"Postmodern Hymnody (is that even a real word?)"

In my last post I asked the question "Are we too dumb to sing hymns?". I ended with the helpful conclusion: "I don't know." But as promised in my last post, this post is going to touch on the same subject. A better answer to the previously posed question I think is, "No, we aren't too dumb. We just think differently now." In our current postmodern age we engage information differently than did the people in the modern age. By exploring this distinction between the thought process of people in the modern age verses the thought process of people in our current age we will discover some helpful insights into why we sing what we sing in church.

Through a brief discussion on Modern Art vs. Postmodern Art, how hymns and contemporary songs fit into those categories, and how this can be good and bad, Christians can be more mindful of what they like to sing and why they like to sing it, and if it is even a good thing to like to sing.

First thing's first... Modern Art. Its hard to describe art with out looking at it... but since I don't want to have to worry about copyright infringement I'm not going to post any images (if you want to see some, google Pablo Picasso). But here's a basic understanding of modern art... let me emphasize that, this is basic, basic, basic stuff. Modern art seeks to portray the ultimate reality or essence of the subject. For example, if you take away things that make a dog a dog one by one, eventually you will get down to the last thing that makes a dog a dog. If you take it away the dog will no longer be a dog. That last thing could be described as "Doginess." So, an artist painting a dog would not just look at a dog and paint exactly what he sees, he would paint what makes the dog a dog. The artist would seek to paint doginess. A difficult task if you ask me. The value in Modern Art comes with the Artist's engagement and treatment of the subject of the art. This is why modern art often seems to be abstract. To be honest, a lot of it looks weird to me. But it makes sense that it would look weird. The artist isn't just painting a dog. He's painting the doginess of a dog. An artist painting doginess might try to convey loyalty, an always present need for approval, doofyness and intelligence (at the same time). A painting with all of those things in it would definitely look weird. The important thing about Modern Art is the emphasis on objective truth. The modern artist seeks to portray Objective Truth through whatever medium he is using.

Postmodern art is a bit different. And it will make more sense to us... after all we live in the postmodern age. A postmodern artist seeks to portray a subject with the intentions of having the audience engage with that subject (google Andy Warhol). So instead of painting doginess like a modern artist, a postmodern artist would paint a dog. The value in the postmodern artists work comes when the audience looks at the dog and thinks about what this dog means to them. Maybe the image reminds them of their childhood dog. Maybe it reminds them of a time they got bit. The painting of the dog is valuable to some people because some people love dogs. However other people might hate it because they are cat people (which is a mystery in itself).

In summary, the main distinction between Modern Art and Postmodern Art is the thinking behind the art. Modern Artists seek to portray an objective truth about the subject. Postmodern Artists seek to portray a subject that will mean different things to different people emphasizing the subjective truth about the subject.

In general, we can apply this understanding to Hymns and Contemporary praise songs as well. Where hymns often seek to articulate some sort of deep theological truth and tend to be written using lines directly taken from scripture, contemporary songs tend be written in a way that can mean different things to different people. Here's a good example:

Modern Worship Song - "Holy Holy Holy"


Verse 1
Holy holy holy
Lord God Almighty
Early in the morning
Our song shall rise to Thee
Holy holy holy
Merciful and mighty
God in three persons
Blessed Trinity

Verse 2
Holy holy holy
All the saints adore Thee
Casting down their golden crowns
Around the glassy sea
Cherubim and seraphim
Falling down before Thee
Which wert and art
And evermore shalt be

Verse 3
Holy holy holy
Though the darkness hide Thee
Though the eye of sinful man
Thy glory may not see
Only Thou art holy
There is none beside Thee
Perfect in power
In love and purity

Verse 4
Holy holy holy
Lord God Almighty
All Thy works shall praise Thy name
In earth and sky and sea
Holy holy holy
Merciful and mighty
God in three persons
Blessed Trinity


Postmodern Worship Song - "Holy is the Lord"



Verse 1
We stand and lift up our hands
For the joy of the Lord is our strength
We bow down and worship Him now
How great how awesome is He

Pre-Chorus
And together we sing
Ev'ryone sing

Chorus 1
Holy is the Lord God Almighty
The earth is filled with His glory
Holy is the Lord God Almighty
The earth is filled with His glory
The earth is filled with His glory

Misc
It is rising up all around
It's the anthem of the Lord's renown
It's rising up all around
It's the anthem of the Lord's renown

These songs are both concentrating on the same theological truth. However, where the first uses language describing God's holiness as well as scenes from scripture, the second speaks of our interaction with God and uses a lot of repeated lines. I don't think that this means that the writer of the second song is lazy and the writer of the first was more elegant and articulate... Rather I think the second writer meant to repeat the lines multiple times to offer the people singing the song time to ponder God's holiness and what it means to them, where as the first writer meant to articulate the objective truth about God's holiness as seen in scripture.

There are good and bad things about both Contemporary songs meant for the congregation to engage with, and Hymns meant to articulate truths. A good thing about Hymns is the fact that they teach us Biblical truths (not to say that contemporary songs don't) and in troubled times in life we are reminded of the promises of God through reciting a hymn we grew up singing. A good thing about Contemporary songs is that we have the opportunity to reflect on our own life and the unique way that God has brought us to Him and praise Him for that. The bad thing about hymns is that some times there is so much information and truth packed into one 3 minute song that we don't have time to engage and understand the truth that the hymn is articulating. A bad thing about contemporary music is the fact that some times it is shallow and lacking in the truth department and depends to much on the music and the way that the congregation engages with it so much that the individuals become the subject in worship rather than God.

So fellow Christians, BE CAREFUL!

If we're not careful, contemporary songs become more about our engagement with them then about our engagement with God. If we're not careful we start to write and sing songs that we think will be meaningful to people because of the experience that we as leaders can create for the participants in worship. Eventually we start to emphasize the experience of worship over the subject of our worship, and we stop focusing on God and we focus on the spiritual high that we felt the last time we sang "that song." The congregation gets this emotional high at certain points in a song, and worship leaders are smart enough to key in on this point and are able to recreate it over and over and over.

Ultimately, worship becomes more about the emotional experience, controlled by the worship leader and band (whether the congregation knows it or not), than the engagement with God. 

So, I'd like to suggest that when we gather together to worship we sing truth... But let's not only sing truth, lets engage truth, lets reflect on how it effects our lives, and lets be changed by it! After all, He is the Way, the TRUTH, and the Life.

Are we too dumb to sing hymns?

So, interwebs, I'd like to ask you a question. Are we to dumb to sing hymns? Let me rephrase that... Can the average church goer process the deep theological "meat" often found in hymns, worship God for these truths, and be changed by these truths in the time that it takes for a congregation to sing 5 verses of 'Amazing Grace'? My answer in short is: I'm not sure. BUT I'd like to suggest that people might prefer not to sing hymns not only because the style of the music is not as popular nowadays, but because it takes less brain straining to sing something more contemporary. Contemporary songs are easier to understand because the subject matter in the song usually isn't as deep as that of a hymn.

Speaking of Amazing Grace, lets take a look at the verses.

Verse 1 
Amazing Grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found. I was blind, but now I see.

Verse 2 
Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved.
How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believe.

Verse 3 
The Lord has promised good to me, his word my hope secures.
He will me shield and portion be, as long as life endures.

Verse 4 
Through many dangers toils and snares I have already come.
Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.

Verse 5 
When we've been there ten thousand years bright shining as the sun.
We've no less days to sing God's praise then when we'd first begun.

Now since you probably didn't read through those verses (bc you saw they were in italics and you thought to yourself, "I've sung this song a thousand times... I don't think I'm too dumb to sing all of them") I'd like to encourage you to re-read them as if you were reading them for the first time. Think about what they actually mean, not just how nice and poetic they sound.

I'm going to be honest, I was tripped up by verse 2. I think my thought process was something like "uh... grace taught my heart to fear?.. Fear what? oh yeah, God obviously... Grace my fears relieved... obviously I dont have to fear evils of the world b/c God is on my side... but maybe I don't have to fear God's punishment bc of grace? Could go either way.. I like the second interpretation better... Fits with the first line better...
How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed... ok now we are going back to a conversion moment... I guess that works with the first two lines... I was taught to fear God because of grace, I was taught that I don't have to fear God's wrath because of grace, and when I realized these truths, grace is even more precious."

Please excuse the disjointed rambling above...

My point is that even with a hymn as familiar as Amazing Grace, there are a lot of truths being discussed in a short period of time and even after having sung the song for my whole life, I had never internalized the truths that verse 2 was talking about until I took the time to read it line by line. I don't think I'm the only one to experience this either...

Here's another example from the same song -

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow, the sun forbear to shine.
But God who calls me here below, will be forever mine.

Ever wonder why the Gray Psalter doesn't include that verse and adds its own verse 5... which Newton didn't even write? Well, it's because the Christian Reformed Church (the publisher of the Gray Psalter) doesn't believe that the earth is going to dissolve like snow, or that the sun will forbear to shine. The reformers believe that all of creation is going to be reformed, redeemed, and renewed.

So in the short amount of time that it takes to sing 5 verses of Amazing Grace we have discussed a conversion experience, the fear of the Lord, the faithfulness of God in regard to the promises in His Word, experiencing trials in life and overcoming through God's grace, and Eschatology. There is a lot of deep theological truths going on in there... but is it to much for the average church goer? I don't think so. But I do think that it is more difficult for someone to internalize a song like this over a song like Chris Tomlin's Your Grace is Enough. Is this bad? Maybe...

Have we de-intellectualized church? Have we over-emotionalized it so much that when we sing about theological truth we don't even realize what we're singing rather we just get lost in the music?

I think that exploring the effect that postmodern art has on what we sing in church would provide insight for my original question: "Are we to dumb to sing hymns?".

Stayed tuned for my next post "Postmodern Hymnity (is that even a real word?)"