[Ep03] Music That Points To God: a Theological and Historical Roadmap w/ Ian Guthrie

This episode on SDG Music Radio features the guest Ian Guthrie on the of music in Christian worship and evangelism. He and the host Magnus Gautestad emphasize the need for music to represent the entirety of scripture, facilitate teaching, and build community. The speakers explore the relationship between music, evangelism, and beauty, and highlight the importance of musicians seeing themselves as evangelists. They also discuss the significance of beauty in music, its ability to convey grace and contrast ugliness in the world, and its potential to articulate the tension between law and grace. Magnus Gautestad mentions also his podcast, "Beauty and the Faith," which delves into the relationship between beauty, faith, and culture.

Overall, the conversation delves into the role of music in conveying and evoking emotions, the potential for redemption and renewal in music, and the importance of engaging with culture through beauty. They touch upon the need for a more holistic approach to worship music, incorporating diverse styles and fostering greater participation while ensuring alignment with Biblical principles. An encouragement for engagement and dialogue around the topics is highly suggested.

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contact@beautyandthefaith.com

Our initiative to revive beauty in music:
https://www.composersforbeauty.org/
https://www.instagram.com/composersforbeauty/
https://www.instagram.com/sdgmusicradio/
https://www.instagram.com/classicalmg/
https://www.instagram.com/magnusgautestad/

Our holistic approach to reviving beauty in arts, architecture, and entertainment:
https://www.instagram.com/beautyandthefaithart/
https://www.instagram.com/churchsquarerenewalcenter/

Facebook group (soon to be an app) that fuels the Classical Revival with products and services of beauty:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/togetherforbeautymarketplace

Transcript

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In today's episode, I'll be giving you a peek into the conversation about Christian music. That was the most insightful conversation I've had about Christian music in my life. So don't miss out on this one. There's a war in our churches between modern and traditional music. But the question is this, can we creatively integrate the best of both worlds to unify the body of Christ and glorify the Lord more fully. Join us on this podcast as Christians from various dance share their voice and come together to develop new creative arrangements and compositions that will help us to worship the Lord more fully and to empower evangelism. I'm Magnus Gautestad, and welcome to SDG Music Radio. Greetings and wake up. I am so grateful to be here. We are now launching this new podcast, SDG Music Radio, where we want to find how to worship God more fully, how the various richness of creativity we have in the larger body of Christ and through the traditions, how we can worship more holistically, what can we learn. In a postmodern time where it looks so flat for many people, it's so dry for many people, might it be that beauty and creativity and the artist really can have a great saying and should be more appreciated in the churches? If so, how would that go about? And if so, maybe this can also help us in our evangelism to connect more in a less, in a more effective way of opening up their heart with some of the arts and beauty and things like that. But I got with me a very interesting guest here today who has tremendous experience within music, within philosophy, theology, and he has many interesting thoughts. I cannot wait to bring a perspective here today. Ian, how are you doing? I'm doing very well. Thanks for having me today, Magnus. Let's just give you an introduction here as we like to do. He's currently an assistant professor at Music at Calvary University, Kansas City, Missouri. Ian Evans Guthrie, has received the Mile High Freedom Bands 2021 Commission, a nomination for a 2020 award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and other accolades for his compositions. Many of his works have been performed publicly around the world on four continents and many states and countries. He has studied composition with Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Stephen Montague, Mark Wingate, and others, and piano with John Owings, Gloria Lin, Heidi Louise Williams, and Renato Fabbro. He is currently an assistant professor of music at Calvary University. I'm so glad that you're here today. I wanted to just kick off the conversation here now. I have a question with something that is very challenging, and we need that challenge. What type of music gives glory to God and what doesn't? That is a challenging question. I think we always look for an answer in terms of style, but we sometimes forget the historical and cultural context that comes with that. I personally would say I love Palestina, but that in and of itself doesn't necessarily give glory to God because that's just one sound and it doesn't specify what is he doing biblically. Now I will say what's very interesting about Palestina, the fact that he will set the lamentations and many of the Psalms and many other texts from the Mass makes his Biblical references much larger than what we even have in the whole entire opus of contemporary Christian music. I think that's really the most important thing to think about. Are we representing the entirety of the Bible? But if I may take a little bit of a historical diversion, people are probably wondering what about chant or is music that important at all? Because if we look at the church fathers, we might say that they didn't find music that important or that they dismissed music altogether. There are scholarly books on this. That seems like it would be a defeat to music being important in the church. But what's very important to remember, first of all, in the Hellenistic and post-Helenistic culture, music meant rhythm, instruments, and voice. When you look at the writings of Plato, his definition of music has to have instruments, it has to have rhythm, and it has to have a vocalist. In the time of the early church and in the time of the Greek and Roman empires, usually where you'd find music of that sort was in public places such as the marketplace or in the theater or at religious festivals. Now, pagan religious festivals, the church didn't want people partaking in those. The church probably couldn't help people because they had to go to the market. But as far as the theater, that was also a place known for sinful activities. In their minds, they're trying to prevent people from hearing in church what they would associate with those sinful activities. It's similar to what at least in the United States, a generation or so ago, rock and roll was not wanted in many churches because people attributed that to rebellion and unethical activities. But we see after a generation of contemporary Christian music, that is not as well thought of in churchgoers, so that argument can be put to rest. But it is important to understand these arguments come out of, one, a desire to eliminate that worldly influence from people inside the church. It also has a different definition of music behind it. What they called music back then is more restrictive than what we would call music today. One final thing I could say just on that is I think it's important equally to realize that if it's the entirety of the Bible that comes to glorify God, then we have many styles that are failing to represent the entirety of scripture. I grew up in a more low church, evangelical setting where the worship songs were almost always about, I don't know, 110-140 beats per minute. That's the music that you listen to when you really want to get a good workout and get yourself in a better mood. That puts an interpretation of the text right there. Then I went to a church that was all hymns, which is very much the opposite, where you're thinking more in the Platonic sense of music should calm the soul rather than excite it. But in both cases, one similarity is you rarely have things referring to some of the penitential or judicial parts of the Bible. Most of it is Halal psalm-based or very personal, I language. That's very different than the today where it's all about we and believe you to be the Lord. We lose a lot of that in a lot of the church settings we have today. Really, it seems only the churches that really stick to a traditional liturgy have even a sliver of that left. Regardless of the style, I think the most important thing that would glorify God is are we singing and using the gift of singing to help with memory and to create community through music, are we using that tool to teach ourselves the entirety of the Bible? Are we only using it to suit our own purposes? That's what will bring glory to God. If it's about Him and His word, it brings God glory. Wow, that was amazing. I don't have anything to add to that. I just want that... If I add anything now, I will only take away. I'll just let that dwell a little bit. That was a really good brother. Okay, next one. For a leader of music in churches, what is your main advice? Well, first of all, I think we need to think about what is a leader? We often think of a leader as a minister or in the United States, we might call him a president or some governing official. But to be a leader, we should look to Jesus. Some people will say, Well, a leader needs to be popular with everyone, and Jesus wasn't that way, or a leader needs to cater to what everyone does, and Jesus wasn't that way either. Too often we side one to the other. In the church, most music ministers end up to the latter, where they try to make everyone happy. Sometimes the music minister doesn't have a choice. Unfortunately, some of the books that are really great that have been written on this are from about 30 years ago, but there's some great literature out there, particularly by some of the Lutherans that talk about how to deal with this. But the first piece of advice I would say is to be a leader, follow Jesus, meet people where they are, but bring them where they need to be. If the people can only take a certain style and that they're only used to certain lyrics, make sure to use that as your starting point. Develop a relationship. If we talk about things in evangelism and the like by extension, we know that people can be very offended if we just lay down what is true and that's all that matters. We need to do things in truth and love. The first piece of advice I would make is to be relational and be relational with the pastor as well. Let the pastor know how important it is, or depending on the church, might be her leadership. Their leadership and their influence on the congregation is paramount to making the music successful. Another thing I would say on that, though, is to really look for music and be able to write music that represents the entirety of scripture as we've talked about. Look for holes in the style you've been talking about. Chance sometimes has so many non-biblical texts, but they can still be useful. If you're at a church that has a lot of chanting, make sure to come up with texts that aren't just traditional because they are, but make sure you cover the texts and the messages you want to. Temporary Christian music tends to be on an opposite side of the spectrum that really focuses on grace and the self. Look to write songs that are more focused directly to God as the second person and focused on the emotional impact you want to have. Not all music can be fast food and bringing us an emotional high, because when we reach those troublesome times as a community, we want to know how to deal with it. It's a paramount that we have songs that deal with suffering and loss, and we can sing that as a community. Because the church isn't just me and God. The church is also the other part of the great command is love one another. I would say the church musician has three things: be relational, be looking for those songs, and also, from both of those, be realistic. You might add find another job just for safety's sake. But those are really the three things, and the majority of that is based on relationship with others and an awareness of scripture and what the songs are representing. That's the advice I give to my students here in the music philosophy and leadership class. That's what I would give to any musician because it's certainly not an easy role, but with the help of the congregation and the pastor, it can create a quality that I don't think you can get otherwise. A community is what will build your choirs. Community and a faith in the music you're doing is what will build the quality of music you have at your church. Well, Amen to that. It's a very unifying message, I think. I don't think we could... There's any way that could unify us more than going to the Bible, which is an objective standard outside ourselves, and then start from there. Also, if it's a conversation with the pastor or the priest and another music director or something like that, that is a language both can speak and go from. You come back to here also again, which I keep hearing many places about that the worship should be more holistic because of the holistic God we have. For all the different attributes we see of him in the Bible and throughout the Psalms, he's being worshiped in many ways, everything from the Lord of Host to a very personal God in times of trouble. There's a lot of lament there. There's probably is a bit of ignorance sometimes or an irony when for churches that are very much Sola scriptura with the Bible and the word. That then is a bit on Biblical, the reflection we can see in some of the worship music. There seems to be a gap there. Artists who have taken time to not only develop themselves musically to be able to listen and have an intuitive sense about this, but also to actually being able to communicate and bring both theology and the artist world together. Like you're doing now, I think it's a very helpful conversation. I hope that any who are not a musician right now can take this into consideration and start having these discussions with people outside the music clique in the church. So just a few thoughts. Just to add on to that a little bit, not so much advice for the music ministers or the prospective ones, but just talking about that holistic scripture, it's quite sad that while the church lament that sometimes they're following secular musical traditions, sometimes what other choice does the church have when the music written by Christian musicians is increasingly done in concert halls and not in the church? We need that community, we need that skill, and there could be... There could be a meeting point between composer and congregation. But right now, I think it's problematic that the music that is most separate from secular genres right now that seems least popular is predominantly done in concert halls. That is something that I think is part of that disconnect. I think the the ignorance of that, the ignorance ofthe the ignorance that the church fathers before the Reformation era had some different interpretations in different contexts than say, Zwingli or Luther. Zwingli didn't want music in his churches at all, but that meant something very different in the 1500s than it did in the 300s. Just to add on to what you're saying, I think sometimes that ignorance is that the semantics of what the church fathers are saying, as well as what's happening with religious music outside the church is part of the cause for this. That's a very interesting point. I got inspired to ask you a question that's been a lot of my mind, if you don't mind just off the cuff here. But through my studies and prayers, I'm leaning toward a conclusion that when so much of the arts was downplayed in the Reformation because of various types of misuse of it. There might have been a place, of course, parts of it was too radical and was condemned by big parts of the church, as we know. Luther didn't mean to remove so much beauty. Calvin didn't really write on it either. It was more other movements, Puritan movements. Different swingly, like you mentioned, ironically, the Heven being a musician. I'm thinking if I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt, I'm looking at Abraham and Isaac and he just giving the most precious sacrifice he can give is like, I love music and I'm just going to sacrifice the best thing I have. But to be serious here, do you think that some of these reformers that we trust now that has affected how we do church, that they might have thought we need to break a bit radically with some of these things now to get this sorted out? But is it possible that they didn't mean that forever the rest of church history, we have to have it like that? Is it possible that the evangelical and protestant churches where the lack of beauty and artistic excellence is maybe the greatest? Is it possible that we now have an opportunity to revive a lot of that again? Because now people can read, because people are now... We have the Bible in many languages because there is less danger now of having beauty and these type of things. There's less danger of idolatry when people understand proper theology and truth and all of these things. What do you think? Have we gone a bit astray of something that's very valuable and made it into a norm, what they did in the Reformation? What do you think there? I think you have aThat's a great question. We have to remember that one thing that they are rebelling against is the lack of congregational participation. In the case of Luther, you see that he wants music to be next to theology, and he says that in various ways. Thankfully, Lutherans have never, as far as I know, worshiped music above God. But you see something very different in Lutheran trends. But his whole goal is to get the congregation involved. I think that was Zwingli's goal a lot, for what I understand, as well as Calvin's, but they all had different views on what the congregation should be participating in. The Catholic Church had also had their own reformation, and while they said little about music, they mentioned that it shouldn't be abusive, it shouldn't be overly complex. We see with Palestrin and others, they take the status quo music, some of the simpler, renaissance music, and try to be very articulate with the texts. They're trying to make things clearer, which was still a step in the right direction. The reformers were actually against something very radical, if you know what some of the late, medieval music was. It was very chromatic and very much something you have to learn. Even today, you can't just sing along with it. It isolated the congregation. I think that when we understand that the goal is to reunite the congregation in music, then yes, we definitely have lost something because we're totally the point of the music. It's something that is powerful when performed, of course, but when we apply it to ourselves, we learn things in a whole new way. We're missing that when we see music as either a check in the box that we start. It's good to start things with music or it's good to start singing for ourselves or with others, but seeing it as a mode of teaching. When well done musically, we get both an emotional context and the Biblical teaching as a preface to the sermon. It doesn't become just another part of liturgy or another part of service, but it becomes another mode of teaching. We have lost a lot, I think. Part of it's simply by a misunderstanding of, again, the cultural context for against what the reformers reacted. That's a very interesting emphasis. That will definitely take more into consideration there. Again, very unifying message. I think what many pastors, priests, theologians are very... They have a lot of emphasis that on the word, on teaching because of discipleship and the emphasis, Jesus also and the saints put on that. I think it's a very unifying message and it will give fruit when we can have more discussions like that. That anyway, one of our listeners right now listening to this, how you can start to have these discussions and just ask questions to each other and get more aware of these things, so we make sure that we understand, like you say, the historic and cultural context of these questions and can learn from history as well. I want to go to the next question here that I had in mind, and that is what difference in music for evangelism and music for worship? I know that some churches are seeker-friendly and have this evangelical music in the church, but most churches are not like that to that extent. You have many like that, but I would say most don't have that like that. As soon as we take the music outside the church, is there more room than what we have during, for example, either a church service or just other times we're sitting in the church building, in the congregation. What's your thoughts on that? My initial reaction is I think that evangelism, sometimes we think it's about what we say about the scriptures and it's all on us thing. That's what how I was raised anyway, and there's certainly something to it. It forces you to think about, I have a job to witness to unbelievers. What I think is often misunderstood is that the initiation for a relationship with someone outside the church is usually not made through a wow impact of music or something else, or wow, his theology is powerful. I think the more important thing to think about is not so much what is music for evangelism, but how can musicians be evangelistic with their friends? Most of my conversations with people have not been on my sacred music, which I just wrote one of my first sacred pieces, frankly, and I don't have a lot of it. But most of the conversations in my experience start from, you're a musician, I'm a musician, we can have a mutual friendship. I had roommates, for example, who came from... I had a roommate once who came from Europe, actually. I've had several roommates as I've traveled around the world of festivals from Europe, but then they'll see me reading the Bible. Then once they see that, they have questions about what I believe and who I am. The music, I think, isn't necessarily needing a change to be evangelistic versus worshipful. What needs to change is how do we see ourselves as musicians and evangelists? How do we show our faith to people who have come to trust us as musicians and friends and the like? I would put it as it's not so much the musical style or the lyrics that need to change. I don't think those actually should change. I think Christian music should stand on its own footing. What needs to change is how important we see our roles as musicians because we feel a role that ministers cannot. We feel a role that business people cannot. Imagine if we were commanded to talk to people in a foreign society, we're evangelizing, and we're trying to tell them how to take care of the agriculture. Well, at least for me as a musician, that would freak me out because I don't know the first thing about agriculture. All I know is they need Jesus. But someone who knows at least a little bit about farming more than me would be better than I am. Same thing with musicians. A musician is going to perceive the testimony of another musician very differently than they are from someone who's a Christian. They need Jesus either way, but a musician has a much better inlet to those people's lives. The focus needs to be more on our role and relationships rather than changing our music to fit those outside. Because when we see in the Bible, the majority of evangelism that happens, we have Paul going into the marketplaces to talk to people. When he wants to talk in synagogues and the like, he's talking to people who are religious and the precursor to Christianity, but he goes into the marketplaces. There's very few instances. Maybe Cornelius bringing Peter into his house where we actually see anything where a Christian is inviting non-Christians into the church. We see a lot more of that evangelism happening outside the church. For that reason, I think the sacred music is for the church, but the sacred heart and evangelism is for outside. That makes sense. Yeah, that makes totally sense. That is something that everybody can apply. I've seen, especially in my experiences in more low church, Baptist Church. I've been in different churches. I came to Christ about my mid 20s, about 10 yearsago and eleven years ago and 11 years ago now, and I went to many different churches. I had so many different experiences starting in a Lutheran Church. Then I was a Mormon and then I was in the Freemason. Then I moved to Spain and I was in the Freemason and then I moved to Spain and I was in the Hebrew Roots Movement and didn't eat pork and kept the Shabbat and got baptized in the Jordan River. Then I came to a Baptist Church and then I came to the Presbyterian Church. For me, it's been a long journey. A long journey to find that holistic way of worshiping God where both the goodness of God and the truth of God and the beauty of God is properly connected. Even though I'm not Catholic, I have a lot of respect for a lot of the things that the Catholic Church is doing. One is Hans von der Baltasar, when he's talking about that, if you remove beauty, you will also take with you some of the truth and some of the goodness in some mysterious vengeance, he says. I'm going to be writing a thesis on that for my... I do a bachelor in leadership and theology on beauty. I'm going to do a thesis on that. Is that true? When we remove beauty, is there something about the truth that is not so true anymore? Is there something about the way we do things when we don't do things beautifully that is not as good anymore. That's the type of three transcendents together. The reason why I'm mentioning this, Ian, is that this is an artist here talking. I'm very concerned about the beauty of God because as an artist, a lot of my consciousness goes around the beauty around me and staying very aware and staying very conscious. You have to do that to play pieces and improvise and all of these things because you really have to listen with intensity. I think many don't live so much that way. When I'm talking this type of language, then I have an ability to connect with things that is on many artists' heart, save it or not. They have a longing for that wonder that beauty brings. I think there's not too many churches that are so intentional about we're going to reach the artists. Because like you say, some doesn't even put out music as an outreach or something like that, but they don't maybe encourage or empower the artists of their important role in their communities where there is a lot of strange thoughts. When people are sitting inside and painting eight hours a day, you get a lot of strange thoughts in the end. If you don't have a Bible to check up on yourself, or especially if you have combined that with alcohol or drugs, as many artists do engage in because of their restless nature, many has. I think it's a time where, like you're saying, artists see themselves in their identity as evangelists and to build those relationships and do that through their musical ministry instead of we're going to make a type of music that just say, Oh, like Steve Jobs, he saw a Bach concert and he said, This was the greatest evidence I ever seen of God. You have those things happening sometimes that they must be a God because this only comes out of spiritual music and there is something here that just doesn't make rational sense. But like you're saying, and if we look in the Bible, it's a lot about those relationships. I think it was a good emphasis you put there, a universal principle that can be used across our differences. If you don't have anything specific to interfere there, I want to go over to the next question. I could say one quick thing about beauty just very quickly. I like that you're bringing that up. I think one thing that artists bring to the word beauty that, at least in the United States, isn't a word used very often, but we forget sometimes that beauty is only beauty. Beauty can only really be understood, I think, fully when we know the ugliness that's around. I think there's some art that we don't like for different reasons, but an art form, I frankly don't like that much. But some of the expressionists 100 years ago, a little bit more in Germany and the like, one thing that they brought to their art, their goal wasn't to be pretty. Their goal was to show in as expressive way as possible how ugly things are. I think getting rid of beauty doesn't just get rid of some of the theology, but it also it neutralizes the law, gospel, tension we have. The grace of God and the beauty of that is so much more pronounced when we know the ugliness of what's around it. I think art, it articulates that in a way that in a whole new dimension that we cannot say with words. I just wanted to add that because I really like that point with beauty. I just wanted to add that on. Right. Yes. I think that's a great point you're saying there that contrast is very important. That is why you see in the Bible, you share the bad news before the good news, so to speak. You're having the repentance and having to look into the law and see yourself in the mirror and don't liking what you're seeing. Then it's just so glorious when the atonement of Christ and what he did on your behalf. I would say now, like I also do on my other podcast, Beauty and the Faith, I start off saying that the Western world has become, I would say, objectively increasingly ugly. I think I can make that statement because if we do believe in objective truth, we also need to hold on that there is something called objective beauty, even though it's hard to define. I myself read a book on this now by Jonathan King, and he defines it as a fittingness. When something just fits almost like in a perfect way, that is when you have a sense of beauty. I think it's a great definition. I'm going to learn more about that. But the point is that when society now are becoming more ugly and everyday people are having architectural uprising and art renewal center, and there's all of this discussion happening in culture, both on the left, on the right, with all people now, they feel their identity, their community, all of these things are being taken away with the beauty because it's coming out of balance. Isn't there an amazing opportunity for the church now to come in as a contrast, more clearly see just how beautiful something is. Then, of course, I've been speaking with other musicians, Christian musicians, that I think we should include more of the ugliness in our music. I think I tend to say that there is already so much emphasis on what's wrong with the world, so much depression, so much ugliness that they know how much sucks and they know how little hope they have for the future. I think, yeah, that might have made more sense a bit earlier when some churches could have been criticized for being a bit escapist and was so heavenly minded, they're no earthly good and wasn't relatable. But I think in most cases now, many churches do have, and society do see a lot of ugliness. We should be aware of the suffering of the world. We should be able to express the difficult and a bit ugly things of torture and murder and the sins in the Bible. All of this is great for contrast. But like you're saying there, when you see the contrast there of the ugly, it has a purpose because it makes the beauty shine even more. I just want to encourage one more time any church leader listening to this, any musician listening to this right now, that actually the more ugly the world is, the less they love the world. I believe then it's an open door to talking about the beauty of God and they will see something they're longing so much for. Then they will understand that beauty is not contained in the object. True beauty is not contained in the object, C. S. Lewis. S. Itonly comes through them. When you have an eye for beauty, when you see the beauty, you have a sense that you're connecting with something beyond that beauty. It's like a door into the divine like Sir Roger Scruton says. But that's on another conversation. I wanted to get a bit back here to unity and learning from each other. There's a lot of throwing rocks. There's a lot of polarity in the West now. Because of holiness, there needs to be a certain limitation on complete unity with everything, of course. But how can Christians come together to make more beautiful music both from modern and traditional churches. What would you say there? How can both of these styles go to the next level of having more beauty in their outreach or within their church? That's a really tough question. I don't know if I have a great answer, but I will say in the songwriting class that I teach, I always encourage my students to, one, explore styles that they're not necessarily familiar with, and then two, to consider, well, what emotion do you want people to feel? Because you can have the words. There was a there was a song, a contemporary Christian song I heard just for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and it had to do with, I will remain still amid the wind and the waves. But the music was very agitated, so it emphasized the wind and the waves rather than the stillness. I always ask my students to think about what is the climate, the background, the film score, so to speak, that the music is giving to your lyrics because that will better communicate to your audience. Many audiences, no matter what they sing in church, watch films today, and they've heard different kinds of emotions evoked through different musics. That's still somewhat different for every person. But we first need for the musicians, I want them to explore other styles. For the congregations, especially those who have people who have a strong opinion for one or the other, yet they're in the same building, I would say that we need to program and use songs in worship that will be a little bit different for everyone, try to get to welcome that. I think the number one thing, though, that brings people together, even in music they don't initially like, is a choir and ensemble. Music majors know, I'm sure, a lot about playing pieces that they love, but also pieces that they don't like. But we learn a new appreciation for them, especially when we learn it with a teacher and a group of other people. I think the choir is the most natural space in a church today. Very few churches, if they have a choir, do it that often. But there are some that have choirs. Of those that have choirs, very few will have orchestra as well as the like. I think the choir is the most natural one. But being involved in some ensemble and having that be a priority for the church brings people together. Studies have shown also that that brings people together. I think that's the best answer I could give because the other answer, how do you bring this together is deal with it, which is not a very helpful answer. But there's a point where our opinions can't be just perfected. We have to have that agapé love where the sacrifice of ourselves for someone else is what we need to be after. Through that, sometimes we find the fulfillment that we're seeking. But we can't let our emotions get the best of us 24our seven. If we have an attitude of service and we have a leader who's willing to represent everyone, we all get a chance. I think we break down some of those initial stylistic divides. Right. I think that's all I can say. That's a really hard thing to solve. I think that that's sparked several points, and I don't want to emphasize and just elaborate on few of those points. Yes, I do believe that both in a very traditional church or in a very modern church, there can both be a sense of man-made traditions people hold fast to just because it's familiar and it's really not completely, like you say, agapel love. It's not really Christ-like to be that type of focused on that the reasoning comes inside of what you feel. I think that is a good point that will open up more discussions when you have that attitude. The other thing you're talking about is the congruency of lyrics and of the music. I think if there's one huge, low hanging, dangling fruit right here, right now that any church should do right now. Like I say, I've been on quite a journey, going from being a pot-smoking, rock and roller and skateboarder to being through all these churches and now stepping into ministry and all of that. I've seen a lot, to put it mildly. In many of my experiences, it seems that some people are not even aware of it, how they are divided internally. I was recently at a big conference and the lyrics was something like, The King of Kings, all Your Majesty, something like that. I'm paraphrasing a bit. But nothing about that music would make any majestic or king-like type of... That type of you sing as the Lord, as the King of Kings. You would never see that music put... If you were to make a movie of what you're singing about, you would never hear that music to go with it. Right. I think maybe that's the thing here, Ian. We just got to get some film composers into the church for a couple of days for some awareness training maybe. They'll say, Okay, we're going to put on your subtitles on the screen, and then we're going to create the pictures for somebody who has not read the lyrics, and then we're going to say objectively what the language here actually says, because music theory is a recipe book to make people feel what you want them to feel. This is one perspective my guitar teacher gave me. That would be one thing. I've seen it both in modern churches and in traditional churches that... Especially the need to see the deity of God, the Lordship, the Majesty of God, you need some elements of... I think there are some elements in the classical tradition that really works really well to create that sense of you step out of the Earth bound and you have that type of transcendent effect, which is one way. There's other music where it's wonderful to have a piano and it's Jesus is your friend, actually. Jesus is an intimacy with the Holy Spirit. But like you're saying, we need to have... God wants to be known for who He is. He wants to be known exactly as who is. That's very important that we really try to get somebody from the outside. If you don't have competent, educated musicians, many churches might not have that, to just get help. We might be able to need to create some new music on some known traditional music if it's not really good enough, at least rearrange a little bit. This podcast is about encouraging new, beautiful music because I think the Bible speaks about making a new song. This makes no sense that the is actively working right now in believers to make new music, so we should encourage that. But we should also encourage new arrangements. Like you're talking about here, you want people to explore different styles. Maybe an idea here could be to think a little bit crossover, so not go too extreme. But if there's any styles that are really great at expressing one thing, for example, the joy you see in gospel music, for example, would it be possible to combine that with something that is familiar and then actually you would see that it becomes more true? Because that is the thing. If a song is pretty or something, but there's not something untruthful about what you feel and what your mind says, I think some of the beauty of that is actually lacking. If you're talking about the three things going together. Another principle I want to throw out here is about God redeemes people. He can redeem, but can he also redeem culture? Can he also redeem music? You would have some people who say, That style came from a dirty place. We cannot use that. But then I came from a dirty place, he used me. But if we take something directly out of the world made for different purposes and don't do anything about it, maybe it needs some redemption in it. I think that that's why this classical crossover idea is a wonderful idea. For example, if you then use, let's say you have some of the band elements, if you combine that with something different so that those who grew up in the 60s and saw the leather jackets and sexual revolution, and every time they look at an electric guitar, they're thinking about how they lost their teenage daughter into that environment and all the rebellion. They have this bad association you talked about earlier. But if we can redeem it enough so we remove those associations, we can take the good, hold fast to what is good there. Because some of those, for example, the groove can give a feeling of, when we're talking about the spiritual warfare, a good groove, a steady groove can be great together with an orchestra to make that type of courageous type of feeling that we see a lot of times in the Bible. That's another idea. Just very quickly- I threw a lot of things right there. I really liked what you said. I don't have very many things. I might just elaborate where you said the groove, a lot of churches that get into the Pentecostal movement or even just the... What should I say? Just the Spontaneity of worship. That happens a lot more with churches that do more contemporary music and often has gospel music. There's a lot more room for improvisation and variation in that more spontaneously in a worship setting. I think that that's a natural inclination. We see a lot of that in worship in the Old Testament. Conversely, if that's all you ever feel like God is, then you miss who God can be. I think the hymns can be much more console. I think the chance in some way can give us a sense of awe and timelessness because we have nothing to tap our foot to. And so each style, assuming we don't have preconceived notions about it, there's so much that it esthetically does, and we can see that through how much it enhances films or theater or opera or even just when we turn on music. There's a book out there called The Esthetics of Music that will explain the music itself cannot give us the exact words, and I think he has credit to that. But conversely, there are certain universal emotions or almost universal emotions we get through meter or the lack thereof. We need to consider that while we have very different scales and very different cultures, one thing that's almost unanimous throughout cultures is rhythm and meter or the lack thereof. Esthetically, I think it's important to keep all of these. It does matter. I just wanted to comment on that. You were talking about the groove and how it feels, and I totally agree. I just wanted to elaborate a little bit on that because all these styles, it's improper, I think, to try to console someone by a song that's super fast when they need something super slow. It's not disrespectful to say, I need a different music here. There's a time for everything, and I might elaborate a little bit beyond the Bible, but I think different kinds of music need to be represented in different cases. You had mentioned that one last thing of redemption. I think it's always tricky to talk about how music is redeemed because we don't really have a good emphasis on what is Christian versus non-Christian music and in and of the aesthetical style themselves. But I do think that music can be and certainly has been redeemed. Luther did and others did some of the things you mentioned, such as they took folk songs or familiar tunes and added Christian lyrics to them, if they thought that in adding those different lyrics, the people could be directed towards God instead of away from him. I do think that the redemption of music can happen and is happening to various extents, but I think the people that are most successful at doing that are the people that understand the aesthetical influence of the music they're using and the audience that they're doing it for. There is a skill set there that comes with it. But I certainly think that different kinds of music can exist in the Christian realm and should, and all of that can be redeemed. God is not glorified, again, by the style of what we do, but why are we using that music? That's what redeems it, I think. That's interesting what you're saying there. I think you put it really well. One of the greatest church musicians I ever known was the organist in the first church that I went to. I asked him, What music is good? What music glorifies God? For him, he says that it depends where it comes from. That was basically his answer that you need to have an intentionality of where it comes from and where you are directed. That is how you grow in love instead of moving away from love in these things. Something I think we should be talking about, it seems that there is a need. There are many good books, philosophical, theological books about esthetics, and many are producing more of them. But I think what is lacking is practical guidance for churches with a little bit musical resources and with maybe more resources that we can get down some principles, Biblical principles about holistic worship, and then some ideas or support if it's something that is online, almost like a counseling thing, people can come in or we can make resources for people who have achieved this very successfully. Then gradually, without rocking the boat, so to speak, but either doing some crossover things or, like you're saying, starting with the familiar, but maybe have another aspect within the worship setting to have a more reflect God and get to know God with all these attributes and and be more teaching the whole counsel of God through the music and have that happening. I hope that these discussions can also lead to a book and some resources and something we can start to serve different churches with so we can move in this direction. I think this can have a tremendous impact on just the theological understanding of having the right image of God. Because what usually happens, if a church only looking at Jesus as this type of free, loving, peaceful guy, you have so much focus on the humanity that that's also reflected in the Christians. They're saying, Yeah, we're trying to be Christlike, but they are trying to be Christ-like only in one side of Him. When it's called for something else, they become like a walkover or they don't step up for sin or truth or anything like that because they made their own image of God in their own fantasy. Some to blame was actually a lack of musical competence. In their leaders that didn't recognize, number one, there's a separation between what the mind is understanding and what the heart is feeling. So that's why probably one of those have to give away. I think probably what will happen is that you numb the brain out more than you're able to stop the heart from pumping. So that is also a very big problem because I think the unifying principle of all Christian is that you shall love your God with all your heart, mind, strength, and soul. So Christian worship is never completely without the mind. You can meditate as a Christian and contemplate, but that is an active depth, reflection, or focus on God and His truth. You mentioned earlier that it was an important point in the Reformation that everybody got involved in the Church. I think sometimes the Church take that to an extreme where they never, ever have an instrumental piece, for example, or they never, ever have a soloist singing and doing something excellent because they would call that a show, like a theatrics I heard. But isn't it true that if we have the right education around this, that when something beautiful like that is being played, that people can actively meditate on that truth and they are actually active, they are not passive, but they need some guidance to understand that if they come from a church where there's just complete series of word and never a gap to contemplate. What's your thought on that? Yes, there's no perfect solution to this, but it's something I've thought about a lot. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, all the hymns are sung just by the choir, but almost the entire liturgy is an antiphany between the priests and the audience. One good thing you get there is they've got so much scripture, so many traditional Christian creeds and statements and memorized, and then you have them ascending to that. If they're willing to say it, it's a lot harder for me to say something I don't believe. So if you have to say the name of the Trinity, you have to say Jesus is Lord, say these things during the service, you're much more likely to at least initially have to ascent to that. The problem is it can become too rote, but that seems to be an issue with no matter what walk of life someone is in. The nice thing about sermons and more of the Low Church is it gives a lot of time for education, leaves a lot of time to answer things that might come up in the moment, gives a lot of time for contemplation. But the problem is you have people who don't have to ascent to a lot of things. In particular, if the worship is what I've seen a lot of, whether it be Anglican, Lutheran, Baptist or the like, the worship songs are often songs that frankly could be sung as love songs on a secular radio and people would be totally fine with it. If those are the only things you are sent to, then there's the risk that maybe you're not totally aware as much of what you believe or why you believe it. I think that that awareness that you mentioned is something that we have to do on our own and pray about because no matter which format we have, we can lose that awareness either through being the rote memorization or by the passivity. But I do think I'm personally one that likes the greater involvement because it forces the person to ascent to something. I think that's the reason why, a little bit extension, why a lot of music ministers seem to be the first person to go when the church is facing some difficulties, because people don't always know this, but often it's the subconscious power of music that's convicting them in a way that words cannot express on their own or other ways. I think that's where I would land is participation. I like more participation, but there always has to be a prayer to the Holy Spirit that he would keep us guided because the whole counsel is often found in the sermon or in a lot of the liturgy that isn't always found in the hymns themselves. This has been a wonderful, very enriching discussion. It was great to get some of these things that at least have been a lot of on mind mind. I have a Lord has put a real... It's a burden and a privilege because I pray about this and I'm saddened about... For many years, I've been quite saddened about seeing what we are missing out on when it comes to worship music. It comes in all different types of ways. I don't have all the answers, but I just know as a musician who has been speaking about many musicians about this, has been specifically asking the typical churchgoer about their experiences and just starting to wake up a little bit that there is such amazing potential right now. It wouldn't take that much more education or that much more money to really be more Biblical about this and to really have a really revive the worship in a very beautiful way. I think seeing that can also make it easier for different types of people who comes into the church because you'll have different ways that they can get connected and have familiarity. Also, there will be more ways where churches can gain understanding of the different strengths and weaknesses different churches have. There's so much potential here. I want to thank you so much for your very easy to understand, but also intellectually rich and well-studied answers. I'm usually a very practical guy, but you said very deep knowledge, and I was able to grasp every bit of it. That is not many who are able to do with my mind. Thank you so much for that, Ian. I wanted to end the conversation here with just how can people find more about you? What services do you give? Your music, things like that? How can they get engaged with you? Yes, I have a website, ianguthriecomposer.com They can also look up my name on Facebook or the like. I have a page there. Mostly what I do is I teach at Calvary University. I compose works for musicians and ensembles, and those recordings are usually placed on my website or on YouTube. You look up my name, you just look for maybe the most classical Ian Guthrie, because there are several Ian Guthries. But yeah, ianguthriecomposer.com is probably the most central space to start because there you'll find links to all the social media. Wonderful. Clear and direct. I like it. Thank you so much for taking the time and for all our listeners. Thank you too. You're very, very welcome. I also have a podcast called The Beauty and the Faith where we're going a bit broader about trying to deal with the Western world becoming more ugly. Many people are struggling with depression and are in a dark place. What we ask about this then would bringing in more beauty actually being able to lead more people, some people to faith, would it help us to be more better stewards of our environments? Would it lead to more moral character? If we are able to, as a church, to engage with culture and to contribute with beauty, as have been some of the great legacy of the church throughout history. An important point where even many that are very close to the church actually at least respect us in that way. Let us not use that important bridge to build relationships and start conversation. That is Beauty and the Faith on YouTube and podcast directories. Also, we just started this podcast here now, but follow us on Instagram. I'll be posting highlights there and special updates. Please engage. If we said anything now that's not true, then I would love to see it in the comment field on YouTube or on Instagram. Let us know so we can come together here now and to solve this within our generation. Let us now come together and start to do something about this because we have a lot of potential. So thank you, everybody. And.