Instrumental Music: Faith or Opinion?. . .

WHAT MUST THE CHURCH OF CHRIST
DO TO BE SAVED? (8)

(For this installment on what we in Churches of Christ must do to be saved I want you to read someone else, Bob Shaw, a preacher among us who changed his mind about some things after 25 years. While his subject is instrumental music, a question we are going to have to face with more boldness if we are to be saved, it is the spirit of freedom with which he writes and the change he has made in attitude that is especially impressive. It is his courage to think and to question tradition that points to what the Churches of Christ most need if we are to have a viable witness in our kind of world. If we could learn but one thing from his experience it would be wonderfully liberating: that the Bible does not make it clear that instrumental music is a sin. You will notice that he is not asking us to adopt instrumental music, but to cease being sectarian about it. Bob is minister to the non-instrumental Church of Christ in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada.—the Editor)

I spent the first 25 years or so of my life fighting against instrumental music in worship, believing it to be a matter of faith. Since I saw it as a matter of doctrine, I had no qualms for feeling justified in condemning to hell all who used it. During the last 10 years I have become convinced that instrumental music is a matter of opinion. To some this will make me a “liberal” who is not standing up for the truth. But I have the right to change my mind, and I want to tell you why I changed my mind. It was an honest and open look at our “position” and a diligent search of the Scriptures. Here are some of the things I found:

1. I came to see that all references to singing that we use to defend our position were addressed to the individual Christian and not the assembled church. This means that to be consistent we would have to say that instrumental music would be as wrong at home as at church, a position we do not generally take.

2. I came to question if I could really believe that millions of people will be condemned to hell for violating a law that is not even found in the books. Can you imagine being arrested, tried, and convicted for breaking a law that does not even exist? And we have to admit that there is no law prohibiting instruments in worship. Is not God a just God?

3. I was forced to conclude that if instrumental music is the sin that we have made it then surely God would have made it clear. It would have required just one more line in the Bible. Does not God make matters of salvation clear?

4. I had to face the fact that while we read the Psalms in our assemblies we skip those that call for the use of instruments in praising God. It is as if these psalms were surgically removed from the Bible! Do these psalms call upon people to do that which is sinful?

5. I had to admit to myself that there are good, honest, and knowledgeable Christians who do not see this issue the way we do. Such ones respect the authority of the Bible as much as we do.

6. I was made to see the fallacy of our position by one event in particular. In an open forum at Freed-Hardeman University one of our better known preachers, Guy N. Woods, was asked if it was all right to have an instrument brought into a church building for a wedding. His answer began with: “Since the Bible clearly teaches that instrumental music in worship is sinful. . .” He went on to advise against it since people might think we approved of it in worship.

I must say honestly and sincerely that the Bible does not clearly teach that instrumental music in worship is sinful! That is only our deduction and inference. It does in fact clearly teach that instrumental music is fitting and good and pleasing to God (Ps. 92, 147, 150, etc.).

7. I was further disarmed by the promise that God is going to hand me a harp with which to praise him in heaven (Rev. 15:1-3). If God accepted and even commanded instruments in the Old Testament, condemns them in the New Testament, and then approved of them again for heavenly worship, we must have a vacillating God, which is an unacceptable conclusion. Nor can I conceive of a merciful, loving God giving me an instrument in heaven after condemning millions of others for using them.

8. I came to realize that the basic problem in all this is distinguishing between matters of faith and matters of opinion. The same argument that condemns instrumental music condemns Sunday schools, vacation Bible schools, multiple cups for the Lord’s Supper, four-part harmony, and on and on. Until we realize that these are opinions over which we can agree to differ, we will continue to divide.

My purpose in saying these things is not to impose my conclusions on you. They are my own opinion. I do not want to bind them upon your conscience or make them a test of fellowship. We must not allow opinions to drive a wedge between us.

If all of us in a congregation agreed that it would be helpful to our worship to have instruments, I might be in favor of it. Even though I see instrumental music as a matter of opinion, I might still oppose adopting it, even if it did not violate my conscience. It might be lawful but not expedient.

I would not favor going headlong in adopting instrumental music in a Church of Christ, not in our generation at least. It is right for us to sing a cappella as a matter of personal conviction. It also preserves unity among us. It is our attitude that we must change. Our neighbors resent our unloving, unaccepting, and condemnatory attitude toward those who differ with us, even when they envy our ability to sing. We must come to see a cappella singing as our tradition, the method that is better for us, and not a matter of faith and salvation for everyone else. Unless we do honest, truth-seeking, unity-minded brothers and sisters will continue to leave us.

Why can’t we practice what we’ve been preaching all these years? We’ve always said we speak where the Bible speaks and are silent where the Bible is silent, but do we practice it? Let’s be the generation that puts our derailed unity movement back on track. Let’s be more patient and forbearing. Let’s become a people that is known for the way we love one another, and let God be the judge of His own people.

Finally, let us revive the old motto and live by it: “In matters of faith, unity; in matters of opinion, liberty; in all things, love.”—867 14th St. NE, Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada. T1A5W5