In a recent philosophy class of mine, discussion somehow turned to contemporary church music. Opinions on the subject were varied, with one student bemoaning the “me”-focused and mindlessly repetitive nature of the songs, and another student defending them as (at least sometimes) promoting heartfelt worship and devotion to God. Everyone seemed agreed on the danger that such music can cross the line from being of genuine religious value to being a matter of mere emotional self-gratification.
I understand the concern. I was raised on the great church hymns, and while some contemporary praise songs seem to me powerful, few carry the meaning of those hymns. (And some seem to have no meaning at all!) I regret that my children probably won’t learn the hymns as well as I did.
The problem, for me, is captured nicely in a song we sing at my church periodically, a spruced-up and modernized version of the hymn, “Take my Life and Let it be.” The original is beautiful, a humble prayer of one longing to be used and filled by God. Here’s the first verse:
Take my life and let it be
consecrated Lord, to thee.
Take my moments and my days;
let them flow in endless praise,
let them flow in endless praise.
After a few verses, the contemporized version adds the following interlude:
I am yours, set apart for you
I am yours, hungry for your truth
Take my life, you are all I live for
I am yours.
The shift in mood seems to me subtle and profound, and it works completely against the spirit of the original hymn. Suddenly I’m “set apart” for God, and God is all I’m actually living for. While the original states much in the future tense—as the last verse says, “Take myself and I will be ever, only, all for thee” (emphasis added)—the person singing this interlude seems to have already got it made. To my mind the humility of the original has completely disappeared, and perhaps the honesty has, too.
Contemporary church music can be wonderful and spiritually uplifting; but I’d say that the danger my students highlighted is real.
