Valin Posted September 25, 2014 Share Posted September 25, 2014 The American Interest: There is ample Biblical warrant for noisy worship. And indeed, noisemaking is a feature of many different religious traditions. Peter Berger September 24, 2014 After some posts dealing with very gloomy matters, I feel that something more cheerful is in order (if only to cheer myself up—these days I shy away from opening the newspaper in the morning—an experience probably shared by some of my readers). As often happens to me, a minor news item sent me off musing about broader matters. On September 15, 2014, Religion News Service carried a story about the following incident: The Reverend Johnnie Clark is pastor of Rehobeth United Assemblies, a Pentecostal church in Columbia, South Carolina. He was sentenced in municipal court to one day in jail for the misdemeanor of “public nuisance”, in this instance consisting of repeated violations of city noise limits. [i don’t know anything about municipal statutes in South Carolina. But I had to think about a local law in Massachusetts I encountered when my family and I used to spend summers in the Berkshires. The town we stayed in had a weekly newspaper that, among other things, reported on cases tried in municipal court. One misdemeanor that came up regularly was for an offence called “making unnecessary noise”. I loved that concept, and since then have regretted not living where such a law is enforced!] The Columbia church of the story has been in this location for twenty-five years without any problems, but noise emanating from its worship services has been bothering owners of newly built houses on the same street (could it be a case of gentrification?). The story specifies the offending noise as “singing and shouting, dancing and drumming “, as is characteristic of Pentecostal worship. When complaints started to come in, Pastor Clark asked in an interview “How can you declare a church to be a public nuisance?” After he ignored numerous citations, the heavy hand of the City of Columbia finally descended on him. I will stipulate that during his day behind bars he was treated with the courtesy customarily accorded a man of the cloth in this very religious part of the country; I have not followed up the story, thus do not know whether in the meantime the pastor and his congregation have been limiting themselves to decibel levels deemed acceptable in polite society. There is ample Biblical warrant for noisy worship. Perhaps King David was the prototypical Pentecostal when he sang and danced before the Ark of the Lord as it was brought to Jerusalem, along with his men, “making merry… with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals… and with the sound of the horn” (2 Samuel 6). Perhaps Michal, the daughter of Saul, who rebuked David for this unseemly behavior, was the prototypical guardian of properly polite etiquette. The mention of “joyful noise” is repeated in several Psalms, for example in Psalm 100: “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the lands! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing”. One version of this call to merry worship, in the wonderful cadences of Elizabethan English, has a favored place in the order of worship of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. Members of more sedate Christian communions, such as Anglicans or Lutherans (let alone Presbyterians), are inclined to think that Pentecostals, their arms raised and their vocal chords in full throttle, are following the Davidic example too literally. Which reminds me of the only Pentecostal joke I know (perhaps the only one there is): What do you say in a meeting of Pentecostals if you want to know how many of them want coffee during the break? – “Those who want coffee during the break, please lower your hands”. Noisy worship is not limited to Pentecostals. Revival services in American Protestantism have been quite noisy (even in the absence of “speaking in tongues”), and have been the soil from which sprang the powerful tradition of Gospel music. The development of African-American Protestantism cannot be understood apart from this tradition, brought to its fullness in the full-throated singing of black choirs......(Snip) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valin Posted September 25, 2014 Author Share Posted September 25, 2014 FYI Columbia preacher jailed for too-noisy services will appeal CAROLYN CLICK September 19, 2014 A Pentecostal preacher who has clashed with his downtown Columbia neighbors over the loud volume of his church services will remain in jail until Sunday but plans to appeal his conviction for repeated violations of a city noise ordinance. Apostle Johnnie Clark, 55, pastor of Rehoboth United Assemblies on Laurel Street, will be released from Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center after serving 11 days in jail, his wife, Harriett Terry-Clark, said Friday. (Snip) Briggs said Clark will appeal his sentence and fines on the grounds that his constitutional right to freedom of religion has been violated. He filed the first appeal Sept. 12 and the second Sept. 16. But Tim Ellis, the church’s closest neighbor who launched the series of complaints against the minister and sought help from the city, said the case isn’t about constitutional issues; it turns on the simple issue of extremely loud noise. (Snip) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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