The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #58799   Message #933813
Posted By: greg stephens
15-Apr-03 - 07:01 AM
Thread Name: Religion and Song Circles
Subject: RE: Religion and Song Circles
This is a very interesting and seemingly insoluble problem. We have seen here the problem of people bringing in their "praise songs" and causing unpleasnatness with feelings that they are trying to dominate the group. I have recent experience of the opposite problem(not my own expereince, it's a women's group a friend helps organise). My pal Kate took in "I bid you goodnight" as a suitable song to have a bash at, great song, fun to sing, quite an anthem in English folk ciclezzs( Incredible String band, Joseph Spense, Carthy/Waterson etc etc). So everybody's blasting away at the song, but one person complains. Because, horror of horrors, there's a line in the song "I love you but Jesus loves you best". What do you do? Drop the song, because it's causing tension? But why should you, if one person doesnt like it and the other 19 do. And it's not the only religious song in the groups repertoire, but the otheres are all in Serbo Croat or Shona or whatever so nobody really understands them. What do you do? You cant ask the person to leave if they dont like it, she may be a stalwart of the group and a friend. How do consensus/democratic groups of people cope with individuals who try to impose their will like this? An age-old problem.