Yes, when it comes to corporate worship. This has been the positions of Christians for thousands of years, and especially Baptists and Presbyterians who hold to the Regulative Principle of Worship.

The traditional position has been to limit what we do in worship to only those elements that God has prescribed in the New Testament. This is a freeing doctrine that will prevent you from even having to ask the question of whether or not to use something. If the Bible teaches it, do it. If the Bible doesn’t teach it, don’t do it. It’s that simple. God has the prerogative to tell us how he wants to be worshiped.

Drama in worship is clearly a contemporary innovation spawned by our entertainment industry.

So, because the use of drama wasn’t prescribed in the Bible, it is therefore unacceptable? And therefore prohibited? Surely not.

Tozer didn’t reject drama in worship simply because he didn’t prefer it or didn’t see any value in it. He rejected it, just as pastors and theologians have for hundreds of years, for two primary reasons:

1. God has not prescribed drama as an element of worship. Tozer followed the Regulative Principle of Worship, as did Presbyterians and Baptists before him, which says that we may only worship as God has prescribed in his Word. The NT gives us 6 clear elements for worship: preaching, Scripture reading, prayer, giving, singing, and the ordinances. Drama is not included as an acceptable element. And it’s not as if drama did not exist in the NT; it certainly did. Yet God chose not to include it as an acceptable element. Why? We may only guess. But perhaps he did not because of Tozer’s second reason not to use drama:

2. Drama kills the moral imagination. You speculate that drama simply extends the imagination, yet anyone who has discussed what drama does admits that drama kills imagination. I’m glad you recognize the importance of the imagination. I agree that it is critical to our spiritual life. But the moment you take an imagined concept and make it visual, you force your imagination on someone else and squelch any possibility of more imagination. Further, drama is intrinsically Dionysian, that is, it targets the visceral parts of man, something I believe we should be very careful with in worship to be sure.

The written and spoken word do something entirely different than the visual.

I appreciate what you’re doing here and for your desire to think through music/worship related issues. But I would urge you to read Tozer again and really consider his points.

I think he was right.