As I famously said in my last post, evangelicals like to fight about what we loosely call “ecclesiastical music.” Every so often an earnest soul attempts to rise above the fray, pointing out that all of this acrimony is really unbecoming of Christ followers. Sometimes this is a legitimate exhortation, and the concerned party is right to remind us that we ought to be willing in humility to consider others better than ourselves. Other times, it is a dismissive canard intoned with no small amount of sanctimony, and is often closely coupled to an agenda of its own. In either case, the core of the assertion is that we shouldn’t get so upset about this stuff; after all, if our hearts are in the right place, will we be so concerned if “our music” is played or not? Does it really matter so much, as I have been asked, as long as God is worshipped?

This argument is, of course, self-defeating. If music doesn’t matter, then stop arguing with me and let me do what I want. I mean, you said it’s not important, right?

No one is likely to agree to these terms. Let us try to find others.

Pretend for a moment that musical genre is totally insignificant, and (following the concerns of ecclesiastical music) God is equally pleased will all forms of music used in worship, period. What kind of potential does this leave music as a means of communication? Very little. And what room does this leave for the musician qua artist? None. Musicians are reduced to mere instrument technicians, leaning how to breathe and move their fingers in such a way as to produce the right sounds. They cannot “play from the heart,” for the conduit into which they would pour their hearts cannot accommodate its passions. Ecclesiastical musicians cannot claim to be doing anything very different in church on Sunday morning than they might do in a bar on a Friday night (one which serves light beer and reeks of cheap cigars). The Gospel simply cannot fit in their music in any sense whatever. Music, in this dubious scheme, can’t hold content like that. Containers have shape and volume, and the music we would seek has neither.

Now, maybe no one is arguing that all musical genres are on equal footing. Maybe there are some outliers, like rap music and that weird atonal stuff your one friend did in grad school, that are beyond the pale. Maybe those are bad, but adult contemporary pop is all good, all the time. But if you grant me that, then the argument has already moved onto my turf. Now we are arguing what kinds of music are appropriate for what purposes, which is precisely what I want to argue—and precisely where I think contemporary Christian music will fall flat as a liturgical device. But there are more posts to go, and I am getting ahead of myself.

Apparently music matters. We want it to matter. We should be glad as God’s image-bearers that it matters to us. It is good that we are willing to expend significant amounts of energy commending, implementing, and re-implementing our views on the topic. Contrary to what some outsiders might conclude, we don’t enjoy bickering for the sake of bickering. We are a people deeply concerned about things like piety, truth, and mission. If music is at all wrapped up in these things, then it is, to put it bluntly, most certainly worth fighting over. So let us examine how it is we are prosecuting these Wars that we read so much about.

Hopefully you have someone in your life who believes very different things about ecclesiastical music than you do. If you can have a civil discussion with this person, and you’ve never had just this discussion before, ask that person why it matters to them that music is so darned Cool or so darned Old. Rather than attempt to respond to everything your friend says point-by-point, pay attention to the categories he is invoking. Let me guess some things you might hear:

“Contemporary music is so much more celebrative than traditional music.”

“I feel more worshipful when I’m singing hymns/choruses.” (pick one)

“Traditional music is stifling! I feel like I’m attending a Mass.”

“We should sing traditional church music, like Fanny Crosby and the Gaithers.”

“Young people will leave the church after they graduate high school if we don’t play their music for them.”

“God can be honored with an electric guitar and a fuzz box just as well as with Bach and a pipe organ. Musical style doesn’t matter.”

“Adult contemporary pop is my heart language.”

Any of this sound familiar? It does to me, because I’ve heard it all in one form or another. In the coming weeks, I hope to provide a means to inform the discussion of the songs we sing when we are gathered. This stuff is worth fighting about. Let’s fight well.

Recently I have had the privilege of discussing the matter of worship music with some of my fellow suburban evangelicals. My church is attempting to reorient itself away from a purely contemporary format and towards what has come to be known as “blended worship,” a format which is intended to combine the best of the old with the best of the new. Naturally, this is an occasion for Jihad. This should not be.

Let us summarize the situation. Old people and young curmudgeons like “traditional” music. This uses large choirs, organs, and orchestral instruments to support the congregational singing of lyrically complex, theologically substantive songs, many of which may be more than 150 years old. Cool people and baby boomers like “contemporary” music. This uses a small team of pretty vocalists backed by guitars and drums to lead the congregation in singing lyrically simple, emotively charged songs, preferably written by Rick Heil or Darlene Zschech sometime within the last five minutes.

How can a church unite the competing preferences of the old, the curmudgeonly, the young, and the Boomer? It is very difficult for leaders to judge accurately what the congregation really wants. There are vocal minorities, to be sure, but how well do they represent their constituencies? And what will appeal to the church’s target demographic in the surrounding community? In short, what is the ideal “blend” between traditional and contemporary forms for any given congregation?

Normally these questions are answered by guesswork and trial-and-error, colored by the prejudices of the worship pastor and his lay leaders. Given the ferocity of the “Worship Wars” of the past decade, the approach seems not to want for refutation. Wither then shall we go for our answer? Enter our faithful friend and truest ally: Efficient Market Hypothesis.

The EMH did an outstanding job calling the election last November through the agency of an online betting exchange. Its relevant proposition is that in a certain type of market (an “efficient” one), aggregated information is accurately represented by a market price. In the case of the election prediction, instead of weighing divergent polls and sticking one’s finger in the wind of the closing news cycles of the election season, one could simply look at the price of a share of Bush Victory in a betting exchange to see what the true public consensus was. It is an economic proposal on increasing solid theoretical footing, and it can lead God’s people to a more equitable solution to the problem of competing worship preferences.

I propose the creation of an online worship service marketplace. Members of a church will be able to bid for a “share” of worship—perhaps a song, a block of time, or an entire service—and then dictate their preferred worship style for that unit after purchasing it. Interested worshipers can watch the activity of the marketplace to get a sense for the direction of the church. If an old person or young curmudgeon sees many shares of contemporary worship being purchased, he or she can bid higher prices to purchase the shares and convert them to a traditional format. While the cool people or baby boomers who had owned the contemporary shares truly do desire that worship take place in their preferred style, surely they have some asking price at which they are willing to make a compromise. Likewise the other way around, when alarmed contemporary worship partisans see too many worship shares under traditionalist control.

The share prices will quickly converge on an equilibrium, resulting in just the right amount of traditional and contemporary music being played in the church’s worship services. The leaders of the church will never, over the long term, be as good at extracting all of the needed information to strike this balance as the marketplace will be. The true desires of the people will be reflected in the prices of the worship shares—nothing more, nothing less. Leadership might even elect to do away with the marketplace after prices are initially determined, deciding to fix the balance of styles in perpetuity as the market has directed. While this might be tempting, I would be quick to remind leaders that an ongoing exchange of worship shares ensures that changes in congregational demographics and large-scale worship trends are always reflected in the current prices.

Now, some objections must be dealt with, most obviously the thorny issue of high market values on worship shares. If there are well-balanced factions in a church which are both very wealthy and highly opinionated, then the price of a share of worship might well be driven up out of the reach of middle-class or working-class parishioners. Surely we would want to avoid the condemnation of James 2:1-4 under this system! This objection is weighty, but it is not without its parallels in the old, discredited system of trial-and-error and pastoral prejudice. It is not as if we live now in some idealized age of a gilded, democratic ideal where all voices are heard and weighed equally. The worship marketplace is simply a more efficient and more visible means of accomplishing the same goal pastors and Elders today strain to achieve through often elitist and unfair means. If you really want to know where people’s hearts are, just watch where they put their treasure. I say let the market work!

In extreme cases where the prices inflate to very high levels, worshippers of more modest means can reorganize into congregations in which they can expect to exert more influence. Not only does the marketplace resolve competing claims on stylistic preferences fairly and peacefully, but the age-old problem of congregational income inequality is done away with to boot! This will increase harmony between parishioners even more.

One might also wonder what becomes of the money paid into the system. Finance deacons and Elder boards across evangelicalism will hardly see this as an objection! Very rarely are churches awash in too much money, so there should be little problem in practice disbursing this additional revenue. Priority should be given to more powerful amplifiers (if contemporary music dominates) or new robes and chorale sheet music (if traditional music dominates), but this can be done at the discretion of the leadership. If these programs are already adequately resourced, then the perpetually under-funded Coffee Ministry might benefit, perhaps liberating worshippers from the 1980s-style tyranny of the Columbian drip and expanding into espresso and lattes, which appeal so much to the younger demographic. In the case of very successful worship marketplaces, some money might even be allocated for ministry to the poor. (If any can be found. I keep hearing about them, but I never see any around my house.)

With ever-growing evidence of the power of markets, and with ubiquitous Internet access among suburban evangelicals, the time is now to declare a lasting peace in the Worship Wars. The proposed marketplace is the only mechanism that can do a fair and accurate job of uncovering the most vexing hidden data facing evangelicals today: our congregants’ true worship preferences. So what do you say, O leaders of evangelicalism? At the time of this writing, the domain name worshipmarket.com is available. The software to support the marketplace is not terribly complicated. Any takers?

But you know, on second thought, this is a wicked idea. Maybe I started with invalid assumptions.