02 Aug How Times Have…Not Changed

Here are two comments people made about new music sung in church. Both are taken from Dan Kimball’s blog.

“I am no music scholar, but I feel I know appropriate church music when I hear it.  Last Sunday’s new hymn–if you can call it that–sounded like a sentimental love ballad one would expect to hear crooned in a saloon. If you insist on exposing us to rubbish like this–in God’s house!–don’t be surprised if many of the faithful look for a new place to worship. The hymns we grew up with are all we need.”

“What is wrong with the inspiring hymns with which we grew up? When I go to church, it is to worship God, not to be distracted with learning a new hymn.  Last Sunday’s was particularly unnerving.  The tune was un-singable and the new harmonies were quite distorting.”

The first comment was written in 1863 in reference to the hymn “Just As I Am.” The target of the second comment, from 1890, was “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”