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Another Perspective
Praise Music Flunks
My sister came for a quick visit this last weekend to attend a going-away party for our older son, who is off to prep school. On Sunday, my wife took the gang to church for 9:00 a.m. Sunday school. My sister and I dawdled behind, aiming to be late for the worship service at 10:00. Why? We were both agreed: We hate praise music.
Praise music, for those who don't know, has sprung up in the last couple of decades as a replacement for traditional hymns in "Bible" or "Gospel" churches. In its tunes, it resembles modern pop, soft rock, or country music. It is generally played by combos -- in church! -- that include guitar, bass, drums and piano. There are generally a handful of singers, usually including unschooled sopranos.
It used to be said that singers like Aretha Franklin, who made the jump from gospel to pop, sang music much like they used to sing in church, only substituting "Baby" for "Lord" or "Jesus" or "God." Gospel music at least has the benefit of soul, that ineffable quality of passionate excitement that adheres to the black voice. Praise music, by contrast, is pure whitebread.
And it just isn't very good.
CONTRAST THE CLOSING "PRAISE" SONG we sang in church that Sunday, "You Are My All in All," with "O, Worship the King," the traditional hymn that our praise band played during the dismissal. You can listen to "You Are My All in All" at a Barnes & Noble site here (scroll down). "O, Worship the King" may be heard at the Cyber Hymnal, here.
"O Worship the King," with its stately, beautifully harmonized tune, illustrates its theme -- "God is our king" -- in its every word and part, without ever literally saying so. It has a distinguished history. In its original lyric, it appeared in the Genevan Psalter of 1561. Robert Grant modernized the words in 1833. It appeared as "Old 104th" in Whole Book of Psalmes, by Thomas Ravenscraft in 1621. The current tune and harmony? Johann M. Haydn.
There are six stanzas. I quote two:
O worship the King, all glorious above,
O gratefully sing His power and His love;
Our Shield and Defender, the Ancient of Days,
Pavilioned in splendor, and girded with praise.O tell of His might, O sing of His grace,
Whose robe is the light, whose canopy space,
His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form,
And dark is His path on the wings of the storm.
"O, Worship the King" is, in sum, a splendid and stirring example of the best of traditional hymnody.
Here, by contrast, are the lyrics to "You Are My All in All,"
copyright listed as Dennis Jernigan, 1991 Shepherd's Heart
Music.
You are my strength when I am weak,
You are the treasure that I seek,
You are my all in all.
Seeking You as a precious jewel,
Lord to give up I'd be a fool,
You are my all in all.Jesus, Lamb of God -- worthy is Your name.
Jesus, Lamb of God -- worthy is Your name.Taking my sin, my cross, my shame,
Rising again, I bless Your name,
You are my all in all.
When I fall down, You pick me up,
When I am dry You fill my cup,
You are my all in all.
First, note that the key phrase, the supposed theme, "You are my all in all," means really nothing. It's a piece of pop endearment. Triteness follows upon triteness, "treasure that I seek," "precious jewel," and so on, with "Lord to give you up I'd be a fool" almost literally gag-making. The chorus has nothing to do with the verses.
You cannot quibble with the song's sincerity. You cannot quibble with the sincerity of adolescent love songs, either, which is what "You Are My All in All" most closely resembles -- a pastiche of "holy" words no more meaningful than "moon, June, soon."
IT IS AN INTERESTING PARADOX. Churches devoted to rigorous, difficult theology -- real Christianity, in short -- have largely adopted praise music, mainly to get people in the doors. In doing so, they have denied their parishioners an intimate connection with the art, the music, the poetry, and the history of the faith of our fathers, embodied in hymns.
Mainstream churches, which have left Christianity behind for liberation theology, "peace and justice" theory, deconstruction, and modernism, still cling to the hymnbook, to the hard work of teaching choirs to sing in harmony, and to the expense of maintaining pipe organs.
If only they took as good care of the faith.
Comments
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Jonathan Kuehling| 1.2.09 @ 3:03AM
I play modern rock music for a living, but a large chunk of my music education was in sacred music and classical piano. I've seen both sides, and many who take this view forget that there were just as many lousy hymns written as there are lousy 'pop' worship songs. It's a straw man argument to choose a weaker worship song to pick on. And it's a fallacious assumption to claim that all modern churches use contemporary music 'just to get people in the doors'. There are many reasons churches include modern worship music in their services, and many legitimate ones they do no sing all hymns.
Jonathan Kuehling| 1.2.09 @ 3:07AM
...In that last sentence I meant to type 'There are many reasons churches include modern worship music in their services, and many legitimate reasons for which they choose not to exclusively sing hymns'.
paul cummings| 5.13.09 @ 3:20PM
(Nice comment Jonathan!) I also find it interesting simply to ask "how many people are listening to classical music today?" The number is miniscule. How many Christians are still reading only the KJV? They are the minority.
So why do we still insist on singing music and repeating words that for the most part have nothing in common with our world today?
David says multiple times in the Psalms "SING A NEW SONG!!!!!!!!!"
I find that most folks who don't appreciate modern worship never understood Biblical Worship to begin with.
Dan Adams| 5.16.09 @ 3:10AM
I am reading Mr. Henry's post for the second time, nearly a year after the first, and I can' help but notice how uncharitable and mean his words sound in describing what he must consider a typical praise song. His phrases -"means really nothing" ... "triteness follows upn triteness"..."almost literally gag-making" -are totally subjective, and it seems he cannot find enough pejoratives to convey his disdain. I would venture he cannot find anything scripturally wrong with this song. In fact, I could support most of the lines with scripture. Earlier he states that he hates praise music. Well is it the praise or the music? When the hymn writer enjoins us to"worship the king" and then we do, are you saying, "stop, stop, that's not how I meant for you to do it!" BTW at my church last year we spent more maintaining our pipe organ than on our entire worship budget.
Dan Adams| 5.16.09 @ 2:14PM
Just a couple more comments, as it was getting into the wee hours during my previous post. "All in All" is by no means one of my favorite songs. I find the lines "taking my cross, my sin, my shame, rising again, I bless Your name" to be grammatically confusing - who is doing the taking and rising- Jesus, or the songwriter? This is an objective criticism. Mr. Henry offers none of that. And Jonathan, your point that there are plenty of bad (musically, theologically, and -yes- trite) hymns could easily be proved by a casual perusal of most hymnals. Perhaps Mr. Henry's observations about apostate churches appreciating the hymns is not such a paradox at all - they love them for their refinement, not their content. And in fact, many denominations have actually changed the words to better fit their liberation theolgy.
My final point is that Mr. Henry tips his hand in his comment that "real Christianity" consists of "Churches devoted to rigorous, difficult theology," as if an intellectual life is all there is to the Christian faith. Sounds a little like Gnosticism. James writes "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." Of course you need to be devoted to rigorous theology to keep yourself unspotted from the world, but "real Christianity" is not simply an intellectual pursuit. And you run the risk of having your lampstand removed.(Revelation 2:2-5.)
paul cummings| 5.21.09 @ 9:25AM
AMEN DAN!
Jack| 6.10.09 @ 7:06AM
We need to set aside statistics on how many Americans listen to classical music versus pop music, for that reduces worship to marketing the gospel. We need to avoid doubting one another's salvation just because one of us expresses a commitment to an intellectually rigorous faith. We need to seek in the scriptures how God wants to be worshiped. There is much to say here, but surely it is important that the psalms are beautiful poetry. Most praise music, by contrast, is clumsy adolescent poetry set to melodies, harmonies, and instrumentation borrowed from advertising jingles. Is praise music the best we can offer to God? I fear that instead we evangelicals are once again absorbing and regurgitating the surrounding American culture that we so badly need to stand against.
Dan Adams| 6.10.09 @ 8:31PM
Jack, thank you for your comments and keeping the thread alive. Since some of your comments seem to be in response to my post (and some to paul's) I'll just say that I totally agree that we should look to scripture to see how God wants to be worshipped. I seem to be the only one here who has quoted or referenced scripture either to support or refute, so let me just say that not only scripture but our Lord Himself says that "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth" (John 4:24) I don't find a verse that says "Thou shalt not worship me with clumsy adolescent poetry "- interesting that Lawrence Henry used that term, too - or "thou shalt not borrow instrumentation from pop culture." Using an electric guitar or synthesizer or drums is no more caving to "the world" than is publishing "Christianity Today" as a "magazine" or producing feature films, as did the Billy Graham organization back in the 70's.
Also, it wasn't me who questioned anyone's salvation, but Mr. Henry did by stating that "real Christiantiy" consisted of devotion to "rigorous, difficult theology," inferring that anything else was not "real" Christianity. I in fact affrimed the neccesity of such theological integrity, but pointed out from scripture that our faith is more than just that one aspect.
It seems both you and Mr. Henry think "praise music" is just a marketing ploy. But if the songs are theologically sound and those who enjoy them are praising the attributes and character of the God of the Bible, is there some scriptural reason to deny them a form that helps them connect with that God?
Dan Adams| 6.10.09 @ 8:37PM
My apologies to Paul, who did reference scripture in his post, "Sing a new song." (Psalm 98:1 among others.)
Josh Marihugh| 11.19.09 @ 10:21PM
I'm a worship leader. My mix consists largely of modern praise and worship music, but I throw a number of the classic hymns and gospel songs in, although I'll usually rock them out again. Different songs for different people and different times -- God loves all of us equally, but that doesn't mean we're all the same!