Musical Offerings, Spring2024

16 Ross ⦁ Making Music to sing what is holy—unless there is reading of discourse or prayer in the clear voice of bishops or common prayer led by the voice of the deacon?”8 This promotion of worship whenever the church met, and Augustine’s opinions on music became well known throughout church history. Several other views on church music developed after Augustine, particularly during the Reformation. Jean Calvin, a leading French reformer, and theologian of the sixteenth century, was heavily influenced by the early church fathers, especially Augustine, in matters concerning the purpose of music. One of Calvin’s theological suppositions was that the spiritual life of a Christian disciple is almost exclusively inward and therefore external expression in worship is relatively insignificant. However, Calvin had to reconcile his theology with his interpretation of the manifold amounts of instructions to sing in the Bible. James Haar writes of Calvin’s dilemma and solution, “The numerous biblical injunctions to sing psalms could not be ignored, and therefore Calvin argued that a simple, dignified congregational psalmody was required for reformed worship. But this psalmody was restricted to the corporate, unaccompanied unison singing of metrical psalms to tunes of appropriate gravity that were untainted by secular associations.”9 Ultimately, Calvin argued that music must be used with care, not due to the problem of music, but rather the weakness and corruption of man. Overemphasis on the melody or other “musical” devices would neglect the meaning and turn hearts in an ungodly direction. As Steven Guthrie writes, “Calvin’s assessment of music… would seem to be not only: ‘singing engages the emotions’; but also: ‘singing engages the emotions and not the mind.’ While music ‘kindles the heart,’ it is the ‘meaning of the words’ that is perceived by ‘our minds.’”10 Practically, Jean Calvin rejected the use of instruments in worship due to their potential to distract hearts away from worship. Due to the biblical command to sing praises to God, his solution was the metrical psalm—psalms from Scripture sung in unison for corporate worship. Jean Calvin’s opinions on music were greatly influenced by Augustine. Many historians have pointed out that Calvin and Augustine shared the same philosophy that music could turn the singer to worshipping the song, and they each turned to the psalms for a solution to Biblical worship. Charles Garside comments that, “Calvin’s theology of music 8 Augustine, Epistle LV, in McKinnon, 164. 9 Haar, European Music, 394. 10 Guthrie, Resonant Witness, 383.

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