Meaning and Music (continued)
Judging meaning in music means we pay attention to something other than our own reactions to it. Music does not become good or bad based on our reactions (some of which are automatic and visceral). 
Meaning is never separable from form. We cannot change forms without changing meanings. For instance, a sonnet cannot–mean the same thing as a limerick, even if both are examining the same object. The same is true of other forms and even of whole media.
This also helps us rightly use the word style in the music debate. Style makes it sound as if something fundamentally the same is being superficially altered on the outside. But this is not the case. We should speak about different forms. Rap and baroque and not just different styles, they have fundamentally different forms, different shapes. It would be like saying that a cathedral and a hut are different styles of housing. Each form of music must be evaluated for its meaning, not merely dismissed with a pseudo-tolerance that recognises how ‘ any style can give glory to God.’
Objection: Not everyone sees songs as sensual, destructive, etc. How do we account for such different tastes, or the apparent inability to detect that music is subversive to Christian affections?
First, this inability is anything but universal. For the most part, only two kinds of people deny that some such meanings are intrinsic, and that many more are conventional. They are postmodernists (who deny all meaning) and evangelicals (including some fundamentalists). You will not find this argument-against-meaning being made either in Rolling Stone or in the journals of art and culture.
Second, the inability of today’s generation
to discern the meanings of particular musical forms and compositions is equivalent to the teenager whose vocabulary is not large enough to allow him to know when he’s been insulted. Is there not something to be said for learning how a language communicates before one pontificates about what it does not mean?
Third, people can become desensitized to meanings. A person who is living at a rock-and-roll level of eroticism is not likely to appreciate the more refined eroticism of the waltz.
A person whose idea of the erotic is controlled by the visual will probably not appreciate the extent to which musical sound can communicate eroticism. Glenn Miller’s “Moonlight Serenade” is deeply erotic, but I doubt that anybody whose mind is filled with Snoop Dog will detect it.
Fourth, the real problem here is not about what people know, it is about what people love. We are all of us willing to deceive ourselves to keep what we love. Youths especially become so identified with their music that an attack upon their music is construed as an attack upon their persons. 
If they don’t feel that they have given themselves to sensuality, or anarchy, or inebriation, then they are not likely to allow that the music in which they delight themselves is primarily about sex, or rebellion, or drugs.
– David De Bruyn, Professor of Church History, Shepherds’ Seminary Africa
In fact, fully one third of the Old Testament is Hebrew poetry – most of it to be sung. In the New Testament we read the songs of Mary, of Simeon, of Zechariah, of the Angels. Paul in his writings sometimes quotes what was almost certainly an early hymn – many believe Philippians 2:5-11 was one such example, another being 1 Timothy 3:16. Paul commands the use of music in Ephesians and in Colossians. The Bible finishes with Revelation, with numerous songs being sung in heaven itself.
A very graphic illustration of this occurs when Moses and Joshua are returning from Mount Sinai, and the people of Israel have fallen into idolatry down below (Exodus 32:17-18).
(For that matter, parents should seriously think through the potential temptations and risks involved before allowing their children to have private access to any media device, especially televisions, cell phones, or Internet-capable computers.) Media must be muted in our homes so that the noise doesn’t drown out the voice of God. If we are not careful to shield ourselves, we will be overtaken by the deluge, and more significantly, so will our children. As their spiritual (and legal) guardians, we must be proactive in the struggle against the assault of entertainment. Parents are called by God to be the prime influencers of their children. They must not surrender that role to a corded box that sits in the living room.
Parents (especially fathers) need to take an active role in the spiritual development of their children. Youth pastors and other spiritual influences can be helpful supplements. But the primary spiritual responsibility for raising up godly children rests in the home. As God commanded Israelite parents 3,500 years ago, “You shall teach [God’s statutes] to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up” (Deuteronomy 6:7). If we are to fully counter the effects of media, we must diligently teach our children the truth about God, sin, and salvation.
We would do well to join with the great theologian and writer Jonathan Edwards in being “resolved, that I will live so, as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.” Why would we spend our lives being amused by the dim hue of the television when we could be breathlessly enraptured in the blazing brilliance of Christ’s glory? Let us keep our eyes on Christ, the Author and Perfecter of the faith. In so doing, we will have little appetite for the fading illusions of this passing world.
alks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.” – Proverbs 13:20
primary reason TV exists is to get money from sponsors, who in turn want consumers to see their products advertised. TV promotes consumerism. The real bottom line is money, not entertainment. The entertaining content of a program is simply the means of getting the most people to tune in and receive advertisement messages. Commercials are often the slickest, funniest, and most entertaining moments on TV.
s tends to come from a secular, urban, liberal perspective that differs significantly from that of the average citizen.
1. People have a right to die with dignity. People can make autonomous decisions, including the
• God uses pain and suffering for His own purposes.
The practice of abortion has been common throughout history. However, many cultures considered abortion to be a serious crime. Part of the Hippocratic Oath, which most doctors endorse, states in part, “I will not give a woman a [drug] to produce an abortion.” The Jewish people were historically against the practice, as were the leaders of the early church. Until a few decades ago, most laws in the US recognized that a woman was “with child” at the moment of conception. In the mid-1960’s, abortion laws became more tolerant in the US. The Supreme Court legalized abortion in the landmark Roe v. Wade case in January 1973.
Biblical Principles Supporting the Humanity of an Unborn Child
worship rightly. And where does all thinking, wanting, and worshipping begin? In the heart. Thus God declared to His people, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” He also promised that He would put His “law in their minds” and “write it on their hearts” (Jer. 31:33). In the same way, Moses and Jeremiah, like many other ‘people-helpers’ in Scripture, called for change starting at the heart level “Circumcise your hearts…”(Deut. 10:16; Jer. 4:4).
Of course youth ministry and any youth counselling does not stop with evangelism. But sadly, most counsel today never starts with evangelism either, which is why it needed to be emphasised above. Nothing is more practical and relevant than to introduce an unsaved youngster to the “Wonderful Counsellor” (Isa. 9:6), and to His chief “Comforter-Helper” the Holy Spirit (John 14:26; 15:26; 16:7), and to His favourite advisor, the Scriptures (Rom. 15:4; Ps. 119:24). As Augustine, a great ‘cardiologist’ from the 5th century, once prayed, “Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee.”
275). Too often today’s churches train believers to be very active in church things, yet if asked how to overcome life’s problems biblically, many will answer with vague Christian clichés: ‘just go to church, pray, and read the Bible,’ ‘let go and let God,’ and the like. How many of our youth are gaining a biblical “heart awareness,” learning to recognise idols of the heart and sinful
– Tim Cantrell, President and Professor of Systematic Theology, Shepherds’ Seminary
1:26) (Adams, 1979:114). It is consistently used to refer to the whole of our immaterial, invisible inner life (and thus is often closely linked with “soul” and “spirit”), in contrast to our visible, outer man (Adams, 1979:114). And despite “cardiology” being only a physical-medical term today, one should remember that it stems from a Greek term for heart, “kardia”, thus making a ‘cardiology’ also a legitimate realm for spiritual physicians and counsellors. Likewise, every soul-helper should remember that they are engaged in true “psychology” (the study of the “psyche”, the Greek word often referring to the “soul”). 
disturbances among youth must have been caused by a bad upbringing or peer ‘victimisation’. ‘Innocent’ youth are blindly led away into immorality, addictions, or crime by oppressive peer pressure. Angry or depressed youth easily blame parents for not building up their self-esteem, or not nurturing their self-actualisation. 
