What can miserable Christians sing?

Tarheel Baptist

Tarheel Baptist

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http://tollelege.wordpress.com/2007/08/13/what-can-miserable-christians-sing-by-carl-r-trueman/

A diet of unremittingly jolly choruses and hymns inevitably creates an unrealistic horizon of expectation which sees the normative Christian life as one long triumphalist street party — a theologically incorrect and a pastorally disastrous scenario in a world of broken individuals. Has an unconscious belief that Christianity is — or at least should be — all about health, wealth, and happiness silently corrupted the content of our worship?
Few Christians in areas where the church has been strongest over recent decades — China, Africa, Eastern Europe – would regard uninterrupted emotional highs as normal Christian experience.
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Tarheel Baptist said:
http://tollelege.wordpress.com/2007/08/13/what-can-miserable-christians-sing-by-carl-r-trueman/

A diet of unremittingly jolly choruses and hymns inevitably creates an unrealistic horizon of expectation which sees the normative Christian life as one long triumphalist street party — a theologically incorrect and a pastorally disastrous scenario in a world of broken individuals. Has an unconscious belief that Christianity is — or at least should be — all about health, wealth, and happiness silently corrupted the content of our worship?
Few Christians in areas where the church has been strongest over recent decades — China, Africa, Eastern Europe – would regard uninterrupted emotional highs as normal Christian experience.
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Miserable Christians???

Isn't that an oxymoron?
 
As usual Trueman is spot on.
Close your eyes in the average hymn singing church, block out the words and you could be on a carnival merry go round.
 
I wrote something like this a few months ago:
http://www.ryan-hayden.com/when-did-church-music-go-downhill/
 
Just me said:
Tarheel Baptist said:
http://tollelege.wordpress.com/2007/08/13/what-can-miserable-christians-sing-by-carl-r-trueman/

A diet of unremittingly jolly choruses and hymns inevitably creates an unrealistic horizon of expectation which sees the normative Christian life as one long triumphalist street party — a theologically incorrect and a pastorally disastrous scenario in a world of broken individuals. Has an unconscious belief that Christianity is — or at least should be — all about health, wealth, and happiness silently corrupted the content of our worship?
Few Christians in areas where the church has been strongest over recent decades — China, Africa, Eastern Europe – would regard uninterrupted emotional highs as normal Christian experience.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Miserable Christians???

Isn't that an oxymoron?
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Depends on your definition of autonomous, I guess.  ;D
 
Tarheel Baptist said:
Just me said:
Tarheel Baptist said:
http://tollelege.wordpress.com/2007/08/13/what-can-miserable-christians-sing-by-carl-r-trueman/

A diet of unremittingly jolly choruses and hymns inevitably creates an unrealistic horizon of expectation which sees the normative Christian life as one long triumphalist street party — a theologically incorrect and a pastorally disastrous scenario in a world of broken individuals. Has an unconscious belief that Christianity is — or at least should be — all about health, wealth, and happiness silently corrupted the content of our worship?
Few Christians in areas where the church has been strongest over recent decades — China, Africa, Eastern Europe – would regard uninterrupted emotional highs as normal Christian experience.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Miserable Christians???

Isn't that an oxymoron?
Click to expand...

Depends on your definition of autonomous, I guess.  ;D
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According to one well know IFBx "pastor", "definitions are relative"  or so he says when it is to his advantage.
 
But for the record if you want to dwell in your "miserable Christianity" go for it.

I refuse to any longer.  I realize Xer type preachers have to keep their sheeples in that state of mind to help control them but I broke out of that mold years ago.

Come to think of it maybe Osteen is not so far off base
 
I don't think he was arguing for keeping people in a miserable state, he was saying we need hymnody that doesn't pretend like such a state doesn't exist in the Christian life.
As for your Sheeple comment, most of the manipulative personality cults that I know are all about peppy music.
 
pastorryanhayden said:
I don't think he was arguing for keeping people in a miserable state, he was saying we need hymnody that doesn't pretend like such a state doesn't exist in the Christian life.
As for your Sheeple comment, most of the manipulative personality cults that I know are all about peppy music.
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Hyperbole is lost on some people.  :)
Some former IFB's still seem to be obsessed over what they 'left behind'.....
 
I hate most modern worship songs. 

"In all I do, I honor you."

Yeah, go ahead and sing lies.  I'm sure that glorifies God. 
 
Castor Muscular said:
I hate most modern worship songs. 

"In all I do, I honor you."
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I thought that was Bryan Adams.  ;)
 
I'm talking about songs like "Love Lifted Me" and "In My Heart There Rings A Melody".  Not CCM, that ha it own set of problems.
 
Just me said:
Love Lifted Me

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/sounds/Hymns/rings_a_melody.htm


hmmmm don't get it, I guess. 

What is wrong with merry go round music?
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It stinks? 

I love hymns, but if you think about the way some hymns are written, they could easily be sung in the style of a barber shop quartet.  Which is no coincidence, but that's another story...  Anyway, I can't help but giggle when a hymn starts sounding like a barber shop quartet song...
 
Nothing is wrong with merry go round or barber shop quartet music.  What's wrong is a steady diet of it.  It's like cotton candy.  It's good for a treat now and then but not something you eat with every meal.
The problem in question here isn't nesscasarilly musical style so much as musical content.  A steady diet of happy, happy, happy gets you shallow, shallow, shallow.  The Psalms, God's inspired hymnal runs the gamut of emotions and subjects whereas modern popular hymnody is pretty consistently upbeat, even artificially so. 
That's what Trueman was saying.
I think we are already seeing the pendulum swing on this with the hymns being written by Keith Getty, Chris Anderson, etc.
 
I knew it.....

to much Just as I am for the invitation!

Wait that isn't happy happy happy

nevermind

Seriuosly, content is important.  I agree with that but psalms, hymns and spirtual songs cover a wide range of content.
 
I would suspect that there were a lot of really awful songs in the 1600-1800s that were part of the church service. My guess would be that they were eventually recognized as awful so we only have the comparatively good ones left. (For example, All Creatures of Our God and King was written around 1200 and is excellent. Same with the Doxology and it was written in the late 1600s.)

The songs in today's hymnals are going through this process, and as the songbooks get redone, the bad ones will eventually die out. (Well...some pretty terrible songs seem to be quite popular among some folks. The songs on the radio (i.e. CCM) are at the very beginning of this stage so it will take a bit longer although there are still some really tremendous songs being released (e.g. In Christ Alone, How Deep the Father's Love for Us).
 
rsc2a said:
I would suspect that there were a lot of really awful songs in the 1600-1800s that were part of the church service. My guess would be that they were eventually recognized as awful so we only have the comparatively good ones left. (For example, All Creatures of Our God and King was written around 1200 and is excellent. Same with the Doxology and it was written in the late 1600s.)

The songs in today's hymnals are going through this process, and as the songbooks get redone, the bad ones will eventually die out. (Well...some pretty terrible songs seem to be quite popular among some folks. The songs on the radio (i.e. CCM) are at the very beginning of this stage so it will take a bit longer although there are still some really tremendous songs being released (e.g. In Christ Alone, How Deep the Father's Love for Us).
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I agree to an extent.
When I first went off to college, my pastor gave me an ancient (early 1800s) hymnal he had found as a gift.  Eventually, I started reading it.  What I found was a lot of songs with solid, Biblical content.  There was more "meat" to the songs.  It seemed like the people in that day had a better theological understanding.
I don't know if that understanding follows the hymnody, or the hymnody follows the understanding.  But there have definitely been times in history where at least the lyrics of the music bore a better resemblance to the Bible.  It seems like around the late 1800s early 1900s that hymns started to become POPULAR music, and hymns got commercialized and a lot of that has found its way into our hymnals.
My churches favorite songs are (Based on when we take favorites) And Can It Be, In Christ Alone, How Deep the Father's Love for Us, Bow the Knee (Ron Hamilton), My Jesus Fair (Chris Anderson), Beneath the Cross of Jesus (Getty) and my personal favorite Before the Throne of God Above.  While we definitely have "traditional" services, most of those hymns were written or retuned in the last thirty years.
 
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