From: Noel Piercy <[email protected]>
Many years ago, I heard the great and inimitable Don Hustad give a lecture on evangelical hymnody. He outlined the history of the Gospel Song, as a descendant of the songs produced by the Sunday School Movement over 100 years ago. This is very familiar material, but Hustad gave us a new twist, a connection. Why did the Gospel Song flourish a generation after the Sunday School Song? A generation of children had grown up with these songs which were musically naive; used repetitious choruses; and were more experiential and more sentimental, and less theological than the hymns used by the older folks. When these children reached adulthood, they naturally wanted to use materials similar to what they had grown up with. So the Gospel Song [forming the bread-and-butter of evangelical hymnody for much of the 20th century] grew into favor.
This is exactly what Prof. Drury is describing. The non-intellectual, happy-clappy choruses he mentions, used in the '50s, would naturally evolve into non-intellectual, happy-clappy praise choruses a generation later. Of course, the best of the Sunday School Songs and of the Gospel Songs have endured (think "He Leadeth Me" and "Blessed Assurance"), and the best of the Praise Choruses will no doubt also endure. But to me, the most telling lesson in all of this is the absolute necessity of exercising great care when selecting materials for teaching our children! What goes around, comes around.
From: "Thomas E. Lindholtz" <[email protected]>
>Do shallow praise choruses bug you? Sure do. Sure do. Sure do. Sure am. And I enjoyed the little poke at some of the golden oldies. Just one problem. To the best of my recollection of my experiences back then (and it could be fuzzy because it was a long time ago), none of the tunes cited were ever used in worship. They were used in Sunday School classes, Junior Church, and youth meetings. And the problem is that the new choruses have all the ability to get a hold of my mind and intellect of that level of class. If we're going to use these choruses in worship, why can't we have the flannel graph stories that so logically and appropriately go with them? --Tom Lindholtz
From: [email protected]
Your article didn't address the issues you raised. YOU GAVE NO ANSWERS to the questions you raised in the first paragraph. You only stated that some one at some time used songs that were no more substantial than some of today's songs. That only says that some people may be hypocrites. I understand that you were trying to state your point in a clever way, but it was clever and in no way substantial. This article sounded more like a mocking adolescent than a reasoned thinker. The issue is not music. The issue is what Christianity is. Is the Christian life about a feel good social event on Sunday or about helping other Christians live faithful, holy, and Godly lives in an ungodly world. Until the discussion goes beyond likes and dislikes to WHY we do things in church, we are merely bludgeoning each other with religious emotionalism to get our own (selfish) way. --Andrew Chapman
From: "LULA MARLOWE" <[email protected]>
I don't know who you are but I would like to respond to your comments about the praise choruses. My concern is that our young folks won't have a Christian heritage of good old hymns of the faith written by godly saints inspired by and of God. And, as I remember, the choruses you mentioned were not sung in worship services - at least not in ours. They were sung in Vacation Bible School, Sunday School & camps & mission meetings, etc.
In my opinion, our young folks need to learn songs such as Come, Christian Join to Sing, Oh, for a Thousand Tongues, What a Friend, The Old Rugges Cross, I Love to Tell the Story and on and on and on and on. The ones (young folks) I see don't have a clue how to worship because it is so shallow. Someone very wisely said, "Music should minister to the heart and not the feet."
No, I don't like all the things the "Praise Bands" do. It's almost as if "If you can't win them with the Word, then we'll try to win them with the world." That's exactly what it sounds like sometimes. And yes, it does happen in my own church, much to my sadness. I don't attend when I know that's what it is going to be like and it's almost entirely on Sunday evening. I'm so thankful that there is no where in the Scripture that says we "must" go to church on Sunday evening, although I do miss the wonderful services we used to have on Sunday evening.
I can say that some of the choruses are very good and can lead you into the very presence of God; however, they are the exception - not the norm.
'nuff said. Thanks for listening (or reading).
From: "G.R. Cundiff" <[email protected]>
I have made the same statements you do in the article about the choruses of days gone by compared to the worship music of today. But don't you have to admit that all your chorus examples from the 50's are children's choruses? I don't recall ever hearing one of them being used as a primary part of a worship service...sung during the old fashioned Sunday School opening yes, during a church service, no. So far as repetition, the complaints I have heard are more about the worship chorus being sung over and over in a service than that the words repeat themselves within the chorus. Even great a great hymn like "How Firm a Foundation" would get tiresome if at the end of the 6th verse the worship leader wanted to go back to the beginning for another 6 verses. A great worship chorus might be worth a repeat, maybe even two, but it is unfair to think people are unspiritual because they aren't especially enthusiastic about singing the same praise chorus for ten minutes.
I agree that much of the music today is an improvement over the children's choruses of the 1950's...but again, they weren't written to be sung 5 or 6 times as a featured part of worship in a Sunday morning service either. --Scott
From: [email protected]
Obviously there is now and has always been a scale of gradation regarding the quality of sacred music, like all other forms of music, and like the depth of our worship. One recent morning I composed an e-mail to my regular addressees that explained how, while driving a borrowed car that had no CD player, I'd been forced to listen to the local "Contemporary Christian" radio station on my way to work. I noted that much of the "Praise and Worship" that they play is just noise to my Southern Gospel-tuned ears. One song's lyrics caught my attention that morning: "He is not silent. He is not whispering. We are not quiet. We are not listening."I suspect the reason that so many of us hear no depth in so much of today's worship music is that we are not quiet, we are not listening. We are so