The Divine Voice - Part 1

In addition the Lectures on Calvinism, another book I am working through is by Stephen Webb, professor of religion and philosophy at Wabash College, who has just written a book titled The Divine Voice – Christian Proclamation and the Theology of Sound. I am approximately one-fourth of the way through the book and I find it quite helpful, though there are certainly many points at which I do not agree. It appears that Webb is sympathetic to neo-orthodox thinking, but he is in some ways very helpful to the evangelical and reformed community because he is at enough of a distance to make objective observations about the place of sound in life and worship. In our over-visually stimulated world, it is a breath of fresh air to think about the importance God himself places on sound, specifically that of the voice.

We speak only because God has spoken us into existence, and thus we become God’s echo. He writes, “Adam’s naming of the animals represents the way we are called to mediate the authority of God’s voice to the rest of the world.” Of course, that God has spoken us into existence implies that we must be good listeners. In the fall we see the first case of “bad” listening as Adam and Eve hid from God not wanting to hear his voice – now a voice of judgment. Of course, Adam and Eve heard words of good news that day and in Christ we hear the voice of the Good Shepherd who brings word of salvation. In response, we must utter with our voices the words of faith. Then we are called to let our voices be heard that others might know him. Webb writes, “Just as we frequently do not know what we think about something until we open our mouth to talk about it, Christians do not know what they really believe until they publicly witness their faith. In other words, faith is not something we possess and then hope we can express if and when the time comes to speak out. Faith is embodied when the confidence required to be a witnessed is experience as a gift from God.”

More to come on Webb’s book, but even these few thoughts ought to give us pause as to how we use our ears and tongue.