Mark DenHoed writes,
That poor sap whom we all know and love (John, in case you didn’t pick that up) always go on about Liturgical Revolution. I usually dismiss his illogical opinions as the rubbish they are with a contemptuous wave of dismissal from my regal hand and a ‘pah’ emanating from my mouth (Yes, I’m being sarcastic. If there’s any dismissing of illogical opinions, it’s probably on John’s part.). However, this time I think he has a point.
It kind of hit me during Church this last Sunday. We were singing. Take My Life and Let It Be. They had taken the liberty of sticking the bane of any hymn into the song, a modern repetitive chorus, and then the difference between old songs and modern songs struck me. I’ll post some old songs and embolden and/or italicise any parts of interest.
Ye Olde Songs:
Take My Life and Let it be
Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee.
Take my moments and my days; let them flow in ceaseless praise.
Take my hands, and let them move at the impulse of Thy love.
Take my feet, and let them be swift and beautiful for Thee.
Take my voice, and let me sing always, only, for my King.
Take my lips, and let them be filled with messages from Thee.
Take my silver and my gold; not a mite would I withhold.
Take my intellect, and use every power as Thou shalt choose.
Take my will, and make it Thine; it shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart, it is Thine own; it shall be Thy royal throne.
Take my love, my Lord, I pour at Thy feet its treasure store.
Take myself, and I will be ever, only, all for Thee
Let all Mortal Flesh keep silence
Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly minded,
For with blessing in His hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
Our full homage to demand.
King of kings, yet born of Mary,
As of old on earth He stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
In the body and the ;
He will give to all the faithful
His own self for heavenly food.
Rank on rank the host of heaven
Spreads its vanguard on the way,
As the Light of light descendeth
From the realms of endless day,
That the powers of hell may vanish
As the darkness clears away.
At His feet the six wingèd seraph,
Cherubim with sleepless eye,
Veil their faces to the presence,
As with ceaseless voice they cry:
Alleluia, Alleluia
Alleluia, Lord Most High!
(Btw, here’s a definition of homage: c.1290, from O.Fr. homage “allegiance or respect for one’s feudal lord,” from homme “man,” from L. homo (gen. hominis). Fig. sense of “reverence, honor shown” is from 1390)
THE NEW SONGS
I can only Imagine by MercyMe. (By the way, I rather like this song, and I have nothing against it, but it demonstrates my point)
I can only imagine
What it will be like
When I walk
By your side
I can only imagine
What my eyes will see
When your face
Is before me
I can only imagine
[Chorus:]Surrounded by Your glory, what will my heart feel
Will I dance for you Jesus or in awe of you be still
Will I stand in your presence or to my knees will I fall
Will I sing hallelujah, will I be able to speak at all I can only imagine
I can only imagine
When that day comes
And I find myself
Standing in the Son
I can only imagine
When all I will do
Is forever
Forever worship You
I can only imagine
[Chorus]
I can only imagine [x2]
I can only imagine
When all I will do
Is forever, forever worship you
…etc
Well, it’s late and I can’t think of any more new songs.
Although, there is one modern song that I think is actually rather good. There are, doubtless, others.
Here’s what interesting about those songs.
Take my life: It’s a petition to God, asking him to take parts of the singer (will, life, heart, etc). You notice that all of the action would be on God’s part. You’ll also notice that the hymn talks about God far more than one’s self.
Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence: I highlighted (nearly) every possessive and nominative word in there. You’ll notice that they all refer to either an Angelic being or God? The only mention of man in the piece is a command that he shut up.
Now, look at the modern song.
Do you see one sentence with the subject being God? Nope. I highlighted all of the nominatives and possessives and they are all about the singer. Again, I rather like this song, but I illustrates the point.
At church a few weeks ago, the youth pastor was gone and so he played a taped lecture by a pastor whose name I forget (I’ll post it if it comes back to me). At one point in the video he said something along the lines of, “Before the reformation, the center of the Church was the Eucharist table, where they had communion. After the reformation, the center of the Church was a pulpit. Now, it’s a stage.” That would seem to be reflected in the music. The center is now those who are singing, not God. So…
Liturgical Revolution, anyone?
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Posted at 2:29 am EST on the 7th of August 2007 by M. C. DenHoed. Under Literary and Cinematic Criticism, Musicology, Theology as Liturgy, Worship There are 13 replies. |
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Blockhead. You. Mark. Are.
Actually, Mark, I couldn’t agree with you more. Liturgical Revolution.
It’s scary. I won’t mention the fact that it’s my day to post, but I was about to come up from practicing Ravel to post something I had on the (gasp) Liturgical Revolution (using “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence” as an example) when Mom yells to me and says, “Hey, John, did you see Mark’s post?”
A question though: Take My Life is rather maudlin. Granted, it isn’t the completely self-centered Post-modern hymns that you rightly admonished, but it is rather what one might call sentimental poetry — emphasis being on how the acts of God relate to me in particular.
Question being, is there any place for sentimentality in Worship? I honestly don’t know, and it’s a question I’m wrestling with. I’d tend to say, No, but I really don’t know.
A question though: Take My Life is rather maudlin. Granted, it isn’t the completely self-centered Post-modern hymns that you rightly admonished, but it is rather what one might call sentimental poetry — emphasis being on how the acts of God relate to me in particular.
Question being, is there any place for sentimentality in Worship? I honestly don’t know, and it’s a question I’m wrestling with. I’d tend to say, No, but I really don’t know.
If I understand what you’re saying, you’re asking “Is it okay for us to focus on what God’s done for us?”
Then I say, yes! because Christ saved us! It’s true, he’s done many other great deeds, but He’s done this for US! Shouldn’t we praise God all the more for what he’s done for us? true, we have to keep it away from ourselves, and not start praising ourselves, but yeah.
I hope my make myself clear. I didn’t make myself as clear as I could have last time I commented. :)
So I was listening to Rawhide the first time I read this post and I definitely had to shut it off. :)
My family is in charge of most of the music for our church– we pick the hymns, print the worship guides, play the piano, lead most of the singing, and generally handle all musical issues (we don’t all do that together as a family, of course– my dad, an elder leads the singing, my mom and I play the piano at different times– but we are all very involved with the whole process) and so I have been blessed by being submerged constantly in good church music, and I have participated in differentiating between good church music, okay church music and bad church music. Man, it’s a hard job.
So just the other night I was trying to select hymns to play for an elder ordination service, and I had to choose between “Now May He Who From the Dead” http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/n/m/nmayhewf.htm
and “May the Mind of Christ My Savior” http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/m/a/maytmind.htm
It was a hard choice, because the first focused more on “us”– the corporal part of worship, and the second was more about “May Christ help me”… It was a really hard choice but each of the songs had merit– because while we were met together as a body, we WERE installing and ordaining an individual. The real clincher though, was the music. The first hymn had a really cheesy tune, and the second had a very beautiful one. The tune is just as important as the words, and it needs to fit with the words. But then I didn’t have to make a choice because I remembered that we could sing Psalm 117– which brings me to my real conclusion: If you sing the Psalms as a church, you will sing individually-oriented things.
anyway, good thoughts of yours, Mark.
Well, let me elaborate on my sentimentality and individualistic thingy. Emotion is a deeply personal thing, and people would stuff my mouth with dry rice and soap if I said that the Psalms were not deeply emotional stuff. Psalmnody is, of course, the basis of Christian hymnody, and we should take the lesson from them.
What the Psalms never are is sentimental. Let me draw the distinction (a poetic, rather Eliotic distinction) – sentimental poetry concentrates on the emotion; emotional poetry concentrates on the description or described.
In David’s big confession of sin, it’s not oriented around him at all: “Against You only have I sinned.” He makes it perfectly clear that he’s not the concentration. “What is man that Thou art mindful of him”, after all? Always cosmic, theistic significance.
…As apposed to “I know not where the road will lead, I follow day by day.” The concentration, the described, is yourself. Hope that makes a bit of sense. It also provides a more objective way of determining what Psalms are “good”, “OK”, and “bad”.
bravo, very well articulated, John. And I think the last time you used the word Psalms you meant to type hymns and made a braino. :)
Quite correct. Sorry about that. Hymns.
John, you’re a blockhead.
But for the fact that I am a very chivalrous (though still anonymous) commentator, I would call you a blockhead for even being on this list of crazy bloggers.
Well. Quite a long post. I found that it went quite against everything I’ve been taught as a Protestant about hell and God’s justice. But it seemed pretty well argued.
I have one question. With regard to God’s loving even those in hell — doesn’t this contradict the literal reading of passages like Romans 1:18, where it speaks of the wrath of God against the sinfulness of men? How are we to understand this passage in relation to what you say in your post?
And if God saw it necessary to punish Christ instead of us for our sins, isn’t there only one sufficient reason for which he would do that: so that we could have communion once again with Him, and yet at the same time divine justice could be satisfied? Or is Christ’s death the means by which God does not have to punish sinners?
Just so you know, Nick, you’re a blockhead.
The Vaughn Williams setting for “For All the Saints” (SINE NOMINE) is absolutely rousing. All Vaughn Williams hymns are.
A question that is, perhaps, a bit Devil’s advocate – why hymns, though? Scripture does mention “hymns” along with spiritual songs and psalms, but it doesn’t mention 4-part melodic hymnody in the sense that Western culture has developed. Compare how different the semi-liturgical hymn singing of Presbyterian and a lot of Anglican congregations with the completely liturgical Byzantine service. Hymns in the Western sense are sort of contrary to their idea of worship.
Some cardboard to chew on. :) (Ever since Socrates, everybody suspects you of asking questions you know the answer to. I certainly don’t know the answer to this. Trying to figure it out, though.)
Plato is odious. That’s all there is to it. But perhaps I should belabor my point a bit. I will address your points in order.
When you divide Plato’s world into three objects, you say that the Demiurge is basically God. But… he’s not. He’s a creator, but nothing more. He’s not omnipotent, and he’s not “good” except in the sense that he’s sterile and more like the forms than like us.
But you are wise, O Philip, not to defend Plato’s forms and his philosophy like Master Ahern tries to do. You focus on his place in the tradition of philosophy. Even I have to agree with you here. His elenchus, no doubt, has a significant place in philosophy. His theories of government, while far too idealistic to be of any value, began a conversation that has lasted to this day. But then you make this ridiculous claim that philosophy is nothing but footnotes to Plato. Please, back up your tenacity with, if not fact, at least some fabrication!
Finally, this bosh about the dream of wisdom and the fountain of truth. Philosophers should not be men mucking about in books and playing games in their heads so to acquire a vague, dreamy “wisdom” and the satisfaction of having the right opinion about everything under the sun. Rather, philosophers should look for answers to questions they deem important, and set about their task with as much determination and as little sentimentality as possible. Wisdom for wisdom’s sake is no wisdom at all. A true philosopher tries to discover who he is, what’s going on, and what ought to be done about it. Thus, philosophy is not a grand quest. Philosophy is a search for a grand quest.