How shall we worship

Within the Christian church there are two basic forms of worship: the regulative principle of worship (RPW) and the normative principle of worship (NPW). Basically the regulative principle allows only that which is explicitly mentioned in Scripture. And the normative principle allows anything which isn't explicitly forbidden by Scripture. In many RPW churches you will find exclusive psalmody (EP). With exclusive pslamody the Psalms contained in Scripture are the sole form of music permitted in worship. They are sung by the congregation and no musical accompaniment is permitted.

I favor the normative principle, it gives us the freedom to praise God using all of our talents and utilizing the best hymns and sacred music of the past. I find the regulative principle to be overly restrictive and not supported by Scripture. We have examples of people praising God using instruments in Scripture. I cannot imagine that when we perform Bach's sacred cantatas we are somehow sinning against God and that the music is not true worship! There is lots of legalistic thinking in proponents of EP so be careful if you run into them.

Here is a good article which discusses these issues.

Rap

I loathe rap music. It is extremely misogynistic, promotes criminality and crass consumerism. Further it degrades the beauty of the English language. The bass, or beats, is based on pagan tribal drum beats which were used in calls to war and in various pagan ceremonies. Musically it is extremely simplistic and lyrically devoid of merit most of the time. It is utterly superficial and promotes the shallow philosophy of materialism and glorification of the ego. We have such a rich heritage of great music in America (jazz, gospel, blues, r&b) and there is the vast genius of classical music. Teach kids that glorious music! Listening to rap music one notices a few motifs repeated over and over again:

1. do anything you can to earn money, the end justifies the means
2. to be successful in life you must amass great wealth
3. use women for your sexual gratification
4. criminality is OK if you are in a lower socio-economic state
5. if you have a problem with someone violence is the solution
6. listing all of the material goods they have, how much money they spend, etc.
7. talking about going to clubs and partying

Seriously this is nothing to embrace as a cultural achievement, quite the contrary!

GaGa - GagGag

I'm so tired of seeing her CONSTANTLY seeking attention and dressing in these ridiculous outfits at her concerts. In interviews she talks about how she wants to focus on her music, fine go do that and stop this frivolous idiocy! Here is some proof of her artistic genius. Maddonna did all this before and it wasn't impressive or substantive when she did it. Behold the profound art of GaGa:


How courageous of her to lampoon the Catholic Church. What courage it takes to do that in this age! What a joke. If she was really courageous and wanted to do some actual good she'd go after Islam, but we all know that will never happen.



Here she is faux touching herself. Wow so edgy. She wants to project how SEXUAL she is. Great you are super duper sexual GaGa now can you stop stripping off in public every chance you get (even at baseball games) please?


Covered in fake blood and growling like a rapid dog. Yes this is so edifying.


Shooting sparks from her metallic cone bra. This is surely what our forefathers fought for!


So lame. Not worth commenting much beyond that.

Further, she is quite disingenuous. In interviews GaGa constantly talks about her lyrical content, (as if there are rich fields to harvest there!) and how she is sick of the paparazzi bothering her. Then in her concerts she does these stupid displays and does attention whoring things like wearing lingerie to a baseball game and when the paparazzi take her picture giving them the finger. It's an affront to our intelligence. If you want to be an attention whore GaGa go and embrace it but don't act as if you are some artiste who must carry the heavy unwanted burden of the media! That is what really irks me about her.

Elvis

Elvis is, IMHO, still the best.

No other singer brought the incredibly high musicality, passion and soul into their music so consistently in a career spanning decades. Frank Sinatra comes close though.

Fans of the recent movie "Kick Ass" will recognize this amazing medley, "An American Trilogy".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9saX9cF248
The finale is simply stunning, probably the best you'll ever see in pop music.
This is from the famous live broadcast (first of its kind) special from Hawaii.

Two more of more favorite selections.

This is, "If I Can Dream", from his 1968 comeback special:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEO7uu1Pp8I

Finally here is the most moving rendition of "Amazing Grace" I've ever heard. This is transcendent music!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3XdXEJEI4E

Elvis gave himself wholly to every performance and I'll never forget him.

Yasoo3 ya ibn Allah!

Shookran Taree2 Yasoo3! Amin! Al Ma7ee!

Here is a great song (tarneema) by (Rogé [Roger] Bahu) :

Ya Yasou ya ibn Allah

Download the full recording ->
or hear streaming audio ->