C. S. Lewis Missed the Point on Church Music

C. S. Lewis’ essay “On Church Music” (1949)[ published in Christian Reflections, Ed. By Walter Hooper, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1967, p. 94-99.] is disappointingly shallow. He focuses on high vs. low church music and edification, which seems to him to be resolved if advocates of both adopt an attitude of intending to glorify God rather than pleasing their own taste. In humility, the ungifted glorify God by silence during trained musical excellence. Equally humbly, the musically gifted glorify God when sacrificing their own desires and provides the ungifted a coarser fare than he or she would wish. 

Unfortunately, Lewis did not deal with issues such as why music appears to be one of the main activities in heaven (Revelation 4:8&11, 5:9-13, 7:12, 15:3-4) , and why it has power to move soul and spirit in church, and why the Scriptures extol it (e.g., Psalm 150:3-5). The missing link is the nature and character of God. In the essay, Lewis nods to this as an afterthought, that God does not need our music in any substantive way, citing Psalm 50:12. But he knew better. It is intrinsic to God that he is both creative and compassionate. His passion for lost humans is so strong that He sent Jesus to die on the cross to save them, and His creative energy such that He created humans to begin with so that they might glorify Him and enjoy fellowship with Him. As Lewis himself wrote in Mere Christianity, regarding joy, power, peace, and eternal life: “They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very centre of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you: if you are not, you will remain dry.“ Or, as Jesus said, “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘Out of his belly will flow rivers of living water.’” (John 7:38) 

God invested music with the power to directly stimulate man’s soul and spirit in our innermost being. For some, prayer is this channel of connection to God, but music is much more so, that both men and angels enjoy. Because that is the purpose of creation, to enjoy fellowship with God forever. (Sadly, music has such power that the evil one can use it to lead humans astray, but that is not the subject here.) What are we to enjoy? That God’s very essence of self-sacrificial love has been shared with us, both by nature and by redemption, and the fellowship of like-spirited beings is glorious. The melodies, harmonies, rhythms, instrumental sounds,  words, verses, and poetic structures all strike deeply embedded receptors in us, encouraging passionate response. The best music uses these attributes to enhance our response to its propositional content.

The bottom line on Church music is that it succeeds in submission to God’s purposes, and fails otherwise. God’s purposes are both knowable and achievable, if we are willing. Worship is more than music, and not all music is worship, but music of worship brings glory to God through our participation, and its impact on us.

Breaking Generational Curses

The concept of inherited curses goes back to the Mosaic Law, in which the Lord warned that He would visit the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and fourth generations  (Exodus 20:5, 34:7 et.al.). The natural outworking of children being trained in, or subconsciously adopting, the sins of their parents is undeniable. But the spiritual dimension of these curses reveals that there is a supernatural cause/effect relationship, that opening the door to evil by agreeing with the lies of the devil has an invisible spiritual reality. 

Generational curses are a special case of the more general curses that were articulated by Moses (Deuteronomy 27:15-26) and woes warned by Jesus (Luke 7:24-26).  Unequivocally Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law (Galatians 3:10-13). Hence the primary means of redemption from the generational curses is that any descendant who believes in and receives Jesus as their savior is freed from this law. [Of course, younger generations are free to choose their own sins, not from their ancestors’ heritage - for that they are solely answerable - Ezekiel 18:4.] But what of the spiritual heritage of being insensitive to God’s voice and leading? Besides the humanly modeled parental behaviors such as pride, avarice wrath, lust, envy, gluttony, and spiritual sloth, does the Holy Spirit hold grudges against children? I think this question puts the issue in the wrong stocking. 

C. S. Lewis wrote a short section on being close to God, which a later editor paired with part of Psalm 73:

For, behold, those who are far from You will perish;

You have destroyed all those who are unfaithful to You.

But as for me, the nearness of God is my good;

I have made the Lord God my refuge,

That I may tell of all Your works.

 Psalm 73:27-28

C. S. Lewis’ words: “If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prize which God could, if He chose, hand out to anyone. They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very centre of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you: if you are not, you will remain dry. Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever? Once a man is separated from God, what can he do but wither and die?” (Mere Christianity, Book IV, chapter 4))

Other Scriptures reinforce this concept. 

• Jesus told His disciples “ My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. (John 10:27)
• Jesus also said, “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:38)
• The warning, “See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven.” (Hebrews 10:25)

The juxtaposition of the themes of the blood of Jesus and intimate, personal relationship with Him seems odd. How can a dead person interact with the living? But that is on a purely natural level. In the spiritual eternity of God, the death of Christ becomes the doorway to connection with God. We remind ourselves and celebrate this supernatural, transcendent reality every time we take communion. 

This is the key to breaking the generational curse. It is not in the words of a prayer invoking the blood of Jesus, nor in the rote recitation of the liturgy of the Lord’s Supper, but in the continuous exercise of a relational interaction with God the Father, as an obedient and affectionate son, made possible through Calvary, that the curse is nullified. The core of the generational curse is the transmission of this lack of relationship. And this applies to all of us, regardless of the number of generations between us and Adam. The cure for all the curses is to remedy this root cause.