Why are people indifferent? Don't people understand that indifference is probably the worst plague that exists in life? It is worse than despair. Despair is a beginning. Despair can inspire you to create great works of art, music, literature, philosophy, theology....
A major part of life is spent looking for community. The fact that people can reach the extraordinary intellectual precocity of great music, and experience its beauty and ethical integrity by singing together with 50 or 100 other people, that's an extraordinary thing....
I believe we should consider church music basically to be THEOLOGICAL expression—part of the dialogue between God and worshipers. With few exceptions, music in worship is coupled with important words. For this reason, we should choose literature—for instance, hymns...
The first evangelists were shepherds. It was a task for which they had no skill, no special gift. No theological teaching or individual training. They had no organization to go before them and no literature to leave behind them. What they had, and all they had, was a...