Comments on: Prayer-Wheels in Southern Gospel

By: Daniel J. Mount

Daniel J. Mount — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 15:54:27 +0000

Bob, I appreciate your perspective. (Thanks for explaining “Silent Night,” incidentally!) Here is why I “folded,” to borrow your term: I am at heart a peace-loving person. I like to make my point, but I don’t like to be involved in protracted, drawn-out fights. So I describe my perspective and make my point, let anyone who disagrees disagree, and perhaps comment on that. But I’ll rarely take it farther.

I want this blog to be thought-provoking, but not somewhere you go to watch bitter disputes. So when someone I really respect (like Dean Adkins) weighs in, I might comment on his viewpoint, but I’m not going to attack him head-on. (Plus, he did have a pretty reasonable explanation for it.)

Lyrics are vitally important, though, and close attention is necessary.

By: Bob Hughes

Bob Hughes — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 15:45:16 +0000

Daniel – I think you folded too quickly. This topic – song lyrics – is a big deal to me. If it weren’t for the words, Southern Gospel Music would be nothing other than country or pop music. It is the words that make it special and put it the music on a higher plane.

I heard a song lately (you may know the song better than I do) that used the clever idea “The keys to heaven are hanging on three nails”. It’s a nice word picture, but if it were to be scripturally accurate, it should be “The KEY (singular) to heaven WAS (past tense) hanging on three nails”.

It may sound like I’m nit-picking, but it’s important! One of my most influential choir directors made us all read the words of the song that we were about to sing in spoken voice before putting notes to it. His point – we sing ideas, not just words to music. We needed to figure out the phrasing, sentance structure, where to breathe, etc. before we could sing a note.

When we did this exercise for the Christmas carol “Silent Night”, it finally made sense to me. Usually we sing this carol as follows:

Silent Night
Holy Night
All is Calm
All is Bright
Round yon Virgin
Mother and Child
Holy Infant so tender and mild…

I never knew what “Round yon Virgin” meant until we sang it this way:

Silent Night, Holy Night,
All is calm, all is bright (a)round yon Virgin Mother and Child.

Sorry for the long post. This has me all fired up – maybe I need a blog!

By: Daniel J. Mount

Daniel J. Mount — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 15:38:15 +0000

That is fascinating. I did not know that. Unfortunately, the discussion on the other message board must have predated my time, because I had not heard that before.

Sorry for asking a question that was already answered!

By: Dean Adkins

Dean Adkins — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 15:33:39 +0000

We plowed this ground a couple of years ago on another message board. It was pretty much concluded that Rev. Derricks was NOT (repeat NOT) making a reference to Buddhism but ” Anyway, the prayer wheel he was referring to was a phrase that came from Black slaves and described the feeling in their spirit when the Holy Spirit”
Source: http://www.truthminers.com/hoaxarticles/prayer_requests.htm

This sort of stuff reminds me of those who are looking for Satanic messages on product labels – an exercise in futility.

By: Daniel J. Mount

Daniel J. Mount — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 14:47:02 +0000

GospelMusicFan,

Let me assure you that I will not use this blog to start or take part in discussions of denominational differences. If it is true that prayer wheels are exclusively or almost exclusively Buddhist, I would consider that worthy of comment. But I have no intention of starting or becoming involved in discussions of predestination, once saved always saved, millennial views, or other touchy issues in this blog.

By: GospelMusicFan

GospelMusicFan — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 14:38:00 +0000

Treading shaky grounds when we start discussing doctrinal issues in southgern gospel. There are many denominational doctrines that distinguished the fan base of southern gospel.
Lets not go into the area what divides us but what Jerry reminded us that Jesus Christ as our Lord,
I heard of prayer wheels in my bringing up and never knew about the Buddhists and prayer wheels.
I will give you credit for your research and educated mind that some of us wish God has given us.