Featured The Case for Singing (OLD) Hymns

Hopefully I didn't say ALL hymns are more singable...but on average, there are more quarter notes and eighth-notes than dotted and tied-over notes.

Then again, there are always a few hymns like "And Can it be" which is more like a baroque vocal exercise!

And there are many singable new songs, especially those written for congregational use.

I suppose the difference is this: We as congregations are not trying to sing Arias from handel's messiah as worship hymns...but we do often try to sing contemporary solo songs as corporate hymns.

 

I agree with much of what you have said here. I do think that churches that eschew everything new are missing out. But I also feel at least 95% confident in saying that if a church NEVER sings old hymns, not even old hymns with a rock band...they are missing out.

 

For Luke and whoever else:

As a devil's advocate: Is pursuing an "atmosphere" really that important? If by chance, you or I had the opportunity to instruct a small church in the area of musical worship, a church with very limited musical resources...is "atmosphere" really something that should be at the top of our list?

Should not the focus be on singing good solid truth, and perhaps some practical advice such as "use what you have rather than trying to mimic the church down the street when you don't have their musicians."? If the church has no keyboard players, but does have 2 banjo players and a tuba...should we advise them to eschew the banjos in pursuit of a more reverential atmosphere than banjos typically are thought to produce?

I suppose I feel that if a church is singing Gospel truth from the heart, and simple care is taken to sing hymns that people are able to sing along with, if it is done within a wider context of a Bible-driven, Gospel-driven church life...then the atmosphere will naturally vary between exuberant joy, quiet reliance, high reverence, lament over sin and its effects, comfort from the nearness and intimacy with God, and steady faith in God to complete his work in them.

 

I would disagree somewhat with Luke's reasoning. I think it could easily be imagined that a certain secular song might just set the right atmosphere for a certain point being made in a worship service...

...but my answer is the same: I would not use them, for several reasons...one simple one being that it may lead people who know the song and the artist, to believe that John Denver's music is a good place to get theological truths about God...

This is already a problem in "popular Christianity" ....such that we think most country singers are Christians because they occasionally sing about Jesus...and some people get their theology from songs like "Jesus take the wheel" & "What if God was one of us."

 

Where may I find this ancient definition of a hymn? Please point to either scripture, or some scholarly source from 2000 years ago.

 

"A hymn can be defined as a poetic statement of a personal religious encounter or insight, universal in its truth, and suitable for corporate expression when sung in stanzas to a hymn
tune." - Austin C. Lovelace, THE ANATOMY OF HYMNODY (Chicago: GIA Publications, 1965), page 5

“A Christian hymn is a lyric poem, reverently and devotionally conceived, which is designed to be sung and which expresses the worshiper's attitude toward God, of God’s purpose in human life. It should be simple and metrical in form, genuinely emotional, poetic and literary in style, spiritual in quality, and in its ideas so direct and so immediately apparent as to unify a congregation while singing it.” - Carl F. Price, pamphlet, “WHAT IS A HYMN?”, the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, 1937

“Do you know what a hymn is? It is singing to the praise of God. If you praise God and do not sing, you utter no hymn. If you praise anything which does not pertain to the praise of God – though in singing you praise, you utter no hymn. A hymn then contains these three things: song, and praise, and [reference to] God. Praise then of God in song is called a hymn.” - St. Augustine.


You may be correct that an Ancient Greek Pagan would have recognized a difference between a dithyramb and a hymn...I still don't think there is any evidence that Paul was writing against dithyrambs...but thanks for introducing me to a new word.

However....

1. Over the last 1500 years at least, a hymn has been recognized as a word simply to describe a song of praise to God...it has not be dependent on a certain musical style.

2. Nobody sing dithyrambs anymore, or even knows what they are.

3. Technically speaking, in Hymnology, a "Hymn" refers to the TEXT ONLY. The "HYMN TUNE" is the name for the music. So if you take "HYMN" and sing it with different musical styles...does it cease to be a "Hymn"?