MATHETΩN

Argument never yet convinced—but that does not prevent my entering debate occasionally. For no particular reason (this blog hasn’t to have rigid themes you know), I quote myself from such debate below. Other people said things betweenwhiles of course, but due to our space being small and our ego illimitable, they shall have to quote themselves in their own diaries if they please.

“It does seem that, while the ‘contemporary Christian music’ industry may do music righteously, it cannot be bothered to do music well. … I realize I am being too general and too harsh—but the deafest champion of ‘CCM’ cannot hope to compare it to the uniquely Christian musical inventions of the faith at its height: the cantata, the oratorio, plainsong, the shaped-note psalms. In sum, I find the CCM industry a great testimony to how insipid may be Capitalism—but certainly no very flattering testimony of God. …

“You mistake if you insist that I am not Christian: It is precisely because I am Christian that I find dodginess in the name of God loathesome; were I a disciple of Whateverism I should be amused—nay, perhaps I should feel vindicated. For how is what degrades the sensibilities ever what uplifts the spirit? How to what is merely bathetic may I venture to relinquish my whole reason and will? How will any future we may name Heaven realize without ineffable striving thereto?

“It was said of the first Christians that they had ‘turned the world upside down’; it may be said of today’s Christians that they have made an indifferent copy of the world, culled from it most culture, logic, and empathy and resold it for a fat ‘donation’. …

“Now, that God should these days produce through his servants little but dregs gives a poor idea of him as originator and sustainer of the universe—much less as source of what is grandest in the human heart. Fortunately, I do not make the error of denying all truth God’s truth, all love God’s love, all beauty God’s beauty, or I should be more distraught. …

“And I do like some modern Christian music. May I recommend John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme or any of the work of Arvo Paert as an introduction to evidence that holy genius has not abandoned us.”