The Controversial Organ

I wrote a little about the early controversy surrounding the use of the organ in the church a few months ago (see Would Calvin Have Pushed Our Church Organ Out the Sanctuary Doors?). Below Dan Kimball at Vintage Faith tackles the issue and raises a similar point: that the people who protest the removal of the organ from the church today use the same arguments that were used to in the past to keep it out of the early church. Regardless of how highly regarded the church organ is today, it was brought into the church for one reason and on reason only … personal preference. It was the upcoming instrument of the day at one time and so there was a push, by some, to bring it into the church. Dare I say, we have the organ today because it appealed to masses who found it entertaining. Check it out Dan Kimball’s post below:

I love tracing origins of how things developed and why we do or think the things we do today. I have taught a class on worship at 2 different seminaries and when I was preparing for those, I did a study on the origin of various instruments used in worship. It turned out that the organ was quite a controversial instrument in it’s time.

Christians in the early church originally protested the bringing in of the organ into the church saying it was a “worldly” instrument. The organ at that time was used to signal praise in the emperor’s court, like trumpets are used when someone of royalty was formally entering. Around 500 AD the church began to adopt the usage of the organ from culture and used it to signal the entering of the Pope. So there was protest from Christians who felt there was compromise happening and that the church was allowing a worldly instrument into the church.

As time went on, there remained a high suspicion of the organ in the church. They would only limit it to sounding off the pitch for the church singing of chant. So only a single note was allowed to be played because of it’s worldy association. Eventually, they weren’t as scared of the organ and began using it like we use it today. It’s so ironic that in more recent culture, the organ was so associated with what church music sounds like - that there are arguments when the organ is removed by people who are used to it. So there was an argument to get it into the church, and arguments to get it out of the church.

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HT: Dan Kimball