Category Archives: Articles on Hymnody

Strange Lyre: Conclusion

Strange Lyre: Conclusion

This entry is part 7 of 7 in the series Strange Lyre: The Pentecostalization of Christian Worship You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

A good theologian once drew me a diagram of the progress of Christian doctrine and Christian history from the apostles to our day. He drew a rather jagged line, with offshoots and branches coming off it. He explained, “The line from the apostles to us today is not a straight one. It includes many errors,… Continue Reading

Cessmaticism: The Strange Hybrid of Contemporary Christian Worship

Cessmaticism: The Strange Hybrid of Contemporary Christian Worship

This entry is part 6 of 7 in the series Strange Lyre: The Pentecostalization of Christian Worship You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

We began this series by making the claim that Pentecostalism has quietly (or not so quietly) colonised Protestant worship, even in those churches and groups that explicitly reject Pentecostal theology. We have described the distinctives of Pentecostal worship, not in terms of its views regarding the operation of the charismatic gifts, but in terms of… Continue Reading

The Idols of Intensity and Extemporaneity

The Idols of Intensity and Extemporaneity

This entry is part 4 of 7 in the series Strange Lyre: The Pentecostalization of Christian Worship You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

A polarized debate goes on between different stripes of Christians over the place of experience in Christianity. One side asserts that experiential faith (what the Puritans used to call “experimental religion”) is fundamental to a living, supernaturally-empowered relationship with Christ. The other side asserts that experiential religion is of passing interest, for spiritual experiences range… Continue Reading

Early Beginnings of Pentecostal Worship

Early Beginnings of Pentecostal Worship

This entry is part 2 of 7 in the series Strange Lyre: The Pentecostalization of Christian Worship You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

An easy error for a historian to commit is to equate or link events or movements in history that are similar, while ignoring or underplaying their differences. One example of this is when historians of worship note that modern negative reactions to contemporary pop-rock worship contain similar objections to ones levelled against the hymns of… Continue Reading

Discerning the Christian Imagination: Consensus and Canonicity

Discerning the Christian Imagination: Consensus and Canonicity

This entry is part 8 of 9 in the series Christian Imagination You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

Determining if a poem, hymn, musical piece, novel, devotional work, painting or other work should be considered a helpful work of Christian imagination is mostly an act of considering its meaning. Does its content agree with the truths of Scripture? Does its form remain consonant with that content, and shape the appropriate responses in us?… Continue Reading

Discerning the Christian Imagination: Analogies and Proportion

Discerning the Christian Imagination: Analogies and Proportion

This entry is part 7 of 9 in the series Christian Imagination You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

If Christians should grow in their ability to discern superior Christian works of imagination, how should they do this? Must every Christian pursue some kind of music appreciation, literary criticism or aesthetic theory in order to recognise Christian from non-Christian or sub-Christian imagination? Likely not, though no Christian should scorn the pursuit of knowledge, wisdom… Continue Reading

Christian Imagination is Not Imaginary Christianity

Christian Imagination is Not Imaginary Christianity

This entry is part 1 of 9 in the series Christian Imagination You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

Christian imagination is not a term that will immediately draw approving responses. These days, Christianity is on the back foot anyway, and anything that sounds as if Christianity is dabbling in the unreal, the fantastical, or the faked, seems unhelpful. But G. K. Chesterton reminds us, “But imaginative does not mean imaginary. It does not… Continue Reading

“My Faith Looks Up to Thee”

“My Faith Looks Up to Thee”

The man had heard the stories, but he hardly dared to believe that they were true. A Teacher from Nazareth was said to be able to heal the sick. Some were even saying that this might be the Messiah Himself. Perhaps this Teacher could cast a demon out of the man’s young son. But when… Continue Reading

“O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go”

“O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go”

As a young man, Scotsman George Matheson (1842–1906) exhibited a quick mind and a fervent devotion to the Lord. He began to train for the ministry, but his already poor eyesight had begun to fail completely. He raced through studies at the University of Glasgow and graduated at the age of 19, but was fully… Continue Reading

We Rest on Thee

We Rest on Thee

British poet Edith G. Cherry (1872-1897) contracted polio at a young age and dealt with severe health struggles all through her short life. Yet after her death, she left behind enough poems to fill two books, with many of the poems written before she was 15 years old. Her best-known hymn, “We Rest on Thee,”… Continue Reading

Thanksgiving During a Plague: Martin Rinkart (1586–1649)

Thanksgiving During a Plague: Martin Rinkart (1586–1649)

When the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) engulfed northern Europe, Christians in Germany suffered under the terrors of war, famine, and plague. As a new pastor in the walled city of Eilenberg, Martin Rinkart knew the spiritual strain of ministry under these trying circumstances. Refugees congregated in Eilenberg, but the siege by the Swedish and Austrian… Continue Reading

Hymns sifted in Satan’s sieve of suffering

Hymns sifted in Satan’s sieve of suffering

In the midst of difficult days, it is helpful to learn from those saints who have endured hard times before us. We are self-centered enough to think that our personal plight is exceptional, when in reality it is not. Paul Gerhardt, born in 1607, was a Lutheran pastor. Today he is remembered best for his… Continue Reading

Roots of Evangelical Worship: The Wesleys and Methodism

Roots of Evangelical Worship: The Wesleys and Methodism

What today we might call “evangelical worship” stems from many different influences, some of which I have been highlighting here over the past couple of weeks, including German Pietism and American Revival. A third contributing movement involved the Wesley brothers and Methodism, which arose as a response to increasing lack of devotion in the Church… Continue Reading

Affect or Effect

Affect or Effect

This entry is part 47 of 63 in the series Ten Mangled Words You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

The difference between affections and emotions is seen in what art is used in worship. Since worship uses art, worship leaders can use it in precisely one of these two ways: to affect us, or to create effect. They can work with poetry, music and the spoken word to work with the imagination. There the… Continue Reading

Singing and Making Melody

Singing and Making Melody

In both Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16, Paul commands gathered believers to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, thereby “singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart” (Eph 5:19) and “teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom” (Col 3:16). Scholars disagree as to the exact meaning of the three terms psalms, hymns,… Continue Reading

Why Hymnals?

Why Hymnals?

I was recently asked to fill out a survey for pastors about their use of hymnals. Their final question was: “If you DO use hymnals for congregational singing, why do you view them as a worthwhile means of leading your church in worship?” Here was my response: A printed hymnal is good for so many… Continue Reading

Hymns Ancient and Modern for a New Generation

Hymns Ancient and Modern for a New Generation

In 1861 a hymnal was published in England that would set the standard for all hymnals to follow: Hymns Ancient and Modern. This significant hymnal was produced as a part of the Oxford Movement in the Church of England, a movement that wished to address both stagnant piety among more formal churches on the one hand,… Continue Reading

A Parable About Pop Music in Church

A Parable About Pop Music in Church

Christian 1: So I hear you have a problem with lollipops? Christian 2: Lollipops? No, I think they’re just fine. Christian 1: But you apparently won’t eat them for family meals. Christian 2: That’s true. I prefer my family eats some kind of meat, vegetables or healthier food for their meals. Christian 1: So you… Continue Reading

Tozer on great Christian poetry

Tozer on great Christian poetry

In the preface to his Christian Book of Mystical Verse, A. W. Tozer writes, The hymns and poems found in here are mystical in that they are God-oriented; they begin with God, embrace the worshipping soul and return to God again. And they cover the full spectrum of religious feeling: fear, hope, penitence, aspiration, the longing… Continue Reading