Martin Luther and his Theology on Music - Research Paper Example

?Martin Luther’s Theology of Music and the Reformation of Faith for Protestants . Even before Martin Luther (1483-1546) was excommunicated from the Catholic Church, he cherished and furthered revolutionary ideas of worship and liturgy in the church. Luther’s position and contributions to music cannot be understood apart from his reformation theology. He believed that five major changes had to happen to return liturgy from a tradition-based one to a Christocentric one. Luther also prized congregational worship and Bible-based liturgy over the Catholic one which patronized dead, erroneous, unchanging and ritualistic ceremony. “Luther thought music to be a gift from God and considered it of the highest importance next to the preaching of the Word (i.e., theology)1” . Luther’s theological views on music and his instigation of different methods of worship in the Catholic Church have helped Christians during the reformation era revitalize their faith. Catholicism is not compatible with Lutheran’s brand of liturgy because their religious principles are widely distinct. Catholicism embraced superstition. Catholicism’s worship was grounded on tradition, rather than on the Word of God. Catholicism’s worship remained locked in an incomprehensible language to the masses. Catholicism’s liturgy was static, predictable, meaningless and therefore, not spiritually edifying to the congregant. With such doctrines as the Eucharist, purgatory, the worship of relics, indulgences and Latinized readings, the masses were not being fed nourishing spiritual food which would be salvific in nature and lead to their salvation. Catholicism instructed the multitudes in errors, primarily concerned with death, which warped their perceptions of God, causing them to deviate further from the truth. The Eucharist service is one in which Catholic believers are encouraged to equate the presence of the Lord Jesus with the bread and wine of Communion. The Communion celebrates the death of Christ and in Catholicism, congregants observe more emphatically the sacrifice of the Savior without impressing upon the people’s minds the reality of Christ as a risen Lord. The Catechism affirms that Christ Jesus… “is present . . . most especially in the Eucharistic species”2 Devotion in honor of the dead is another prevailing conviction advocated in Catholicism. The idea was held in wide currency that the dead somehow acquire divine power when called upon can help the living in distress, because of the alleged virtue of now residing in heaven. For the Catholic service “another common practice was the worship of relics, or physical objects such as bones or keepsakes of famous saints”3 . Adherents firmly believed that the possession and worship of relics would sanctify them in some manner and improve their opportunities at being saved. The deception was that the relics were in reality the bones of dead animals which the clergy designated as the bones of saints. Another doctrine forwarded by Catholicism was purgatory. In the Catholic liturgy “through congregational participation the people could effectively work themselves and their deceased loved ones out of purgatory and into heaven …such celebrations included requiem masses, vigils, the common week, and All Souls’ Day”4 (Dieter). Purgatory is the teaching that the souls of the dead are in a state of limbo between heaven and hell. To rescue the deceased souls, the faithful were expected to pay large sums of money for extra masses and prayers so that the dead would be redeemed and enter heaven’s gates. Indulgences is another liturgical rite in which “pieces of parchment were said to possess the power to credit the buyers with the merits of Christ together with the superabundant merits of all the saints” to deliver the beloved dead from perdition in purgatory. These rounds of superstition only confirmed the belief in error and steered the flock from the principles of justification by faith, the word of God and Jesus Christ alone. As a result, the Reformation rose up as a reactionary wave against Catholicism which suppressed truthful teaching and inhibited the freedom of heart worship. In The Heidelberg Disputation (1518), Luther argued that “through faith Christ is in us, indeed, one with us. Christ is just and has fulfilled all the commands of God, wherefore we also fulfill everything through him since he was made ours through faith.” Consequently the liturgical mass and ceremonies only fixated the attention of the masses to death and continued to feed their fears about their eternal lot. What the Catholic liturgy did was retain the attendants in ignorance, blurred their view of the Hope of Glory and imprisoned the minds. Moreover, Catholicism represented God as an angry deity which accorded salvation for the deserving who worked for it. Catholic philosophy portrayed God as a God of fire and brimstone anxious to punish sinners, condemning them to hell. Painting horrific pictures of the unsaved man's lot in hell should he not do what the Church demanded of him. God's wrath always hangs above his head and so the liturgy was the way of escape. On one side, there is the hot, burning anger of God and on the other, there's the tyranny and infernal terror of Satan. Without obeying the Church, believers are fallen in a mire of torture whose consequence is eternal death and fiery torment. The Catholic Church derived its reasoning and doctrines from pagan mythologies and false mysteries integrated within the worship. Instead of the mystifying language which the congregants could not understand, Luther promoted a liturgy in the native language of the worshipper. Although taken for granted now, in Luther’s day, this idea was revolutionary. Martin Luther realizes that the people “needed to be able to sing in their own German language, for that was an important means of education and catechesis. Proclaiming the faith by singing it was—and is—a means of taking doctrine in at a very deep level”5. Luther assumed the labor of translating hymns and psalms so that his congregants could understand and benefit from the liturgy conducted. Worshipping God in spirit and in truth required an intelligent grasping of the spiritual significance of the church services. Luther reiterates that he strongly desired that there are “as many songs as possible in the vernacular which the people could sing during mass”6. Because of his fervent yearning that the multitudes be liberated from empty traditions and his passion for the Word of God, Luther advances the idea of merging the Word of God with music. He urged the “proclaiming (the Word of God) through music… (letting) the chants of the Sunday masses and Vespers be retained …and taken from Scripture”7 . No other power is as efficient in stamping upon the memory as music. Luther takes knowledge of this and attempts to inculcate doctrinal truths and also ascribe Biblical hymns of praise to God, using the Scriptures as a powerful tool. Also in Luther’s day many had little or no access to the Word of God since many are illiterate and the Scriptures are in poor circulation, therefore, the Luther’s liturgy is harnessed as a way of simultaneously preaching the word and teaching the people the truths of which they were ignorant. Another aspect of Lutheran liturgy is that of unadulterated worship. Luther believes in the separation between the Church and the world. Owing to his staunch belief, he refrains from incorporating worldly music into his hymns. He neither borrows worldly verse to compensate for any lack since the Bible is already rich with resources. Contrary to Christian contemporary music which mingles elements of popular music with sacred music, Luther maintained that his hymns “were arranged …to give the young—who should at any rate be trained in music and other fine arts—something to wean them away from love ballads and carnal songs and to teach them something of value in their place”8. What provoked the Reformation in the first place was the disgust and indignation at the corruption and evils of the world allowed to flourish in the Church. Hence, Luther worked arduously to purify the Church from the traces of the secular by keeping the songs rooted in the Word of God, using tunes separate from the world. At the same time, so great was Catholic influence upon Martin Luther than he adapted and adopted some of the forms of the Catholic liturgy and used them for service. “The two pre-Reformation liturgical-musical forms, the Sequence and Responsory which Luther adapted for use in Reformation worship are examples of the way he combined Catholic principle with Protestant substance”9 . Known more popularly today as the Call and Response, Luther imported some of the liturgical forms without espousing the false matter contained in them. Luther knew that the modifications to worship could not be done drastically since his Catholic congregation would object more vehemently to change. The Reformation rose up as a reactionary wave against Catholicism which suppressed freedom of heart worship. In Catholic eyes, anything unorthodox was condemned as heretical. However, by introducing little by little, reformation in the liturgy, he aimed to get rid of the lifeless rituals in favor of a more vibrant and vivacious one - one that extolled the God of heaven and earth, after the pattern of the Bible in particular the Psalms. The gradual transition from Catholic liturgy to the Reformed one was not going to be easy. The main offenders would be the preservationist camp who preferred to cling to the old traditions and the progressives who accepted the new too quickly and abandoned the old sterling values. In the heated atmosphere of the Reformation, Luther and Catholicism remain at odds. On one hand, Luther is convicted that the meaning of worship and by extension, Catholicism, has deteriorated in spiritual value. The true meaning of the liturgy had been lost due to commercialism and materialism instead of focusing on Jesus Christ and His work for the sinner. Buying relics take precedence over worship and religious observance of the liturgy. Society’s morals had also been undermined because the chief Person of worship was objectified in relics and supplanted by counterfeit saviors. Justification by works was the endorsed as truth instead of justification by faith. However, Luther who knew God personally strove to represent Him as a benevolent Savior who longs to save. Lutheran liturgy favored congregational singing and undermined the Catholic priest-centered one. Priest-centered liturgies were the norm in Luther’s day where the priest would be the chief celebrant in the mass. However, Luther’s liturgical mass called the masses to celebrate Christ and praise God in heartfelt worship. Including more congregational singing, Lutheran liturgies stressed “congregational participation in singing… for (it) was certainly a primary goal of Luther’s reformation of worship…it was to be augmented by a wide variety of vocal, choral and congregational singing”10. Luther believed that the common man had to be included in worship. The Church is not solely comprised of the clergy but also the laity. For centuries, the lack of participation of the common folk barred them from receiving the truth and also robbed God of worship. In Luther’s Ninety-five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences (1517), he affirms that “every true Christian, whether living or dead, has a share in all the benefits of Christ and of the Church”; hence, corporate worship is essential and pleasing to God. Catholicism sanctioned elitism, which essentially segregated the Church in the upper and lower classes. The wealthy and affluent were the one who could access heaven and reap the worldly and spiritual benefit of the liturgy while the poor and uneducated continued to be terror-struck by fears because they were not worthy enough to access heaven-except through what Catholicism had instituted. That same elitism denied the congregation from a more collaborative service and sentenced them to a senseless uniformity. Luther caught sight of the fact that God is a God who also delights in diversity and change, therefore liturgies which were made in His honor had to mirror his character. Luther was a proponent of the liturgy of life and it is this characteristic which distinguishes him as Reformer. “Luther …freed music from the domination of the Roman Catholic Church, opening the door to a revolution in music and in the arts generally”11. Luther composed several hymns and demonstrated that anyone with the musical proficiency and deep Christian faith can create songs of worship and praise. Luther inspires new life in the liturgy by changing the focus from death to life. The Scriptures are the word of God and also the word of life (John 6:68; Acts 5:20; Philippians 2:15; 1 John 1:1). By filling the liturgy with the Scriptures, Luther infuses life into not only into the service, but also the people. They get to learn about God from the Word of God which they did not possess and could not read. They get to retain the word of God through music in their minds. Apart from God who is immutable, anything that does not change is stagnant and without life; however, Luther breathed life into his liturgies by inserting more variety. For example instead of depending on the church to invent the chants, he decided to manufacture hymns of his own. The unvarying and passive liturgy tended to bore the masses to numbness. It was Luther’s hope that the old in conjunction with the new elements would excite the congregants with more passion to worship God. Luther disbelieved the false doctrines of the dead that were so key in the Catholic liturgy so he concentrated on turning the attention to Christ who is the world’s Redeemer and Savior. The works of the church-goers were nothing so he weaned them from doing these practices. Luther sees it as his responsibility to have the congregation believe in Christ, holding on by faith to his plan to justify every believer, by virtue of his faith. In conclusion, Luther’s “personal love of music, his love of his Savior, and his love of the people were all naturally expressed through (worship and liturgy)12. If the liturgy did not harmonize with the principal goals of church music: God’s praise and adoration, the participation of the congregation and the educational and spiritual upliftment of humanity through clear understanding of the service, the liturgy would be futile and unacceptable in God’s sight. Amongst Martin Luther’s surviving hymns, one remains prominent – A Mighty Fortress is Our God. This hymn continues to be sung widely in many Christian churches and immortalizes a man who withstands error, by finding refuge in His Fortress (Psalm 18:2; Psalm 91:2). BIBLIOGRAPHY Barber, John. Luther and Calvin on Music and Worship” Reformed Perspectives Magazine, Jun- Jul 2006. . Concordia Theological Seminary, and Daniel Zager. Luther on Liturgy and Hymns. Fort Wayne, Indiana: Concordia Theological Seminary Press, 2006. Dieter, Emily A. Martin Luther the Worship Leader: Processes and Methods of Liturgical Reform through the Reformation, 2010. DigitalCommons@Liberty University. . Accessed December 03, 2011.   Herl, Joseph. Worship Wars in Early Lutheranism: Choir, Congregation and Three Centuries of Conflict, New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Holy See. The Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Celebration of the Christian Mystery: The Seven Sacraments of the Church. Accessed 05 December, 2011. Kemp, Alison Deborah. The Influence of Martin Luther's Theology of Music 1530-1580. Thesis (M.M.) Illinois: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1985.  Leaver, R. A.. Luther's Liturgical Music: Principles and Implications. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2007 Sooy, Mark S. Essays on Martin Luther's theology of music. Blue Maroon, 2006. . Accessed 04 December, 2011. Zager, Daniel. Singing the Faith: Living the Lutheran Musical Heritage, The Good Shepherd Institute, Indiana: Concordia Theological Seminary, 2008. . Accessed December 1, 2011).  Read More