Why is there a judgment that those who question a musical piece or practice in the liturgy are** complainers **? Right there you have put a negative spin on those who question anything.
I would like to point out here that the ancient Greeks understood that music was a very, very powerful force which could be used for good and for evil also. I think that in this generation, having grown up with a far greater inundation of music and/or Muzak than has ever been known, we tend to forget the ‘dark side’, if you will, of music.
All things in moderation is a good way to live physically; but the body is only a part. While ‘all things in moderation’ may sound like a good way to live spiritually, what you wind up with is a lukewarm philosophy that pretty much permits you to choose how much you give to God, and to pat yourself on the back for not being one of those ‘extremists’.
Like it or not, music has been made an idol (not just American) and we do like to rationalize away our own preferences. Look, as a musician myself there are certain groups, styles etc. that I enjoy emotionally who are not 100% ‘orthodox’. There are songs that have powerful emotional ties because I remember experiencing them with a loved one, or on a particularly beautiful day, etc. So Cat, I understand where you and Joy and others are going with the “even the music you snobs dislike can lead others to God”. But too many people feed on that ‘emotionalism’. Sure, maybe one hymn makes them think of God–but then they start to think that unless they still have that powerful feeling, they aren’t really ‘experiencing’ God, and so they turn away from the Church and from God, or ‘shop around’ always looking to be brought to the state of highest emotionalism, and calling that “God”.
However, there is a big difference between disliking a style, and noting a problem. Many of the more modern ‘hymns’ do indeed have a place in the liturgy but not to the unfortunately overused or even illicit degree they have in many places–for example, the choirs/cantors who use things like “keep in mind” after the consecration, or who routinely trot out a hymn in place of the responsorial psalm. And while some of the hymns may be banal, that would not necessarily exclude them from occasional use.
What most of us ‘snobs’ object to is not “all hymns since Vatican 2”, but to poorly written, hard to sing, inclusive languged ‘me’ fests. And to a great extent, most of us who write in to object have not been to your Church and are not casting aspersions on your choir or your taste.
In this anti-authority generation, it has become a sort of reverse snobbery to denigrate those who do have experience in an area, and to maintain that those who do not like what 'I" like are snobs themselves. Well, while I acknowledge that experts are only human and as likely to commit error as any other, I respectfully submit that, for example, while your doctor may make a mistake in a diagnosis, he is less likely to make that diagnostic mistake in a patient than your lawyer, or your teacher, or your uncle Herman, or you yourself.
So a musical expert may be wrong about a hymn, or a style. He or she may not be as much of a theologian and so may err when considering that aspect of a hymn. But when you have large numbers of experts who have studied the matter and found areas of problems at the very least, it behooves us to consider well that they might be ‘right’ and that those who downplay or don’t find problems just may be wrong.
When one considers the degree of animosity that comes about as people fly to the defense of songs they ‘love’, or have to deal with defending themselves against charges of being ‘judgmental and complainers’ , it seems obvious that dialogue about music is important and is not to be swept under the rug under the guise of a false ‘unity’ that insists that it’s more important just to ‘sit there’ and let ‘anything goes’ as regards to church liturgy.
Music** is** important and liturgy is important. As with so many other Church teachings, we have to remember that there is a right way and a wrong way, and get out of the modernistic thought that “what is right for me may not be right for you but so long as our end goal is the same we should just live and let live”. . .IMO.
