Solitary Conceit: CS Lewis Sticking His Nose Up at Hymns

A

 generation ago, most mature Christians knew the power of singing psalms and psalm-like hymns in worship, in the home, and around the family table. Experienced Christians knew more of life and of the reality of death; they had knelt at the deathbed of loved ones and friends, and made the connection. A disciplined life of joyful singing was one of the very important ways we prepared ourselves for singing in the hour of death, blessing and encouraging the dying—and ourselves, the bereaved living.

"Solitary conceit," Lewis later called this dislike

Enter one of the great tragic problems for the new generation of Christians who have spent their lives singing happy-clappy songs, with little or nothing about death and dying in those songs, and singing them in a venue that requires the full array of entertainment instruments and soloists to lead us, a venue that is wholly inaccessible at the deathbed. There’ll be no band, no lead vocalist, nor will there be an organ at your loved one’s deathbed—or at yours.

Thoughtful Christians, ones who look down the road, will want to sing in the home and in their churches in ways that can be portable, can be carried on in the hospice bed. Christian, rediscover how to sing, before it’s too late.

The stories are legion of the elderly unable to remember anything and anyone, but able to sing hymns they had learned in their childhood. My father-in-law, suffering with Alzheimer’s, unable to remember his own wife and children, and unable to read the words in front him, sang Christmas carols with us a few short months before his death, all by memory—which he had of nothing else. Ten minutes before my father died, he sang Psalm 23 with us; I believe he was even harmonizing on the bass line, as he had taught me to do in corporate singing as a young man.

But it’s not just the elderly. There’s the 2014 account of eighteen-year-old Lexi Hansen who was pronounced brain dead and on life support after being struck by a car while riding her longboard. The doctors were grim; they said the unresponsive teen had a 5% likelihood of survival. Lexi’s mother gave the account of the family joining hands around her hospital bed, expecting her to die. Then, one of them began singing hymns. The rest of the family joined in. In moments, Lexi’s eyes opened, and she squeezed her family’s hands as they sang.

I remember seeing my aunt who had turned away from her Christian upbringing, now in her eighties, weeping as we stood around the piano singing hymns from her childhood, hymns whose content she no longer claimed to believe. Tears, nevertheless. 

In his Confessions, Augustine credits overhearing Christians singing with preparing his heart for the gospel. “How greatly did I weep in thy hymns and canticles, deeply moved by the voices of thy Church so sweetly singing.”

It would be impossible to overstate the role of corporate singing in the Reformation. John Calvin, cautious about music, nevertheless, knew its power over human hearts. “Music has a secret and almost incredible power to move hearts.” And Luther ranked music, and singing hymns together in worship, next only to the Word of God and theology.

SOLITARY CONCEIT

Though C. S. Lewis did not get everything right, one of the things that compels many of us back to his writing, is that in the things he did get right he wrote and spoke about those things better than just about anyone. But when it comes to singing in corporate worship, Lewis seems unable to break free of some of his early prejudices against corporate singing. Put bluntly, Lewis did not agree with Augustine, Calvin, and Luther about hymns and the power of singing them in worship, at least not initially.

Picture Lewis as a new convert in 1931, knotting his tie and walking from his home The Kilns to attend corporate worship at Holy Trinity parish church for the very first time as a true believer in Christ, in working-class Headington Quarry, only three miles from the exalted spires of his sophisticated life at the oldest university in England, but an intellectual and aesthetic cosmos apart from his life in blue-color Headington Quarry.

In his collection of essays, God in the Dock, Lewis describes his initial impression of his neighbors’ singing, their untrained voices, their unrefined musical tastes.

I disliked very much their hymns, which I

considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate

music. But as I went on, I saw the great merit of it. I

came up against different people of quite different

outlooks and different education, and then gradually

my conceit just began peeling off. I realized that the

hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were,

nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit

by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite

pew, and then you realize that you aren’t fit to clean

those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit.

It is not for me to lay down laws, as I am only a

layman, and I don’t know much.

Notice the development of his opinion about their singing, “the great merit of it.” Whatever his claims about not knowing much, Lewis had finely tuned, refined musical and literary tastes. Literature was his life’s work. He was one of the best-read scholars of his century, and much of that reading was poetry. Yet, he was operating under the cloud of postmodern changes in poetry, the Imagists of the early 20^th century, the fragments of vers libre poets, and the general revolt against conventional poetry, the kind Lewis appreciated, understood, and loved. This may have had an influence on his early rejection of their “fifth-rate hymns.” The literary elites of the 20^th century insisted that poetry with specific theological content was lesser poetry, perhaps not even worthy of being included as poetry. Lewis could not be entirely unaffected by his culture’s secular prejudice.

But observe Lewis’s change, his confession that it was his pride, his “solitary conceit” that led to his early dislike of corporate singing at Holy Trinity.

HYMN TO EVOLUTION

More of a spoof than a true hymn of praise to God, Lewis did set his pen to write a hymn, a tongue-in-cheek lyric to evolution.

Lead us, Evolution, lead us

Up the future’s endless stair;

Chop us, change us, prod us, weed us.

For stagnation is despair:

Groping, guessing, yet progressing,

Lead us nobody knows where.

Having fun at evolution’s expense, Lewis continues his playfully derisive verse through several more stanzas. We can’t help applauding his mocking lyric. But Lewis, of course, would not rank this as a proper hymn to be sung in the praise of God in corporate worship.

CORRUPT TEXTS

Nevertheless, hymns and singing not infrequently appear in Lewis’s writing... [excerpt from God Sings! (And Ways We Think He Ought To), available at bondbooks.net]

Douglas Bond is author of Grace Works! (And Ways We Think It Doesn't) and twenty-seven other books of historical fiction, biography, devotion, and practical theology. He is lyricist for New Reformation Hymns, directs the Oxford Creative Writing Master Class, speaks at churches and conferences, and leads Church history tours in Europe. His book God Sings! (And Ways We Think He Ought To), from which this post is an excerpt, is available at bondbooks.net; order today and receive a free Rise and Worship cd.

Music as the Opiate of the Masses: Communicating the Eternal With the Transitory

"...addictive but transitory... numbing, anesthetic, escapist."

[excerpt from God Sings! (And Ways We Think He Ought To)
...many worship songs... were first composed for a solo voice, usually the lead vocalist in a band. In the church service, the worship leader becomes the lead vocalist, usually attempting to make his voice sound like the pop entertainer’s voice who first popularized the new song. This can be difficult, even entirely inaccessible, for untrained voices of the congregation to imitate. Allow me to switch from popular to higher-culture singing to illustrate the point.

Imagine trying to sing like Luciano Pavarotti, the “king of the high C’s” as he was known. Imagine him leading worship. Imagine trying to follow his booming tenor. Though he was one of the greatest tenors of all time, and could do astounding things with his highly trained instrument, his voice, almost nobody in the congregation has the capability to follow his leading. We would be inclined not to sing. We would want to listen, not mess up his performance. What is more, we would be wholly embarrassed to attempt to sing like an opera singer. Our neighbors would think we were putting on an affected manner of singing. They would be correct. Whether we appreciate opera or not, even those of us who do, do not think it would be appropriate to try to make our congregational singing sound like Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites.

But that brings up the question: Why is it that we have wholly embraced the popular entertainer’s voice and ethos but not an opera singer’s ethos? Why would it be inappropriate and unworkable to pattern our corporate worship singing after the music in Handel’s Messiah, or Mendelsohn’s Elijah?

Though pop entertainers are aiming at an entirely different vocal objective, it is, nevertheless, one that is highly specialized, requires a stage full of props, has its required conventions, though these are transient and based on the latest new bands and ever-evolving popular genres. But popular entertainment singing is not singing in the normal human fashion. We must be conditioned by popular entertainers to sing or attempt to sing the way they do. 

CHILDREN SINGING

One of my granddaughters as a two-year-old heard opera and thereafter for months she attempted to use her version of vibrato whenever she sang anything—which was often. It was hilarious. None of us could keep a straight face when she did it.

Children don’t naturally use vibrato or croon and cavort when they sing unless they have been conditioned to do so by loads of screen time watching entertainers do that kind of performance singing. Without the entertainment conditioning, however, children just sing: clear, joyful, unaffected singing. It whelms up from within them as image bearers of God. Their singing often can be full-voice, uninhibited, unaffected singing, like God sings, rejoicing over his children with loud singing (Zephaniah 3:17).

While God’s singing would make Pavarotti sound like a novice, hearing God singing would make us want to sing with him and like him. Far from intimidating us into silence, God, who exults over us with loud singing, made us for singing, calls us to sing back to him, to sing with him, to make a joyful noise unto him with our instrument, our voice.

The overwhelming evidence suggests that the typical worship leader, however well-intentioned, is not even striving to awaken the congregation’s instrument. Keith Getty urges worship leaders to self-assess after worship: “How well did our congregation sing? Our role is simply to be an accompaniment to them as they sing.”

Accompanying the human voice ought to be the principle thing any worship leader is doing. Whatever instruments are used to accompany the singing (not all instruments are as well suited to this role as others), it ought to be the objective of musicians to create an environment whereby the congregation’s voice will be heard above all other sounds in the room. God-honoring worship leaders will be like C. S. Lewis’s London cabby: “Stop your noise,” they will say to any sounds that compete with the voice of the congregation as it teaches and admonitions one another in corporate sung worship.  

But it is not like that in the average contemporary worship service. It is far more the reverse. It sometimes seems as if the band is saying to the congregation, “Stop your noise,” listen to my guitar, this cool riff, this clever bridge, my drums, my keyboard. Murmur along if you’d like to, but what’s most important here, is us and our instrumental music.

Music in many churches has become yet another concert, the gathering of God’s people on the Lord’s Day merely another venue for that concert. The band has been practicing for the concert all week, and hopes you enjoy it. As at many concerts, you may even join in on some of your favorites, but don’t mess up the performance.

Subverted by the entertainment ethos, the chancel becomes a stage on which a performance occurs for the pleasure or amusement of the audience—who are welcome to applaud after we’re done. Whatever other context where this kind of performance might be appropriate, it’s awkwardly conjoined, at best, with the vertical nature of Christian worship.  

FOLK MUSIC FOR FOLKS

If solo entertainment music, pop or classical, are difficult for the congregation to emulate, what genre remains?

Perhaps it’s music composed by folks for folks to sing. Folk music from many different traditions is far more accessible to the normal singing experience of untrained musicians and singers. Perhaps this is why so many of the most enduring hymn tunes have come from German, Scandinavian, English, Welsh, African-American Spiritual, and Irish folk music traditions.

One of the great strengths of Stuart Townend’s 2001 hymn lyric “In Christ Alone” is that it was set to a melody composed by Irishman Keith Getty. “Being brought up [in Ireland],” said Getty, “gave me a sense of melody that is very attuned to congregational singing.”

Whatever our ethnic upbringing, something resonates in the human soul with the ancient Irish folk tune Slane when we sing “Be Thou My Vision.” It needs no tampering. The timeless melody perfectly supports the rich lyric. The music compels us—not merely to clap, sway, and listen—but to sing, really sing, with full heart and voice, and minds wholly engaged.

Not all musical styles can do that. Many were never intended to do so. Is it even possible to begin with pop performance music that was produced for a multi-billion-dollar industry and then expect it to work for congregational singing?

Appetites for music change over time, and the changes are usually driven by philosophical and moral agendas. The musical style that takes center stage in most churches today was produced in the last fifty years as both outgrowth and catalyst to the sexual revolution of what Paul Johnson called “the decadent decade,” the 1960s. I state that not as opinion but as manifest fact. The sexual revolution did not produce polka music; it produced rock and roll, and its derivations, including middle-of-the-road pop music, as employed in most churches.

Though not a fan of T. S. Eliot’s poetry, I find his cultural prognostications uniquely perceptive. As a publicist he was constantly observing cultural changes and had this to say about the shift to what was popular in his day, a world on the cusp of the “decadent decade.”

Pop entertainment is a purely commercial

enterprise, an imitation and perversion of folk

culture. It is addictive but transitory, appealing to

an appetite for novelty and distraction. Pop

entertainment is truly the opiate of the masses in

a leveling society: numbing, anesthetic, escapist.

If Eliot is at all correct, we are forced to ask ourselves: How can the eternal, unchangeable truths of the gospel be communicated in a transitory medium that appeals to listeners’ love of novelty, escapism, and distraction, that numbs them and anesthetizes them? Eliot proceeds to contrast pop entertainment as a perversion of folk culture which “is enduring, noncommercial, and anonymous, and it is perpetuated by families, schools, and clubs. It unifies the members of a local community, living, dead, and not yet born, a source of collective memory.”

He should have added, “and churches.” If Eliot is at all right, which one is most suited to congregational singing in Christian worship? Which one unifies, perpetuates, endures, encourages us collectively to remember? If “Pop entertainment is a purely commercial enterprise,” as Eliot insists, and as a cursory glance at the CCM industry discloses, it becomes ingenuous in the extreme to sing:

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,

Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:

Thou and thou only, first in my heart,

High King of Heaven, my Treasure thou art.

Pre-order today bondbooks.net

Singing these words surrounded by an ethos scripted by the multi-billion-dollar entertainment industry—the stage arrayed with glitz and glitter, high-tech volume pulsing throughout the worship center—may prove to be far more than merely a “perversion of folk culture.”

Douglas Bond is author of Grace Works! (And Ways We Think It Doesn't) and twenty-seven other books of historical fiction, biography, devotion, and practical theology. He is lyricist for New Reformation Hymns, directs the Oxford Creative Writing Master Class, speaks at churches and conferences, and leads Church history tours in Europe. Watch for his forthcoming book God Sings! (And Ways We Think He Ought To), from which this post is an excerpt; pre-order a signed copy of God Sings! at bondbooks.net and receive a free Rise & Worship cd.

Losing Your Mind--The Insanity of the Gospel

The Vicarage, Newton's home in Olney, Cowper's behind

"He's bonkers," they used to say of someone with insanity. In WW I, "He's blighty," they would refer to a soldier with shell shock. We call it mental illness, PTSD, dementia, early-onset dementia, or Alzheimer's. Whatever society calls it, we feel that something is not right about someone's words and behavior. "Have you lost your mind?" we say when something is not connecting the way the rest of us feel like it ought to connect. Or the way it used to connect.

BECOMING A CHILD AGAIN

My eighty-two-year-old father-in-law has lost his mind. Once a can-do-anything man, an ironworker, certified to weld every ore on the planet, now has stage-six Alzheimer's. The man of laughter and endless stories of bygone days with which he held his grandchildren spellbound and belly laughing for hours, not only doesn't remember any of those stories; he doesn't know his own wife, children, or grandchildren.

For him, the earlier stages of the disease were more difficult, when he knew he didn't know things he ought to know, and was frequently frustrated by that knowledge. But now there is a mercy in his mental oblivion. Mercy for him, though not for his dear wife and children who know he doesn't know them and are in anguish at the knowledge. "The more knowledge, the more grief," wrote the author of Ecclesiastes (1:18). Whatever else this means, surely it applies to a family watching a dear loved one steadily lose his mind. At the last, they become like a child in an old body, an infant again, who must have everything done for them.

Let's be honest. There's a nagging question that inevitably creeps into our minds, or onto our children's lips: "If Grandpa doesn't know anything or anyone anymore, does he still know Jesus?" Is he safe? When he has lost his mind, is his soul lost too? Is he still saved? God our Heavenly Father wants to hear all our lisping, all our stammering, all our quavering questions. And his Son answers this one. "Unless you become like little children," said Jesus to his disciples, "you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matthew 18:3).

SUFFERING--THE SCHOOL OF POETRY

My travels take me frequently back to Olney in the United Kingdom, John Newton and William Cowper's village, the geographical origin of my literary endeavors over the last nearly twenty years. As I prepare for another visit, I am reminded again of the expansive reach of the gospel of grace. We can so easily slip into thinking that Christianity is for the morally upright, for people who have it together, for normal people, functional people, smart people, witty people, people who have not lost their minds. You know, people like we want others to think we are.

We scowl and attempt to explain what Paul really meant when it begins to dawn on us how the gospel actually works (or we clutch at our perceived good works and grind our teeth like the religious leaders of Jesus' day). It doesn't seem to connect. Jesus came for the sick, not for the well, for those sick in mind as well as in body. For smelly fisherman, not well-perfumed religious leaders; for lepers, not people with all their fingers and toes; for prostitutes, for victims of sexual abuse, for sexual abusers, not self-righteous moral purists; for swindlers, not for well-suited accountant types; for the illiterate, not for the strutting sophisticated academic; for the demon possessed, for those with dementia, with mental illness, for those who have lost their minds. For those who have lost their lives. For the dead.

William Cowper, born in 1731, one hundred years after the death of his ancestor and fellow poet John Donne, was one of those with great needs, special needs. He was one of the blighty. He was crushed under repeated bouts of insanity, even attempted suicides, odd behavior, dark depression, at times feeling himself a castaway, "whelmed in deeper gulfs" than any other. And yet God raised him up by the grace of the gospel, ministered to him through the love and kindness of his neighbor and pastor, John Newton, to be one of the Church's greatest hymn writers. 

FROWNING PROVIDENCE

Perhaps it was not in spite of, but because of Cowper's lifelong struggle with mental illness that he became one of the most tender of our hymn writers. He knew that God truly does "move in mysterious ways his wonders to perform." He knew that behind a "frowning providence" God truly does "hide a smiling face." Cowper gently, experientially teaches us that, "Blind unbelief is sure to err and scan his work in vain." God truly does work "deep in unfathomable mines of never failing skill." He truly does "treasure up his bright designs and works his sovereign will." God in his gospel truly "is his own interpreter and he will make it plain," in his time, in his way. 

With all of his mental challenges, Cowper knew that there really is a sort of insanity about the gospel. It is completely counter-intuitive. It defies economic sense, quid pro quo, this for that, balance the scale of bad deeds with good deeds. No. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a tertium quid, something altogether outside of and above all other religions. I want to get this, down deep in my soul. "O for a closer walk with God!" as Cowper cried. O to see more clearly the Light that "rises with healing in his wings." O to be washed in the precious "blood drawn from Immanuel's veins," there to "lose all [my] guilty stains." 

GOSPEL HEALING

We will always get the gospel distorted when we think it is only for the functional, the repectable, for people like we want to believe we are, and not for the insane, the ones who have lost their minds, for the dead, who must be raised to life by the gracious, sovereign mercy of God. Cowper reminds me of that.

When I am most honest about my own heart, my desperate need for grace--justifying grace, sanctifying grace, daily enabling grace--then I know that I am in some real sense much more like William Cowper with all of his mental disorders, or more like my father-in-law who has lost his mind, but not his soul. When I see myself as a little child, a nursing infant (Luke 18:15), one who needs to have everything done for me, one who must be carried into the Kingdom of Heaven, then God has made the gospel plain. He has been his own interpreter. Behind his "frowning providence," I see his "smiling face." And am healed of all my diseases (Psalm 103:3).

Douglas Bond, author of more than twenty-five books, is husband of Cheryl, father of six, and grandfather of four. He is Director for the Oxford Creative Writing Master Class, two-time Grace Award book finalist, adjunct instructor in Church history, advisory member to the national committee for Reformed University Fellowship,  award-winning teacher, hymn writer, speaker at conferences, and leader of Church history tours in Europe. He broadcasts weekly at The Scriptorium. Follow him here and at bondbooks.net

Why Christmas Carols Terrify Me

The bar is so high with carols. It is remarkable to me just how much charm and sentiment collect on the music we listen to, hum in the shower, sing at the wheel of our cars, and scramble to choose and sing our favorites at advent family devotions. Though "Jingle bells" and "Frosty the Snowman," predominate, Christmas is the one time of year when it is possible to stroll into a department store at the mall (I've heard about people doing this. I never do) and hear some of the Gospel being broadcast throughout the store, Charles Wesley's "Hark! The herald angels sing, glory to the newborn King!" echoing through the retail aisles as people shop for gifts. The climactic importance of the incarnation to the plan of redemption deserves the finest poetry and melodies. Nothing is more beautiful than God stooping to become man, to send his only begotten Son to save his people from their sins. Hence, carols are the Church's most endearing hymnody, and, in spite of the devout devotees to irreligious secularism who every year attempt to be Grinch and steal Christmas and her hymnody from the rest of the world, carols are intensely resilient. They are pervasive and even on some level captivate at least many of our otherwise secular-minded neighbors.

That's why they terrify me. Hence, as a hymn writer, I have given carols a wide berth, gazing longingly at them from the heights of Pisgah, but feeling barred from entering the hymnological Promised Land of carols. With such a vast and rich heritage in the whole canon of hymnody, it's terrifying enough to set oneself to write hymns on other biblical themes and passages, when so many others far more gifted and able than I have written hundreds of enduring hymns. It seems presumptuous. I constantly feel the great gulf seemingly fixed between my hymn writing heroes and my halting efforts. But writing a carol? "Miserable little pygmy, dust and ashes," as Luther berated himself attempting to perform his first mass, springs often to my mind as I write.

Terrified as I have been, I wrote one. Or attempted to. What Wonder Filled the Starry Night (Long Meter, LM, 8.8.8.8.) took me several years to go from initial brainstorming notes, idea banks and word banks, to actually completing the carol. And then with fear and trepidation I sent it out to critics and composers, and resorted to what any respectable poet would do: gnawed away on my fingernails, warily eyeing my inbox. Curiously, I have had more musicians, aspiring composers, and professional musicians write tunes for this carol than for any of my other hymns. Most recently Greg Wilbur has composed a charming tune (complete with subtle sleigh bells on Rise & Worship album). If my memory serves, Greg told me he thinks this might be his favorite of all my lyrics on our New Reformation Hymns album released August 2017.  I hope you have a Merry Christmas, and that you are blessed by my New Reformation Hymn carol (both advents, humiliation and exaltation).

What wonder filled the starry night
          When Jesus came with heralds bright!
I marvel at His lowly birth,    
          That God for sinners stooped to earth.
       
His splendor laid aside for me,
          While angels hailed His Deity,
And shepherds on their knees in fright
          Fell down in wonder at the sight.

The child who is the Way, the Truth,
          Who pleased His Father in His youth,
Through all His days the Law obeyed,
          Yet for its curse His life He paid.         
         
What drops of grief fell on the site
          Where Jesus wrestled through the night,
Then for transgressions not His own,
          He bore my cross and guilt alone.

What glorious Life arose that day
          When Jesus took death’s sting away!
His children raised to life and light,
          To serve Him by His grace and might.

One day the angel hosts will sing,  
          “Triumphant Jesus, King of kings!” 
Eternal praise we’ll shout to Him
          When Christ in splendor comes again!

                             Douglas Bond (December 16, 2010)

You can order the entire New Reformation Hymns album Rise & Worship at bondbooks.net

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

BEWARE--DANGER! What happens when we subsume lyric to music in worship

More intent on the words than on the music

"We must beware lest our ears be more intent on the music than our minds on the spiritual meaning of the words.” John Calvin

THE HIGHEST USE OF POETRY--THE HYMN

In the course of my research and writing and teaching about hymns over the last couple of decades I have learned many wonderful things about hymns, hymn writers, and hymnody—and every time I open the hymnal (usually the Trinity) I learn something new! I love singing hymns. I love the very best of our hymn lyrics from the last seventeen hundred years or so, and I have come more and more to love them not only as heartfelt passionate expressions of praise to God but as the best of English poetry. It was American poet John Greenleaf Whittier who said, "The highest use of poetry is the hymn."  In addition, I love many of the timeless musical settings of great classic hymn poetry, and I appreciate a growing number of the new hymns that are being written by thoughtful Christian poets and musicians. Because I love hymns and singing so much, I totally agree with what John Calvin observed about music, "Music has a secret and almost incredible power to move hearts.”

As I incorporated the study and imitation of the best poetry worthy to be studied in high school English classes, however, I discovered some significant obstacles to understanding and appreciating hymns as poetry for this generation of Christian young people. Nowhere is this more obvious than when students attempt to write about hymns as poetry. I have taught my students to explore the meaning of poetry by writing poetry explications, essays written specifically about poetry, wherein they observe and evaluate the effectiveness of the various poetic conventions used and the depth and richness of the meaning. I often have them compare secular (so called) poets with the poetry of hymns written at the same time or in similar circumstances. For example, I include Lutheran pastor Martin Rinkhart’s great lyric, Now Thank We All Our God, written while the Thirty-Years War was raging through Germany, in my course on World War I poets. Rinkhart’s 17^th century hymn was sung August 1, 1914 on the streets of Berlin when the Kaiser announced the mobilization of German troops to invade Belgium. It makes a dramatic counterpoint to the despair and anger of many of the WW I poets.

STUDENT WRITERS PANIC

Here is where I discovered the problem for my students. When I give them a poem of Wordsworth or Cowper or Shakespeare to analyze and evaluate, they know what to do. It looks like and reads like poetry. It is in the format in which the poet originally penned the words; the poetic medium is, in some real measure, the message. Hence, they can observe the basic unit of poetry, the line, with its hard left margins and capitalized first lines (center lining poetry is a Hallmark card reduction of meaning and content to visual form and is unlike the format the poet wrote the poetry in). They can find the parallel ideas, the progression of thought, the figures of speech, the allusions, the meter, the rhyme scheme, the poet’s use of various sound devices, the use of inclusio, and other subtleties of the poetic art. But when I give them a hymn from the Trinity Hymnal (I consider the Trinity to be the very best of American hymnals and use it daily), they are frustrated and confused. When I give them a hymn with the poetry embedded in and subordinated to the musical score, as it appears in almost all American hymnals since the mid-19^th century, they panic.

Poetic form lost to and subsumed in the musical notation

At first I didn’t get this. I grew up singing hymns in church; I read music; I love music. I chalked it up, at first, to the decline of culture, the loss of the ability to read music and sing hymns. But as I traveled to various other countries around the world, I discovered something very interesting. Maybe its American exceptionalism again. Though I’m not so sure. We Americans seem to be the only ones who hand hymnals to our congregations that have the poetry of the hymns in a subordinate role to the music so it does not look like or read like its genre--poetry. Every other country I have visited (UK, New Zealand, Tonga, Europe, Japan, Peru, etc.) the hymnals have the lyric of the poetry visible as poetry, in lines and stanzas the way the poet wrote it. I have  talked to missionaries and Christians from other countries I had not visited. I discovered that we Americans are pretty much the only ones that do this.

REVIVALISM TORPEDOES CONTENT

So I did some more research. As near as I can find, we began doing this as a direct result of the shift in priorities in 19^th century revivalism. We began replacing many of the Psalm versifications from the Reformation, and many of the classic hymns with revival songs that in general were sentimental, repetitive, lacking in theological depth, and addressed largely to the sinner rather than as expressions of worship and adoration to God. This reduction of the content and the quality of lyric went hand in

Father of English Hymnody

hand with the crafting of new music, designed to attract the lost into the camp meeting tent. The new popular musical sound (the worst of it somewhere between merry-go-round ditty, the frontier cowboy song, and barbershop quartet sound) became more important because it was the hook to draw in the lost. Music was no longer accompaniment as an aid in taking the meaning of the poetry on the lips and in the heart and mind.

In Protestant Christian worship, music has always been in a subordinate role, supporting and aiding the worshiper in taking to heart and mind the meaning and richness of the poetic lyric. Though Calvin knew and appreciated the incredible power of music to move hearts, he cautioned against getting music and the objective meaning of the words flipped around, "We must beware lest our ears be more intent on the music than our minds on the spiritual meaning of the words.” But in Revivalism that’s precisely what happened, the words became less important. The new format of the hymnal reflects this shifting priority of revivalism. Charles Finney’s New Measures and Pelagian theology, flipped things around. The new format of the American hymnal, reducing the central importance of the poetry, was born. I would argue that this format does exactly what Calvin cautioned us against, our eye and ear “more intent on the music” (that’s the first thing we see in Revivalism-influenced hymnal format, musical score not poetic lines) “than our minds on the spiritual meaning of the words.”

Ask English students to write a timed essay under exam conditions about hymn poetry or offer them hymn poetry in its original poetic format, poetry stripped and dissected to fit the musical format, and they will choose every time to have it in poetic form. Imagine doing this with a prose paragraph, each line cut away from the next, with musical notation inserted and separating the flow of idea; the result would be confusion not comprehension, and the paragraph's meaning would be difficult to impossible to understand.


But some might object and say that when we are singing in church we are not writing an essay; they are two entirely different activities. Though that is true, both activities require the ones reading and singing the poetry to understand the meaning of what they are reading and singing. Christians rightly place a high premium on the engagement of the mind and of the imagination in worship. I would argue that singing hymns from a hymnal inadvertently formatted to make it more difficult to observe the subtleties of the poetry being sung is actually working against its own purpose.

RESCUE THE HYMNAL FROM REVIVALISM

Maybe it’s time to take on a remaining reductionist influence of Revivalism on our hymnal and thus on our worship. Why not consider a cross page format, the poetry in lines and stanzas on the left and facing the poetry the musical score with poetry embedded? For shorter hymns the poetry could appear on the top of the page and the musical score at the bottom. To reduce the obvious increase in

Format the hymnal to reflect the priority of lyric

page numbers, more hymns that are not used could be retired. I realize the difficulties and potential added expense, but I don’t think any of us believe that cost should keep us from confronting an obstacle to the engagement of mind and heart in our sung worship as significant as this one is.

In this proposed format reconfiguration (not a new configuration, but a return to one that is consistent with how Reformed Christians have sung in worship since the Reformation itself—poetry and meaning first, music second) it will send a clear message to the worshiper that the meaning of the words, taken on the lips, in the heart, and understood in the mind, is of first importance in our worship. I guarantee that the majority of worshipers (especially our young children) will sing from the poetry (some studies indicate that only about 25-30% read music when singing in church anyway). They certainly will pray and meditate from the hymnal from the poetry where the progression of thought and rich poetic conventions are uninterrupted by the musical notation. I conclude with Calvin’s caution: "We must beware lest our ears be more intent on the music than our minds on the spiritual meaning of the words.” I urge publishers of hymnals to consider rescuing hymn poetry from the influence of Revivalism so that our hymnal format reflects biblical priority in sung worship.

Douglas Bond is author of a number of books for young people and adults, including his Mr Pipes series on Hymn writers, Augustus Toplady (EP, 2012), and The Poetic Wonder of Isaac Watts (RT, 2013). As a hymn writer, Bond collaborates with several composers, including Greg Wilbur; watch for the forthcoming New Reformation Hymns/Parish Psalms album, coming in 2017. Learn more at www.newreformationhymns.webs.com.

A Nutcase, a Critic, and a Carol (NRH 09)

So many endearing carols, who attempts to write a new one?

What wonder filled the starry night (NRH 09) LM

There's so many wonderful Christmas carols, only a poetic nutcase would attempt to write a new one. Okay, that would be me. New Reformation Hymns (NRH 09), "What wonder filled the starry night," is intended to be  just that, a Christmas carol. Insanity! you say. Only a moron would attempt to write a Christmas carol, much less post it and put on display the extent of his carol-crafting delusion. Okay, you're probably right.  But it's too late. I've already posted it. Greg Wilbur (and others) has already written and recorded music for it. "The deed is done and cannot be undone" (something clearly amiss when one finds oneself quoting Lady Macbeth).

In part because of such fears, early scribblings for this hymn/carol sat dormant for several years; hymn writing can sometimes be like that for me, an initial burst of ideas, then nothing, just an imaginative black hole. As Christmas approached in 2010, something changed. Sitting in front of the fire in our living room one evening, I pulled out the initial notes again. Before bedtime I managed to sift through all the scribbles, idea banks and word banks, and set down the lines below pretty much as you see them here.

Overcoming my trepidation at writing my first hymn was difficult enough (The Lord Great Sovereign, 2001), but writing a Christmas carol? Only a moron would attempt it. The sacred charm of the existing carol canon guarantees failure. I must be certifiable! Carols are pregnant with emotive atmosphere, celebratory associations, roasting chestnuts (a curious metaphor considering Americans do not roast and eat chestnuts at Christmas or any other time, to my knowledge), open fires, Jack Frost nipping at our noses, Good King Wenceslas going out on the feast of Stephen, snow lying all about, and every cozy winter association imaginable and unimaginable. Writing a Christmas carol is like inviting the world to come watch you fly off the Eiffel Tower, equipped with nothing more than chicken-feather wings and delusional bravado (what were they talking about in physics class?). Bring your smart phones. 

Yet, here I go, posting a Christmas carol, one I wrote. Maybe I should be feeling like one of those chestnuts. I'd like to claim to be impervious to critics (my last hymn post prompted one fellow to fume and fulminate at me), but it would be a lie. Nevertheless, write anything and there will be someone there to gnash his teeth and tell the world what an unworthy vessel you are. For the record, I am daily aware of my vast limitations (could fill a book with them). But in all seriousness, I don't write books because I think I'm the best writer in the world, any more than I love my wife because I think I am the best husband in the world, any more than I parent my kids because I think I am the best parent in the world, any more than I worship Christ because I think I am the best worshiper in the world. Neither do I write hymns because I think I am the best hymn writer in the world--and certainly not because I think I'm the best writer of a carol.

So endearing are carols to Christian hymnody that experts tell us the best-loved hymn of all time is actually a carol, Charles Wesley's Hark, the Herald Angels Sing). Only a certifiable
moron would proceed. With fear and trembling I originally set my imagination to work on a carol, and now with the same I launch it out to you.

What wonder filled the starry night
          When Jesus came with heralds bright!
I marvel at His lowly birth,    
          That God for sinners stooped to earth.
       
His splendor laid aside for me,
          While angels hailed His Deity,
The shepherds on their knees in fright
          Fell down in wonder at the sight.

The child who is the Way, the Truth,
          Who pleased His Father in His youth,
Through all His days the Law obeyed,
          Yet for its curse His life He paid.         
         
What drops of grief fell on the site
          Where Jesus wrestled through the night,
Then for transgressions not His own,
          He bore my cross and guilt alone.

What glorious Life arose that day
          When Jesus took death’s sting away!
His children raised to life and light,
          To serve Him by His grace and might.

One day the angel hosts will sing,  
          “Triumphant Jesus, King of kings!” 
Eternal praise we’ll shout to Him
          When Christ in splendor comes again!

                             Douglas Bond (December 16, 2010)

Why a carol in October? I decided a number of weeks back to post New Reformation Hymns in the chronological order in which I wrote them over the last number of years; this carol simply comes next in that chronology. See previous hymn posts. Several composers have written tunes for this carol, most recently my friend and collaborator on New Reformation Hymns/New Parish Psalms, Greg Wilbur. Subscribe to my blog for updates on our forthcoming album in 2017.

Despair in Politics: Delight in Worship (NRH 06)

WW I British soldiers singing on the march

NEW REFORMATION HYMN 06: King Jesus Reigns (NRH 06) Long Meter, LM, 8.8.8.8

I don't know about you, but I've just about had it with this presidential campaign. I try to stear pretty clear of political posts (I ALWAYS get skewered by someone, and if I'm going to get skewered, I'd rather get it for a post on an ultimate theme, a topic worth dying for). Never before in my life have I felt more out of step with both parties, and their respective candidates.

In our family worship of late we have made it a goal to pray more immediately for Hillary Clinton. There's hardly a single issue on which I agree with her, but she is sixty-eight, our second oldest president to take office (if she wins), and she has had too many health episodes even for her supporters and the MSM to ignore. She needs Jesus, King Jesus. Our prayer is that she is not "sickness proof and sermon proof," as Samuel Rutherford wrote (I would vote for the author of Lex Rex in a heartbeat; I know he's a Scot, but, hey, our all-embracing immigration policy being what it is, surely we can fix it so he could run. Okay, I know he's dead, but we allow dead people to vote, so why not?).

Illness has a way of re-calibrating ones world view.  By the grace of God alone, the Democratic presidential nominee's failing health could be the best thing that ever happened to her. Our prayer as a family is that she will be terrified by these health episodes, that, far more that merely being unfit health-wise (not to mention, otherwise) to be president, she will fear her own dying. And that that fear would lead to godly sorrow, which would lead to true repentance and faith in King Jesus.

What the world needs now is neither income equality, nor reproductive rights, nor gender equality, nor a few more rednecks. No doubt I have overstepped into politics sufficiently for a skewering, so I'll leave of haranguing about it. What the world needs now is what the world has needed since the Fall: King Jesus. Which takes me to the next New Reformation Hymn, King Jesus Reigns (NRH 06).

While listening to a sermon on the text "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesars, but to God the things that are God's," I began furiously jotting down a flood of ideas for this hymn. My wife at times scowls at me during a worship service when I begin doing this; she thinks it might be a bad example to the children. I explain to her (later, not during the service) that it's just my version of taking notes on the sermon. I don't think she entirely buys this, but I'm imminently satisfied with it. Readers of the Crown & Covenant Trilogy will hear hints and allusions reminiscent of the grand struggle of Covenanters to uphold the Crown Rights of the Redeemer in his Kirk.  
  

• Listen to the Audio: KING JESUS REIGNS, by Douglas Bond/Ron Bechtel

King Jesus reigns, enthroned on high!
With heart and voice we glorify
His Majesty, his power and grace,
And his high sovereignty embrace.

Though kings usurp and proud men try
Their pompous selves to deify,
Adoring praise shall never cease
For Christ, Redeemer, Prince of Peace!

King Jesus rules upon his throne
And does the wealth of nations own;
While fading things to Caesar bring,
Ourselves we render to our King.

While pharaohs, kings, and emperors boast,
The King of kings leads out his host;
The proud, one day, shall bow the knee
When Christ in triumph sets us free!

King Jesus wears his worthy crown,
Though envious men and nations frown,
And we, by grace, on eagle’s wings,
Uphold the Crown rights of our King!

His holy nation, chosen ones,
We joyful bow, and with our tongues
We hymn allegiance high and sing,
“Hail Jesus! Sovereign Lord and King!”

                Douglas Bond, Copyright, March 12, 2008