The fallout of the 20th Century included more than the Bikini atolls, we are all suffering from radiation burns between our toes. In this post I want to look at the way the 20th century destroyed music, prayer and holiness. It's all about metaphysics.

Music

I once had a choir director who had a small, yellowing slip of paper posted on his bulletin board, wherein was typed (on an old-fashioned Courier typewriter) the words "He who sings prays twice."  At the time I merely thought it was a nice sentiment, encouraging the choir to be reverential, spiritual. But as the years have gone by I realize it was more than a proverb but a protest, a slogan, a cry against the creeping materialist degradation of music evident even in the 1970's.

Those of you who attend Catholic churches will recognize the revolution in church music that began in this time period, with the replacement of Mozart with guitars and tuneless, unison "songs". Now the revolution is coming to Protestant churches, with new churches being constructed without organs, without racks for hymbooks, and often the only keyboard is electronic, but never without a guitar, plugged in, and amplifiers turned up way too high. I suppose that makes up for having banished the choir, so now nobody has to sing, since no one can hear you anyway. Sway a bit, clap a bit, that shows you're participating, but sing? You gotta be kidding.  You doubt me? I challenge you to start counting next Sunday, and you can even include people whose lips are moving even if their diaphragms aren't. I predict it will be less than 50%.

I remember reading a travel piece about the changes that have come to Italy. The writer nostalgically reminisces about post-war Italy, where people were poor in possessions, but rich in children and spirit, song seemed to waft spontaneously from every quarter, and opera singers were a hot topic of conversation. Today it is wealth, football stars, few children, and no songs. What happened to Italy? What happened to sacred music?  Metaphysics.

I know, you're getting tired of my refrain, but think about it. If materialism says "all that is, is material", then what exactly is song? A form of communication? A diversion? Entertainment?  Can you think of any time or any place where song is valued just for being a song, where it doesn't have to entertain, where it doesn't have to distract or protest, or communicate; it just is, like a rock, a cloud, or a rainy day, when a sorrow might bring music to our lips, or excitement bubbles up in a song? 

I'll never forget when my daughter turned 3 years old, and the anticipation of her birthday party was just about making her burst. But of course, she didn't want to look childish to her older sisters, so she feigned indifference in that transparent way that makes 3-year olds so irresistible. Finally, unable to contain her excitement, she burst into song, "The king of Israel, had a birthday cake..."

Now take that song, take that sentiment, and multiply it 100 times, add sophistication, add maturity, add 60 years of training, of suffering and the anticipation of great joy, and you will have Palestrina's "the strife is over, the battle won...", sung on the birthday of the Church. I wait 364 days to sing that song once a year, in parts, with the soaring bass and the haunting minor key, and predictably choke up, but sing through it anyway.  It is always worth the wait.

What, however, is the modern view of such music?  While taking one of the children for music lessons, my wife was idly flipping through "String Magazine", the professional magazine for string players. She came across an interview with a famous musician where the question was asked, "What is Christian music?" After all, if it is such a big part of the music market, one should know what repertoire will sell. After tossing around theories on various styles and musical accompaniment, they settle on an answer. "Any music with Christian words." 

Just the other week, I was sitting in my chair at choir practice for the last time, hearing the head pastor explain why the choir had to be disbanded (something about complaints and quality), when he brought up that same point, that there is nothing special about musical styles, why even Martin Luther's Ein Feste Burg had been a bar song. Now mind you, this is a common urban legend, based on a misunderstanding of the word "bar" which meant "metered", as in "4/4 time".  For centuries actually, church music had been composed exclusively for the church in both text and accompaniment. And in particular, Luther had written both the text and the music for this great hymn of the faith. But correcting these historical errors did nothing to change his argument, that musical style was an accident of church worship, an incidental that could change like the fashion of wearing hats.

He went further. He challenged us to find something in the Bible that contradicted him. Well, we pointed out how David had commanded the Levitical priests to sing, and established permanent positions in music.
"That was the Old Testament," came the reply.   We countered, "Then how about Revelation?"
Sounds like a pretty exclusive choir to me, with accompaniment.

The senior pastor shrugged, and said, "But you haven't shown that [our new music band with microphones] is un-Biblical."  I think what he meant was that the theology of worship in a Protestant church may have some criteria on preaching about inerrancy, omnipotence and the virgin birth, but nothing on singing. So anything goes, as long as it is "seeker-friendly";  any style can be Christian music, if it has Christian words.

Now if we wanted to start gunslinging verses around, we might note that David gave this specific job to "Chenaniah, leader of the Levites in music, should direct the music, for he understood it."  And furthermore, Revelation allows only the 144,000 choir to sing, because only they are properly qualified. Music is not nearly as loosey-goosey as modern church-growth experts would tell you. What I am after in this post is not some Bible proof-texting, but understanding the model, the metaphysics that informs post-modern man.  Is accompaniment just Muzak for the message, or is there something definitive one can say about "a song without words"?

As I have often argued, there is a strong Gnostic streak through modern society. While claiming to be materialists in all things scientific and political, we value spiritual things in our religion and aesthetics. So we value the meaning of church, even as we devalue the practice of church. We value the words of the song, even as we devalue the notes of the song. We value the sociological aspects of worship, even as we devalue the tools of worship. We value the theories of multi-universes, even as we devalue the physical bodies that inhabit one.  And this dualism is nowhere more apparent than in the common practice of separating words and music, or as my brother used to joke "Let's sing House of the Rising Sun to the tune of Amazing Grace!"  (And arguing that for centuries the hymns were often printed with words and music separated so as to enable this mix-and-match approach to worship, does not negate the implicit dualism.)

For if music is as significant as the words, then there can be non-Christian music, just as there can be non-Christian sermons, such as "Workers of the world unite!". And if body and soul are one, with only the sword of the spirit capable of destroying that union, which is to say, death and birth are alike in their spiritual significance, then how can we so glibly sanctify bad music with holy sentiments? And if such sacred music exists, and has been found and treasured by the church for centuries, how can we then so easily dispense with the riches of our inheritance? Surely not without peril.

Prayer

The same metaphysical Gnosticism afflicts our view of prayer. I was disturbed enough by this exchange on the web, that I had to remark on it. It began with NRO columnist Heather McDonald's revelation that she was an atheist

NRO's Jonah Goldberg started a thread more than over three years ago, that tried to address these questions Heather raises.

Something's been bugging me all weekend and I thought maybe the Cornerites around here might have an answer. First, a disclaimer: This is purely a theological question and not an attempt to denigrate or single out anyone's religious views.

I constantly hear about the power of prayer. Often, when I listen to televangelists, representatives of the Catholic Church and a host of lay and civil leaders there is a declared or implied view that the more people who pray for something the more likely it is that it will happen. Televangelists are the most obvious example. They often ask viewers to join with them in prayer to do this or do that. But what made me think of it was a A&E documentary on the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping. Various people said they needed as many people as possible to pray for her recovery.

Anyway, so my question is: Why should the number of prayers or praying petitioners matter? Surely God isn't a politician. Surely he doesn't ignore the just and deserving prayer of one man while heeding the same or lesser request from 10,000? God, after all, is a dictator of infinite wisdom and justice. His will is no less His will if everyone disagrees with it.

Of course, Abraham (and Moses) both argue with God. And Abraham in fact negotiated God down to a minimum number of good people in Sodom and Gomorrah that could save it from destruction ("And what if there are ten good people, will you kill them too?" I'm quoting from memory.) So presumably numbers and persuasion have always played a role in God's thinking.

So what is the theological underpinning of this widespread religious locution? Without doing any research I can think of only two answers. The first is that prayer is considered a good in itself and therefor anything which brings people in closer contact to God or the Church is therefore a good thing and should be encouraged. But, when pressed, theologians would say "No, no, God doesn't take a poll."

The other answer is that this is the product of three centuries of mass-politics bleeding into religious affairs.

Lots of people in 2003 wrote in, with good quotes from my favorite people like GK Chesterton and CS Lewis. John Derbyshire, the resident materialist at NRO, chimed in 2007 with this quote from famous mathematician Leonhard Euler, which ends with the phrase "It is thus that God answers the prayers of men without working a miracle."  Another NRO contributor, Ian Murray, who is undoubtedly a Scottish skeptic, quoted CS Lewis on the efficacy of prayer, and concluded saying, "He also points out that prayer is a request - it may, or may not, be granted.  That simple realization immediately invalidates all the "medical" studies into the efficacy of prayer, which are junk science whatever result they come up with."

So we seem to have two sides here. One would argue that prayer is a thing, if not a material thing, still a thing that can be counted, if not weighed and measured. For this group, having more people praying is obviously a good thing, just as more soldiers are good for an army, and more money is good for a business.  On the other side, we have those who would say prayer is immaterial, it is communication, it is a request. Not only can it not be measured and evaluated with science, but it makes no more sense to have multiple requests than it does for your 3 year old to say "I want candy!" for 2 hours straight. (Okay, I know Jesus had a teaching on the persistent widow, but I think this is the point both Derbyshire and Murray were making.)  So which is it, a quasi-material substance, or an immaterial idea?

It appears we are being given the old dualism 2-step: Is it body or soul, physical or spiritual, demand or request? While I don't advocate avoiding the Aristotelian law of excluded middle, this isn't one of those situations. In my paper Time, Eternity & Quantum Mechanics, I argue that trinities are far better ways to organize reality than dualities. For prayer falls into an important 3rd role with respect to body and soul, being the medium with which the two are connected. When Jesus was on Earth, he retired to pray, which led my 3-yr old to ask "Is Jesus God?" When we answered in the affirmative, she went on, "Then God is praying to God?" Exactly. It's called "the Trinity" for a reason. So prayer is not a material thing like a noun, but more like a verb. It is an action, and while actions can be quantitative, they cannot be bottled or pinned to a board. It is like electricity in the engine, like wind in the sails, like sunlight on the leaves. It is a request, but also a demand. It is to communication what breath is to atmosphere, what a drink is to the ocean, what  food is to the forest.

It is not enough to say "I eat because my mother told me to". Rather I eat because I need to, I want to, I love to. So also we should never say "I pray because Jesus told me to", but rather, because like Jesus, we cannot live without prayer.  Nor is it correct to think that we sway heaven with a multitude of prayers, as if God is the moderator of a huge democratic prayer chamber, but rather that as we implore God, God implores us, that as our prayers rise up, so also our spirits and hearts and bodies become part of that reality that is heaven itself. What were Jesus' exact words? "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven". We bring heaven to earth through prayer.  In TEQM I argue that there are two realms, earth and heaven, space-time and eternity,  the realm of the Son and the realm of the Father, and the connection between them is prayer, the Fourier transform, the realm of the Spirit. (Yes, go read the whole thing.) CS Lewis' thought experiment on prayer, or NEJM's actual experiment on prayer, are neither junk science nor junk theology, but reasonable explorations of this power source called prayer. And if we have lost our way in the 20th century, it is because the materialist denial of prayer has made us all into practical Gnostics, thinking that prayer is a blind email to heaven with little hope of reply, when it is a 220 three-phase 100 amp circuit to eternity.

Holy

"What does holy mean, children?" We were sitting in a circle on the floor, my 8-yr old, two students and a sunday school teacher, and she was doggedly going through the lesson plan for the day, the Westminster Children's Catechism. (When I was eight, we used the Shorter Catechism, but evidently it wasn't short enough for today.) And the catechism was taking us through the Lord's prayer. Various answers were floated. "Special?" "Religious?" She didn't answer but tried a different tack. "Who is holy?" The kids answered "God", and she nodded. "Can you think of anyone else?" Long silence. "The Bible?". The confusion on the teacher's face indicated that she really didn't know any more on the subject, so we moved on to the next question, "What is the Kingdom?" I think the answer was "heaven", but at that point my blood pressure was interfering with my hearing.

Why is it that George Barna lists on his <a href="http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdateNarrowPreview&BarnaUpdateID=252"> website</a>  that the third most serious problem with American Christianity is,
Barna continues this theme in a longer webpage (http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdate&BarnaUpdateID=219

Overall, three out of every four adults (73%) believe that it is possible for someone to become holy, regardless of their past. Only half of the adult population (50%), however, says that they know someone they consider to be holy. And that’s more than twice as many who consider themselves to be holy (21%).

The views of born again Christians are not much different from the national averages. Among born again adults, three-quarters (76%) say it is possible for a person to become holy, regardless of their past. Slightly more than half of the born again group (55%) say they know someone who they would describe as holy. And roughly three out of ten born agains (29%) say they are holy, which is marginally more than the national norm.

The adults most likely to say they know someone they consider to be holy are those who describe holiness primarily as possessing a positive attitude toward God and life. Adults who think of holiness as a spiritual condition are among the least likely to identify anyone they know as holy.

When pressed to describe what it means to be holy, adults gave a wide range of answers. The most common reply was "I don’t know," offered by one out of every five adults (21%). Other responses fell into categories such as "being Christ-like" (19%), making faith your top priority in life (18%), living a pure or sinless lifestyle (12%), and having a good attitude about people and life (10%). Other response categories included focusing completely on God (9%), being guided by the Holy Spirit (9%), being born again (8%), reflecting the character of God (7%), exhibiting a moral lifestyle (5%), and accepting and practicing biblical truth (5%). Once again, the responses of born again and non-born again adults were virtually identical.

What does that word mean, as found in the opening sentence of the Lord's prayer, "Our Father who is in heaven, holy be your name..." Why is His name holy, but not Him? Why was the burning bush on holy ground, but not the bush itself? Why are the cooking utensil's of Zechariah's prophecy inscribed "Holy to the Lord", rather than "Holy is the Lord"? When all else fails, consult the dictionary.

Here's Webster's online definition (http://www.meriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary)

Etymology: Middle English, from Old English hAlig; akin to Old English hAl whole -- more at WHOLE
1 : exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness
2 : DIVINE <for the Lord our God is holy -- Psalms 99:9(Authorized Version)>
3 : devoted entirely to the deity or the work of the deity <a holy temple> <holy prophets>
4 a : having a divine quality <holy love> b : venerated as or as if sacred <holy scripture> <a holy relic>
5 -- used as an intensive <this is a holy mess> <he was a holy terror when he drank -- Thomas Wolfe> -- often used in combination as a mild oath <holy smoke>

Here's the "Theological Dictionary" (http://www.carm.org/dictionary/dic_g-h.htm#_1_79)

Holy, Holiness:  A quality of perfection, sinlessness, and inability to sin that is possessed by God alone. As Christians we are called to be holy (1 Pet. 1:16). But this does not refer to our nature. Instead, it is a command of our practice and thought. We are to be holy in obedience (1 Pet. 1:14). God has made us holy through His Son Jesus (Eph. 1:4; 1 Pet. 2:9).

So no wonder there is confusion. It appears to be something only God is, but we are to be like it, except when it's an adjective indicating something godlike, that is, when the adjective isn't an expletive. Whew! Let me suggest that the confusion comes from a Gnostic interpretation of Holy.

It's an adjective describing a spiritual property held by physical objects. It falls into the same bin as prayer, something that connects the two divorced realms of Gnosticism. No wonder then, that the realm of the Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, the power that connects these realities is called "The Holy Spirit". The word exists to remind us that we are not mere machines inhabited by ghosts, but that we are special, we are sacred, we are designed, we are self-aware, we are holy.

Well this post is both too long and not long enough to hold a discourse on "Holy", so let me leave you with an analogy. If sin is like a virus, a pathogen, a parasite that tries to multiply at our expense, then what is the opposite of sin? Sinlessness? Not exactly, for the opposite of virus isn't viruslessness nor "mineral". A virus is known by its actions, and its action is to infect, to parasitize, to make sick. So the opposite of virus is uninfected, healthy, clean, pure. And the opposite of sin is not the state of perfection represented by Jesus, but pure, uninfected, holy. Now we can begin to understand what it means to be holy, which is not a state of mind, nor even a state of ownership, but a state of spiritual and physical health.

Therefore one cannot use a gym for church on Sunday mornings and declare it holy, any more than one can take an antibiotic in the midst of a bout of flu and be declared healthy for one morning. Health is a long term condition that depends on personal hygiene, on healthy living. Sin, like viruses, needs only a single opportunity; holiness requires commitment. To remain uninfected by herpes is a lifelong accomplishment. And yes, inanimate objects can infect just as easily as animate, it makes perfect sense to talk about an infected needle, or an unsanitary bathroom. Likewise it makes perfect sense to talk about holy utensils, holy places, holy books.

Holiness is a human condition achieved by great stamina, by long obedience, even generational obedience. A Baptist missionary once told me of a Catholic tradition that it takes seven generations to make a priest. For just as Hepatitis B can be transmitted through the mother's milk, or tuberculosis through public spitting, we have many ancestors to thank for our current good health. Therefore holiness is not just a personal accomplishment, but a generational accomplishment and an inheritance to be given to one's children and one's children's children.

And now you see the real tragedy of Barna's poll. Not only do we not know what holiness is, not only do we not know any holy people, but we cannot pass on to our children what we have squandered in our youth. The prodigal son had nothing to offer his own son. We have spent the capital of our ancestors, our inheritance is gone, and we must begin the long, slow, generational investment in holiness all over again. What hope is there to motivate this long slog? A reconnected power supply, an electrical cord to eternity, a victory over sin, and the promise of a brighter future for our children.