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Of Mice and Church Music

The great English preacher, Charles Spurgeon, said when he was a boy his mother gave him five cents for each rat he killed and five cents for each church hymn he learned.  When he became a minister, he said the hymns he had learned meant much to him in life, but he confessed he made much more money killing rats than learning hymns. 

We know that music may influence for “good or bad” in the lives of young people and much is being written today about the evil, even satanic influences prevalent in “rock and roll” music.  Some years ago I read a statement attributed to William Booth, the Founder of the Salvation Army, that “How strange it is that the best tunes are attributed to the devil.”  Implied in this statement, if I read it correctly, is that there are good tunes which may be used in “praise of Almighty God” – tunes that may be sung with enthusiasm and fervor as the music of the world is sung. 

Dr. John Leith, a theologian at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, said of music some years ago in a lecture that, “the reason children love the music of the world is that they haven’t been taught the music of the Church.”  If this statement is true, one shudders to think of all the children in our city who are not being taught the “music of the faith” and who will only know the “music of the world.”  Yes, it’s true that each church seeks to provide music for small children who attend, but what of the vast numbers of children whose parents seldom if ever attend church school and worship with them. 

Music is important in human lives.  Much of the Church’s theology about life, death, sorrow and hope is expressed in the music we sing.  In the difficulties, which come to each human life there often comes to mind, a hymn learned in childhood, which sustains one. 

Music is important in the praise of the Almighty God, and that is why we begin our worship with a hymn of praise and adoration.  When we get to heaven there will be hymns of praise on our lips.