The Christian Musician: The Most Discouraging Book

   As a teen just discovering the thrill of classical music, I remember eagerly picking up Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers by P. Kavanaugh. Surely its contents would delight me. Surely it would reveal that these great artists were also men of God, a side of music history never taught.

   (By the way, this was before I took the course on music history. Hence my naive expectations.)

   I was sorely disappointed. In fact, to this day I still hold that book as the most discouraging book I've ever read.

   All the composers had spiritual lives. Most were very strange about it! I found among the composers a good dose of fascination with the occult, inconsistent and immoral lifestyles, and other inconsistencies that were very confusing to my idealistic mind. These men were musical giants, yet they were not spiritual heroes.

   It only gets worse when one actually starts studying their music and reading secular sources about them. The inconsistencies become more apparent; the claims the book's authour makes seem questionable.

   So, what's to be learned from this book? Plenty, actually.

• First, what Mom pointed out to me when I asked her about the inconsistencies between what many of the composers claimed (most claimed to have faith in God) and how they lived. She reminded me that they lived in a Judeo-Christian culture, where most people went to church, and that this would have directly affected their philosophies. So the first lesson is that culture impacts us all, much more than we realize. 
• We can claim anything we want to about our faith, but do our lives hold up to our claims? Or is our Christianity inconsistent at best? 
• On the flip side, while we as Christians should be aiming to become like Christ, we also have to extend grace to each other in our shortcomings. Take Handel, for instance. His temper was certainly not Christ-like. Did that make him "not a Christian"? I would not say so, based on various quotes surrounding the composition of Messiah. Ideals are good. Ours should be Christ -- because as humans, we will disappoint each other. 
• There is a bright side in reading this book, and it is seeing the cases, like Chopin and Stravinsky, where these men were converted to Christ. His grace shines through in these testimonies, just as it does in every person's testimony. 

   A discouraging book? To a young teenage girl, yes. And yet, if nothing else, it is a book that accurately presents humanity. So, take heart. Our God is still great.