And are we surprised that the pope has his panties in a wad over this "new fangled music"?

During the Council of Trent, which convened three times from 1545 to 1563, the church was considering a variety of draconic restrictions on new and dangerous social trends -- notably, polyphonic music. (Oh, yeah... there was that Luther guy, too...)

For those of you who are not music geeks, go find yourself some Gregorian Chant and listen for a while. You'll find that it's generally in one of two forms: 1) everyone sings exactly the same melody, or 2) some sing one melody, and some sing the very same melody, except a bit lower or higher. In music, we call this "parallel voices."

(If you find some chant that sounds more complicated, you're going too far forward in history. Later on, some of the organum was more complicated, but I digress...)

Anyway, somewhere along the line, somebody figured out that you could actually sing or play two different melodies at the same time, and if you were clever, you could write them so they made neat sounding harmonies. This was the beginning of polyphony. Without polyphony, the best we could hope for would be singing "Row, Row, Row your boat" in a canon, or "round." We'd have no Bach, no Beethoven, no Brahms, no Billy Idol. Oh, and theists, we wouldn't have Michael W. Smith, either.

Anyway... I could talk about that for a while... used to teach music, believe it or not.

So, the Council of Trent was thinking pretty seriously about banning polyphony. You see, God doesn't like polyphony, because it sounds so good that it prevents people from thinking about God. I'm not making this up, by the way. This is really what they thought. So, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, arguably the most influential Rennaissance composer, showed up with his Missa Papae Marcelli, a remarkably beautiful mass using a wide range of polyphonic techniques, which he had written specifically for the occasion. After hearing it performed, the Council immediately saw the error of their ways and voted not to ban polyphonic music.

Ok, the last part of that is just a legend. Palestrina actually wrote it about ten years prior, and there's no evidence that the council immediately changed their tune (pun intended) after hearing it. It is likely that Palestrina did offer the mass as "evidence" and that he probably addressed the Council, but the story of him "saving music" is a bit overblown.

While we're on the subject, anybody remember that all the preachers got really upset about all that Rock-n-Roll music back in the 50s? They claimed it would lead young people to such horrific moral crimes as dancing and staying out late. Jerry Fallwell was famous for blasting Rock and Roll from the pulpit. Someone will have to check me on this, but I think he was the guy who decided that KISS stood for "Knights in Satan's Service."

I think it's damn funny that so many churches are starting to use a Rock and Roll format to keep the young people interested. Apparently abstinence, teetotaling, and pious prayer meeting attendance just aren't the draws they used to be.

Religion is remarkably adaptive.  History proves that.  I feel certain that if left unchecked, Christianity will not even remember the "Great 21st Century Music Debate" in the 25th century.  Oh, it'll be in the history books, and a few erudite bookworms will spout off about it on atheist forums, but the churches will be happily playing the "old songs" that have "always been the foundation of church music."  You know, composers like Amy Grant and Sandi Patti.

Oh you are so giving away your age! I just barely remember her...from high school.