Clapping, Raising your Hands & Mechanical Instruments

[Pitts S2C]

Here we go again. Last night, I was on the phone with my older sister who lives in North Carolina. She & her husband are coc’ers and my brother-in-law is an elder. Ironically, their coc has a kitchen downstairs (which I have never understood). The discussion of singing came up. She immediately said it’s wrong to clap, raise your hands and use instruments on Sunday mornings. All of those past memories of nitpicking debates & sermons rushed back into my head. She said that clapping is a form of instrumental music. I told her that I feel that tapping ones toes to the music is dancing, using a pitch fork is wrong, the song leader waving is hand(s) is distracting, walking out to go to the bathroom during services, kneeling during a prayer and babies crying during the sermon are all biblically unauthorized. She said that I was being ridiculous. I then changed the subject as fast as I could.

When one’s family is a part of a coc it just never goes away.

[Opie]

Yep, very familiar with that entire attitude and mindset. What they're really saying is that they are saved by the way they worship for an hour on Sunday morning. They will also deny that they are being legalistic, or that they are trying to bind this on others, but this is a perfect example of their legalism.

[KLP]

Just to lighten it up, I think about TIm Hawkins and hand raising lessons and positions ...start with hold the TV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuRN2LL3fBs

[Melanie]

Just to lighten it up, I think about TIm Hawkins and hand raising lessons and positions ...start with hold the TV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuRN2LL3fBs

No matter how many times I watch this, I laugh until my sides ache!

[MusicMan826]

I've made the argument before that if clapping and instruments are wrong then so is a pitch pipe and some guy up front waving his arm around. But of course it's always, "Well that's different..." or "You're just being silly". These people are obsessed with finding flaws in how other people worship, but don't dare tell them they might be wrong about something...

[margin overa]

Yes, it's all very silly. Hard to believe grown people go to such contortions to justify their traditions. Talk about straining at gnats and swallowing camels.

[KLP]

I really don't see the old pitch pipe argument. To me it is not a musical instrument in normal parlance and it certainly is not used as an accompaniment. And yes I know it makes a tone and is mechanical. But IMO that seems like a waste of time argument especially when I know some Cofcers who will not allow the use of a pitch pipe...because ya know...it is a musical instrument.

Actually IMO there is no argument with them that is not a waste of time. But there are more substantial ones. Of course they have traditions (such as not clapping) that become doctrine and taught/treated as if it were the word of God.

[Lev]

I really don't see the old pitch pipe argument. To me it is not a musical instrument in normal parlance and it certainly is not used as an accompaniment.

I don't think the "old argument" conflates the pitch pipe with musical instruments; I think it puts them both in the category of "aids to singing." Everyone acknowledges that the NT instructs Christians to sing. The COC (mostly) allows that to happen with the aid of a pitch pipe; most other denominations allow it with the aid of musical instruments. In my understanding, the novelty of the COC argument is that musical instruments completely alter the form of the singing while other aids (e.g. pitch pipes, songbooks, song leaders) do not. At least this is the way it's normally been argued when I've presented the "old pitch pipe argument" (or variants thereof) to COCers.

Lev

[margin overa]

I really don't see the old pitch pipe argument. To me it is not a musical instrument in normal parlance and it certainly is not used as an accompaniment. And yes I know it makes a tone and is mechanical. But IMO that seems like a waste of time argument especially when I know some Cofcers who will not allow the use of a pitch pipe...because ya know...it is a musical instrument.

I have known a few CofCers who believed that the pitch pipe was verboten, and that the tuning fork method was perfectly okay. I don't know what their defining distinction was between those 2 methods.

In the same vein, I've also known CofCers who argued that tapping your foot along while singing is also no different than bringing a drum into the assembly; songleader armswinging was quite all right, though, since it didn't make a sound.

I often felt like I had entered the Twilight Zone when I went to Sunday School classes and the folks got into arguments like that.

[Ivy]

The discussion of singing came up. She immediately said it’s wrong to clap, raise your hands and use instruments on Sunday mornings.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

....but you can do it on Wednesday night and in Sunday p.m. service. Because God isn't watching
during those times.