Hymns are Boring and Old-Fashion

That seems to be the common response amongst many, if not the majority of evangelical Christians. However, over the course of the past year or so, I have found myself swiftly moving towards traditional, hymnal worship. So why the shift? For the most part, American Christianity has turned Christianity into a focus on man instead of on God. Christianity is more on anthropology than it is on theology. Because of this incorrect focus, many (not all) of the latest contemporary worship hits have been badly infected with the disease of man-centered theology and focus more on what man brings to the table rather than who God is according to His written Word. If you think that’s a bit far-fetched, take a popular hit and see whether there are more references to the word “Jesus” or “Christ” than there are to “I”, “Me”, etc. Compare whether it focuses more on what God is doing or what I am doing.

Personally, I have felt a great sense of burden when it comes to singing these songs that focus on me and my actions and what I am doing in the moment. It almost creates a prerequisite to proper worship. For example, when the praise choruses we sing are centered on me such as: “I give you my all” and “I want to worship you”, and I don’t feel those things, the whole experience feels dishonest. However, when the focus is taken off me and rightly put back on Christ (where it must always be), the burden is lifted and praising Him for His character moves my affections and draws me into genuinely worshipping in Spirit and in Truth, transcending the outward elements of worship resulting in genuine spiritual praise, hence the Spirit part, and doing all of it according to God’s Word and His character, hence the Truth part.

Secondly, many see hymns as boring because they don’t have the swelling of an instrumental buildup or a ripping guitar solo, neither are they accompanied by lights and smoke. Sadly, worship is sometimes equated to only emotion and how it makes one “feel”. When this happens the end goal of worship becomes purely existential, not God. Now, I’m not saying that worship is cold and emotionless; it isn’t. Rather, worship is praising God for who He is and what He has done in Christ, which then moves our affections. That is to say, true, genuine worship precedes and produces emotion, not the other way around. Any emotion that is drummed up without first being rooted in Scripture is not worshipping God in Spirit and in Truth. Many churches then use this drummed up emotion as a launch pad for making a commitment to Christ in the service. If that commitment doesn’t last and no change in their heart and life occurs, then it was all emotion to begin with and was not genuine.  The problem is, emotion leads to empty emotional responses. Should emotion drive our response to a commitment in faith? Did Paul tell the Bereans to receive the truth because of how it made them feel? No, it says that they diligently examined the Scriptures to see if what Paul was saying was true (Acts 17:11). Did Jesus put stock in emotional responses to outward signs?

John 2:23-25
“Now when He [Jesus] was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing. But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man.”

Does Jesus tell us to make a quick and hasty commitment in faith? No, he urges people to count the cost of following Him before making a comittment (Luke 14:25-33) because being a Christian doesn’t mean that you prayed a prayer one time in your life and continue to live as you always have.

Thirdly, since worship is about the words you are saying and not the music that accompanies it, my biggest complaint about many contemporary songs is that they have become loaded with wishy-washy, clichés. What has happened over the past couple of centuries that have caused songs to degenerate into watered-down poetic dribble? Two thoughts that I won’t go into detail right now: 1) Lack of Scriptural knowledge and indifference to doctrine, 2) Decline in Intelligence (from the mind-dulling effects of multimedia).

Now, I haven’t completely given up on contemporary songs. For example, the contemporary song In Christ Alone stands out because it is loaded with doctrine, such as: the propitiation of Christ, the perseverance of the saints, the sovereignty of God, etc.

In conclusion, if we expect to grow in our worship of God, we need to dig deep into Scripture and doctrine. The deeper we go, the higher and more transcendent our worship will be of God.

Addendum
My wife and I were discussing this topic later on and she made a very interesting observation. When she served on mission trips in Africa at the girls’ center, they only sang hymns. The missionaries who ran the center were very selective and particular as to what contemporary music could be listened to outside of hymns because of the selfish focus in many contemporary songs. With that idea in mind, we need to guard and protect our worship from becoming self-focused. In a future post, I will talk about guarding and protecting the pulpit from all of the clowns that seem to be filling the pulpit.