Forbidding instruments

A place to snark and vent about CoC doctrine and/or our experiences in the CoC. This is a place for SUPPORT and AGREEMENT only, not a place to tell someone their experience and feelings are wrong, or why we disagree with them.
ena
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Re: Forbidding instruments

Post by ena »

SolaDude wrote:
ena wrote:In the days of Covid Church is at home. You definitely would not want to be one cup in this timeframe.
Watch out, ena, your're stepping on the toes of all those evangelicals who think you're taking away their religious freedom!
It's pretty dumb if the person next to you has covid. The virus stays alive on surfaces. It spreads mainly through the air. Even your cat can bring it home.
B.H.
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Re: Forbidding instruments

Post by B.H. »

Why can you go to the old testament to get authority to pay preachers and elders per I Corinthians but magically it is unacceptable to go to the old testament to get your instrument?
The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.----Karl Marx
SolaDude
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Re: Forbidding instruments

Post by SolaDude »

I once spoke with a CofC zealot who told me that David was gay, a queer who went around in a loin cloth playing the flute, leading people behind him much like the Pied Piper.
SolaDude
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Re: Forbidding instruments

Post by SolaDude »

ena wrote:
SolaDude wrote:
ena wrote:In the days of Covid Church is at home. You definitely would not want to be one cup in this timeframe.
Watch out, ena, your're stepping on the toes of all those evangelicals who think you're taking away their religious freedom!
It's pretty dumb if the person next to you has covid. The virus stays alive on surfaces. It spreads mainly through the air. Even your cat can bring it home.
Absolutely. What these evangelicals are to me are members of a death cult, led by a Jim Jones-type personna, whose last name starts with a "T".
ena
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Re: Forbidding instruments

Post by ena »

B.H. wrote:Why can you go to the old testament to get authority to pay preachers and elders per I Corinthians but magically it is unacceptable to go to the old testament to get your instrument?
In the Old Testament the Levites were paid out of a tithe. Widows and orphans were taken care of by a special tithe with a three year timing. There were three tithes. Paul did not preach for pay. He earned his own way as a tent-maker. He even mentions it. He did stay with supporters as did Jesus. The picture you get is Christians as a sharing community. They often met in homes with a kitchen. The Jews do not prohibit instruments in the old Testament. God does not prohibit harps in heaven. I have been in a synagogue but not during services. It had a organ. I nearly broke out laughing when I thought about the CoC. God is not a child. The celebrations and joy are appreciation. You would not hear this or feel this in the CoC. They are busy worrying about sins that in some cases created by their thinking. Examples are missing communion, missing church, even instrumental music. I have missed CoC services for over 50 years. I wasted 21 years trying to make it work. Garbage Theology. I find them totally disgusting.
ena
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Re: Forbidding instruments

Post by ena »

SolaDude wrote:I once spoke with a CofC zealot who told me that David was gay, a queer who went around in a loin cloth playing the flute, leading people behind him much like the Pied Piper.
David killed a man because he wanted the woman. She was Solomon's mother. He lost the child of his adultery. Probably does not know much. Typical!!! I love more than one woman. That does not mean that desire sex with them. They are personal friends. Married for almost 49 years. We have two children and four grandchildren.
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agricola
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Re: Forbidding instruments

Post by agricola »

There were musical instruments in the Temple in Jerusalem, as well as a very good trained men's choir (numbering in the thousands) of Levites.

Since the destruction of the Temple, musical instruments have been avoided in synagogues, in memory of the Temple - a kind of mourning practice which became the norm.

Liberal congregations (Reform, some Renewal) sometimes have an organ or piano, and often have a choir.

There is a separate consideration concerning musical instruments on Shabbat and holy days (separate from the whole 'mourning for the Temple' thing) which involves the legal prohibition against repairing things on those days - and instruments often need repairs and adjustments, so they fall into a legal category of 'mukhtzah' meaning things we do not TOUCH on Shabbat - not because they are themselves 'forbidden', but because it is too easy to forget that it is forbidden to DO anything with them - so better not to touch them at all -
Same as a pencil. Writing is a forbidden activity, so on Shabbat and holy days, you shouldn't even TOUCH a pencil or pen or similar, because it would be too easy to forget and start to write something.

Orthodox synagogues never have musical instruments in the synagogue for use on Shabbat and holy days (they may have them for weekday things maybe). Conservative synagogues typically do not, but some of the more liberal ones MIGHT. Reform synagogues often have them.

The rabbi here plays the sax pretty well, and the guitar pretty poorly, and sings - somewhat adequately but not really WELL, alas.
With the sax, of course, he can't sing.

A former rabbi I knew had a fabulous well trained singing voice, and played various instruments, and at her services there was a kind of band, with several people playing several different instruments. I never quite got really used to it, but they were good.

Early training - I'm not used to it, that's all. It still seems like a 'performance' I should listen to and watch, instead of a part of the service which elevates me personally, so to speak. But that's MY issue, not a real objection.
History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices.
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Ivy
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Re: Forbidding instruments

Post by Ivy »

I had a thought when I saw this topic...that scripture about "making into laws the commandments of men", something like that. Y'all will know. I think the musical instrument taboo is that kind of thing; a "commandment of men".
~Stone Cold Ivyrose Austin~
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agricola
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Re: Forbidding instruments

Post by agricola »

Ivy wrote:I had a thought when I saw this topic...that scripture about "making into laws the commandments of men", something like that. Y'all will know. I think the musical instrument taboo is that kind of thing; a "commandment of men".
Yeah - but as typically happens, the people objecting to 'commandments of men' turn right around and make their OWN 'correct interpretations' which are JUST as much 'commandments of men' as the others were, after all.

Every time you read that Jesus says 'you have heard it said X but I say Y' that is PRECISELY what he's doing, and Christians get around it by saying 'oh but he's God so it's true'.

Wasn't it 'true' the LAST time, as well?

There's a reason why folks ask - even Christians - why God is so DIFFERENT in 'the Old Testament': because really, 'God' IS different - different enough that some early Christians wanted to excise the Jewish scriptures wholesale, on that very idea (but it was too weird to try to explain 'messiah' and 'covenant' and 'Abraham' (for a few ideas and things) without acknowledging any Jewish stuff, after all).
History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices.
ena
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Joined: Sat Oct 11, 2014 12:34 pm

Re: Forbidding instruments

Post by ena »

agricola wrote:
There's a reason why folks ask - even Christians - why God is so DIFFERENT in 'the Old Testament': because really, 'God' IS different - different enough that some early Christians wanted to excise the Jewish scriptures wholesale, on that very idea (but it was too weird to try to explain 'messiah' and 'covenant' and 'Abraham' (for a few ideas and things) without acknowledging any Jewish stuff, after all).
Christians that were converted Jews were aware of the Torah and associated literature. In fact that information was part of early Christianity. Marcion believed that the Jewish God was more hateful than the God of Jesus when Jesus was talking about the Jewish. He did a hack job on Luke removing Jewish references. The burning of his works were so complete under emperor Constantine that we do not have a copy of his gospel today. He had many followers and was wrong. Using the OT you can gain insights into how God works and thinks. It is critical to learn about God's relationship to man. He desired to be king over the Israelites. The Israelites wanted a human king and as a result got Saul. The is in

1 Samuel 8 kjv.

6 But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord.

7 And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.

********* As with most things in the Bible please read the whole Chapter to get the point. Hebrew texts do not necessarily have chapter and verse so a discourse may run for several chapters. The Christian indexing system was added later. It allows you to find certain passages. Jesus talks about the same God and it is easy to merge the view if you correctly view God. God had a problem with the Children of Israel in that they had lived with pagans for 400 years. It started out with Joseph sold into slavery by his brothers. Because he could interpret a dream that Pharaoh had he was made number two man in Egypt. When his brothers came to Egypt to buy grain he had vast stores in under ground silos. The silos have been found. The children of Israel farmed the Nile delta. This is very rich farmland and the Israelites farmed as well as made bricks. When they were taken out of Egypt the Egyptian economy went into a tail spin. The Pharaoh that chased them probably died in the reed sea. The Bible says Red sea but that is impossible because it is so deep that you would need mountain climbing equipment as well as elevators for animals. They walked on dry land. Pharaoh could drive his chariots on it.
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