Ccm

[timwho]

[quote name='USAirwaysIHS' timestamp='1340998845' post='2450467']
"19. The employment of the piano is forbidden in church, as is also that of noisy or frivolous instruments such as drums, cymbals, bells and the like."

[/quote]

wait what? the chapel at marywood university has a beautiful steinway xD

[Adrestia]

These threads make me love my church. We sing it all. We have a piano & violin, occasionally brass for special occasions. We can sing Panis Angelicus acapella. We clap during Soon And Very Soon during Advent. Our cantor has the voice of an angel.

[brianthephysicist]

Am I the only one that keeps seeing this thread and thinking 'Catholic Campus Ministry'?

[Vincent Vega]

[quote name='timwho' timestamp='1341085322' post='2450952']
wait what? the chapel at marywood university has a beautiful steinway xD
[/quote]
One thing that's for sure is that, 99 times out of 100, people will do what they want before what the Church wants.

[dells_of_bittersweet]

[quote name='Amppax' timestamp='1340844985' post='2449719']


[size=4][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]So... I'm about to formulate why I have such an angsty relationship with Contemporary Christian Music (CCM). Here we go.[/font][/size]


[size=4][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][color=#333333]Pop-culture is necessarily popular (as the name suggests) and therefore requires its music to be easily marketable and universally appealing - thus producing a kind of signature "secular" sound which is heavily metrical with countless rhythmic variations. Popular music also req[/color][/font][/size]
[color=#333333][size=3][size=4][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]uires a certain superficiality which does not easily offend the popular culture. Since the entire purpose of CCM is to popularize the Christian message through music and "draw people in," it unwittingly sacrifices the seriousness of the Christian message and largely reduces it to a non-denominational humanitarian effort in order to appeal to as wide an audience as it can. Thus, the Gospel of Jesus Christ and his Church become merely a "positive and encouraging" message - resulting in the empty enjoyment of music without any real deep reflection on the Faith. Instead of acknowledging sin, we proclaim God as the Savior of our emotional/psychological ailments. As a result of all this, the church no longer stands as a "Sign of Contradiction" to the culture, and the Christian message is substantially reshaped into whatever is deemed culturally acceptable. THIS is the means by which we choose to evangelize youth with - but notice how when the message is so commonplace, it spurs very few to conversion. Perhaps we ought to rethink the "necessity" of CCM altogether[/font][/size].[/size][/color]

[/quote]

The premises that pop music is superficial, that CCM=Pop, and that this makes it croutons regardless of the lyrics are all statements that I find questionable. Lumping everything outside of Bach and Beethoven into the superficial label seems extreme. Is country superficial? Is classic rock superficial? Is top 40 pop superficial? Current music seems rather too broad to be able to apply a specific label like that to. This argument only works if CCM is exactly the same as some secular style, such as top 40 pop. CCM itsself is too broad to fit into any one secular category, and CCM in general has a sound distinct from existing secular styles.

Speaking of Praise and Worship music in particular, this music is designed to be able to be sung by a congregation. This form of simplification is a good thing, just as Chant is simplified from classical music for the sake of singability.

Finally, what makes a song superficial is the lyrics not the music. Some CCM songs have lame lyics, but songs like 10,000 Reasons by Matt Redman are often excellent takes on a Pslam or other Scripture.