There’s a Drought in My Hymnal

This morning, on Facebook, I posted the following as a status update:

So, I always feel a bit perturbed when we sing hymns of the early 20th Century in Church. It is not that I dislike singing hymns, just that I've never thought the first half of the 20th Century particularly fertile soil for hymn-writers. I think to myself, "There are so many great old hymns of the church, why are we singing this or that one?"

I had to laugh, then, when I came across this line, written by Helen Gardner in The Art of T.S. Eliot published in 1949, describing the Modern Era: “An age which has hardly produced a hymn which can be sung without embarrassment...”

I know just what you mean, Helen. 

Image from Church Music Today

It started a surprisingly long thread of comments, one of which was my own further thoughts on the matter. As I wrote it, and its length grew, I thought, “I should turn this into a post.” (And now you know how I come up for material for this blog.)

But it began with a friend asking for some examples of early 20^th Century hymns that I found lacking. I was in the midst of a phone conversation with mi madre when I read it and we got going on the topic.

Her comments: “That whole period was very internally focused. There’s a lot of ‘I, I, I’: ‘I Come to the Garden Alone,’ ‘I Love to Tell the Story,’ ‘I Will Sing the Wondrous Story.’ Others: ‘Showers of Blessing,’ [perhaps my least favorite] ‘What a Friend We Have in Jesus.’ There’s another one that goes, ‘Does Jesus care when my heart is pained too deeply for mirth and song?’ Many are the hymns of the late 19th Century tent meetings and gospel awakenings and the early 20th Century modernist/fundamentalist controversy.

“Often you have what was at that time a rather daring rhythm; they have syncopation and swing to them – so they are very singable. They are the songs that built the Sunday night Gospel meetings in churches – often they were evangelistic meetings because the church had gaslights or electricity when individuals didn’t. The services were lighter, the preaching evangelistic, and there was lots of music. Even as late as when I was a child [1950s] the evening service was called the ‘Evangel’ or the ‘Gospel’ service. But by then the people who came because it was a novelty were gone. By then the Sunday evening service was full of those who came regularly on Sunday morning.”

Mom got me thinking about my Grandma Givens’ stories about her courtship with my grandfather. They met as Mennonite teenagers in 1936 and all of their “dates” were Sunday evening gatherings at all the various Mennonite churches in Lancaster County for singing nights. My mom reminded me that in the later Little House on the Prairie books (1890s), they start up an evening “singing club” at the schoolhouse and it’s where all the young people go. Even today that is the tradition among the Amish.

We have an incredible tradition within the Christian church of singing. I don’t want to put that down in any way. I think our contemporary culture is reaping the blessing of this tradition in the music that is being produced by contemporary pop and folk artists. Look at the participants in and winners of singing competitions on television in recent years; across the board, the majority of the stand-outs were raised in church. Bands like The Avett Brothers, Mumford and Sons, The Last Bison (who you should seriously check out), The Fray, OneRepublic, Owl City – heck, even Katy Perry – grew up singing in church.

I love the moments around the piano that my family would gather and sing together. I love the times for singing in a worship service. I love that we sing in times of joy and in times of sorrow This is not just the American church – it is universal, it is historical. Dr. Brian Toews, Provost at Cairn University, pointed out once that, "What became very clear [to me] teaching the wisdom literature is that one thing unique about Christianity is that in the midst of trouble, Christians sing."

I love the tradition of song in the Christian church. My issue is with the musical and lyrical mundanity and shallowness of the early 20th Century. The richness of the truly old hymns – both musically and lyrically – and the beauty of some more contemporary works far outweigh that period in my mind.

In the course of the commentary on my Facebook page, another friend mentioned her frustration with hymns written after 1960: “Apparently, people forgot how to sing in harmony ‘cause it feels like everything was written in unison.” Another was frustrated with the musicality of mid-19^th Century American hymn tunes. There’s probably quite a bit more to be said on the topic, and I would by no means consider myself an authority on the subject. What are your thoughts?