Newsgroups: rec.music.christian

Well, I've been reading all the posts (really!;-), and I think I'm ready to 
offer some more flamebait, uh, "thoughts". Actually, I've significantly 
modified my approach to this question listening to all this, so I hope this
is not just old territory regurgitated...

> ... No THING is inherently evil, something Mr. Estabrook has repeatedly 
> disagreed with but never supported.  I'm simply quoting the Bible.
>
>  -- Scott @Brandeis

May I submit that "things" are evil If 1) they are brought into being in a
clearly sinful manner, or 2) they are for all intent and purpose designed to
facilitate the commission of sin. An example of the first kind would be a 
neat-sounding synth sample obtained by burning babies with cigarettes. I 
don't care whether you play "Amazing Grace" with it, or whether it is 
sufficiently doctored so you can't tell its a baby's scream, its still
evil. Goods and services which are produced by the clear and unrepentant 
abuse/exploitation of others are in the same category...

  Examples of the second kind would be an instrument of torture, such as a 
rack, or perhaps a statue of Moloch, complete with uplifted hands designed
for people to pan-fry their babies in...

I'm not sure that such were what paul was talking about in the "all *things* 
are lawful" passage Scott is apparently referring to.


>                           I asked Jesus,
>                     "How much do you love me?"
>                     "This much," He answered;
>                        and He stretched out
>                         His arms and died.

Oh, by the way, Scott, I like your .sig ...(Pax??)

Now that may dispose of some small subset of music, what do we do with the 
rest?:


Christopher A. White (Topher):

>As a rule, try this: the closer something approaches "finished product" 
>(something which cannot be used as a raw material), the more definite its
>moral nature.

This concept had been cooking in my head for some time, and I was tickled 
pink to see you post it...

If a finished work is structurally like this:


                          performance
                  --------------------------
                  lyrics       |    music
            -------------------|------------------
             words   | rhymes  | melody | harmony | rhythm
            -------------------|-------------------------- 
                 phonemes      |  pitch | timbre  |  time
            ----------------------------------------------
                 snippets of audio-spectrum waveforms

then the ability of any element to convey a *moral* concept must be 
related to its ability to convey an *idea*. Clearly the thing as a 
whole can (and usually does) do so. Take away the performance element,
and the idea (and moral) statement may or may not remain (in the case
of satire, it may not, as someone has pointed out). Now, if one separates
the lyric from the music, it seems that most, if not all, of the ability to
unambiguously communicate *idea* goes with the lyric. Most of what is left in
the music will be much more basic, e.g. emotions of anger, joy, dispair; 
"snippets" of ideas in which is insufficient context remains to pass any moral 
judgement. And the farther down you go in the hierarchy, the less ability to
convey ideas, and therefore evil *or* good, remains.
  However, it is a bit presumptious to give the music a clean bill of
health, *entirely*.  One has only to take a college curriculum in music history
(or observe the philosophical flamefests over in rec.music.compose), to see 
that the very structure of Western music has deep philosophical underpinnings. 
And, particularly in this century, the philosophical underpinnings of our 
culture's music are less and less "christian". This does not in and of itself 
make the music "evil". It simply raises the question of whether every 
prevailing style is really designed to make the statements we want to make. A 
style that philosophically screams "the world is total chaos; there is no 
Reason or Law at its center," is unlikely to be very useful extolling the 
majesty of the God of creation. And perhaps (this is where I'm making a shift
of thought from earlier posts) it is inappropriate to label anything "evil" at
this stage. Label it "not very useful for the thoughtful Christian writer."

I hope you-all still don't take this to mean that I believe in "demonic" 
rhythms, etc.  Clearly there is a lot of claptrap being espoused by the 
Christian right-wing.  But rather than just make an equally knee-jerk "music 
has no morals" statement in reaction, how much better to put a framework in 
place by which we can legitimately and Biblically *judge* what we hear.

Bob(Puddleglum: "Stop!...don't eat another bite...it's a *talking stag")Miller

rhm@hpfirhm.fc.HP.COM