January 30, 2005

This question is probably asked a thousand times a day from all fifty states as children hope their parents will quit being so old-fashioned while the parents hope their children won’t be so eager to embrace every new thing that comes down the pike.

Tonight I want to ask a similar question, though not with the defensive tone usually present with the asking of this question. My generation, the people that are old enough to be just starting a family, if not already in the process, is unique in its church music in that we come from a transitional period. The up-and-coming generation, those people who are five years behind us, are even more in that transition that we were. The music that the people in their teens through mid twenties are listening to now is going to be the music of the universal church in fifteen years as we assume leadership roles. I don’t see it being that much different in fifteen years, but the potential for drastic changes in the next three decades is startling. So, I ask the question, “What’s wrong with our music?” and hope for a thoughtful answer.

The choice in my parents’ era was simple - there were two types of music, the stuff played on the beach, and the stuff played in church; and ne’er the twain shall meet. If a Christian teen was listening to the contemporary music of his day and being absolutely unrepentant about it, that was indicative of a heart problem, and the solution was easy to come to, if not to implement. Nowadays, though, we have teens who are otherwise godly, with vibrant Christian lives and strong testimonies among their peers…except they listen to contemporary-sounding Christian music. In some circles, the natural tendancy would be to brand them as living in sin, despite all the other evidence to the contrary. Having spent a lot of time with people that fall under this category, I am less and less convinced that their lives can be written off so quickly. But the question in my mind is, what’s wrong with the music that I listen to, in their eyes? Why did they make a different choice?

Time doesn’t permit me to go into extensive detail about the history of music in the church. It is a subject that I have given a great deal of thought to, especially since I have completed one course in hymnology and am in the process of studying it in greater detail on the graduate level. Suffice to say that history shows that the church has almost always used the music of its culture as a basis for its own music. The controversy between cultural “folk” music and specifically-composed “church” music started in the 1500s. Martin Luther believed that society was still, at its heart, a Christian society; therefore its music could be redeemed and used in the church. Other reformers of the day, such as Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin, felt that society was too corrupted to chance using its music. Thus the debate began - and history won out. Thus the church continued to use popular folk and classical music of its day as one basis (of many) for its music. Open your hymnal and find “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” or “Be Still, My Soul.” You may be surprised to learn that the first is a direct translation of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, while the second is a hymn made from adding words to a nationalistic classical orchestra work composed by Jean Sibelius.

As a slight aside, it’s remarkable to me as I study church history to see just how much of an anomaly this century has been for our church. For some reason, all the things the church has done for the last 1,800 years is suddenly wrong. It’s now wrong to use a translation of the Scriptures that doesn’t meet someone else’s standards. It’s now wrong to be a Calvinist. It’s now wrong to have a hymnal that contains only words (or, by extension, to show the words on a screen for the congregation), because that’s too “neo-evangelical.” It’s now wrong to sing the Psalms in church because it’s too “high church.” All of these things are documented deviations from the past two millenia of church history. The church, until 1950 or so, has always prided itself on being able to use the best translation of the Scriptures in the common tongue; it’s what got the whole Protestant Reformation underway. Remember William Tyndale and John Wycliffe, the guys who felt the people should read the Scriptures in their own common language? Suddenly it’s wrong to read the Bible in common English; it has to be written in some obscure English dialect that hasn’t been spoken for 400 years because “it’s more majestic.” There was a time, as late as 1900, that pretty much all Baptists were Calvinists, strict Five-Point Calvinists, too. Now Calvinism is some sort of heresy. It used to be that a publisher putting out a hymnal or psalter with songs in it was scorned because the printing of music was both unnecessary (everyone knew the tunes already) and distracting; those times ended in the late 1800s here in America. The earliest Christian songs were the Psalms and canticles. Now they’re considered too snooty for the average church.

All this thanks to the Second Great Awakening at the beginning of the 1800s. Christianity used to be made up of a lot more thinkers than it is now. Christianity was a religion embraced by the educated, cultured people…until the revivals of the early 1800s. Don’t get me wrong - anytime God sends revival it’s a good thing. But I’m not sure, looking back on it, that the leaders handled their end of things well. After the masses of salvations, Christian work became of necessity quick and rushed. Music started entering the church, music that was not composed by people with formal musical training. True to form, Christianity started to pick up the folk music of its largest constituents, which in this case was rustic mountain-type music. The children of those saved from those revivals were the church leaders when the Sunday School system broke onto the scene; and like their parents, they jumped in too quick. The result, musically, was a collection of songs that were little more than bad copies of the pop music of the day. We know this genre today collectively as the “gospel song.” These songs were made intentionally inflated, fluffy, and otherwise devoid of any really deep theology. After all, what do kids understand?

We sowed the wind, and we reaped the whirlwind, because while the adults were singing good hymns, the kids were singing songs like “Coming Again” and “Love Lifted Me” - songs with shallow meaning and even shallower music (I shudder at the prospect of “Father Abraham” being sung in a morning worship service in 50 years). They grew up, and kept their music from Sunday School with them. Now we’re around the 1930s or so, and the Gospel Song is at its peak. A few years later, we have the traveling Evangelist/Musician going around, like Homer Rodeheaver and George Beverly Shea. I believe the church’s music has been on a downhill slide ever since, and it can be traced back to the “I may not have any formal education, but bless God I’m gonna preach!” mentality that appeared with the revivals. The music from that era was written to appeal to the masses because it required little thought and lots of energy, kinda like some of the preaching then (now?); given the choice, your average Joe from then would rather sing his heart out with catchy tunes and rhythms than think. In essence, the church of that day created a new type of pop music for their generation…and that probably would have been fine if it had stayed there. But now we import it in and call it good music, while the music it supplanted has been reduced to “highbrow.”

I personally have been on a personal quest to investigate historical Christianity, not this weird stuff that has been going on this century, and investigate its worth and see how it can be applied to my life today. I’ve already made a few decisions - I have all but given up on the King James Version of the Bible, choosing instead the more readable and more accurate English Standard Version. I have rejected the relatively new notion that Calvinism is a disease and have instead found several (though not all) of its historical tenants accurate. I have taken a renewed interest in the hymns of old - the music of the German, Genevan, and English Reformations - and have started phasing out any particular like for most of the hoppity gospel songs (goodbye, Al Smith and John R. Rice!) - after all, why would I listen to 50-year-old pop music? Who still honestly enjoys Frank Sinatra?

But there’s one thing I’m still thinking about, and it’s something about which I’ve had extended conversations with several knowledgable church musicians, and that is the place of folk music in the church. The historical precedent is there; why else is there a Christmas carol based on the old English folktune “Greensleeves”? Why is there a hymn based on “Oh Danny Boy”? So what is today’s folk music but the pop music of 20-30 years ago? And so we have Christian music based on that kind of music (called generically “CCM”) that is, honestly, its own brand of music. Ten years ago, the warhorse argument from Fundamentalists against CCM was, “If it sounds like the music of the world, don’t listen to it!” Good advice; I still follow it. But after an honest appraisal that consisted of a CD of “today’s best Christian music” and a quick scan of the radio channels, I have to come to the conclusion that CCM no longer sounds like the pop music of today. Right or wrong? The jury’s still out; but I’m quite certain that it has its own unique sound. The rhythms are different (not as driving or senseless); the chords and melodic/harmonic line structures are different; the whole feel of the composition is just different, and I’m not sure I can quite explain it. Even the age-old argument that it uses techniques found in the world’s music don’t stand much scrutiny - your classical music and, heaven forbid, some of your Gospel Songs use the very same technique…only you don’t think about it that way. But syncopation is syncopation, whether Bach, Al Smith, or Selah uses it.

What’s wrong with our music? In short, most of it is outdated; we’ve forgotten the good stuff; and we’re stuck trying to figure out if historical Christianity was simply unenlightened these past two millenia or if it’s really okay to use a little beat and spice in our worship music. So what do I think? Well, those that know me know my thoughts on the issue. Our music needs to change, one way or another. Perhaps we should look for some more exciting music, while making sure that it is theological and God-honoring. Or maybe the historical church really was a pack of morons.

[Listening to: An American in Paris - Leith - Gershwin Plays Gershwin: The Piano Rolls (16:35)]