Singing Out Loud

I'll close my discussion of Stephen Webb's The Divine Voice with one last note. Thinking about sound and a Christian acoustemology necessarily leads us to the topic of music and singing. Since the author promotes the idea of the usefulness of the human voice as a reflection of the divine, it comes as no surprise that he has a fairly positive view of a cappella singing.

He writes: "Paul uses musical instruments as metaphors, but he favors simple hymns and songs (Col. 3:16) rather than 'a noisy gong or clanging cymbal' (1 Cor 13:1). The result is that throughout much of its history, Christianity shared with Judaism a belief in the superiority of vocal over instrumental music. A general aesthetic priniciple seems to be at stake in the biblical approach to music: the singing voice reveals the spiritual depth of human nature and thus points to the divine source for all sound, while instrumental music tends to dissolve individual identity by drawing attention to itself rather than a transcendent source."

Of course, I'm largely preaching to the choir here (pun intended, as above), and there is nothing new here that we have not claimed for a long time. But, it's good to see someone who really thinks about the nature of sound and theology come to these conclusions as well. While Webb is certainly in favor of more a cappella singing, I do no believe he wants to abandon the use of instruments in worship entirely.

On a different subject, fall really is my favorite time of the year. The weather is great and football and baseball are the primary sports on the stage. But, I must say these 14 inning World Series games that go till 1:20 a.m. are a little much, especially when the wrong team wins. Oh well. One truly redeeming quality about baseball is that you can watch it and read at the same time. For those interested, I've found that the key is positioning. If you set your chair up at the right angle, you can read with the television in view just above and to the right of your book. Then, while reading, as your eye detects the pitcher going into his wind-up you can glance up and catch the action.