“A New Song for an Old World” (Final Excerpts)

More notes & excerpts from Calvin R. Stapert’s book, A New Song for an Old World. Previous excerpts: One •Two • Three• Four • Five • Six • Seven • Eight In our last post, we began reviewing Staperts assessments of three arguments that moderns use to deny that music may be pernicious. The first…

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“A New Song for an Old World” (Notes & Excerpt 8)

More notes & excerpts from Calvin R. Stapert’s book, A New Song for an Old World. Previous excerpts: One • Two • Three• Four • Five • Six • Seven Stapert believes that modern-day Christians should follow the church fathers in rejecting pagan music: “In our sensation-hungry, pleasure-mad society, we should be no less courageous…

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“A New Song for an Old World” (Notes & Excerpt 7)

More notes & excerpts from Calvin R. Stapert’s book, A New Song for an Old World. Previous excerpts: One • Two • Three • Four • Five • Six The church’s music was influenced by Jewish temple music. (Stapert, 152-153) “Jewish psalmody was word-oriented, a characteristic that set it apart from the music of the…

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“A New Song for an Old World” (Excerpt 6)

More excerpts from Calvin R. Stapert’s book, A New Song for an Old World. Previous excerpts: One • Two • Three • Four • Five The purpose of this series is to open our eyes to the similarity between conservative or fundamentalist views of modern music debates and the views of ancient church leaders. The…

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“A New Song for an Old World” (Excerpt 5)

More excerpts from Calvin R. Stapert’s book, A New Song for an Old World. Previous excerpts: One • Two • Three • Four “As I have observed above, the wedding festivities of Christians in Antioch were often more pagan than Christian. Christians were reluctant to abandon objectionable pagan customs at their weddings. These customs included…

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Clement on the music wars (an excerpt)

The battle over music in the church is an old, old battle. Calvin R. Stapert writes about it in his book, A New Song for an Old World. We publish an excerpt here: “Clement [of Alexandria] affirms music that he describes as sober, pure, decorous, modest, temperate, grave, and soothing, over against music he describes…

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A New Song? What the early church might have thought of CCM

Stapert, Calvin R. A New Song for an Old World: Musical Thought in the Early Church. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007. a review by Brian Collins Historical theology provides a great service to the church, especially when applied to matters that are fiercely debated among God’s people today. C. S. Lewis, in his famous celebration of…

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