Instruments In Church
A Collection of Source Documents
Published on 13. November 1998
Book
Hardback
232 pages
978-0-8108-3595-5 (ISBN)
Description
Today, the use of musical instruments in the Christian church is so common as to be taken for granted. However, the history of the church reveals that it has had what might be called a serious love-hate affair with musical instruments. There have been periods, groups, and individuals that have rejected the use of instruments of any kind, while others have welcomed instruments with open arms. Even the question of which instruments may be played by which musicians have historically been at issue. This book guides the reader through some of these issues by letting the proponents and critics of instruments speak for themselves. Compiler David Music has carefully allowed the original writers' voices to come through, complete with whatever errors, misunderstandings, and harsh language they might have initially used. Historical documents are allowed to tell the story, but each one is presented with a brief introduction to set the context. All principal eras of church history and the major traditions are covered. Beginning with the Old Testament passages relating to the use of instruments in worship, Instruments in Church proceeds through the late 20th century. This book will be invaluable to church musicians (especially organists and ministers of music), and to students and teachers of church music history and philosophy courses.
Reviews / Votes
The remarkable scope of this judicious collection ranges over the whole of music history...the book is recommended to church musicians as well as to students and teachers of church music history. * The Diapason * This work is an excellent source for the practicing church musician as well as the academic community of music historians and philosophers. * Religious Studies Review * ... this is excellent work. David Music has made a welcome contribution by bringing together a helpful, useful, and stimulating collection of source documents on a subject that continues to significant segments of the church today. * Book Review * Fascinating collection of documents and commentary...Music has done a good job of compiling relevant materials from extremely diverse sources on this topic. The book is a valuable historical resource with rich insights. * Stone-Campbell Journal * Music has consciously sought to allow the writers to speak for themselves...These were wise decisions that reflect the care and quality of the collection. * Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture * With a name like Music, destiny must have steered the author's choice of profession as a professor of church music. He chronicles the controversies over accompanied vs. unaccompanied vocal music and permissible instruments in Christian and Jewish denominatons' places of worship from biblical times to the 20th century. * Reference and Research Book News * This is a most welcome volume. Church musicians and students will be grateful for this as a whetstone for sharpening their own understandings of the total framework for the utilization of musical instruments in the worship of Almighty God. * Southwestern Journal Of Theology * ...includes just under 70 textual excerpts, as well as an accumulation of 36 mentions of musical instruments in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible....the book succeeds in conveying the general impression that controversies regarding instruments have been recurrent features of the Christian experience, and the instruments used have varied according to time and place....Music's anthology is designed as an easily accessible collection, in English, of original source documents. * ECCB: The Eighteenth-Century Current Bibliography *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Lanham, MD
United States
Dimensions
Height: 228 mm
Width: 149 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
449 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8108-3595-5 (9780810835955)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
David W. Music is Professor of Church Music at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he has taught since 1990. His previous work includes Hymnology: A Collection of Source Readings (Scarecrow 1996).