WHO IS IT THAT OPPOSES THE ORGAN?

One of the brothers who attended the Unity Forum in Dallas last summer, Claud Stults of Mississippi, insisted at the time that the issue of instrumental music in worship will have to be faced realistically if unity is to be realized in our fractured brotherhood. While no leader in current unity efforts supposes the instrument question can or should be ignored, some of us contend that fellowship can be restored without unanimity of opinion. Surely the subject must remain on the agenda for honest reexamination on the part of us all. But we would hate to conclude that we must see eye to eye on the use of instrumental music before we can enjoy each other’s fellowship. We fear it would never come. Let us close our divided ranks first, then we can work more understandingly on our differences.

This is in no wise a suggestion that any brother compromise what he believes to be the truth, nor to endorse anything he believes to be wrong. It only means that we can all accept each other as brothers in Christ, and treat each other as such (making no differences on the ground of opinions), despite differences like instrumental music.

This must be the point Paul makes in Rom. 15:1: “We who have strong faith ought to shoulder the burden of the doubts and qualms of others and not just to go our own sweet way.” (Phillips)

We are not saying that the question of instrumental music should be tabled until we overcome our divisions. Certainly it should continue to be discussed. But the solution of the question should not be made a condition to restored fellowship. Such an attitude makes unity impossible.

Yet we agree with brother Stults. We must not only take a long, hard look at the organ question, but we must realize that the issue is so emotionally charged that we must give it very careful consideration, realizing that more understanding of the problem will enhance our chances for oneness. The interesting thing about brother Stults’ proposal is that it comes from an instrumentalist who is ready to make a scriptural defense of his practice. He wants us to have some panel discussions on the subject and thrash it out. He thinks he can convince any reasonable man that the instrument is scripturally permissible. He does not mean, of course, that the saints must use an instrument in their singing, but that they are free to do so.

I am afraid I would have to sit opposite the good brother from Mississippi, for I can find no scriptural warrant for the use of an instrument. I may not be anti-instrumental in the sense that I make its use a test of fellowship, but I am certainly non-instrumental in that I am convinced that congregations of the Restoration Movement should not use it.

A neglected feature of the instrument question, especially in its relation to unity, is the objection that there is to it outside our own circles. If we might suppose the impossible, and say that brother Stults and other instrumentalists convinced the rest of us, then we would all have to join hands and persuade still others, outside our own Movement. While it is true that most religious groups approve of the instrument, there are some that are grossly offended by its use. Since we can all agree that it is all right not to . have it, it would appear that a non-instrumental approach to unity would be more charitable.

Those who suppose that the Church of Christ wing of our Movement is the only group within the Christian world that objects to the instrument should read the tract I now have at my side, entitled Why No Instruments? It is written by a clergyman of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America. But it might have been written by a representative of the Church of Scotland, the Greek Orthodox Church, or by one of a number of small communions that are offended by instrumental music in worship.

And if you instrumentalists think that we in the Church of Christ have adamant views about the organ, you should read this Presbyterian! He not only rejects the instrument as a kind of music that is unauthorized, but goes right to the taproot by opposing it as an aid. And you’ll not like the company he puts you in:

It’s interesting to note that the same persons who use an organ as an aid to their worship condemn the group which uses statues as aids to their worship, but is there any real difference between the two? Both are aids to worship, and both are man’s invention, unauthorized in the Holy Scripture.

All these years you instrumentalists have been wrapping the tuning fork around our necks. This good ole Presbyterian takes care of you by tossing the statues of Romanism back at you!

I have never been too impressed with the arguments we non-instrumentalists usually make. For the most part I find them either downright wrong or inconclusive. Mr. McCracken makes a few of these same arguments, but for the most part I like his arguments better than ours. For instance, he reasons that God never in all the Bible authorized instruments to accompany singing, whether in tabernacle or temple worship or anywhere else, but that they were a part of the ritual and ceremony, such as the calling of the assembly or for signals on the battlefield. To the contrary, our people usually argue that while you can find instruments in the Old Testament, you cannot find them in the New Testament. But McCracken insists that an instrument was never used with approval of God in either chanting or singing, but was always associated with the offerings and sacrifices of Judaism.

He hastens to point to 1 Chron. 15:16 and 2 Chron. 29:25, which seem to suggest that instruments were used with singing. While our people often argue that David used these instruments without divine authority, and use Amos 6:5 (“They invented instruments of music like David”) to prove it, which is one of those arguments that I think is downright wrong, our Presbyterian friend readily concedes that David used these instruments with divine approval, as 2 Chron. 29:25 shows. He observes that the instruments were used with the burnt offering, and also for “the song of the Lord” (only instrumental), but when the people began their worship by bowing down and by singing praises the sacrificial offering had been completed and the instruments had been silenced. Singing is therefore always a cappella in all of the Bible. The instruments were always related to the ceremonial and should no more be used in Christian worship than the blood of bulls and goats.

He also argues from the fact that the Jewish synagogues did not have instruments, and that the church’s worship developed from the synagogue rather than the ritualistic woship of the temple.

Archaeologists have found no instruments of music among the furniture of the ancient synagogues. And even today in the Orthodox Jewish Synagogue no instruments are used. The Christian Church in its original state was patterned after the synagogue and therefore the instruments had no place in the worship.

We like his contrast between “the melody of our hearts and the fruit of our lips” and lifeless instruments. Thus God makes it clear the kind of praise he wants.

Our purpose here is not an extended treatise on instrumental music, but to remind the instrumentalists that this problem goes far beyond our own circles; and to advise the non-instrumentalists that we not suppose that our practice is unique in the Christian world.

This relates the problem all the more to the greater issue of the unity of all believers. Once we succeed in restoring unity to all the forces within the Restoration Movement, we can then approach the Christian world with a better conscience. But what are we going to say about instrumental music? If we know it is all right not to use the instrument, then perhaps we should all think in such terms—for the sake of the unity of all believers—if for no other reason. —the Editor