Musical lives: Don and Emily Saliers on the religious power of song

Christian Century, Nov 20, 2002 by Amy Plantinga Pauw

Frontier religion with PowerPoint.

Don: Yeah--doing the old thing, but using new electricity. Church music has to take us to the full range of human experience and emotion. That's why ultrabright Christianity finally fails, because it doesn't taste the depths of Psalm 88. It doesn't know what to do with Psalm 22. And yet, it may also have settled for such a domesticated little middle that it has no ecstasy either.

On the other hand, hymns have spoken of human struggles to be faithful in the worst circumstances. A brilliant recent example is Brian Wren's hymn text "When Pain and Terror Strike by Chance." A new honesty about the world and the divine involvement in evil and suffering has reemerged in some contemporary hymnody. This restores an earlier tradition that was covered over by easy sentimentality and comfortable pietisms.

Both of you have have thought about how making music deepens our lives with God and our lives with each other. It's easy to see how that's true for teenagers and for children--they're immersed in music. Adults, on the other hand, often seem reluctant to make music. How do we address that?

Emily: It's a good question. One of the things that strikes me the most about our concerts is how much people love to sing together. And in a sense they get to worship in that way. It's not directed toward anything specifically, but there is something spiritual that happens when people sing together. But making music can be intimidating for adults. Adults are sometimes even afraid to admit they are taking lessons.

Don: Even teenagers are often ashamed of their voices.

Emily: Well, there's no real opportunity for them to get together and sing. You would never have a party, invite your friends and sing--unless you're Christians. If you're in a Christian youth group, then you might. Another problem is that school music programs have been cut significantly. The seeds have to be planted young for the communal experience of music.

Don: Yes. I hear a lot of adults saying, "When I was a kid I use to skip rope and sing songs, and sing in the shower," but who now are afraid to sing because someone has told them they don't have a good voice. I think Emily is right: adults experience more and more intimidation, less and less encouragement. I think we also live in a time in which, at least in classical music, we hear such extraordinary excellence. And then there's the whole question of sophisticated adults who think that singing together is kind of below them. That's just stuffiness. That's just plain ol' "stuck-upness."

But I've seen transformations happen, when people have been, in spite of themselves, caught up in, for example, congregational songs, or a Palm Sunday procession. We've had that experience in the community where I make the music, Emory's Cannon Chapel, in the last four or five years. And this has made a huge difference. Even if they sing just a little bit of a five-note refrain, people have said how much of a difference joining in on the singing makes to their spiritual worship.