The Death of the Hymnal

I just read a fantastic article on the toolbox for evangelical worship, part II. What really grabbed my attention was the section about music and how the modern church has essentially rejected 2,000 years of history by destroying its hymnals. Plain stupid. To top it off, it is not as if we are replacing the hymnals with something richer, but instead, this is usually done in the name of bringing in contemporary Christian worships songs that consist of four words and five lines (sung, of course, for 8 minutes and 27 seconds--and don't forget the slow verses followed by the emotional, electric guitar-aided climax). In contrast, many of the richer hymns with multiple verses are relegated to a tiny portion of the "praise and worship" part of the service (if they are being sung at all, and don't even get me started on p&w), while the text is sliced and diced into a few disparate verses. Horrifying. It's a surgery worthy of Shelley's Frankenstein.

While I don't agree that an entire 2,000 years of church history has been relegated, point blank, to the trash heap (I will admit that many Baptist hymnals, for example, rarely go beyond 100 or 150 years of history, but I do know of a few CREC and Dutch CRC hymnals that do a worthy job of including a historical variety), I do think that the article does a good job of reminding us of how liturgically poor the average evangelical church is. It is true that in general, modern Christians are ignorant of their roots--musical, liturgical, theological. And they are musically ignorant because they want to be, in a sad desperate attempt to be relevant to today's secular music, and thus somehow relevant to today's radically individual youth. But should all music in worship pander to this level? Should we include a rock band, disco lights, and cheap sci-fi smoke in order to be "relevant" to the degeneration of today's culture? Isn't it a shame to throw out all the richness of the hymns "my mother taught me" just because the 20-something music leader doesn't like them?

While on this volatile topice, let me include a few more random thoughts. I am convinced that we should consider revamping our current hymnals in favor of something more historical, more international, more theological, and more contemporary. Musical growth does not extend only into the past. Music included should stretch not only the youth, but also the experienced; it should stretch not only the infant in Christ, but also the Paul.

The revamping of whatever hymnal you choose should include a thoughful consideration of each hymn already included, and each hymn potentially added. A hymn isn't necessarily good just because it is old, and neither is it bad just because I wrote it yesterday. Let's not throw out everything good in our paranoia, but rather, inspect each inclusion, individually, for quality control. And please, let's not include the likes of "In the Garden." (Prepare yourself for an assault if you follow this link. Proceed at your own risk.) Trite Christianity has little place in worship.

So go, make yourself think, meaningfully, about the role of the hymnal, if any, in modern evangelical worship, and the response of a thoughtful Christian to the rampant destruction of our musical heritage. The page is on Internet Monk's blog, here.