Central to Life
Read: Psalm 100:1-5
This winter I am continuing a class I started in the Fall regarding the history of western music. Right now we are just finishing up Beethoven and about to start the Romantic Period. Last September one of the first things our teacher told us was that the history of western music is pretty much the history of Christian church music at least up to the Renaissance. Even after this time, enormous amounts of Christian church music was written especially after the Reformation and the evolution of protestant music .
In the Middle Ages the church was the center for learning and the music composed during that time for the church such as the Gregorian chants was written down and is therefore available to us today. A lot of secular music was not written down so there is not historical record for us to refer to. After the Reformation Martin Luther wrote some of the first protestant hymns to get the congregation involved in the worship service. Members of the congregations were not to be merely on lookers but active participants.
What has struck me in this class is how central the church was for people in these time periods. It is true that with the Renaissance and after, people started questioning religious faith and the church. Martin Luther, of course, was a major player in the scrutiny and criticism of the church. Furthermore people valued reason over faith and the position of the church in the lives Christians shifted, but the church still had a huge influence in the daily lives of a lot of Europeans.
I am not suggesting that we return to the Middle Ages and these other time periods with the Inquisitions, burning of witches, the Crusades, the 30 Years Wars, and antisemitism just to name a few of the travesties that have haunted the Christian church since these times. But Lent in particular is a time to return our focus to what our faith means to us and what a difference it can make in our lives and the lives of those we come in contact with.
Vivian Anderson
No comments:
Post a Comment