My wife and I are doing fine. This is about another sort of marriage. About twenty years ago, when I was still single, I was living in an apartment complex on the boundary between Denver and Aurora, CO. Directly above me was a neighbor who loved to party on weekends. Particularly on Friday night, he would crank up the volume of his stereo so loud that the burners on my stove would shake and rattle as if we were having an earthquake. I didn’t know my neighbor, and I wasn’t certain how a request from me to turn the volume down would be received, if I made it personally. I didn’t want to call the police, because I suspected they had better things to do, and they might get an even more rebellious response than I would. So I called a switchboard at the apartment complex and asked a live person who worked for an answering service if they would send a security guard to speak to my neighbor. But week after week, the parties continued uninterrupted. I should have called the police, but I really didn’t want to bother them about my neighbor depriving me of sleep. So I would sometimes call a taxi and go to an all-night restaurant, have breakfast, and return home at about 3 a.m. when my neighbor was finally tired enough to go to sleep. When I got tired of doing that, and I got a better job, I moved to a different apartment.
I haven’t been to a live concert in about fifteen years, because the music is even louder, and I usually have the misfortune of sitting in front of the biggest jerk in the audience. On Friday, August 13, 1982, I went by myself to a concert at Red Rocks (west of Denver) featuring Emmylou Harris and Michael Martin Murphey. It wasn’t unusually loud by concert standards, but what I remember most about it was the guy behind me. Emmylou Harris once recorded a song called “Two More Bottles of Wine”. It was clearly this jerk’s favorite song, because he kept screaming “Sing two more bottles” during her entire performance, making the show rather unenjoyable. Near the end of the show, much to my relief, she finally sang the song. By the way, I was in the fourth row, and I’m sure she could hear him. As soon as she finished, he began screaming, “Sing it again, sing two more bottles.” I haven’t seen Emmylou since, and it’s not her fault.
On another occasion, I went with a friend to a Phil Keaggy concert. For the uninitiated, Phil Keaggy is a Christian guitarist, who plays at a level similar to Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and other rock luminaries. He is the best musician I’ve ever seen live. He has done a lot of Christian rock, as well as several fabulous acoustic albums. His performance that night was so loud that I could barely hear my friend say, “Look at the bright side. You’ll never hear anyone criticize you again.” But above the din of the concert, I could hear the guy behind me screaming, “Crank it up, crank it up.” We have all had the unhappy experience of being stuck in traffic beside someone whose boom box can be heard for half a mile. They all listen to the same sort of music, and let’s just say it’s not Lawrence Welk. Perhaps a little Floyd Cramer blasted really loud wouldn’t be quite as irritating.
I was thinking about this a couple of weeks ago when I read an article about a conflict between a church in Massillon, Ohio and the church’s neighbors. One of the so-called unchurched victims was quoted as saying, “They have a heck of a sound system over there. During the services, my windows rattle and my whole house shakes.” Unlike me, he has called the police, and the dispute is ongoing. The pastor of the church was quoted as saying, “No one is going to prevent us from worshiping.” Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor the desire to be a good neighbor will dissuade his congregation from getting down and cranking it up.
Last Sunday was Mother’s Day, and I carried a bottle of water into our Sunday morning church service. As soon as we walked inside, my water bottle began vibrating just like my burners in Denver used to do. At least it wasn’t the middle of the night, and the school where we meet isn’t close enough to anyone’s house for anyone to complain.
This is the sixth church we have attended in and around Phoenix in six years (though we only visited three of them once), and the “crank it up” people are running every one of them. There is a really good justification for some amplification. It’s perfectly OK for someone to speak into a microphone so everyone can hear. Most of us can’t speak naturally loud enough to be heard by a very large audience. Music should be amplified enough so everyone in the audience can hear. But it shouldn’t be so loud that you could sing along in the parking lot. The primary reason why churches are so loud, aside from the desire to advertise their worship to the outside world, is because drums are a standard part of church bands. Once you bring in a set of drums, everything else has to be amplified to compete with the drums. Every church service I’ve attended for several years has been at a volume level which my home television cannot produce, though our current TV might come close to it.
I have spoken to several pastors about this issue, but not our current one, because I’ve given up. The usual answer I get is some variation of “We believe worship is important, and we want to worship in a contemporary way which is popular with this generation, whether you personally like it or not.” I don’t object to dancing or shouting, unless someone is shouting into an amplifier. Perhaps I could live with the same repetitious six or seven songs played week after week, if they were played at a reasonable volume level. But the noise of the culture around us has reached an unbearable level, and the noisiest part of my week is always Sunday morning.
I am in a desperately unhappy marriage with organized religion. On one hand, the marriage is necessary, because I respect the scripture which implores Christians to gather together. Staying at home on Sunday, collecting milk bottles, or whatever I might do instead, just isn’t satisfactory for me, it would be an enormous waste of time, it wouldn’t set a good example for my kids, and it would be unproflitable for others. Nevertheless, I don’t enjoy going to church, and I haven’t for some time. I don’t invite people to church, because I simply don’t believe what goes on in all the churches I’m familiar with is normal or necessary. Yet I feel as if I’m trapped in a marriage with a spouse whose spending I can’t control. Every time I get fed up with the church we attend, my wife says she doesn’t want to start over, the next church will be the same, and she’s right. So we stay, and I marvel at the fact that I can’t even find a small group of Christians who care how I feel. I’ve thought about starting a house church of my own, but I’m probably the only one who would like it. So I am stuck in my desperately unhappy marriage, with no way to enjoy the marriage and no justification for a divorce.
