Before We Sing the Last Hymn

Bill Knott

One fragment of 1980s culture that somehow lodged in my memory was the anecdote about the lyricist for the British rock band The Who. According to the gushing Time magazine correspondent who interviewed him, he wrote the words to five songs for the band in one day–in fact, over lunch.

There are Sabbaths when I confess to wondering if this prolific wordsmith didn't find later employment writing lyrics to evangelical worship songs.

In Adventist churches large and small across North America, worship songs are rapidly replacing traditional hymns in public worship. Inspired by the perceived success of large evangelical and charismatic congregations in attracting Baby Boomers and Gen Xers, hundreds of Adventist congregations now offer up the simple, repetitive phrases of contemporary worship songs as their corporate praise to God. This change is defended with rationales that run the gamut from popularity to posture: "My people like these new songs better," pastors tell me confidently, "and besides, it's so much better to have them looking up at a screen instead of burying their heads in some old hymnbook."

Well, maybe. I certainly have nothing against slide and video projectors per se, nor am I usually offended by reading lyrics from a screen (unless, of course, words are misspelled, which seems to happen with distressing frequency). The technology is not the problem, for I often prepare for Sabbath School lessons and Bible studies by using a multi-version Bible program on my laptop computer.

What pains me more is the shallowness of so many song lyrics, as though we could think of but one small thing to say about our God when we come to stand and sing His greatness, and that to a usually forgettable melody. "The joy of the Lord is my strength" is, thoughtfully considered, a powerful affirmation of God's goodness. But singing that phrase four times in a row, with no advancement or amplification of thought, and to a bouncing little ditty of a tune, somehow cheapens what should be a special solace to believers. If God, in fact, deserves our best, our most creative praise, why should we settle for a comfortable mediocrity of expression when addressing Him? Why give tin when we could give gold?

The hymns of the Christian church are not, as some critics claim, a large and antiquated corpus of obscure expressions about God. They have survived to the present day precisely because they convey meaning–most often, deeply powerful meaning–in creative and memorable ways. The careful metrical and rhyme patterns, the progression of thought from one line to the next and from one stanza to the next, the doctrinal affirmations of Biblical truth they contain–all rightly represent generations of believers who reveled in the inexhaustible riches of God. Because the deity they worshipped was always "higher than the highest human thought," poets and lyricists strove to find new and ever finer language with which to praise Him.

I'm not endorsing every entry in The Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal any more than I'm criticizing every worship song projected on a screen. Sometimes shallow sentiment survives, if only because we like its warmth and familiarity. And some number of today's favorites will undoubtedly find a lasting place in Adventist hymnody, which, like the church, always needs to be refreshed by new and vital words of praise.

Today's church needs both Isaac Watts and Michael Card, Annie Smith and Fred Pratt Green. The words of faith we sing on Sabbath mornings should be the ones we choose to plant securely in our memories, for we'll call on them when we're tempted or tired or lost or lonely. They'll guide us through a hundred dark valleys, and give us means to worship the majesty of God when we stand, exulting, on the mountaintop. When hymnbooks and PowerPoint are both unavailable, our faith in God's goodness will be nurtured by whatever has been rooted deepest in us. No less than Bible verses committed to memory, great songs of worship, both old and new, will bring us home at last.

"Let now our finest praises ring: His we are as hymn we sing."

Source: Adventist Review, Editorial, February 2002