Why no choirs supposedly in WTS.
*** w75 2/15 p. 112 Insight on the News ***
Today’s Church Choirs
● In the Sunday services of many large churches today, choir singing is a major feature. Marching up the aisle in white robes, choir members are generally the picture of piety and reverence, singing with religious fervor. But it is quite possible that they do not belong to the church where they sing or, for that matter, even believe in God. Why, then, are they there singing?
An article in the New York “Sunday News” shows that the choir members in most of that city’s big churches sing for money. This is nothing new. Manhattan churches have been paying choir members since the 1920’s. But they were generally members of the church. Today, as the article states, “religious affiliation has absolutely no importance. . . . In any one choir you’re likely to find atheists, agnostics, Catholics, Jews, Protestants and even Zen Buddhists. You could easily see the same singer at synagogue on Saturday, Episcopal services Sunday morning and a Catholic wedding on Sunday afternoon.”