The
Church finds its pulse -
Understanding the significance of a
drum beat in worship
by David Hopkins
In 1994, the Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo De Silos
released an album called Chant. The entire recording is of (you guessed it)
chanting. The album went platinum on the Billboard Charts! Why? In a way, the album’s
success is an indicator of a renew interest in the spiritual. It also reveals
another example of the paradoxical world which we live in, as both chant and beat
percussion are re-entering our worship. A paradox in that these two musical forms
originate from opposed philosophies concerning (believe it or not) the human body.
The theology of beat
From the Bible, we find numerous scriptures describing the
use of percussion instruments in worship (Psalm 150 as a popular example) Drums and
cymbals played to worship Adonai, our God. Historically we do not have much information on
early Christian music. We believe much of it was taken from Jewish psalms, possibly sung
a capella.
As Christianity established itself as a world religion,
Pope Gregory the Great unified the chants for worship during the Church calendar. Hence we
have Gregorian chant. Chant, itself, is a reflection of Augustinian philosophy.
Chant has no beat. It has no pulse. Pulse in music is associated with the beat of a heart.
This association between musical pulse and a heart beat is one way how anthropologists
believe music developed. It came from inside us-- an expression of the beat of our
heart. However, Augustine persuades that the body is flawed and in itself evil. The
best worship uses the senses the least and is furthest removed from the body. Chant
incorporates this belief with its non-pulse and repetitive nature giving the music an
ethereal and outer-world feel.
Worship in both chant and in beat
I recently hosted a coffee house at my university. We had a
time near the end of the evening for worship. Our song leader took us through a chorus of
"We exalt thee." As he played, the guitar faded out. Just our voices remained
singing over and over: "We exalt thee." As we sang, certain people added their
own harmony and words to the open spaces of the song, until the moment transcended the
music. I believe in the darkness of that room we escaped to a sanctuary of delicate sound,
similar to what early monks must have experienced from chant.
But in other ways, the postmodern Church has moved back to
percussion, while simultaneously accepting chant-like forms of worship. The Bible urges us
to worship in both Spirit and in Truth (John 4:23). A spirit does not have flesh and bones
(Luke 24:37), but truth of Christ is found in his flesh incarnation (John1:14-- "full
of grace and truth"). So the Church worships with both chant and with beat. We
have gone from choir to praise band. A band which almost always has a drummer and/or
percussionist. The beat returns.
I went to the Ichthus Christian Music Festival in Wilmore,
Kentucky where a hard-core rock band played. The noise, the distortion, and the beat
pounded into my chest and rattled my stomach. Usually I just nod my head to the beat as my
hearing leaves me, but this time, it was different. In that moment, I truly worshipped
God. The power of the moment attacked my senses as a shadow of the experience the Apostle
John had when he encountered the risen Christ in Revelation 1. John heard Christ’s
voice as a loud trumpet (v.1:10) and as the sound of rushing waters (v.1:15). John fell
down as though dead (v.1:17). His moment was power above power. And at that concert, I
tasted a sample of this power through the medium of music. It was more than the drums, but
the beat ushered in a higher spiritual experience.
I observe this experience every time I visit the club
God’s Place in Bedford, Texas. The bands that come play here are the hardest and
heaviest of what the music industry has to offer. They are lovers of a strong beat. The
younger generation of Christians who claim God’s Place soak in the noise and find
peace in it. They shout in the face of early chant-philosophy which teaches us to be
ashamed of our bodies, of our personal beat.
Beat as an expression of God’s love for our bodies
I am not talking about a existential moment, but a
spiritual reality. The body is not to be despised. God created our bodies. Many early
fervent believers would take Paul’s "I beat my body" literally (I
Corinthians 9:27) abusing themselves in horrific ways as an offering to God. God instead
asks that we take care of our bodies. "After all, no one ever hated his own body, but
he feeds and cares for it." (Ephesians 5:29 in reference to the husband/wife
relationship) The beat of a drum tunes us back to the body. Like the heart beat we use as
a sign of life, so the beat in our worship may unveil renewed life in our worship. But in
the context of Christian worship, this musical heart beat also points beyond our bodies to
the God that created them-- who desires us to worship Him with our whole selves.
A new pulse in the Church
What does postmodern worship music look like then? It takes
many forms, but it has one function: to magnify God in the heart of a believer, to glorify
God, to enjoy the reality of His presence. I envision a mixing of styles:
* the use of computer synthesized sounds blended with
tribal percussion,
* a mixing of cultural instruments like the bagpipes,
hammer dulcimer, and the accordion,
* an increased use of a capella and an explosion of
instrumentation,
* complex lyric schemes laid over a repeating chorus of
"alleluia" or "amen,"
* hymns re-written,
* the joy of dance and the humility of a bowed head,
* beat and non-beat,
* Spirit and Truth
Possibly, the Benedictine Monks will have a techno-drum
machine assisting them next time they hit the studio.
 Written by David Hoskins
For more on David, visit his website at www.bigfoot.com/~davidhopkins/
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