Music, Singing and Dancing

MUSIC AND RELIGION
Religion always includes music. The style of music varies from one religion to another. Anyone who doubts the importance of music to religion only needs to try to imagine a religious service without music or with music that is not part of their personal religious history. Such a worship service will be very unsatisfying.

Every religion includes music because music always stirs up positive emotions and physical feelings. See the following links for scholarly articles about the intoxicating power of music and religion:

These articles confirm that all kinds of music have power to influence people physically and emotionally. When we apply this power to religious music we see how it is a constant source of influence within religion to generate good, positive feelings to religionists — especially in ritualistic worship settings. Being well aware of this influence, religious leaders are always mindful of the need to include music in any religious gathering as a sure-fire way of creating those good feelings which will keep people coming back for more.

What we learn from these scientific studies about the effects of music on people is that the good feelings it inspires are not exclusive to religious music and not exclusive to Jews and Christians. In other words, any music has the potential to affect any human person. The relative strength of the effects of music on any individual is dependent on their cultural training — not on God.

Religious people should take the following lessons from these studies:

  • The fact that a particular type of music (e.g. hymns, contemporary worship songs, chants, etc.) stirs the body (i.e. releases dopamine) and creates good feelings (e.g. joy, tears, etc.) does not mean that the music is evidence of a two-way connection with God.
  • All religions employ music as a way to make people feel good about participating in the religion.
  • All religions employ music as a way to convince people that they are communicating with their god through music.
  • All religions employ music as a way of convincing people that their particular type of music is especially pleasing to their god because he will reward them with good feelings when they worship using that music.

The role of music in religion has been well-documented. The following links are a small selection of scholarly articles on the subject:

When we read these articles, the main fact to keep in mind is that the religions in which they were important features are the religions about which God said “you shall not do what they do or follow their customs.” In other words, if another religion employs music as a feature of worship, God’s people (i.e. New Covenant disciples ) should not employ music as features of their worship.

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