Jazz Theology
If you are new to the idea that jazz belongs in church, welcome to a musical and theological tradition that spans generations, one that has sparked controversy and one that has inspired a profound experience of worship for untold millions.
I say controversy because, as we know, music has the power to make us feel things that defy words. St. Augustine of Hippo, that early theologian whose work was key to codifying both Christian orthodoxy and the structure of church, was suspicious of music in worship for that very reason. What if people enjoyed the music more than the word of God? How much free musical expression should be allowed? Ultimately he concluded that some kinds of music should be part of church, being a good vehicle for scripture, theology, and liturgy, with words being most important.
The Reformation in the 15th and 16th centuries was the next hotbed of musical expression in church. Jean Calvin’s suspicions were, if anything, greater than Augustine’s. He wrote:
“…Music is either the first, or one of the principal; and it is necessary for us to think that it is a gift of God deputed for that use. Moreover, because of this, we ought to be the more careful not to abuse it, for fear of soiling and contaminating it, converting [it to] our condemnation, where it was dedicated to our profit and use… the spiritual songs cannot be well sung save from the heart.…For a linnet, a nightingale, a parrot may sing well; but it will be without understanding. But the unique gift of man is to sing knowing that which he sings.”
This was from the preface to his Geneva Psalter, the book of straight hymns, no fancy embellishments, that include our the tune called “Old 100th.” You know it as the common doxology, Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
Martin Luther loved Augustine, and wrestled with music as Calvin did. Himself a trained musician, he knew well the ways that music can express our experience well beyond our understanding. Ultimately he came down on the side of freedom and emotional expression, writing:
“Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in this world. It controls our thoughts, minds, hearts, and spirits.”
Influenced the direction of European Church music, for composers like Michael Praetorius and JS Bach, both known for their improvisation - taking an existing melody, perhaps one from Calvin’s Geneva Psalter, and creating elaborate, exuberant, even soulful improvisations.
Still, there are always those who want to keep God’s voice boxed up in their own limitations.
In the year 1929 at the Church and Organ Congress in Hull (UK) where Sir Hamilton Harty, the, president of the Incorporated Association of Organists spoke on “Some Problems of Modern music‘ and warned, that ‘Jazz Barbarians were permitted to debase our music.’” One of these Jazz musicians, Louis Armstrong had started to play Hymns, Spirituals and Gospel tunes in the new style of music that was later called Chicago Jazz. (Uwe Steinmetz, 2016)
I wonder how any of these theological and musical greats would have responded to the ecstatic singing and dancing of the authors of Psalms. Dancing? In church? With tambourines and stringed instruments and drums and horns? I don’t think so.
But of course. God’s voice cannot be contained. Contemporary theologian Jeremy Begbie, himself an accomplished pianist, calls the use of music by Augustine, Calvin, and the like Theology FOR the arts: it begins with the Christian faith, doctrine, scripture, what have you, and apply that worldview to arts - to music.
The other way is to start with any art form - in this case music - and asking what can music bring to theology? He calls this theology THROUGH the arts. How can the particular powers of music unlock the great truths of the Christian Gospel? Or any of the other means by which God has made Godself known?
Begbie talks about the “Jazz Factor,” something that is unpredictable, not regular, non-ordered, but is also non-destructive. You might even call it life-giving, the interplay between the the structure of what’s on the page, and the word of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Let’s take a song. Really basic - one that I grew up singing as a child in the basement of Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, sitting on a tiny plastic chair in the toddler group Sunday School.
Jesus loves me/this I know/
for the Bible tells me so
Little ones to him belong,
They are weak but
He is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me,
Yes, Jesus loves me,
Yes, Jesus loves me,
The Bible tells me so.
You could, in theory, wind your watch to that song.
It’s a simple tune, a little bit happy, maybe a touch melancholy. A straight-forward song with straight-forward theology: Jesus loves little individual me, and I know this because of the Holy Bible. And, even though it is not a Psalm, I think both Calvin and Augustine would agree that this little song has the kind of staying power - Begbie’s Theology FOR the Arts.
How does this song make me feel? Nostalgic, perhaps, certainly. Grateful for the tradition, the language of both music and theology I learned from the time I was Meadow’s age. We all have to start somewhere, and improvisation comes from the time it takes to learn the basics first.
“Jesus loves me” is a key insight into what Jesus says in this Fourth Gospel, the dense bit of text called the “Farewell discourse.” I start reading with the knowledge that Jesus loves ME.
Of course, the song also reminds me of some other things too. Of a theology taught by well-meaning and caring people who thought God’s love could be expressed in something as precise as an algebraic equation, one that seemed to leave a lot of people out. A love that had a flip side of fear. Love me Or Else. Risk your immortal soul. And the people who were not included in the formula of this theology, well, they weren’t gonna go to heaven either. And my questions about the validity of this formula drove me away from the simple truth expressed in that nursery hymn. I knew love. I knew lots of people. I knew that life was complex and difficult and exuberant in ways that this kind of faith didn’t include.
But what happens when we start to stretch it out? If we play with the rhythm a bit? If we choose one word to stress, or another word? If we vary the volume, or the tempo? If the piano takes more time in between phrases?
What does that feel like? How does that make us understand Jesus’ words, recorded here, differently? Maybe the expansive nature of a musical language like Jazz can expand my experience of words like “Jesus,” “Loves,” “Know,” or even “Bible”? It’s almost like God - or love, or the Bible, or Jesus - cannot be contained in strict 4/4 time or a handful of root-position chords.
The narrow 4/4 box starts to open up. And God’s love expands with the improvisation - even a love expressed in the limitations of words, captured in the text of the Bible, by well-meaning and caring people - that love becomes more expansive. A love no one is left out of.
And it was, for me anyway, the way musics of all kinds in all styles, brought me back to my faith, but a faith busted wide open, as free as God’s grace, as expansive as the sky, as deep as the ocean, and beyond the reach of any word or words or sermons or Bible studies - though it colored, colors, my relationship to them, my understanding of them.
Jesus’ love FOR me slowly was transformed to Jesus’ love THROUGH me. “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” It’s right there. The Bible tells us so.
God, the model of creator, of artist, has shared that gift of creating with us. And we are made in God’s likeness and image - each and every one of us. When we create, using those tools we call art, we get a glimpse, maybe, of the New Heaven and New Earth. Mourning might just be turned to dancing. And we get a glimpse of all things being made new.
Maybe this is all best captured in words attributed to another old theologian, St. Francis of Assisi. Preach the Gospel. Use words if necessary.
Amen.
I preached a version of this sermon on May 18th, 2025. These are her notes from that Sunday. You can watch the whole sermon, which included musical improvisation, here.