Buchanan Hall: John H. Buchanan Sr.

Published on November 8, 2017

Dr. John Buchanan Sr. discusses how music reveals God.

Transcript

JOHN BUCHANAN: From the beginning of time, music has been the chosen medium
through which mankind has given expression to its tidal waves of supreme joy, or
its measureless depths of passion and woe. Creation itself was ushered in with
music. Job tells us that when the foundations of the earth were laid, the
morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.
Christianity was born with a song on its lips. The angels sang their jubilant
hallelujah chorus. The shepherds sang in devout ecstasy. The church of Christ
has been singing ever since. Paganism does not sing. It laments. But every
Christian church, humble or great, is a conservatory of sweetest music. Music
has been defined as love in search of a word. There is in the heart of man an
inexpressible something which seeks to define itself in speech but, failing in
this, music flies to his relief, and in melody, man pours out his imprisoned
soul. In the attempt of the finite soul to praise and glorify the infinite, all
earthly devices of language utterly fail, and music alone enables man to sing
what he cannot express: his adoration and gratitude to his great God and King.
Wherever religion is the sincerest, music will be the purest, because it is the
echo of God's voice in the soul of man. True religion, like true love, is
emotional, and music is the most adequate expression of the emotional faculty.
Faith sings, unbelief never. Music reveals God.

Audio Information
Attribute	Value
Interviewee	John H. Buchanan Sr.
Repository	Samford University Oral History Collection