I’ve been listening to a talk by Harold Best on the concepts of content and context in worship music. I’m going to rip this comment out of the two hours of context around it, but the comment struck me as thought provoking, so here it is.
When 9/11 hit us, praise and worship music had nothing to sing, nothing. The repertoire was exhausted. Nothing of lament. Nothing of grief. Very little of repentance. Nothing of anger. All we could sing is, "We’ve come to worship," and God says, "I already know that," but we say, "I want to sing it over and over again, even though you already know that." Now I’m being a little sarcastic, but sarcasm is often born out of something quite real, so here we are in the face of an international, global tragedy, and there’s nothing to sing. A lot of tunes, yes, but no texts. The secret of the future of praise and worship music will be when its textual content matches that of any good hymn book. Because any good hymn book covers the counsel of God, from stem to stern, and the behavior and responsibility of mankind, from stem to stern. So you have in the hymn book, and I’m not saying bring the hymn book back, even though Jars of Clay would like to see that happen. You’ve seen their liner notes. Their next to last album says, "Save the hymn! Save the hymnbooks!" So I’m not arguing for the reintroduction of the hymnbook per se; I’m arguing for a body of church music we can call contemporary, texted music that covers everything having to do with God and Christ in history, and man with or without Christ, and his need for Christ, whether he is in Christ or away from Christ.
I think he has some wonderful points. Interestingly enough, I think that the praise and worship movement realized this, possibly as a result of 9/11, although, I think that textually ambiguous music could only hold its weight for so long. I see the modern P&W movement heading in this direction that Best speaks of. For example, the newest Baloche or Tomlin cd has far deeper and richer texts than even albums of theirs 2 or 3 years ago. However, I would say that we’re not there yet. My question is, why is it an either or thing? Harold, who is in his seventies I believe, having been a professor at Wheaton for a number of years, still says, I don’t think we need to bring the hymnal back, we just need to deepen the lyrics of modern worship. Personally, I like the contemporizing of hymn songs. We have a deep store of theologically sound songs right in front of us. Why not use them? I do think that there is a style issue. I’m sorry, but the up and coming generations have an adverse reaction to the organ. I’m not making a judgment about the value of the organ, because the organ is a beautiful instrument, but my generation and the generation below me are don’t connect with the sound of an organ (generally speaking). That being said, I think that it is wonderful to modernize hymns. My personal philosophy when choosing music for services and for personal worship is to draw from every source that I can. Christ honoring music did not either start (as contemporary says) or end (as traditional says) at 1980. Why do we set barriers on our music? Just some thoughts. Any responding thoughts?
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