*2.11. The Absence of Music*

Silence can be construed less positively as the avoidance or absence of music because music and spirituality are seen as unrelated or not positively related. The monk Pambo is reported to have seen no contrition in singing and to have compared it to the lowing of cattle [42]. Ulrich Zwingli, though the best musician of the sixteenth century reformers, thought the true song was to be found in "our hearts" and that music in church was "mumbling and murmuring" [43]. For him, the paradox of music and spirituality does not exist because "material things could not participate in the holy [since] Spirit and flesh contradict each other" [44]. Zwingli removed music from the church altogether so that silence would give people an ear for the Word of God alone—that is, without music, and he tied music to play (which may be perceived as its own form of spirituality). Anabaptists made the same move [45]. English Baptists like John Smyth also shut out music from worship unless it was improvised on the spot because they asked, "Whither meter, Rithme, & tune, be not quenching the Spirit" [46]. Benjamin Keach at first agreed, but changed his mind and "repaired the breach" for Baptists [47]. Quakers have centered down to the inner light where they find that in holy silence seen as "Holy Obedience" they come upon God [48].

Hildegard of Bingen, who thought "all creation is a single hymn in praise of God" [49], strongly reversed the notion of the absence of music as a good thing. For her, the paradoxes posed by music and spirituality are alive and well. When an interdict on singing was issued against her community, she said this:

And I heard a voice coming from the Living Light concerning the various kinds of praises, about which David speaks in the psalm . . . "Let every spirit praise the Lord" (Ps. 150:3, 6). These words are outward, visible things to teach us about inward things. Thus the material composition and the quality of these instruments instruct us how we ought to give form to the praise of the Creator and turn all the convictions of our inner being to the same ([50], pp. 81–82).

She objected strenuously to the interdict because she regarded the absence of music as the devil's work. It is the devil who

never ceases from confounding confession and the sweet beauty of both divine praise and spiritual hymns, eradicating them through wicked suggestions, impure thoughts, or various distractions from the heart of man and even from the mouth of the Church itself, wherever he can, through dissension, scandal, or unjust oppression ([50], p. 83). So she instructed the prelates to exercise the greatest vigilance to clear the air by full and thorough discussion of the justification for such actions before your verdict closes the mouths of any church singing praises to God . . . ([50], p. 83).

It is no accident that in her morality play Ordo Virtutum, in a "clear contrast with the musicality of the Virtues," it is only

the Devil [who] cannot sing; he can barely speak mellifluously. The Ordo calls for the Devil to speak in a voice that is strepitus (grating, shouting, growling) ([50], p. 110).

#### *2.12. The Dark Side*

Augustine delighted in the sound of music but knew it could be an idolatrous form of gratifying the flesh if it overtook the meaning of the words that were being sung. He vacillated between its value and its danger, finally endorsing its use as long as the text was not obscured [51]. Luther knew that music, the "gift of nature and art," could be "prostituted" by "perverted minds . . . with their erotic rantings" ([14], p. 324). Calvin was especially cognizant of music's danger and thought music tied to bad words distilled "venom and corruption . . . to the depths of the heart" [52].

Anne Morris notes that ethical and theological cautions of this sort have largely been forgotten [53]. Though she realizes that "music can undoubtedly be a force for good," she is acutely aware that "we ignore music's potential for harm at our peril" ([54], p. 204). She presents three case studies, the first about music used to affect emotion at a funeral, the second about music used for propaganda in the Third Reich, and the third about music used as an instrument of "no-touch torture" ([54], pp. 205–15). In all three cases music does not grow out of an interior spiritual center but is imposed from the outside as a tool of control.

In many of its current societal manifestations music is regarded as an emotional manipulator. Morris speaks with a voice of historic Christian concern in a context where music is often identified with the culture's commercial presupposition that music is a way to sell things, attract people, and keep institutions afloat by amassing enough revenue.

Parts of the church have bought into this perspective and have engaged in "worship wars" that have taught people to attack one another based on musical styles. This abrogates the first commandment by focusing on musical idols, not on God. It is not the way Christians have historically understood God, nor the way many churches still today understand God, as in every generation they stand against the culture. The church, when it follows the culture's use of music as a tool to sell things, relates music to words like "evangelism" and "mission" which, for all the good that may be intended, are often euphemisms for the power, control, and manipulation that Morris addresses. Spirituality in Bouyer's historic Christian sense is not at issue here and may also help to explain why people like C. S. Lewis in an earlier time regarded hymns as the gang songs of the church [55].

#### *2.13. Musical Styles and Syntax*

The musical outcome of spirituality to which Bouyer points is not the vocalization on the "a" of the Alleluia in a theoretical sense. That it takes sounding form means it takes form in actual musical styles and syntaxes. Various spiritualities lead not to one style or syntax, but to multiple ones. Here are a few thoughts about that.
