Hymnody Debate: Keep the Facts Historically Accurate

By John Allen T. Bankson • September 22, 2007

Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts

NOTE: The archived post can be found here (while the links still work), but as such things can be taken down at a moment’s notice, we are reprinting them here. (Note, some references in this editorial have been updated from the original versions for the sake of clarity.)

When I first weighed in on the discussion of church music on PCANews, I intended to post only one editorial. I have no doubt that popular sentiment among Evangelicals is squarely in the pop-idiom camp, so I was not surprised at the recent spate of letters all touting the merits of employing pop music in the church’s worship. I had decided not to post a follow-up letter because I figured the average reader had long since tired of this interchange. However, a recent comment from a reader prompts me to send in this plea for truthfulness in all our discussions.

A Mr. McClelland states in his letter: “Wonder what Martin Luther was thinking as he sat in his favorite ‘Gasthaus’ and heard a familiar beer song that became the tune to his ‘Ein Feste Burg’?” I don’t know what source McClelland consulted for this bit of information, but as I stated previously, it simply is not true. The “Luther used drinking songs as a source of tunes” legend has been a favorite of advocates of pop music in churches for the past 25 years or more, but there is not a shred of evidence to back it up. This story has become as prevalent as the infamous Madalyn Murray O’Hair petition and is just as illegitimate.

Erik Routley is universally recognized as a leading expert in hymnology. In his standard work, The Music of Christian Hymns, he writes, “The very last thing Luther was, or could have been, was what we now call an adapter of popular styles. He had no use for the ‘popular’ in the sense of the careless, or the standards of ignorance. His melodies are the kind of melody which would appear in a pre-Reformation polyphonic motet, their mixture of basic measure with syncopation being what that style generated” (p. 21).

Routley points out on the same page that the musical form of Luther’s tunes is similar to the form of the songs of the Minnesinger or German troubadours, who provided music for the royal and noble courts. In other words, Luther patterned music for the worship of the King of kings after music which was, in his day and time, considered “fit for a king.” We would do well to imitate Luther in this: worship is still an audience with the King in our day as it was in his, and everything we do should be appropriate to such an occasion.

Again, in A Panorama of Christian Hymnody, Routley states even more pointedly, “The idea that Luther used ‘popular tunes,’ in so far as it is put to give credibility to the modern use of vulgar music, should at once be disposed of. The sources of the Luther tunes are either the monastic plainsong or the kind of music the aristocracy enjoyed” (p. 1). As I wrote previously, it was to the above-mentioned monastic plainsong that Luther referred when he asked, “Why should the devil have all the good music?” a phrase taken over by the 60’s generation and misapplied to rock and roll. For Luther, “the devil” referred to the Roman pope, and the “tunes” in question were the ones with which he had become intimately acquainted as an Augustinian friar.

Further, McClelland also seems to be operating under the assumption that “pop” forms, whether “jazz, folk rock, modern rock, [or] even so-called ‘new age’ music” are the only “modern expressions of music.” Kevin Twit seemed to say much the same thing in his response to me when he couched the debate in terms of pop forms versus “classical” music. It is not fair to assert that the only choice one has is between centuries-old music and today’s commercial pop.

Readers of this debate would do well to familiarize themselves with the great composers of living, active (and therefore contemporary) church music composers who do not write in a pop idiom. The Christian Fellowship of Art Music Composers is a good place to start, as is the Hymn Society. Participants in this year’s General Assembly were afforded the opportunity to hear two hymns (with original tunes) by composer K. Lee Scott, whose hymns (and hymn tunes) can be found in eight modern hymnals and who has more than 300 published works to his credit. More information on K. Lee Scott can be found at his web site. Recent letters seem to suggest that churches only have two choices: either embrace pop music in worship or be old-fashioned. The musical landscape is far broader than that false dichotomy would suggest.

Finally, we are not simply talking about “styles;” we are talking about forms, and forms do convey meaning. Culturally conditioned meaning, granted, but meaning nonetheless. This is why most of us would find it unwise, in the context of public worship, to sing John Newton’s text “Amazing Grace” to “The Ballad of Gilligan’s Isle.” The meter of the text does fit the tune, but the associations of the tune in worshipers’ minds would be distracting to say the least.

We may disagree over church music and propriety in worship, but please let us keep the discussion based on truth.

Order a print edition (large print)