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Article Title:	The Message We Live
Author of reported comment:	Dan
Comment Date:	16:20 on Mar 13 2007
Comment:	The predominant view on music and lyrics, both in Western Christian culture and also in secular Western society, is that novelty of expression is of primary importance. This is a result of our consumer culture, in which consumption (in this case, the consumption of worship music) leads to personal happiness. I am suggesting that what is more important is expression of truth. I am not the first person to hold this view. William Booth and the Salvation Army, in the late nineteenth century, sang Christian truth to the tunes of popular songs of the day, to great effect. Away from Christian efforts, the movement which used music to create arguably the greatest impact on modern society was the Civil Rights movement of the Fifties and Sixties. African-American spiritual songs and traditional folk tunes were either given new lyrics or sang unchanged, because the truth of the words, accompanied by simple instrumentation, was so powerful. Maybe you believe that these movements would have had even greater success if they'd used shiny brand new songs, that were interesting and brought happiness through their consumption. If you do, then yes, we will have to agree to disagree. But I don't think you do. And actually, all this talk of originality is bizarre. I had never heard a garage rock worship song before 'I will dance for the Lord'. 'Praise the name of Jesus' features a Queen-evoking 24-part vocal harmony that is unlike anything I've heard from worship music since the Second Chapter of Acts. This five-track EP has more new ideas than most full albums, so I still don't know what Dilley is really angry about.

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