Ed Stetzer of LifeWay Research had an interesting post on his blog last week about worship wars that are all too common in today's church. You can read it here.
Ed Stetzer's "Ending the Worship War Without a Truce"
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What an awesome column! When it comes to the "wars" we get into as Believers, we need to remember a very important truth:
The Bible outlines issues that are absolutes (love God with all your heart, don't commit adultery, etc.) and issues that are variables (music and other cultural "norms")
The absolutes never change with time, culture or denomination, but variables are constantly changing.
We must never turn absolutes into variables - i.e. our absolutes are not an option, and should not be changed to suit our personal preferences. Likewise, we cannot change the variables into absolutes - this is where most of the "wars" take place. We try to legislate the variables and make others in our churches obey our personal rules. The variables concern musical tastes, dress, hairstyles, etc. when we start insisting that others legalistically conform to our variables, the trouble begins.
One other point: most people seem to think that the music that was popular when they were teenagers is the music that God sanctions. Each generation ends up having a problem with the styles of the generations that follow them. The funny thing about that is that if we heard David sing, we would probably be shocked. The style that so pleased the Lord when the praising King sang was nothing like the variable musical styles found in any Church - ancient or modern.