I ended my last post asking how one moves away from the mindset engendered by the CofC hermeneutic. For me, it all started to unravel on the issue of instrumental music. The are two main passages that are used to support the view that God does not want instrumental music in worship :

Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. (Eph 5:17-21)

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Col 3:16)

You can probably see where this is going. The passages above say sing, and nothing else. Since scripture elsewhere is silent on the topic of using instruments then we have no authorization to use them. Anything else would be “adding to” the word of God.

Let me step back and say that in the CofC we really like to argue. Setting up debates with local Baptists, atheists, etc. was par for the course. I remember growing up in Sunday School learning how to debate Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, and others on why their doctrine was wrong. If you keep in mind that salvation is dependent on knowing the right things then it makes a little more sense. Suffice to say that the CofC considers themselves very reasonable and logical.

My bent is towards the rational side anyway so all this seemed perfectly natural - and I liked it. But in the end this emphasis on being logical is what started my journey away from the CofC. And the first stop was the prohibition on instrumental music(IM). There were just too many inconsistencies that I couldn’t reconcile. I won’t go through them all but here are two :

• IM is not allowed but song books, pitch pipes, PA systems, etc are. Now the CofC will try to make a distinction between aids(hymnals) and additions(pianos). But in the end I think it’s a false distinction. The addition of any of these things does not prevent singing from happening.
• There are other, clearer commands that get ignored - “Greet each other with a holy kiss”, “…not with braided hair or gold”. With the CofC emphasis on “speaking where the Bible speaks” it seems odd that stuff like this is left out. While the case for forbidding IM is really an argument from silence.

And from there other doctrines start to get questioned - “Why can we meet on Wednesdays when only the first day of the week is authorized?” And the biggie - “Is Baptism really essential for salvation?”. Which leads to - “Are there other Christians besides us?”

One thing you’ll notice is that I’m still approaching scripture from a slice and dice perspective - though I’m trying to do it consistently. There’s that nasty little thing called context that I’ll talk about next time.