Final answer:
Biblical teachings suggest that church songs should be God-centered and Christ-exalting, focusing on divine rather than human elements. This viewpoint contrasts with traditions that emphasize emotional expression, such as Choctaw hymns or Methodist and Baptist worship styles.
Step-by-step explanation:
According to the Bible, the songs we sing in church should be primarily God-centered and Christ-exalting, not focused on human feelings or wishes. This approach to worship music is different from other traditions that might emphasize the emotional and subjective experiences of individuals.
For instance, the Choctaw hymns of the early 1800s serve as an expression of their collective and individual traumas experienced during forced relocations. Similarly, in the Methodist and Baptist traditions, spiritual songs and hymns often conveyed messages of hope and endurance through the emotional responses they elicited from individuals.
However, these examples also illustrate the diversity of worship practices and the use of music to express a range of human emotions and experiences.
The criterion that worship music should be God-centered and Christ-exalting is reflective of a particular theological stance that seeks to prioritize divine attributes and actions over individual emotional expressions in a religious context. This viewpoint is informed by the value in Christianity of religio animi—the religion of the soul—which emphasizes the interior beliefs and feelings of individuals as secondary to the glorification of God and Christ in worship.