Hymns versus Contemporary Music

What's the Real Story?

By Charles Crane

I have noticed a resurgence of those who are critical of contemporary music. A Christian book reseller recently told my nephew that he would hopefully grow out of his "spiritual immaturity" and stop listening to contemporary music. The man then took down my nephew’s name and told him that he would be praying for him. These legalists, whom I’ll refer to as "traditionalists" to be kind, make all sorts of outlandish claims about why this music form is not to be let into the church – everything from stories about African missionaries, to teen overdoses while listening to heavy metal. Let’s examine their claims and see if we can’t uncover whether this music form is inherently evil, if it is just a difference in style preferences, or if there is another unseen problem.

Lyrics

Critics of contemporary music make the claim that the lyrics accommodate shallow Christianity. The rich hymns of the faith, which could serve as theology lessons in and of themselves, have been replaced with short little tunes that have very fluffy lyrics more concerned with executing a cute rhyme, than accurately portraying the almighty God of the universe. These songs also tend to focus on the "felt needs" of the singer rather than the immutable attributes of God. They are very human-oriented and mention God only insofar as He is the Cosmic Problem Solver.

Compositional Form

The claim is also made that many contemporary songs are too repetitive, in some extreme examples lulling the audience into a state of hyper-suggestabiliy. This occurs more often in denominations where emotional experience during worship is the measure of spiritual wellbeing. It is interesting to note that Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus repeats "hallelujah" many, many times. Yet it is one of the most worshipful compositions ever. Whereas some hymns utilized counterpoint and other advanced compositional tools, many contemporary songs use only diatonic chord progressions. There are about a dozen praise songs that use a I, VI, IV, V cord progression while simply altering the lyric melody. They are, in many cases, disposable songs.

Instrumentation

Back when polyphony was new, orchestras filled the cathedrals and chapels. Through the Baroque era, the orchestras could be quite massive. As churches spread throughout Europe, it was not feasible to have an orchestra in every church. The pipe organ was introduced as an alternative to the orchestra because it had a timbre as "thick" as an orchestra, it could be played by one man, and it could reproduce almost all frequencies audible to humans, certainly matching the frequency range of the orchestra. Many were disillusioned by the introduction of the organ, believing it had no place in church. That sentiment has carried forward towards modern instruments with no basis from Scripture. Some more extreme traditionalists claim that the instruments used in contemporary music are inherently evil. (Most notably of these is the drum kit. The synthesizer is usually a close second.)

The theology of those who use contemporary music

There is often a denominational and theological divide between those who accept contemporary music and those who don’t. The traditionalists are usually the more conservative Christians like Presbyterians, Lutherans, Reformed, and Conservative Baptist. Those that regularly use contemporary music, sometimes to the exclusion of hymns altogether, are more charismatic in nature, like Assembly of God, The Vineyard, non-denominational churches, Southern Baptists, Community churches, etc.

It is in this theological category where we find the real reason for this debate. When traditionalists condemn the modern musical styles used in the church today, they invariably point to the shallowness of the Christians using contemporary music as the proof of their claim. And, in fact, there is an undeniable correlation between ignorance of Biblical orthodoxy and the shallowness of the worship music. But which is the symptom and which is the cause? Or is there another unseen cause? To figure this out, we must understand how music has become theologically dumbed-down.

 

The dumbing-down of church music

I. The world is often the intended audience

There are denominations and movements within Christianity that attempt to draw the "unchurched" into a service for the purpose of evangelization. These are often referred to as "seeker-sensitive" churches. They are based on the flawed premise that if only church was more entertaining or comfortable, the unbeliever would enjoy attending and get saved almost inadvertently. This premise is flawed for several reasons. Firstly, in order to keep the unchurched people coming, the message contained within the music cannot be too offensive. This means minimizing the issue of sin. But the Bible clearly says that when the gospel is presented in a Biblical way, it will offend the lost (Matt. 10:35 and I Cor. 1:18). Unless personal sin and the fallen state of man is clearly understood, the need for a savior will not be evident. Therefore sin is often off-limits in their music. Secondly, no one has ever reasoned his or her way into salvation. What seeker churches forget is that salvation is a work of the Holy Spirit (Eph 2:8-9) and not based on the "slickness" of the gospel presentation or music (I Cor. 2:4). Jonathan Edwards regularly read his sermons word for word from the pulpit with a voice approaching monotone, yet people in Northampton Massachusetts flailed in the aisles of the church weeping for forgiveness from a thrice-holy God! The Bible clearly teaches that God has ordained the use of the Bible as the means by which the gospel is imparted, and the Holy Spirit ministers to convict the lost soul (Rom. 10:14-15). To the degree that Scripture is omitted from the music of a church, souls will not be penetrated with the real gospel message. Not only scriptural principles, but Scripture.

II. Music as a way of administering comfort/healing only

Music is not primarily for the building up of the emotional welfare of the worshipper, but it is to praise God. Music laced with the personal pronoun "I" usually is more concerned with the experiences of the worshipper. God is glorified only when we take our eyes off of ourselves and focus on Him – not what He can do for us, not what he has done for us, but who He is! R.C. Sproul once rightly said that God is the only being in the cosmos in which self-glorification is not arrogance. God wants to hear about Himself; His faithfulness, His holiness, His power, His omnipotence, etc. Think of the living creature's song in Rev. 4:8 "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty who is and was and is to come". There is nothing about humans in that example of pristine praise. Now, in expressing God’s attributes we will eventually have to bring up humanity as our God is a personal God; but we, nor our experiences should be the primary focus. As one gets one’s eyes on Christ and off oneself, the result is a peace that passes all understanding. We decrease as Christ increases (John 3:30) So the emotional healing that the charismatic is seeking can never truly be experienced until their worship becomes God-focused, and not man-focused. Like most things of God, this is exactly the opposite of what human logic would tell you.

III. Composers possess only basic Biblical/doctrinal knowledge

Most contemporary songwriters are acting worship leaders in their churches. So you would imagine that their compositions would be very Biblical, and doctrinally sound. Yet just the opposite is true. Most Christians have only a remedial understanding of Biblical doctrine or a proper hermeneutic (science of Bible translation). This is why most lyrics are experiential in nature. The composer is still living on spiritual "milk" and not the solid food of maturity. In addition to this, most worship leaders lack the discernment required to critique other songs to assess whether they are doctrinally sound or not. The blame falls squarely on the pastors and seminaries of our country. A visit to many evangelical churches, or a casual flip through supposed Christian television (and now even radio) quickly demonstrates how the Word of God is no longer preeminent in churches. Pastors are failing the admonition that Paul gave Timothy in II Tim 4:2 where he commanded "Preach the Word!". You are more likely to hear a 6-step process to be a better husband, the four P’s of parenting, how the Lion King is like the Christian walk, and other topical sermons. We need to preach though books of the Bible verse by verse so people can understand God’s Word in context. Here are just a few mishandling of God’s Word I’ve witnessed recently.

A pastor speaking joyously: "The Word says that where two or more are gathered together in My Name, I am there also! There are four hundred men here tonight! Do you think the Lord is here with us? Amen!"

This verse which is quoted from Matthew 18:20 has to do with church discipline. Christ is saying that when two or more elders show up on your doorstep to talk to you about being disciplined by the church, you should take it as seriously as if Christ himself were standing there with them on your stoop.

A pastor on TV says: "David slew Goliath by having faith in God. What is your Goliath tonight? What are you battling with? The Bible promises you victory in these verses about little David."

This is a very common misapplication of Scripture. The personalizing of an historical narrative is bad interpretation. A recounting of a historical event is not always meant to serve as a formula for the modern believer. This is especially important when we come to the miracles recorded in Acts. There are many behaviors and events that are not intended to be normative for believers, yet pastors incorrectly attempt to apply these Scriptures to our everyday lives. For instance, the epistles of Paul are the books written specifically to instruct us about how to conduct church. But we’ll only know this if our pastors give us background on the dates, author, and purpose of a book, and then preach systematically through the book verse by verse. Doing this will also hold the pastor accountable to preach the not so popular messages. When you come to a difficult verse like submission of women or head coverings, it must be dealt with. The pastor cannot just skip it without it being seen as a glaring omission by the congregation.

As we dumb-down our congregations, we dumb-down our music as a natural consequence.

Conclusion

Hymns are rich in theology because of the quality of verse-by-verse expository preaching found in the pulpits of the past. Most evangelical pastors preach three points and a poem on Sunday mornings, not wanting to bore the unbelievers and marginal Christians that fill their guilt-appeasing mega-churches. With such ineptness in the pulpits of Christendom, why should we be surprised at the paltry compositions coming from those starving under such mishandling of God’s Word? There are some new songs that rival, even exceed the quality of hymn compositions. There are some new songs that exceed the rich theology of many of the old hymns. These songs simply do not get the attention that the trivial songs do because the spiritual nursery that is modern evangelicalism can only handle the nursery rhymes designed not to prick too sharply their young consciences. So I encourage critics of contemporary music to stop criticizing the genre of music, and address the root problem. Our music reflects our orthodoxy. Write your books about rightly dividing the Word of God in our churches, and watch our music line up with Scripture.

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