Hymnology

Hymnology

By LEON YOUNGBLOOD

      Simply stated, I am not a fan of most contemporary Christian music.  I was once invited to a church service with an assurance I would be “blessed.” 

I went, and inside the spacious building, the first thing I noticed was the band.  There were two young fellows with electric guitars, a middle-aged bassist, two ladies at two electric pianos, a man with a saxophone, three vocalists and a restless, antsy young man in a large plexiglass cube, which to me was a curiosity.  There was the typical noise of the audience, and the sort of sounds bands make coming from the stage as they prepared their assault. 

They fooled with their instruments for a few moments, then suddenly, they exploded!  They informed the congregants, “Our God is an awesome God, He reigns in the power of love,” but I had to take their word for it, ‘cause I got out and away from that head-splitting racket as quickly as I could.  I saw why the drummer was confined in his cube, though.  He was beating on those drums like they had insulted his mother, so he was going to kill them.  Obviously, he was penned up to keep the audience safe, and well—Keith Moon would have been impressed.  At that moment, I wickedly felt all they needed was for one of the band members to bite the head off a bat and they could sign up with Ozzy Osbourne.

BRIAR CIRCLE

      I was a little disgruntled.  As I was driving away, God spoke to me in His still, small voice and settled me down.  I wanted to not be judgmental.  To each his own, I guess, and I did not want to go so far as to say those people were not worshipping the Deity in their own way.  It was not for me, though.  Doubtless, there were brethren somewhere at that moment passing rattlesnakes around as a testament of their faith in God’s tolerance of idiots doing stupid things.  If that’s how they want to worship, fine.  It’s well and good for them, but don’t hand me any snakes

      And I do not want blaring music during worship services I attend, either.  Had that church’s band merely turned their volume down, perhaps I would have been more charitable, 

      It may be I’m just too old and set in my ways.  I like the hymns I grew up with.  Awesome God is a good song, but How Great Thou Art somehow does more to create a sense of awe for me.  There are contemporary Christian songs (I can’t call them “hymns”) that my father-in-law derided as being “7-11” songs—“Seven words and eleven choruses.”  He lamented the shallowness of modern lyricists, too, in one of our conversations, but here, I had to be fair.

      “Have you ever heard God of Earth and Outer Space?” I asked.  He had not, so we “Googled” it.  He agreed, it was one of the worst things to come out of the 1970s.

      Still, I like the old hymns best, and it doesn’t take much to stir certain lines and choruses to the surface of cherished recollections: “On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross, the emblem of suffering and shame.  But I love that old cross where the dearest and best for a world of lost sinners was slain!”; “He’s got you and me, brother, in His hand, He’s got you and me, sister, in His hand, He’s got you and me, brother, in His hand, He’s got the whole world in His hand!”’ “’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved.  How precious did that grace appear, the hour I first believed!”; “Oh, come holy angel band, come and around me stand!   Then take me away on snow white wings to my eternal home!”; “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so!”; “Praise God from Whom all blessings flow, praise Him all creatures here below, praise Him above, ye heavenly host, praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost!  Amen.”; “Precious memories, unseen angels, sent from somewhere to my soul.  How they linger, ever near me, and the sacred past unfolds.”.

      But I could go on like this for miles.  Maybe we’ll resume with this subject next week.    

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