Another possible answer to “Why is music important?” is the one Peter Leithart has been making for several years now: worship, and especially musical worship, is the end around which we must organize all our anthropology. It is the secret desire of our unfallen hearts that we do not understand but which awakens within us when, for instance, we hear the strains of polyphony. But how can we sing to God when we have forgotten how to sing? There will be no vibrant church music without vibrant folk music. There will not be loud congregational singing when there is not even loud singing in bars or barber shops. If you wanted to write sacred poetry as well as Donne or Herbert, you would be at an impossible disadvantage if you had forgotten how to write words altogether. Such a disadvantage is our inheritance with respect to music.

Musical Localism and the Rebirth of Culture

The essay is excellent and I have returned to it a few times. I’m sharing it today. Interestingly, though, I think I disagree to an extent that “there will not be loud congregational singing when there is not even loud singing in bars or barber shops.” I have been fortunate to find that the reverse is true. I have been blessed to be in a congregation that sings loudly for many years now… and that makes me all the more want to sing in bars and barber shops. I have found that the last refuge for communal singing is in the Church. In this, as in all things, I see a revival in public singing as a downstream effect of a revival in congregational singing. Ahern has this backwards.