Trinity Doctrine or Worship Music, Which Is More Important?

I have a sister three years older than me and a brother three years younger than me.  When my brother and I were juniors and teens, we would sometimes engage the brotherly conservation of "would you rather" or "do you like better"?  Would you rather get killed by drowning or by the direct hit of a nuclear missile?  That kind of thing.  Do you like this girl better or that girl better, neither actually good choices, but actually intended to leave the other with only bad choices.  The point of the exercise seemed to be leaving everything a bad choice.

For quite awhile, I have noticed a very common evangelical critique of fundamentalism is something to the effect that it's evangelicals who spend their time defending the really important doctrines, like the Trinity, and fundamentalists quibble over non-essentials.  Evangelicals pump out paper after paper, dissertation after dissertation, journal article after journal article, and, of course, book after book, defining and defending major doctrines of scripture, putting their efforts where it really matters. Evangelicals wrangle over justification by faith, while fundamentalists arm wrestle over Bible versions.

In an assessment of the choice of hills to die on, the evangelicals fight with liberals, who deny the faith. Fundamentalists fight with evangelicals and other fundamentalists, what some people call shooting or executing your own wounded.  One person in my comment section characterized what I in particular do as just throwing rocks at people.  As a member of cub scouts, I remember actual mud ball or dirt clod fights, sometimes a stone inserted into one of the balls or clods.  I've thrown rocks and been hit by them, and this, what I do here, this is no rock throwing.

Certain conservative evangelicals especially list as their major critique of fundamentalism, characterizing it as at the most on life support after careening down this cliff of self-destruction, its obsession with non-essential issues.  Adults, these evangelicals, contemplate bare cupboards in the pantry while toddlers, fundamentalists, tug-o-war a plastic toy in the nursery.  Fundamentalists should consider this criticism.  Some self-identifying fundamentalists push back by dividing fundamentalists into the historic fundamentalists, the ones who wrote The Fundamentals and that heritage, from a more recent mutation. They grasp the mantle of the original fundamentalists and promote the initial idea of fundamentalism.

I have a great fondness for fundamentalism, because it has taught a doctrine of separation.  I said "a doctrine," because I don't believe it is a scriptural doctrine of separation, but it's at least separation.  It's got some scriptural separation in it, even if it isn't following what the Bible teaches on the doctrine. Fundamentalists have written some good material about that subject that you will not see in evangelicalism at all.  Separation is holiness. Evangelicalism is not holy.  Unholiness and worldliness characterizes evangelicalism.  However, I do not self-identify as a fundamentalist in some part because of the same reason that evangelicals criticize fundamentalism.  That isn't the main reason, but it is one of them, even if people call me a fundamentalist by whatever definition.

With all of the above in mind, I want to take the evangelical criticism of fundamentalism into consideration by asking the question of the title of this post as a type of thought experiment. Evangelicals would say that fundamentalists would get sidetracked from something very important like Trinity doctrine by their over emphasis on a "non-essential" like worship music.  Is Trinity doctrine more important than the issue of worship music?

It is true that some evangelicals have been deceived on the doctrine of the Trinity, that they have a less than biblical or distorted view of the Trinity, and, therefore, God.  Even though fundamentalists might not give much thought to what they believe about the Trinity, you don't see the same kind of contortion of the Trinity among fundamentalists.  If it were a problem, there would be a greater emphasis on Trinity doctrine.  The reason there is a fight on the Trinity in evangelicalism is because that's where the perversion is occurring and probably due to the lack of separation in evangelicalism.  Fundamentalists would think that there are already many good publications written in times past about and defending the biblical, orthodox teaching of the Trinity.  Rather than write another book, they'll separate from organizations over their false Trinity doctrine, which is what the Bible teaches to do.  Evangelicals write a book on the Trinity, defending it, and fundamentalists separate from the false doctrine.

Ungodly, unholy, so-called worship music, I believe, is a greater danger today to professing believers to being deceived about God than wrong teaching about God.  The Mormons, Islam, the Jehovah's Witnesses, and even Apostolics I don't see swaying people in church to the wrong thoughts about God. The music is a major factor though.  People get the wrong imagination of God through worldly, fleshly, sensual worship music.  They say they are offering the music to God and that shapes what people think about God.  It affects what people understand about loving God.

False worship starts with worshiping the wrong God.  Buddhism is false worship.  However, false worship also occurs when worshiping God the wrong way.  Israel started with worshiping God the wrong way and ended by worshiping the wrong god.  The former precedes the latter.  First, God isn't worshiped, because He doesn't accept false worship.  The understanding of God distorted by the false worship turns into having a false god.

Doctrine and practice are corrupted faster by the music than they are by some wrong doctrinal statement.  What I'm writing here is a little more difficult to explain why Worship Music is more important than the Trinity Doctrine, but it can be understood if someone cares.  Someone should care if He wishes to preserve true worship of God and then the right doctrine about God.

We want to love the Trinity:  God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, these Three are One.  We aren't loving Trinity when we engage in false worship.  We might believe the Trinity doctrine, like a Roman Catholic, without worshiping the Trinity.  If evangelicals believe a true Trinity doctrine, but then don't worship the Trinity, what is the point of believing the Trinity?

Nadab and Abihu worshiped the right God with strange fire.  God killed them for it.  The false worship music is strange fire.  God is holy.