Photo, Square photo | Comments Off on Sitar player booted from church orchestra Posted by joelkilpatrick on May 31, 2012 in 2003-2008

SPOKANE, Wash. — When Paul Jenkins was 8, his parents got him music lessons, but not for traditional instruments like the piano or violin. Paul learned to play the sitar, the stringed instrument from India made popular by Ravi Shankar and perhaps best known to American audiences for its appearances in late Beatles music.

“My dad liked the sitar, but for me it was a curse and a blessing,” Jenkins says, “As a kid, people would make fun of me or think I was weird, but I didn’t mind. I really came to like it.”

But his hobby ran into resistance at Jenkins’ church, New Life Community Center. Three weeks after he joined the church orchestra, the worship leader asked him to quit.

“Something about the sound of the sitar on, for example, ‘How Great Thou Art,’ took people right out of the worship experience,” worship leader Mark Charles said. “We’re a violins, piano, trumpets kind of place. Lately, we’ve been influenced by the Hillsong approach, and something with the sitar doesn’t gel.”

That’s putting it mildly. The church office was deluged with calls from people who said the instrument’s sound made them uneasy. Some described it as “devilish” and “snaky.” Others insisted the sitar has no place in the Christian faith.

“People had a real visceral reaction to it,” says Paul, who admits the fracas left him emotionally bruised. “I thought the sitar lent a beautiful, cosmopolitan quality to songs like ‘Open the Eyes of My Heart, Lord.’ I sat back there and played for the Lord, but if people are bothered, what can you do? It’s their church as much as mine.”

For now, Paul keeps his sitar in his living room and practices alone after work. Charles has agreed to consider “phasing in” the sitar to the 30-piece orchestra, but makes no promises.

“We’re not trying to shut Paul out, it’s just we’re going for a certain feeling, and I’m not sure the sitar fits with that,” he says. •