John Tyner
In 1992 my family moved from East Lansing to Monroe. While we felt God calling us here, one of the things that saddened us about leaving East Lansing was that we were in the Okemos School District which, in our minds, had many excellent things going for it, to include the arts. We were especially saddened for our older son Dan, whose loves were music and drama.
Then we found out, to our delight, that the music program in the Monroe School District FAR surpassed what we had seen in Okemos. The catalyst and visionary for this was, of course, John Tyner. Dan got involved in the Monroe Music system, and we felt very, very blessed. When Dan went to MHS he sang in the choirs, plus Tyner’s “Generations” group. We attended some of the incredible Madrigal Dinners. Dan was one of many Tyner students who qualified for State Honors Choir. Twice our family made the trip to Hill Auditorium at U-M to see the best of high school singers under some great directors. And, we saw Mr. Tyner especially honored there. The MHS music program was state-recognized for its excellence.
Once we made a trip back to Okemos and saw their choir sing a few numbers. I don’t mean to degrade them, but it was like watching a very average choir compared to Tyner’s college-level presentation. Tyner taught his students technically tough stuff. Here before us was an actual teacher, who imparted much to his students even beyond musical things.
I was thankful Tyner introduced his students to many religious pieces. But this is inevitable if one teaches the history of choral music. Even the atheist Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion, says how much he enjoys the musical brilliance of Bach and Handel. And not once have I ever heard from a Tyner protégé in my church that he was preachy about religion.
I am stunned that he has left MCCC. I appeal to the administration to meet with John and work this thing out in a way that places trust in his judgments. And if someone throws a lawsuit at MCCC for this I expect nearly the entire Monroe community to stand against it.
June 21st, 2007 at 5:13 pm
I sang in one of Tyner’s choirs at Monroe High. He is everything that you say he is - one of the towering giants in Monroe’s cultural scene.
Can you enlighten us? You allude to some kind of controversy. Can you elaborate?
June 21st, 2007 at 5:18 pm
Okay, I’ve got it. It’s on the Evening News website.
http://www.monroenews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070621/NEWS01/106210046
June 22nd, 2007 at 10:20 pm
A couple of my girls sang for John, and we always enjoyed his professionalism and cultural expertise he brought to our community. What a shame that politics and fear could could rear its ugly head and hide behind the seperation of church and state. Somewhere along the line someone has to have the guts to say”enough,” “bring it on!” (Lawsuit)
Mike
June 27th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
I am very pleased to see all the comments & letters to the editor on this matter, we need to stand together as a community and speak our rights about what we believe in as believers. That means not letting this be allowed to happen again to another, so lets be thankful to GOD for allowing this to surface so we ( GODS PEOPLE ) can stand up for our rights as CHRISTIANS and say just because some may choose to not believe gives them no more rights then those who do. We have all seen satan start and win battles, but our LORD JESUS CHRIST is the one who wins the war! So now they can have their (LAWSUIT) and we can have the VICTORY. May the Lord bless those people who started this so please keep them in your prayers, they need prayer more then any money they may recieve from a lawsuit, oh I’m sorry money you know that green paper that gets passed around daily from hand to hand that says ” IN GOD WE TRUST”
June 28th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
Hi Joanne - thanks for your comment!
June 30th, 2007 at 12:53 am
Joanne, people, the point here has nothing to do with Christianity, your God, or anyone’s God. The simple fact was that John Tyner NEVER preached. I couldn’t even tell you what religion he’s affiliated with if I hadn’t personally asked him. I was in Concert Choir, Generations of Sound, his assistant for a year, and in the Agora Chorale. He taught us the history of any given piece so we would better *feel* the song. I am a supporter of the seperation of church and state. I believe all people should feel comfortable and free of persecution in a public place. The point is, whether you’re an atheist, agnostic, christian, or otherwise, Tyner would always treat you with the same respect as the next person. Listening to, and singing, chorale music that references God does not make me any more Christian than listening to Ozzy Osbourne makes me bite wild animals. This isn’t an argument of religion and views that suggest otherwise is what spurred these actions in the first place.
June 30th, 2007 at 10:06 am
Hi Nathan - thank you for your comment. I think it is precisely the case that “religion” is a central issue re. the Monroe News article on MCCC and John. One cannot discuss issues like this without talking about the public expression of, e.g., a religous song.
I don’t understand what you are trying to express when you write: “This isn’t an argument of religion and views that suggest otherwise is what spurred these actions in the first place.”
I was at the MCCC commencement. Here’s how I see it.
1. The Agora Choir sang a “religious”song.
2. MCCC viewed the singing of this song as inappropriate because one person expressed that they were offended.
3. Mr. Tyner was advised (instructed? told?) that he could not (should not?) sing a song like that again.
4. Mr. Tyner was offered some alternative, more acceptable religious songs, like “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” (Which raises the question as to how one decides that one religious song is more appropriate than another. I find it difficult to believe that a practicing Muslim would enjoy listening to this.)
5. Mr. Tyner (correctly) responded that he teaches the history of choral music, and it’s massively “religious.”
So I think your sentence is incorrect. or, at least unclear to me. You can’t argue in this arena and leave religion out of it. In discussing issues of “church and state” one obviously has to talk about “church” as well as “state.” Discussion on these issues are inexorably “religious” in nature in the sense that one talks about religion and religious things. This involves “religious” people expressing their views. To leave them out of the discussion is marginalizing and oppressive, as well as fundamentally misguided.
But as you can tell by my main post (”John Tyner”) I, like you, greatly respect and admire him and personally trust him to discern what is appropriate and what isn’t in our Monroe community.
June 30th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
The question I got from the article was: Is John Tyner preaching to students?
The answer is no. The songs he chooses, in a lot of cases, do have a religious core, but most chorale music of olde has such a base. He never taught us a song in such a way that we felt he was pushing religion upon us. He taught each piece, religious or not, as a history teacher would. He helped us to understand the song and the beliefs of the people who wrote it.
People arguing for the “Christian” right are saying that those who felt oppressed were correct in their argument. If I believed Tyner was teaching these songs as a missionary of a God I didn’t believe in, I’d be offended too. The simple fact is, he didn’t and doesn’t.
It’s akin to understanding an unfamiliar word in a sentence. If you look at the context of the word you can better understand the meaning. Tyner taught us the context of each chorale piece and, in most concerts, offered the same information to the audience. If the song was written in the 19th century, for example, his lesson would begin with something along the lines of, “In the 19th century, these people believed this, and that’s why this was important to them.”
I’m trying to be clear on my point. If people start stabbing at this situation with a “Holier than thou” attitude, it will escalate into something silly. Tyner didn’t teach music that referred to God because of the message, he taught the music for the music. There aren’t many beautiful, classic chorale songs that don’t, in fact, refer to God in one way or another. It’s not to say I’m not a christian, rather, it doesn’t matter what religion I am because Tyner never, ever imposed any beliefs onto his students.
July 2nd, 2007 at 11:04 am
Hi Nathan – I do appreciate you dialoguing with me. Here’s what I am thinking. Please bear with me if they are not entirely on target, or misunderstand what you are saying.
You wrote to Joanne that “the point here has nothing to do with Christianity, your God, or anyone’s God. The simple fact was that John Tyner NEVER preached.” I would say this. If someone thought John was preaching and he is now being told not preach, I think they would be mistaken. But his “not being preachy” still got him marginalized. The fact that Tyner never preached means nothing in this particular dialogue. But it does have a lot to do with Christianity and God in that one should not publicly do Christian songs like the black gospel song “Soon and Very Soon.”
This is a part of the culture wars we are now in. These wars are not merely about imposing one’s beliefs on others in public. They are, further, about any public religious expression. Which gets us into very thorny issues of interpretation.
My own belief is that Monroe has been more isolated from this kind of culture war than have other places. But now it is more explicitly with us. I say this because, prior to coming to Monroe, I worked as a campus pastor at Michgian State University for eleven years. In that environment this kind of stuff was in much discussion. Not so when I came to Monroe.
Pres. Nixon’s letter in the News, to me, expresses the dilemma people like him are in. Here he is, preseident of a community college in a community that has been (in my estimation) fairly insulated from a lot of the culture war discussions. Nixon writes that a campus dialogue on this subject “would help foster a greater understanding of the delicate balance the Constitution strikes in this area.” I agree with that phrase – “the delicate balance the Constitution strikes in this area.” Delicate indeed, if “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” might be appropriate but “Soon and Very Soon” would not be.
It looks like there may be MCCC campus dialogue on this, and acc. to Pres. Nixon John and the administration will meet. It will be interesting to see how his comes out. The problem is this: there are no ideologically neutral songs. All songs marginalize someone. Even Disney songs. Even the atheistic song “Imagine.”
July 3rd, 2007 at 9:44 am
An interesting topic in so many ways. I think the wisdom of the founding fathers is beyond what we recognize.
Here is a sure recipe for disaster (that I believe they understood). Take one religious zealot (does not matter what religion), give that person power (even representative power) over other people, mix, let stand (or ferment whichever you prefer), and before you know it, you have oppressed people and the purposes of the zealot being served above all else.
Jesus, in the administration of His religion, had no manmade authority (e.g. political power) and yet His was the most effective ministry of all time. Why? I believe part of it was that He did not try to take on the political resistance for what it was, and still is, an earthly endeavor and a distraction. He did (does), in fact, advise us against just such struggles. He then demonstrated, and taught appropriate courses of action too numerous to go into here.
I can not discuss this topic referencing our immediate day and age and not use the wisdom of John’s lesson on suffering posted on his blog July 1st. Here is how it enters into this discussion for me.
I think Jesus’ North American Church is broken (OK “not working very well”). Believing that premise then, I know He wants to fix it. I believe He is going to bring whatever necessary struggles to bear on His Church in order to make it effective in accomplishing Kingdom purposes.
So, in my big book of “What’s God up to now?” this is not about John Tyner, the separation of Church and State, or the apparent oppression of Christians in “their own” country. This is about God stripping pride away from the collective Church and bringing it to its knees in preparation for the ongoing (some would say “ultimate”) battle.
I am not so sure we (the Church) get the strategy of the way God wages war in an A.D. world. We are engaged in a lot of battles, many of which I believe are a waste of time and effort and serving the enemy’s strategy, not God’s.
So John Tyner (and supporters of), if you care, I believe this struggle (although you may not see it as a struggle) is just one small way that God is causing some Christians, yet again, to indulge their pride (that of perceived earthly entitlements) so God can help us learn how and where the real battles need to be fought.
July 3rd, 2007 at 10:35 am
Thanks Dave for your comment!
July 3rd, 2007 at 10:37 pm
I understand what you’re saying, John. My point was dealing directly with Mr. Tyner’s teaching methodology and the fact that he never taught a song as a sermon. That, among songs of christianity we also sang songs from many cultures in africa, asia, etc. In fact, we often got to choose between several different songs and were never forced to sing anything. The offense taken by an audience member, as a whole, was a gross over-dramatization of a nation that is increasingly divided. I noticed a lot of letters in the newspaper were showing Nixon as an antagonist but, as far as I see it, he did what he had to do in this day and age. I believe he should have spoken with Tyner sooner and throughout the ordeal, but it’s ultimately his responsibility to do whatever is best for his school(a lawsuit is definitely bad stigma). Would I have done things differently had I been in his place? I could say “yes” but one could never know their own actions when put in such a position.
I know there is a battle that has been surfacing for some time now based in religion. It’s sad the awareness of the capacity of human emotion and understanding, yet seeing such fear and neanderthalic conduct. Is it such a far cry to envision a world in which all people are tolerant of all beliefs? I fear America is walking a fine line. Soon there will be books that reference any sort of religion, taboo, sex, et al, burning in piles on street corners.
“there are no ideologically neutral songs. All songs marginalize someone. Even Disney songs.” this was a point I was attempting to get across in my posts as well. I agree entirely.
This is straying off a bit, but when it was decided to omit “Under God” from the pledge of allegiance, I agreed. The phrase wasn’t in the original pledge. A minister named Francis Bellamy wrote the first Pledge. Youth’s Companion, a magazine designed for youths at the time, published Bellamy’s composition in 1892. His 22 word recitation was written for school children to use during a celebration to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of America. And from there it eventually became the US’s patriotic mantra.
The phrase “under God” was added in 1954, and, according the court’s judges, was intended to differentiate the US from atheistic, communist countries.
It seems to me that Americans, as a whole, never seemed to grasp the idea of religious freedom. The United States of America was always a religious country(majority being christians), regardless of what the Constitution stated. It was only twenty years ago that people began to speak out and protest about the morality imposed on them and questioning the teaching of Creationism and prayer in schools.
I would love to live and be truly free without watching over my shoulder in fear that I may offend someone and get chastized(or sued, eek!). Our America is not such a place, unfortunately. Here, if we are to be a free nation, everyone must view things objectively as if they are walking in the shoes of the possibly-offended.
When I look at the words “Under God” being taken out of the Pledge objectively(as, for example, an atheist living in america) I would be uncomfortable with my child learning and reciting allegiance to a God I did not believe in. When I look at the situation with John Tyner objectively and knowing the way Tyner conducts his choirs and concerts, I wouldn’t be offended by the songs being performed as his selections are always taught as a history lesson, and the choices are from a plethora of past-times and different cultures.
I may have to clarify later, my thoughts got a bit mucked up as I had to leave the computer. In summary, I think we agree on most things, John. It seems like we’re talking in a circle, but hitting on several of the same points. Perhaps it is as Dave says, an ever escalating stairway to our ultimate purpose.
July 5th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Thanks Nathan for your comments. Two books I feel are pretty much on target from a Christian viewpoint are: God’s Politics, by Jim Wallis; and The Myth of a Christian Nation, by Greg Boyd. Ever read or heard of those?
And, of course, the 4 original documents - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
I also like what Stephen Prothero has to say in his book American Jesus.
I very much Like Brian McLaren’s The Secret Message of Jesus. John Howard Yoder’s classic The Politics of Jesus is very good and thought-provoking.
Blessings!
John