Choirs and congregational participation

For a term paper, I recently spent several weeks about the nature of how choir and congregation singing contribute to an Anglican worship service. This recent effort — as with my book chapter “The Ressourcement of Liturgical Music by John Mason Neale” in a recent edited volume — as in the context of how the 19th century Anglican Choral Revival improved both choral and congregational singing. In addition to 19th-21st century Anglicans, I sometimes think about the influence of Lutherans and the Wesleys (two Anglican priests that never joined the Methodist denomination).

But in a podcast last Friday, choral singing got an unexpectedly strong defense from the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminar defended choral singing, Al Mohler (emphasis added):

I just had a question sent in…“Should a church choir sing music on Sunday morning that does not include the congregation?”

… Should a church choir sing music on Sunday morning that does not include the congregation? No. Because the congregation, if it is right, I believe in terms of church order, the congregation should be worshiping in terms of the choir-singing as well. So if it’s just a performance, and sometimes that’s the real danger is that the congregation is not singing, it just looks so much like a performance as we see out in the world, that people assume that’s what it is. But I don’t think that’s always what it is. And I just want to tell you, I’m a veteran of this of a long time, and so you can just hear my experience and say, well, that’s giving too much credit to your experience.

But I was in the children’s choir, I was in the junior high choir, I was in the middle school choir. I was in the senior high choir. I’ve been in choirs a long time in my life. And I do recognize that there are dangers, there are temptations when it comes to a choir in worship, but I am not steadfastly against it. I guess I made that point pretty clear. I just think it needs to be very clear that this is not a performance, but I believe there is certain music that can be sung by a choir on behalf of the congregation that can be teaching and edifying in terms of Christian worship. I’m just not going to be absolutely dogmatic about this, because quite frankly, I’ve been a part of churches in which you had choir, and I’m a part of a church that doesn’t have a choir, at least in terms of the traditional choir role in Protestant worship.

And I understand the arguments for both, and I’m going to say I think the biblical argument is the congregation should always, always be involved as the people of God gathered for worship. Whether they’re the ones singing at a specific moment I think is a different question. So I couldn’t get to both questions in that list there, but at least wanted to take that question. I think it’s a really good question that could help others to think through this issue as well.

Although I’ve been an Anglican since 4th grade, I strongly identify with the “don’t perform for us” sentiment of the question. I understand what Dr. Mohler is trying to say, although I think he could have been more concise. But this is an important topic, so let me make a few quick points:

1. Anglican theology and practice are different from Southern Baptists, so we (clergy, laity, music directors, worshippers) are not so allergic to a “performance”.
2. A key reason for having choirs is that they can (usually) sing something that the congregation cannot, or sing it better.
3. Many churches have choral services that more performance than shared worship — but most people realize that. There certainly are organ recitals or performance of a piece of sacred music outside Sunday morning. I believe the test is whether or not it uses the prayer book, but some would argue that (say) a Lessons & Carols service has enough prayer to be worship.

So if the only music during a service is a choral anthem, is that worship or a performance?

To some degree, if you give the congregation a chance to sing then it is worship, and if you don’t it is not. The rector lets the congregation sing so they can participate, not (in most cases) because they make the music more beautiful than the choir alone. I’ve seen many aspects of these tradeoffs. 

First, I try to sing harmony for every hymn and piece of service music, and get annoyed when it’s unison (yes Gregorian chant is unison), and even more annoyed when the choir is allowed to sing harmony but the congregation is not.

Second, I’ve worshipped at some large US churches (including the largest TEC church) where the division of labor is clear and natural. The choir sing something complex and rarely sung, and we all listen. But there are plenty of hymns, and the congregation gets to sing familiar (and simpler) music that allows them both to sing and participate in creating the worship service. When I go to church conventions, this is particularly striking because on average these attendees (majority clergy) know the music better than your average parish.

Third, the American norms emphasize singing more than the English ones. You go to a tourist cathedral (let alone a college chapel) are if you’re lucky you get one office hymn at the end. At a Sunday morning mass, some cathedrals (St. Paul’s London) include more congregation hymns than others (Westminster Cathedral). So being a cathedral tourist is more about hearing a performance than attending a hymn-sing.

Finally, there has been a dramatic decline in congregation singing in my lifetime. Grade schools are much less likely to teach music than decades ago, and the fraction of young adults who know anything about classical music is small. Some say CCM is more democratic, but in some cases it is less so: the songs you once knew become passé, so if you haven’t listened to a CCM radio station (or web streaming service) recently, you won’t know the music.

In conclusion, I would argue that the Anglican ethos in the U.S. expects a balance of choir and congregation during a worship service. Most musically inclined Anglicans like to hear a good choir now and then — whether every service or just every month or two depends on taste. And all of us — no matter how talented — feel neglected if not robbed if we are not given our own chance to participate in the singing of the Eucharistic worship.