VERSION|0.5.1|NAME|Dinah|DATE|1359021323|CONTENT|Typically, a religious commentator clinging on to the coat tails of others who have gone before and then claiming that religion got there first.  Gareth Malone has been extolling the benefits of community choirs and singing for years.  I don’t know if he is religious himself, but he lets the music take centre stage without feeling any need to push its ‘spirituality’ at us.  There is a charity ‘Singing for the Brain’ which uses music as therapy for dementia sufferers. 
 
I can still remember the words of the hymns I was made to sing at school.  Many of those hymns were lacking in any musical or poetic merit, but dirge-like and repetitive.  There is of course beautiful religious music – perhaps it was the only thing that kept those forced into monasteries and convents in the middle ages sane - but it was also used by the church as a weapon of propaganda, to reinforce its message to the populace.  
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