The Church Can Get Hung Up on the Silliest Ideas
Hum to yourself the well-known song from West Side Story, “Maria.” Keep this tune to yourself. If you sing it out loud you will be breaking an old Church law. The Catholic Church at one time banned the musical interval, the augmented fourth (which opens this poignant song), as dissonant and therefore the work of the Devil. They labeled it Diabolus in musica. It could not be sung in the church.
Also banned at one time was music with more than one part playing at the same time. This symbolized disunity. We hope that old Lutheran, J.S. Bach, put an end to this thinking once and for all.
We, in the church, can get hung up on the silliest things. When you read things like this (and this is from the book This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of Human Obsession, by Daniel Levitin) you just have to wonder what great ideas we put aside while we protect what we love from outside influences — which must be the work of the Devil.
It took centuries to change the medieval church’s musical hang-ups. It may be decades before we can see through the mirror dimly to identify our own silly notions that keep us from reaching out. I remember a few decades ago a church arguing against girl acolytes. It just wasn’t right to see stockings at the bottom of a church robe, was the dominating viewpoint.
Our church, the ELCA, has set goals to reach out to people of other cultures. This means we will have to accept new rhythms, new chord progressions, dance, poetry, music, dress, robes, hymnals, art, liturgies, prayer, posture and gesture, languages, food, entertainment, stockings along with the socks, and heaven forbid, ideas. We might have to add some chili and curry to the standard soup stock. We don’t have to give up the old C-F-G7 chord progression, but we might have to let the Augmented Fourth and its friends in.