It is never tyranny to assert personal tastes and preferences for one's own involvement. Enjoying private preferences is the essence of personal liberty and individuality. You become a tyrant only when you demand that others hew to your personal tastes, or as punishment, you will cause them to suffer loss in some way: loss of reputation, loss of employment, loss of cooperation, loss of friendship.

 

The diversity of the Body of Christ guarantees that all of us will have different tastes and preferences in food, scenery, vacation destinations, the arts, cultural and societal concerns, politics, whom we befriend and whom we marry.  As long as those personal tastes do not contradict clear Biblical principles, or (and this is the same thing) hinder the rights of others as laid down in civil law, Christians are free to indulge personal tastes quite apart from sin. It is not sin to prefer one foodstuff or one artistic expression over another. It is not sin to belong to the "opposition" political party, whichever one that may be. It is not sin to have guileless tastes and preferences that do not offend Biblical principles. It is sin to require others to adopt your personal preferences through authoritarian or coercive means. It is the sin of unkindness and emanates from selfish pride.

 

Do people inside the church do this?—people supposedly trained and dedicated to Biblical principles?  Alas, there is virtually nothing that "people inside the church" cannot do, if it is indeed done by the rest of depraved humankind. Yes, the church is a busy venue for the selfish exercise of the tyranny of personal tastes.  

 

Inside the church this tyranny takes on a particularly nasty disposition, for tyrants must don stealthy facemasks. Tyrants and control freaks will constantly struggle to justify their oppressive control of others. Holy Writ is the assumed authority for our faith and practice, therefore in order to so justify their tyranny, tyrants must necessarily craft a way to make their personal tastes appear to be biblical mandates. Thus, if you are an aspiring tyrant, your tyranny inside the church is an ongoing masquerade that seeks to miscast your personal tastes as scriptural decree: that is, you are endeavoring to make other people believe that you and God want the same thing: to do things your way.

 

Do up and coming church tyrants really attempt to cast their personal tastes as one and the same with God's commands in order to control others? That's the preferred scheme and the only way church-based tyranny can succeed. As an in-training church tyrant, you cannot get away with saying: "You must do things as I like them to be done because the government says so; or you must share my likes and dislikes because they conform to community mores." That's outside the church stuff, and it doesn't resonate inside the church. The only thing that works inside is to basically say: "God has shown me I'm right on all my preferences; you will therefore adopt them or you are a sinner." The actual words may be softened with euphemisms and pieties, but this is the gist of the masked ball of in-church tyranny.  

 

If you doubt that this is the way church tyranny works, you must slow down and analyze the situation. Any attempts at control must be codified. Since Scripture is the sole authority, or should be, church tyrants must make their likes and dislikes appear to be admonitions of Holy Writ, or nobody will listen to them. God must be made to speak on the behalf of the tyrant or the whole control program will be ignored.

 

In pesky situations, in which a church tyrant is having difficulty making his/her personal tastes appear to be synonymous with scriptural decree, there are several gambits a tyrant can put in play in an emergency:

 

• Oracle of God: The tyrant can say, "Okay, admittedly, the Bible is not as clear as I would like it to be on this issue: namely, that my tastes are one and the same with God's, but behold, I have received the assurance that I'm right through prayer and fasting! Therefore, give up your obstinancy and do things my and God's way, for He has revealed this truth to me!" This audacious ploy is actually attempted more times than one would think; however, this extra-Biblical revelatory system is rejected by outright doctrinal statement in many churches, and thus, it will fall on deaf ears in a church dedicated to sola scriptura. Even churches that have in place a tradition of acknowledging extra-Biblical revelation to the church-at-large (as opposed to only an individual for personal edification), it is still a risky move. Church folk everywhere will likely be suspicious of any prophetic pronouncements that issue forth from a self-described oracle who seems just to want control over some person, program, church policy, or the pizza toppings on Wednesday night's fellowship meal. Final summary on extra-Biblical revelations: they don't work very well, but there are subtle variations that may ameliorate its problems, such as:

 

• Spiritual Giant in the Land: The tyrant reasons, "True, the Holy Spirit has been irritatingly quiet about this area I am attempting to control, and thus, the Bible lacks clarity on the situation; but I have the lion's share of spiritual maturity, Biblical knowledge, seniority in the church, years on the board, and Sunday School attendance pins to declare that, in the lack of Biblical decisiveness, I may best be trusted to guide us in this matter...that is, guide us to my preferences in things!"  This thrust is a variation on extra-Biblical revelation, but instead of using personal prayer or annunciation as an exclusive conduit to God, the tyrant invokes his or her superiority in godly decision-making. Would-be church tyrants often say or craftily imply: "I am superior to you in spiritual discernment and experience, therefore stand back and let me rule!" The strength of this variation is that it does not go down the rocky road of declaring oneself to be an oracle of God and a prophet for this generation. The weakness is the same, however: it will clunk on the ears of the truly spirit-filled church folk as mere self-promotion and control-freakiness. Thank goodness for those discerning folk: without them, tyrants would run amok seeking to gain their 15-minutes of fame inside the church, and then to expand those paltry minutes to as long as they can pull off the tyranny.  Another variation on attempting to counterfeit extra-Biblical certification:

 

• I Am One With the Innocent Others: Forget the Oracle of God, and the "I'm clearly the spiritual giant in our midst" gambits. They have mixed results at best. The subtlest way to circumvent scriptural authority is the abstract and shapeless assertion that "others" may be hurt by doing things in a way not to the tyrant's liking: souls may be lost; members may be driven from the church; the children may be badly influenced; the unwanted pizza toppings may be gross; the music (aha... that electric word arrives!) may be (fill-in-the-blank) worldly, unedifying, non-praiseworthy, too loud, too old, too new, too..."not to my tastes, thank you!" This variation, when played to perfection by the tyrant, seeks to gain control via subtle suggestions that any ideas other than the tyrant's may be dangerous to the fragile and impressionable "others." This is the variation I have seen most in play with the tyranny of personal tastes: the mere suggestion that the tyrant foresees ill, or problems, or bad feelings, etc. coming from some issue that is in opposition to the tyrant's likes and dislikes.  In this variation, the tyrant junks the Oracle of God routine, and downplays his/her spiritual superiority, and merely insinuates,.. muses,.. postulates,.. frets (with heartfelt concern about the "others") that there may be woe ahead in doing things some other way than what the tyrant wants. This program of control, unfortunately, works!.. if it is done with measured subtlety and feigned concern for the lowly and innocent "others."  The good thing for the tyrant in this maneuver is, you don't need actual scriptural verification... only vague heartfelt empathy.

 

Music: does the tyranny of personal tastes actually aspire to control the styles and titles of music presented in a church? Are there would-be tyrants who would attempt to promote their personal tastes in music over that of the music director, the congregation, the choir, the praise band, and the pastor? Does the new pope carry his own luggage?

 

Music is an all-time favorite arena for tyrants to try to be head gladiator. Exacerbating this problem is that music also happens to be a subjective, volatile, flammable, perilous, angels-fear-to-tread area of church life. Furthermore, it is an art form and naturally subject to a wide variance of personal tastes, which if properly and kindly expressed, is fine. Tyranny isn't fine, but personal tastes in music are, if they are kept to oneself and not foisted on others. Music tyrants never merely go home and turn their own radios and CD players to exactly the type and volume of music they desire. No, they attempt to turn the church music program into their personal entertainment center, tuned in to only their tastes in music.

 

How many times in my career have tyrants-in-waiting tried to tell me that the music they are hearing is not to their personal liking?—and would I please rectify this situation immediately, and bring the music into focus with their personal tastes, or else, tragedy: souls will be lost, members will flee the church roles, the children will be infected with evil imaginings, and Wednesday's pizza will come infested with anchovies.

 

How many times have experienced tyrants, used to getting their way, and perhaps, even invested with a church title carrying some authority, informed me that due to their superior spiritual discernment and Biblical knowledge, they must insist that I forget my (unenlightened) musical choices and instill theirs?

 

Many times, but I have never had this happen: no aspiring tyrant has ever approached me with the intent to change the music program to their tastes by declaring, "I know you have degrees in music, but so do I, and my vast technical and theoretical knowledge of music is laughably superior to your own. Therefore my superiority fairly demands that you change the music to fit my preferences." This doesn't happen because if a church has someone in the congregation with those high skills, they would already have my job, and I would be elsewhere.

 

Musical giants do not walk out of the congregation (or the church offices) and demand acquiescence to their tastes based on superior musicianship. By the same token, it does not happen that someone will emerge from the congregation and inform the pastor that he is polluting the pulpit with incompetence, and then offer the pastor his own resume that includes being a credentialed theologian and a published author on homiletics and hermeneutics.  At least, it doesn't happen often and has never happened to me.

 

But if a tyrant ever did say such a thing, he/she would not simply be vaulting over me, but also over all of the trained musicians in my department. I have been fortunate with regard to having highly trained musicians in my choirs. Therefore, in the face of all this combined expertise, the tyrant would have to put it this way, "I demand that you change your music ideas to conform to mine in that my music education, training and experience in administering a church music program not only dwarfs yours, but it also towers over all the cumulative skills of your trained colleagues." I can't even think of someone with that many credentials since Leonard Bernstein passed away, and he was not of like faith. I have, however, had tyrants who acted like they were Bernstein, but without the resume. 

 

These would-be masters of music would have to say: "That's right! I play piano better than all your pianists, I play guitar and recorders better than you, I'm a published composer, and I even own more ancient instruments than you do—oh yes—I sing better than Katie does!"  No, I have never had a tyrant appeal to me on the basis of musical superiority, even though that would be a powerful gambit—more powerful than Oracle of God; more powerful than I-am-the spiritual-giant-here; more powerful than the posed concern for the "others."  If someone in the church staff or congregation came to me with credentials on that level, I would be sufficiently impressed to offer to step aside in my position and let them take the helm. Shoot, I'd even join their choir!

 

This is not to say that talented musical people cannot exist in the general congregation— of course they can.  But no one with any significant music credentials has ever emerged from the congregation to tell the music department what to do in a church I've been in. Again, if there were someone on this impressive level of expertise reclining in the pews, they would either be already in charge, or they would be serving in ministry by participating in the music program, investing their talents rather than burying them. One would have to know the precise answer to the question: "If you (the congregant master musician) are this skilled, why are you not directly involved in the music now?"  

 

There are possible answers to this question, I hastily admit, that do not involve elitism, sloth, or refusing to ply one's gifts as a tithe, say, to the Lord. I was artist-in-residence at a church once that had such a towering music person in the congregation. She was not involved in the music program, but she was a world-class mezzo-soprano, and one of the world's three or four top "Carmens." She could not participate because she was only home in Miami about twice a year. The rest of the time, she was singing in the great opera houses of earth. This woman, by the way, to my knowledge, never attempted to tell the music director what to do with his program.  

 

I, however, have had no tyrant wanting to tailor the music to his/her tastes come to me with so much as a music appreciation pin from third grade. Tyrants do not make appeals on the basis of superior artistic skills. Why? This is a masquerade too easy to be unmasked: It would be like someone attempting to tell the corps de ballet how to dance: a demonstration of the tyrant's dance skills would immediately be requested.
 

Never do tyrants say anything about who is most musically adept: the tyrant or me, or all the other awesome musicians assenting to my leadership. Actual qualifications and credentials, and training, and experience is never brought up in the tyrant's quest to assert him/herself as the one most qualified to make music decisions. This entire question of qualifications is ignored by the tyrant, and wisely so. The average well-trained church music director can be reasonably expected not only to have qualifications that exceed any given lone maverick tyrant, but likely, this music person, if he/she comes to the position as skilled as most, will have musicality and experience that exceeds the sum total of the congregation's musical abilities. This is not a surprising nor is it a boastful statement, given the technical nature of music, and the same would be said of a church doctor compared to any number of laypeople.

 

The true church tyrant is almost always an expert-without-portfolio, attempting to gain control over areas in which he/she has no credentials, be it the very technical and knowledge-intensive area of music, how to run the Sunday School, the building design of the new youth center, or what sermons the pastor should preach. Tyrants are always blissfully unconcerned with their ignorance and incompetence in areas they wish to control: their mere selfish tastes and preferences trump all. So powerful is their urge to satisfy their own tastes that they are emboldened to attempt to tyrannize even experts within their professional fields. 

 

Which brings up an interesting point, and it is indeed a point that was made to me by an elder of the session in one of my churches. This elder had a complaint that some of the music I was doing was music in which he had no personal interest. He didn't like the music (many, many others did, however!). I countered that subjective personal tastes, as opposed to objective Biblical principles, were a ripe area for abuse and attempts to control. Now, in general, I might recommend avoiding such candor to an elder, but sometimes, the shortest distance to the real issue must be through precise language. The elder hastily pointed out that, hey... it was my personal tastes in play, and why was that okay?  Good question: why is it okay for the music director to make musical decisions, which will presumably be his/her own personal tastes, and this does not constitute a tyranny on the part of the director?

 

The reason this is a good question is not because no one has ever thought of this question before, and this is a new and startling breakthrough in conceptual thinking, and pushes the intellectual frontier boldly out past C. S. Lewis. It has been thought of before, many thousands of times and dealt with quite deftly. No, the reason it's a good question is that it's so easy to answer. Easy questions are always good questions. Now had the elder asked me why I was so weird, that's a much stickier wicket and tougher to deal with. And elders have asked me that one too. I hate it when that happens.  

 

But the question, "Why do you get to make choices on the music from your personal tastes, and that isn't tyranny, but if I insist on my preferences, that is tyranny?" Excellent question and so easy to address, one wonders why the elder didn't already know the answer, which maybe he did, but he was pretending not to, to see if I knew the answer. Not only do I know that answer, but all church music directors and salaried staff musicians know the answer. It is a three-parter:

 

1. I make those decisions because I am hired to do precisely that, and it is expected of me to make choices in music, as to style, presentation, and scheduling. That the choices may be my personal tastes is irrelevant.  I am still responsible for my choices, and wherever I get those decisions from, I will retain ownership of them. In fact, I get some of my ideas from other musicians in the department, and make decisions based on suggestions from others; nevertheless, I cannot escape sole responsibility for the choices. If I were to take the elder's personal musical tastes and instill those choices, I still could not dodge responsibility.  In short, whatever happens, and whoever supplies the ideas, it will always come back to me, not to the other musicians whose counsel I may take, or the elder, who wants me to do his kind music. I will be found responsible for all choices, and therefore, my very employment may hang in the balance. I have a vested interest in making sound, praiseworthy music choices in that it is my career and my calling positioned under this sword of Damocles. If I make choices that no one can live with: the congregation, the church staff and officers, and the other singers and players under my direction, then my tenure at this church will be brief, as it should be. It is my job and my livelihood hanging in the balance of my choices, and not that of the elder. He will likely not get fired if I mess up, even if it's his imported ideas that fail. I will be asked to resign, not the elder or the other musicians. I am invested in making the right choices to a far greater degree than others who may want me to do things their way. Therefore, if I am to fall short of the mark, it must be my choices that bring me to this regrettable point, and not another person's. It is patently unfair to ask someone whose job will be required of them, to make changes, when the asker is immune from all repercussions, and the only one at risk is the one being asked. No matter how hard I think, I can't think of a reason why this elder would not know all of these trues. 

2. Going back to credentials in music: I indeed make music choices, such as style, idiom, presentation, instrumentation, original arrangements, and personnel. Furthermore these choices may indeed be my personal tastes. However, my tastes are also conditioned by my extensive training, education, experience, and musicality. My expertise acts to prepare me for having personal tastes that are much broader, more informed, and based on previous successes. If a congregation had a resident doctor, and many do, it would be assumed that the choices he/she makes are a product of his/her extensive training, and few would presume to overrule those decisions with lay opinions. Music is a technical art as is medicine, and therefore, it must be assumed that an expert in music will make choices based on personal tastes that have been refined, tested, and perhaps perfected. I make choices from my personal tastes because that is the only reservoir of decision-making I have, and that reservoir has been filled to overflowing with my years of musical training. I will add here that, I occasionally choose music that I am not particularly enamored with, because I am aware that other people in the church will like it. In other words, I regularly do music, not from my personal tastes, but from others'. Nevertheless, the buck will stop with me. I will own every decision I make in a church music department, whatever the source or reason for my choice.

3. I freely make musical decisions, even based on my personal tastes, because it is Biblical to do so. The oft quoted verse, "A workman is worthy of his hire," is usually cited in context to proper payment for the worker. The other context, of the esteem of the work itself, apart from just compensation, is equally important. Not only is a workman worthy to be paid for his work, but his work is also worthy, in that he is being paid. A salaried worker in the church must be seen in two important lights: the workman is worthy of just compensation, and just compensation certifies that the workman and his work are worthy of respect. It is a lack of respect to any salaried worker in the church for another person, not salaried and authorized to do that work, to attempt to wrest control of that worker's duly authorized decision-making. To do such a thing merely to satisfy one's personal tastes, and force those tastes on the workman and, by extension, the whole church, is a sin. All salaried workers in the church should be assumed to be competent, and their work worthy of their hire. All would-be tyrants need to repent of their tyranny, and cease trying to promote their personal tastes and preferences to the status of Truth.  A non-Biblical phrase will do: Live and let live. A Biblical phrase is even better: "...aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands...” (1 Thess. 4:11).