Scott Aniol May 15th, 2008
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If you see a need for a ministry such as Religious Affections Ministries, there are a number of ways that you can help. I’ll list just a few here:
1. Prayer
I’ve been so encouraged to receive e-mails and talk to individuals in churches who are excited about this ministry and have promised to pray that it will help to promote biblical, lifestyle, deliberate, and conservative worship in our churches. To know that God’s people are behind this ministry is the greatest support I could wish for!
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Scott Aniol May 12th, 2008
Scott Aniol exemplifies personally the God-centered music philosophy he’s urging upon churches corporately. He’s become known for his gracious, scriptural conservatism movingly ministered through beautiful music wed to sound theology. I rejoice that the Lord has burdened him to help Fundamentalism develop even more scriptural conviction and passion for Christ through its music ministries.
Scott Aniol May 8th, 2008
Dr. Timothy Shafer is a professor of music at Penn State University.
In recent years, in response to criticism of CCM based on shallow lyrics, some CCM songwriters have begun to assign the doctrinally dense and theologically astute words of great hymns to pop/rock style musical settings. PCA pastor and songwriter Kevin Twit, along with a number of enlisted friends collectively known as Indelible Grace, are among those who have determined to set vast numbers of great hymn texts to inferior musical compositions. A brief theoretical examination of the objective musical characteristics of the songs may help us to get a better understanding of the skill level and compositional craftsmanship in view in Twit and friends’ efforts.
Let’s consider the objective musical characteristics for just one of these works for the time being: Scott Roley’s retooling of “And Can It Be?” You can look at the music and hear the work performed here:
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Scott Aniol May 6th, 2008
I am pleased to report that we officially began raising support for Religious Affections Ministries this past Sunday!
Becky, Caleb, and I were at Grace Baptist Church in Waterford, MI Sunday morning. I presented the ministry and taught during the Sunday School hour and then preached in the morning service. It was a joy to be in this church where I served in directing the music for a summer ten years ago!
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Scott Aniol May 3rd, 2008 Updated: May 5, 2008
Religious Affections Ministries exists to help believers think biblically about worship and the particular ways music, aesthetics, and culture factor in. But what, exactly, does that look like? What kinds of goals are we seeking to achieve? This series attempts to reveal our primary commitments.
The final priority of Religious Affections Ministries is a commitment to conservative principles, especially when it comes to congregational worship. Such principles include the following:
- Belief in absolute standards of truth, goodness, and beauty. Relativism in these three areas is rejected since they are transcendental principles flowing from the very nature of God. The fact that something is true, good, or beautiful depends on its relationship to the Ultimate True, Good, and Beautiful. Therefore, the difference between right and wrong, good and evil, and beautiful and ugly may be determined by observable standards and are not merely subjective. Furthermore, these transcendental principles are revealed in the written Word of God and natural revelation (creation and conscience). While natural revelation is certainly a lesser authority than the Bible, it is a real authority nonetheless.
- Priority of the affections over the passions. True conservatism favors modest, well-crafted art with depth that targets the intellect and affections over shallow, immediately-gratifying art that merely stimulates the physical passions.
- Rejection of the novel and commercial. Pop culture, by its very nature, is transient. It is novel for novelty’s sake. It is not substantive, because substance doesn’t sell. Conservatism rejects such culture because it does not have the capacity to support deep content.
- Commitment to that which is timeless and demonstrably good. All of these principle lead to this final one. Those cultural elements (including that included in worship) that are substantive, timeless, and demonstrably good (based on absolute standards revealed in Scripture and nature) have more capacity to support biblical truth and reverent worship.
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Scott Aniol May 2nd, 2008
Religious Affections Ministries exists to help believers think biblically about worship and the particular ways music, aesthetics, and culture factor in. But what, exactly, does that look like? What kinds of goals are we seeking to achieve? This series attempts to reveal our primary commitments.
The third priority of Religious Affections Ministries is to encourage a commitment to deliberate worship in churches. Unfortunately, many church leaders put little or no time carefully thinking through their worship services. I’ve been amazed how many times I’ve witnessed some of the following occurrences:
- a music director frantically flipping through the hymnal five minutes before the service to select hymns
- a pastor planning the flow of his service more for pragmatic reasons than for biblical reasons
- a repetitive service order simply because “that’s how we’ve always done it”
- congregants who just want to get through “the preliminaries”
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Scott Aniol May 1st, 2008
Religious Affections Ministries exists to help believers think biblically about worship and the particular ways music, aesthetics, and culture factor in. But what, exactly, does that look like? What kinds of goals are we seeking to achieve? This series attempts to reveal our primary commitments.
The second priority of Religious Affections Ministries is a commitment to lifestyle worship. In John 4, Jesus revealed to the Samaritan woman the essential substance of worship — response of the spirit to truth. This emphasis delocalized and deformalized worship to reveal that worship encompasses all of life. Every action, thought, attitude, and affection of a Christian should be a spiritual response truth about God. Worship, therefore, is not limited to Sunday morning.
What this means for a believer, then, is that his life is a continual pursuit of holiness in response to revealed truth (Romans 12:1-2). It means that the same grace that brought him salvation also teaches him to say no to ungodliness (Titus 2:11-12). Nothing in the Christian’s life falls outside the realm of worship. In this sense, there is no sacred/secular distinction. All of life is worship.
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Endnotes:
Scott Aniol April 30th, 2008
Religious Affections Ministries exists to help believers think biblically about worship and the particular ways music, aesthetics, and culture factor in. But what, exactly, does that look like? What kinds of goals are we seeking to achieve? This series attempts to reveal our primary commitments.
The first priority of Religious Affections Ministries is the ultimate authority of the Bible in every area of faith and practice. This means that when it comes to discerning what kind of worship is acceptable to God, God has the prerogative to determine what is acceptable to Him. Therefore, we must look to the Bible to make such decisions.
This may seem like an obvious point, but unfortunately many churches today are market-driven — not Bible-driven — in their worship. They ask unbelievers — not God — what kind of worship would be acceptable to them.
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Scott Aniol April 20th, 2008
I am very excited to announce the launch of a new ministry intended to help local churches think through issues related to worship, music, culture, and aesthetics. My intent is to provide pastors and other Christians with the necessary tools and resources to come to God-pleasing decisions in these areas.
This newly-designed web site is just the first in a series of steps toward launching this ministry. Soon I will be transitioning from a full-time pastoral position to a half-time position in order to free up time to research, write, travel, speak, and provide resources for churches.
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Scott Aniol April 11th, 2008
Dear Pastor,
Pastor Scott Aniol is beginning an itinerant ministry to churches, Christian colleges, seminaries, Christian camps and schools in order to speak on the subject of Christian worship, appropriate music in Christian ministry, and a biblical perspective on aesthetics in relation to the beauty of God — all from a theological and God-centered viewpoint.
Scott has combined both the theological and aesthetic aspects of this subject in a profound and applicable presentation. Scott’s excellent background in music, theology, aesthetics, and pastoral ministry highly qualifies him to address the pertinent questions that require in depth knowledge and practical wisdom.
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