This post is not about "worship wars," the nearly nuclear conflict over traditional versus contemporary musical styles. It's about an ironic contradiction that afflicts hymn lovers: we love hymns because of their depth of meaning, but all too often we don't know what the hymns actually mean.
Hymns are often loved for being rich in theology and profound in expression. A true hymn is definately not one of those "Seven-Eleven" songs, the pejorative name for a ditty where the same seven words are supposedly repeated eleven times. And not everything in a hymnal is a hymn, at least in the more traditional sense of the word. A lot of gospel songs from the early 20th century are now thought of as hymns. But if you listen closely to some of those melodies, they sound more like waltzes and carnival tunes. I know some of those are precious to some people, but when I speak of hymns, I'm thinking of songs like "Holy, Holy, Holy," "Amazing Grace," "The Solid Rock," as well as relatively newer works such as "Tell Out, My Soul" and the wonderful stream of new hymns produced by Keith & Kristyn Getty.
But there's a little acknowledged problem that many hymn lovers have: too often we don't really understand what we're singing. As a worship leader, I've seen this irony many times. Occasionally I'll vex our patient pianist by interrupting a hymn in between stanzas and ask the congregation, "What does that next line mean?" It's surprising how often dear Christians who've sung hymns upwards of half a century have little or no idea what some oft-sung line is saying. Here are some examples:
1) "Rock of Ages." I love the profoundly deep line, "Let the water and the blood from Thy riven side which flowed be of sin the double cure: save from wrath and make me pure." That's good stuff, but the goodness is somewhat lost on you if you don't understand the dense poetry. The point is that the blood of Jesus is so strong it doubly cures us. It both satisfies the wrath of God against our sins, and it also cleanses our souls and makes us pure.
2) "O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing." Many don't know that the opening line of this Charles Wesley hymn was inspired by a church meeting that the Wesley's spent with the Moravians. During a time of testimony, a Moravian scholar exclaimed, "Had I a thousand tongues, I would praise Him with them all." Thus it's not, as some might think, a song about the joys of a mass choir or being part of a mega church. There's also the profound line, "He breaks the power of canceled sin." Ask your average hymn lover what that means, and you might get a pretty blank stare. It means that Christ Jesus has not only canceled the judgment against us for our sins, but He's also broken the back of its power in the lives of those who know Him as Savior and Lord.
3) "O Worship the King." Here's another favorite of mine, but there's a stanza in the middle of it that leaves a lot of congregants with itchy brains: "His chariots of wrath the deep thunder clouds form, and dark is His path on the wings of the storm" What does that mean? Is God judging us everytime we get a thunder storm? In this case, the hymn is adapting lines from Psalm 18:6-19 where David celebrates how God had rescued him from great opposition. David describes that deliverance in highly poetic fashion, depicting God as flying on the clouds, shooting out lightening from His fingertips as He went out to battle for him. The hymn's line is rich and thoroughly biblical, but it's ironic that most worshippers have little idea what those lines are about.
We miss out on meaning to our own poverty. Of course, there will always be lines that evade our understanding, especially if it's the first time we're exposed to them. One of the beautiful things about hymns is that they can force contemplation. If you're interested enough, you'll meditate on it and seek to uncover its meaning. This dynamic is at work in the poety of the Bible as well. Portions of the Psalms and Proverbs are often dense in wording and they don't yield their meaning right away. But when we sing songs so often that we no longer think about what's being said, we're really missing out.
There are some instances where it might be a good thing that the words are not understood, at least from the perspective that we don't want to teach people erroneous or false doctrine. Yes, there are hymns that are doctrinally wrong, and some of them are downright heretical. Just because its in the hymnal doesn't mean it's taught in the Bible. I'll give just a few examples (though there name is Legion), and I'll end with one that's most glaring. Some Christians will take issue with my first two examples, but the last one is so egregious that I think all should agree.
1) "The Church's One Foundation." There's much to love about this hymn, and it it certainly deserves a place in hymnals amongst the free churches (e.g., Baptists, Bible churches, community churches, etc.). But there's a theological glitch that's often missed. The author, Samuel Stone, was a godly Anglican, but Anglican ecclesiology is different in some important points from the theology of free churches. In particular, Stone believed in the "Communion of Saints," a doctrine which teaches that Christians on earth enjoy some kind of fellowship with saints in heaven. This doctrine is behind the line, "The Church on earth hath union with God the Three-in-One, and mystic sweet communion with those whose rest is won." Believers in heaven are those who have "won" or received their reward by God's grace, and the song states that there's some sort of mystic communion to be had with them as we worship. Most worshippers sing this line quite merrily with no idea of what it means. I don't categorize this teaching as heresy per se (although some forms of it are, I believe), but it's certainly different from what we teach in most of our Evangelical churches. We have union with the saints in heaven, but we don't yet enjoy communion with them, whether mystic or otherwise.
2) "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling." There's much to love about this hymn, too. But if you know the theological perspectives of the author, the words take on a whole new and troubling force. The Wesleys were known for teaching Christian Perfectionism, the idea that a Christian could receive a second work of grace in this life which would render him sinless. This idea appears repeatedly in the hymn. As early as the late 1700's, hymnals edited the lines to make them more palatable to non-Methodists. Depending on what hymnal you have, you might be singing a version of the song laden with perfectionist teachings and not realize it.
3) "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Who doesn't like the rhythmic marching melody of this Civil War song. It has great patriotic value, of course, and its lines are beautifully written and dense with meaning. But, frankly, we should stop singing it in churches. I never select it anymore because it's so wrong theologically. The authoress, Julia Ward Howe, was an uber-political activist, the kind of religious activist who abandons the verbal proclamation of the Gospel for social action instead. Her activism seems to have been motivated in part by post-millennial theology. She saw the Union army as the instrument of God's judgment to cleanse the land and potentially usher in the Kingdom. She thought God was marching with Lincoln's forces to punish the iniquities of the Confederacy. Of course, God providentially brought the North to victory, but the story of the conquest was not one of the saints marching in. I've tried taking poetic liberty to apply these lines in different ways, but it's a vain effort. I love the music, poetry, and patriotic value of the song. But in my opinion, it's not fit for Christian worship.
It bothers me that some--dare I say most--Christians who have been worshipping the Lord with hymns for many decades are largely unware of this problem of singing without understanding. Worship leaders and pastors have often failed to educate congregants on the meaning of the lines, and there's a larger, societal problem of ever-weakening education. Many people nowadays simply don't know how to interpret poetry very well, especially if it's couched in archaic terminology. Many churches have given up the ghost in this battle and have adopted entirely contemporary formats of worship. Again, I'm not championing any particular musical style. But I think there's too much to be lost by our abandoning hymns completely.
I said at the beginning that this blog was not going to be about about worship wars, and I meant it. But I have to mention one thing. Those of us who love hymns can be guilty of secret pride, a pride that looks down on non-hymn lovers as those who are "missing out" on the great truths found in hymns. But if we ourselves don't really understand the lines of the songs--songs that we've perhaps sung for decades--isn't our pride shown to be hollow? And even if we fully understand everything we sing, that's no license for pride either. While I believe that today's Christians are at a loss if they have no knowledge of hymnology, that hymnology must include an understanding or what's being sung, not just an opinion that what's being sung is profound.
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