Dear Latinoheat, of course God can be glorified in music that it not intended for liturgical use.
But the church fathers who wrote the liturgical music said it was inspired in them by the angels. I've heard plenty of Christian pop and it would be hard to make that claim about it. The first influence that angels have in our life is to calm us, to make us quiet so that we can begin to hear God's voice within us.
I am a professional music teacher and I have given a lot of thought to this. Popular music was designed for secular purposes. And when I say this you must understand that saying \"secular\" is NOT the same thing as saying \"non-liturgical.\" Our lives as Christians are meant to be sacred through and through. Secularism - the idea of a world where certain parts of life can be put to one side, separated off from religion - is a modern invention.
So music that is invented and designed for secular purposes is music that was designed to express the feelings of the godless. Make no mistake, godless people enjoy different feelings than godly ones do. One of the easiest signs by which you can recognize such music is its restless or enraged or agitated nature. Music is the language of feeling, and secular music seeks to trigger passions, not spiritual feelings. Truly spiritual music is music that came from the heart, soul and brain of a spiritually mature person who had acquired grace and was filled with God and. Such music can be recognized because it is able to bestow the same state on those who participate in it.
Christian pop (by which I include the types of music discussed here) is an odd phenomenon. The music is saying one thing, and the text - well, the text is usually a mixed bag but it pretty much says another thing. As a result, it trains people to mistake their passions for spiritual feelings. Such people go about thinking fairly decent religious thoughts while enjoying purely passionate or sentimental feelings. They get the impression they are worshiping God in spirit and in truth, when actually they are unable to know the difference.
I would propose an experiment if someone wants to know the truth of what I am saying. Granted that church music IS spiritual and it exists to fill our ears and hearts with God's presence. Go without any music but church music for a year. See what happens. See if the state of your mind or heart - or preferences - changes. If you like the same music after coming into the church that you did before coming in, it's likely your musical preferences have not been sanctified or converted. This is something serious for everyone to consider.
It is a deep misunderstanding of human nature to say that musical conventions invented to express godlessness and passions can be \"baptized.\" The idea is overused. Language can be baptized, but bad words never can. A culture's music can be baptized, but its deadening, passionate, anarchistic, nihilist music never can.
For an article I wrote on church music, go here.
http://alanaroberts.wordpress.com/2010/05/12/why-is-orthodox-music-so-strange-2/
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