Marching to a Different Drummer

Marching to a Different Drummer By Matthew Todd

Donovan Giesbrecht published a collection of photographs depicting the history of Mennonite Brethren in Canada, stating, “drums became common place in MB churches in the 1980s and 90s. What I found interesting was, no one seemed to ask the question “why?” Why weren’t the MB churches using drums before the 1980s in their doxologies? Why might the usage of percussive art in our churches be a good thing? I will attempt to briefly answer these two questions to help our churches come to terms with its historical legacy. I also hope to show perhaps, “a more excellent way” (1 Cor. 12:31b).
Why weren’t the MB Churches using drums much before the 1980s?
The historical foundations of the Mennonite Brethren and the Anabaptist worship practice finds itself part of the bigger story of the Church. The Anabaptists were birthed in The Western Church narrative whose policies carried a bias against the percussive arts in worship and sacred contexts. When we examine the historical foundations of the Western Church’s liturgical praxis (gleaned from the Patristics, Jewish history bridging into Christianity, the Churches’ official statements, public records, journal articles, religious indexes, mission statements, historians of Church praxis, and statistics related to worship practice) it supports the conclusion that the Western Church has persistently suppressed the use of percussion. The Western Church, including the Anabaptists and Mennonite Brethren, rejected the use of untuned percussive arts (drums) in worship for the following reasons:

• Greek dualistic presuppositions and secular associations: Historical Church music policy had been shaped by presuppositions and associations both of which carried a bias against percussive arts in sacred contexts.

• Creation’s materiality devalued: The Church absorbed Platonic attitudes towards matter, the doctrine of creation, the relationship between the body and soul, and the rule of reason over emotions, and the imperfection of, and focus away from, the senses. These ideas contributed to the Church viewing the use of percussive arts (drums) as being prone to negative spiritual influences.

• Allegorical interpretation: The Anabaptists and Mennonite Brethren would have to untangle themselves from a Western Church legacy that favored an allegorical system of interpretation of scriptural mentions of percussive art. Scriptures that referred to percussive art were not traditionally interpreted literally.

• Platonic suspicion of instrumentation: The Anabaptists and Mennonite Brethren had found themselves amidst the broader Church that attempted to control emotional and ecstatic expression that exalted the life of the mind over passions. The Church feared that rhythmic modes of music possessed the power to influence the listener’s feelings and behaviors. The Church’s fear of percussion (drums) effecting the moral constitution of sacred music would lend to the view that the percussive arts were unsuitable and profane for worship.

• Percussion fraught with pagan connotations: The Church stigmatized percussive art as being inappropriate for sacred associations because of its connections with heathen contexts and licentiousness. Church tradition warned against the use of percussion because it was associated with immorality, idolatry, musical abuses, the devil, deception, delusion, and with the capability of doing spiritual damage. Church leaders marginalized instruments and percussive art because they believed that God does not reveal himself with, or through, this form of musical instrumentation.
The Church fathers’ suppressive views of the percussive arts (untuned) would be foundational to the disposition of the Church. On top of all this Anabaptist history still keeps a memory of executioners using drums to play loudly “to prevent [the Anabaptist martyr] from being heard if they tried to preach to the crowd.”
With that kind of traditional background and history, it’s amazing that the Mennonite Brethren Churches ever assimilated the use of drums in worship.

It might be very difficult question to answer, ‘what brought about the changes.’ I would rather answer ‘why might the usage of percussive art in our churches be a good thing?’

Why might the usage of percussive art in our churches be a good thing?

The Church has a good reason to embrace percussive art because:

1. Corporeality and temporality, with its rhythmic order and laws, are all God-given gifts. Creation is good because God is good. The percussionist is realizing a rhythmic potential for worship communication from God’s good creation. Humans have an instinctive disposition towards rhythmic communication. Percussive art can increase the responsiveness to the liturgy’s message.

2. Human imagination, creative ability, and the compulsion to create are God given gifts that make percussive arts and sounds possible. Artistic imagination can be good. Human imagination can express percussive dynamics and bring them into spiritual associations.

3. Percussion can serve a symbolic role, if informed by association with the sacred, in helping to express truths of faith because there is no such thing as pious music. Theological ideas can be mediated and embodied in a percussionist’s art and doxology. Percussive art is one more symbolic gift through which we may worship and detect the coveted presence of God. Percussive art can be a worthy vehicle to praise God by drawing the senses into worship in a full-bodied way. The percussionist seeks permission to engage an order God loves and worshipfully love him back with it. God has not denied percussionists the freedom to enter and enjoy these given structures and realize percussive potential.

4. The doctrine of common grace points to the potential goodness of percussive art genres. God inspires activities in accordance with each person’s calling. It is in this dimension of common grace that the percussionist contributes gifting to the liturgy. The regenerate percussionist shares both in common grace and in the potential of the gift being enhanced by covenant grace. The redeemed are the body of Christ, and the regenerate percussionist is part of that embodiment, which means that percussive art forms can mediate the message of Christ. Percussive art can be used to offer new expressions to promote good, bless others, or facilitate religious experience by promoting change and unity and by intensifying a text’s message of truth or grace. The percussionist should be permitted to cooperate with the Spirit in renewal, redemption, and redirecting people back to the Father.

5. The Incarnation demonstrates that spatial-temporal events are valued and important. God values what humans do. The Incarnation represents God sanctifying corporeality and temporality as vehicles for spiritual presence. The Church should include the percussive arts in worship because the Incarnation sets up the principle that God encounters us through the physical realities of life, which would indicate that the percussive arts could be a means through which God encounters us. Jesus affirmed the physical dimensions of life even in the liturgical context. Christ does not call only a part of our being to worship he wants it all.

6. There needs to be an adopting of the percussive arts by the Church because the Church declares God is sovereign over all of creation and culture. To declare God sovereign over creation and culture is also to proclaim Him sovereign over the domain of aesthetics and the percussive arts. God’s sovereignty is the basis for the proposition and command of Mark 12:30 that includes all the kinetic, muscular, and sensory artistic activities that the percussionist engages in. God wants to be honored by our whole person. God’s plan is that redemption would extend to all of culture. Percussive art is part of the artistic and cultural domain that Christ is Lord.

The Church should give access to the percussive arts for extolling God because Christ is Lord of all. If Lordship is to be comprehensive and include every area of humanity’s culture-making and creativity, then to disparage the percussive arts by marginalizing them to a peripheral secular realm is a denial of that Lordship. If God is omnipotent and sovereign over all, including the domain of aesthetics and the percussive arts, and if He has given all to man to govern, then there is no reason to denigrate it. My argument here could be extended by an investigation into biblical texts that reveal doxological evidence of the percussive arts and the logical connection for worship practice. Given these truths, may we enjoy the rhythms of grace permitting the interface of the percussive arts in religious experience and sacred association.