The American Spectator

p> PASSING GRADES br> Re: Lawrence Henry’s Praise Music Flunks : /p>

I read Lawrence Henry’s article with some amusement. The argument over modern versus traditional worship forms has been rehashed in every generation. Zwingli banned all music and icons in the church in the 1500s because he doubted the motives of the musicians and the hearts of his people. That hardly squares with biblical worship.

Comparing “O Worship the King” with “You Are My All in All” in order to come to the conclusion that the older is better is a straw man. Why don’t we instead compare the richness of God’s grace in Scott Wesley Brown’s “Only Your Mercy” with the lame attempt by Clarke & Jones to reference God’s creation of the modern industrial age in the hymn, “God of Concrete, God of Steel.”

What Mr. Henry adores from the hymnbook is the compilation of the best-sung church music over 400 years — some of these great songs are older than that. The great hymnist Charles Wesley wrote over 6,000 hymns, but you’ll only find 21 in the Trinity Hymnal — certainly not all 6,000 are worth singing — the hymnals contain the best of the best, and they should be sung regularly.

Modern praise music is barely 30 years old as a form — and Mr. Henry is correct, some of it is shallow, probably because it reflects our culture. But I don’t hear him calling for the return of the Gregorian Chant and it is older and perhaps richer than O Worship the King.

p>Psalm 145:4 says “one generation shall commend Your works to another.” The worship of the church is designed to be multi-generational. Perhaps it is time for Mr. Henry to embrace the best of the present while standing on the shoulders of the greatest hymns of the past. The goal of leadership is not to dismiss the next generation, but rather to embrace and deepen it. It’s time to be on time for corporate worship. br> — Rev. Jim Whittle br> Chapel Hill Presbyterian (PCA) br> Douglasville, Georgia