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Have I been hoodwinked all these years? I've been taught that Martin Luther took the tunes of popular music and put religious words to them. For example, "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" was supposedly a bar tune that Luther used to paraphrase Psalm 46. So, in debates about church music today, the point was always made that much of our traditional music actually came from popular music of another era--which would be an argument for so-called 'contemporary music' in churches today.
But wait! Maybe not. I recently read that the 'bar-tunes' argument has been a misunderstanding. The term 'barform' is a German word that means "a poem with more than one stanza, each stanza in the form AAB. It has nothing to do with bars in the sense of pubs...Luther did not use popular music." (Paul Westermeyer, Te Deum: The Church and Music, Fortress Press, 1998, page 148.)
The eminent hymnologist Erik Routley wrote: "The very last thing Luther was, or could have been, was what we now call an adapter of popular styles. He had no use for popular in the sense of the careless, or standards of ignorance. His melodies are the kind of melody far removed from the popular music." (Erik Routley, The Music of Christian Hymns.)
Another writer: "Most of Luther's music for worship was based not on worldly ballads, but rather on the chants of the church." (Robin Leaver, Luther's Liturgical Music: Principles and Implications, Eerdmans, 2007, page 13.)
The quotes above are from an article by Barrett L. Gritters in Protestant Reformed Theological Journal, November 2008. The journal is published by the Protestant Reformed Theological Seminary in Wyoming, Michigan. This has caused me to rethink the whole 'contemporary' music debate. Perhaps the Luther-based argument doesn't hold water.
My opinion on this matter may not amount to much since I'm old and like tradition. But I also have a sense of music. I tend to think that there ought to be an aesthetic dimension to church music that isn't found in popular music. When we enter into the worship of the holy God, the music that is used to support the worship should be something that helps us enter into the mystery of the sacred.
Does popular music tend to trivialize the holy? Does the music of the marketplace--everyday music--lend itself to the mystery of the divine? I know the division of the profane and the sacred has in some sense been broken down by the incarnation of Jesus--the divine has entered the everyday existence. All ground is holy ground. All music is holy because Christ has sanctified everything by his incarnation. Human creativity is good. Music is good. Creativity partakes of the divine. So, all music can be the vehicle of God's grace.
My experience has been that some popular music (rock, jazz, etc) can lift us out of our skin and give us ecstatic experiences that exalt us into the heavenlies. I've certainly experienced the sacred when listening to Chris Botti or Norah Jones or Billy Joel or James Taylor or The Bad Plus or Leann Rimes or John Mellencamp or Diana Krall or Basia or Johnny Cash.
But the context of worship calls for a differentiation of musical styles. Appropriate church music changes with time. But there continues to be music that is inappropriate.
Evidently Martin Luther had the skill to write new music that was consistent with authentic worship of God.
