the difficulties with the aesthetic argument made by many like Sproul these days.


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## discipulo (Mar 4, 2011)

donk said:


> It is necessary to appeal to aesthetic standards from the Greeks or classical music because of course there is no Biblical argument from the regulative principle that can be made in favor of traditional hymns and pianos over against worship songs and praise choruses. The turn to increasingly informal worship in the 60s and 70s has been replaced by a turn back to greater order, but many coming from a broadly evangelical background think that artistic standards, good taste and liturgicalism are the way to bring order back.
> 
> The irony is that the aesthetic argument, made to defend the traditional Presbyterian worship style, in fact has destroyed it. If excellence and beauty are the standard, then a simple piano is no longer good enough. My PCA church down in Texas has to have paid professional musicians playing quartets during the collection. Low church liturgy must be replaced by high church forms. Sproul advocates the Gothic cathedral over our town hall-like church buildings, and beautiful written prayers are to be preferred to the simple unrehearsed prayers of the past.



Great thread and insights. 

My concern is, when are we hiding an Aesthetical, or Traditional reasoning, for that purpose, under a Redemptive Historical argument, or vice verse, when is our exegesis concerning God's approved worship in Scripture not taking into account the progression of Redemptive History 

I'm struggling between accepting fully the RPW as meaning just Singing Inspired Canonical Texts (mostly Psalms of course) without Musical Instruments (being OT shadows and spilled with blood like Scott Clark puts it in his RRC) and a broader view that accepts a New Covenant Worship pretty much as we do have a New Covenant Prophecy in Gospel Preaching.

I just read a very interesting article by Dominic A. Aquila - RPW and Redemptive History - one of the essays in Hope Fulfilled, the festschrift honouring Dr. Palmer Robertson 
Aquilas for those who don't know, is the President of New Geneva Theological Seminary - and he clearly defends the use of Hymns well routed on Biblical Doctrine, as an accepted element in worship.

I had heard Derek Thomas saying pretty much the same, Christ is present in the Psalter, but we can have non inspired songs as we have non inspired preaching, as long as it is in accord with what is Revealed in Scripture, particularly to delclare the finished work of Christ and His second glorious coming.

These theologians, Aquila and Thomas, would not advocate the confusion brought by John Frame's revisionism between elemnents and circumstances, they both susbcribe the RPW in a Confessional way, but none they defend the use of non inspired hymns.

I must say, it has been a long walk from me since my early days in evangelicalism, by God's Grace I will walk the extra mile towards an RPW with just Inspired Texts including New Testament Doxologies sang A-Capella, but I am confronted with solid Confessional Reformed Theologians who say not to throw the baby with the water, so to speak.


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