Music and Religion

Music is powerful. The Greeks figured that out, parents have figured it out (and therefore discourage their children from listening to heavy metal-screamo-death music), and everyone here at Converse is quite aware of how much music impacts your life. Many religions have also figured out how powerful music is. And, thus, music is a big part of many church services.

Growing up, my family attended a Methodist church. Methodists love music and love to sing. In fact, they love it so much that whenever they sing a hymn, they sing every stanza. Yes, including the seven stanzas of “Amazing Grace”. For them, singing is a big part of worshipping. Singing not only re-iterates the sermon, but also brings the congregation together. It’s fun to sing and helps the congregation to become even more emotionally involved in the service and with each other. I can’t tell you the number of times our family went into church angry with each other because of something that had happened that morning. (There was always some sort of catastrophe Sunday mornings.) However, as we sang the first hymn of the service, the tension from that morning melted away from us and whatever had gone wrong was forgotten.

The Methodist churches we attended over the years didn’t have too much instrumentation either. Usually it was only a piano which served as a simple accompaniment to the hymns, establishing the key, and helping the congregation to sing the correct melody. The music was simple yet lovely nonetheless. This allowed us to focus on the text rather than be distracted by excessive accompaniment and ornamentation.

In addition to hymn-singing, there were often performances (such as vocal solos, or an ensemble of bells) during the service as well. These performances were always so beautiful, but for some reason nobody ever applauded afterwards. I never understood this. Maybe because they were performing it for God? Or would the clapping interrupt some spiritual connection that had been formed? I really don’t know. I always thought that we should acknowledge the fact that those people had just made beautiful music.

In my opinion, church music should be fairly simple. The congregation singing together is what makes it even more beautiful. It should also be used to help us reflect on our own spirituality and provoke us to think deeper into the meaning of the sermon/text. I also think that the hymns that are sung should be traditional ones; hymns that people of all generations will recognize and be able to appreciate.