The Purpose of the Choir
“While choral singing is to occupy an independent position in the Divine Service in accordance with its significance . . . this should not be an isolated position, if the choir is to serve rightly in edifying the congregation and do its part in truly beautifying the Divine Service. The music which it performs must thus be integrated as closely as possible with the actions of the liturgist and the congregation so that choral singing does not appear as a performance or assume the character of a religious concert—which it certainly should not” (The Chief Divine Service of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church, by Friedrich Lochner, transl. Matthew Carver, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2020, p. 31, emphases original).
Lochner’s insistence on this, coming from the mid-to-late-nineteenth century, when he was a professor at the Missouri Synod’s Springfield seminary, is instructive for two reasons. First, it shows that the battles against non-Lutheran, non-liturgical, and unhelpful tendencies of churches’ choirs have been waged for a very long time, particularly in America. Second, it is instructive because still today it is spot-on. Any congregational choir that does not have as its purpose the beautification and enhancement of the liturgy of the congregation is in fact being counterproductive, no matter how beautiful its performances may be.
Worship is not a show; it is not time to be entertained. It is hearing the words of God and responding with faith, the very faith which those words give. Liturgical worship, accordingly, is using God’s own words to do that with dignity, and as such it makes the entire Divine Service from start to finish the word of God in action, on our lips.
Generally a typical choir’s performance of “the anthem,” as it has typically been called, as well done as it may be, serves essentially to interrupt rather than to augment the performance of the liturgy. It serves as it were to stand in the way, rather than to gild the way. As lovely as it may sound, it becomes a concert rather than a liturgical aid, and as such is in the wrong place at the wrong time. If a choir has appropriate sacred music to sing in addition to its role in leading the propers or the hymns, such music might be suitable to be sung during the distribution of the Sacrament, or the collection of the offerings, but it should not stand alone as a new ‘part’ of the Divine Service, Perhaps, additionally, a choral vespers could be scheduled, or even a stand-alone concert. But not as a concert within the Service.
Lochner was correct.