From last week Monday, to date--and continuing on to this coming Saturday--a powerful series of evangelistic meetings are taking place at Gamalakhe, a local township with an informal settlement attached to it in the Port Shepstone area of KwaZulu-Natal's South Coast. Apart from my literally hating the series of so-called speed humps unstrategically placed around the township's major, roundabout road, I was intrigued to notice that it has a powerful sea view. It may be distant, but it is there. There is little evidence to show that it does anything to the local property values, but then, I digress. It isn't that bit of the Great Controversy that intrigues me right now.
Here is my source of intrigue. I am musical. The older I grow, the more that I am learning to appreciate the power and pathos of music. For one thing, while variety is the spice of life, it is interesting that life is just life. There is no variety to its own essence. The sun always rises in the east and sets in the west. We NEVER get a variety of the sun setting in the south and rising in the north. Each day is always 24 hours long, and every week seven days long. There is never a day that is an hour longer or shorter, or a week devoid of a day or two. Despite the significance of variety in life, the presence of certain key constants is part of what makes life worth living. Without these constants, we would not be alive, or if we were, we would not know that we were experiencing variety in life in its other aspects where we ought.
This is the reason for my preamble: with due respect to the pastors behind this evangelistic campaign, I had the shock of my life to hear them say that they intend to dispense with the use of our regular song book and songs during this campaign. To them, the prospect of proselytising some of the folk that they hope will visit the meetings requires them to set the music to the tone of the songs and manner of singing in the other churches around us. They hope to draw the people's attention by singing
their music. Apparently, some visitors to other Adventist campaigns of a similar sort have hailed the truthfulness and power of the Advent message, but shunned subsequent Adventist church fellowship because they apparently did not understand Adventist music. To a man whose whole life is devoted to ministering to the spiritual needs of a growing congregation, it is a blow to his keen sense of duty when some prospective members use such excuses to stay away from swelling the ranks of Adventist congregations. In a sense, the extent to which a particular congregation grows reflects positively or otherwise on a pastor's performance. This is so despite the pastors and the conference leaders who organise their labours knowing that it is the Holy Spirit's duty to convert human hearts--NOT the pastors'.
We have been treated, therefore, to a continual contradiction in terms. The singing, more often than not, contradicts the essence of Advent singing and songs. When the sermon comes onto the stage, it does the very inverse; it more than sticks to the true essence of the Advent message. Throughout the days of the campaign's duration, I feel this inconsistency deeply--but my pastors are as at home with it as ever.
To illustrate the irony of the situation, they hired the services of a young man from another congregation, but one who knows these alternative songs and plays them on piano/keyboard. Since he does not have a piano/keyboard of his own, he used mine. On the very first day that I did, I thanked the Almighty when I heard the young man asking for the functions to activate the automatic rhythms on the keyboard. I use a professional digital synthesiser. If one must use drums on it, they must programme them on a computer. I could just picture the cacophony of so-called religious sound that a keyboard with automatic rhythms would have created! Again, I thank God that such a facility was not available for the young man's use.
This past weekend, two days in a row, this young man failed to turn up for his playing appointment. By the time that he decided to return, the local pastor had decided against using his services. Here is where I read some deep irony. For someone who had been consistently coming to the meetings as an instrumentalist, but belonging to a different denomination, one would have thought that the messages in the sermons during the time that he spent at the venue of the meetings would have created a positive impression on him. Now that he no longer had to play an instrument, one would have thought that he would have stayed the meetings, at least for that one, as testimony to the power of the spoken word. As soon as he heard that his musical services were no longer necessary, he politely turned around and walked away.
So much for using music that is predominantly foreign to the gospel of Jesus Christ to introduce the gospel of Jesus Christ. His music stood between his availability for musical reasons and his availability to tune into the spoken word. Most musical people are impervious to the power of the spoken word because the bewitching power of music makes it almost impossible for them to hear anything spoken. They are as good as drunk.
My own take of this situation is three-fold:
- Advent music, in its own right, is a mixture of hymns that the Adventist church has inherited from all sorts of different walks in the Christian experience, beginning with Methodism, down to Lutheranism. Even Baptists and a variety of other contemporary Christian musicians have contributed immensely to Advent hymnody. What makes the Adventist setting in music different from the same sources from which some of its music emanates is simply this: Adventism uses its biblically-driven theology to rigorously preselect its songs. Adventism also edits any theologically inept lyrics from any songs that it decides to borrow. This preselection, effectively, means that all Adventists who are conversant with the biblical tenets of their faith need to stand and remain unmoved by any attempt to veer away from the use of Advent songs in any Adventist evangelistic campaign or worship service. For as long as Adventist preachers do not see the need to merge their theology with that of other professed Christian persuasions--and rightly so, Adventist songs, likewise, do not need the same compromise.
- By the time that any converts stream into the fellowship of the Adventist faith, an adjustment shock of sorts awaits them in the churches to which they will belong. The borderline, compromised music that sounded so familiar to the one that they were used to in their churches is NOT standard fare within most mainstream Adventist churches. A question of truth-telling and honesty then raises its ugly head at this point. Was it REALLY honest to be so unrepresentative of Adventism at the point of musically advertising it (so to speak) that Adventists would deceptively use the musical advertising strains of a competing brand to garner the support of unsuspecting customers (as we would call them IF this were a business venture), only to peel off their fake, outer veneer as soon as the customers have filed into the shop for the falsely-advertised product? Would the God who categorically stated in His commandments that it is immoral to bear false witness against our neighbours be charmed with our attempts to win converts through a breach of this specific commandment?
- Music, itself, has a power on the human psyche that eclipses that of the spoken word. Most preachers do not know this, and even upon being reliably informed that such is the case, they still find solace in their routine and retinue of theological expertise garnered from their alma mater theological seminaries. I repeat: the power of music has a greater hold on the human psyche than does the art of the finest preaching. To excite the sensibilities of people with a strain of music that is an antithesis to one's spoken word is to effectively work against one's own objective. Most of the Christian music that is popular in today's predominantly pentecostal religious world is extremely exciting, sensuous and titillating. Having lowered the mind's guard to the basest of extents, it is little wonder that there isn't much concerted effort from attendees at these powerful preaching services, where the compromising music preceded the preaching, to convert the "amens" throughout the sermons to actual, conscientious conduct.
As this part of the Great Controversy between the forces of darkness and light continues, my call is simple: we need to choose to create an atmosphere of perfect, mind-clarity in a service dedicated to the worship of God. God's word ought to appeal to the intellect--not to base sensuality and excited emotions.
Wasn't that a simple task?
