Quick. Where do these lyrics come from?
“Amazing love, how can it be
That you, my King, should die for me?”
Or, what about: “O, for a thousand tongues to sing.”
No, actually. Neither are by Charles Wesley, at least not directly. The Aussie Christian pop group, the Newsboys sing them in You Are My King and Take My Hands.
But listening to them again reminded me of the oft-cited reasons for using Christian Contemporary Music (CCM) in worship:
“I love it. It speaks to me, and ushers me into God’s presence.”
“This is what the kids are listening to. If we want to get their attention, we need to play it in church.”
“We need songs written in our time: fresh, contemporary idioms for contemporary realities.”
The first I find irrefutable, and perhaps the best of the three, especially when the music is used congregationally and not only as solo performances. The second is an argument used by advertisers, and I will say that they are pretty canny in their use of musical trends to sell products. But young people know when they’re being pandered to, so this motivation needs to be linked with a genuine knowledge and love of the music—which brings us straight back to the first argument.
It’s the last one that I’ve heard most often. It seems to offer a strong case, but when I listen to CCM artists, I keep hearing not contemporary idioms but the old language, the cadences of Wesley and Watts, the language of “traditional” hymns and the King James Bible.
I keep looking for Christian pop writers who can actually re-fashion the language of faith, and forge new idioms of Christian expression.
I’m still looking. In the meantime, are there contemporary writers, in any musical genre, who are facing contemporary realities with contemporary language, and re-shaping Christian language in their songs and hymns?
Here are just a few. In this column, I start with lyricists (with a couple of nods to the music). I offered some of their pithy quotations a few columns ago.
New Zealand’s Shirley Erena Murray writes about many themes in pointed, spare and contemporary language. Her song God Waits is a powerful song about our responsibility in the needs all around us. It counters the comforting picture of the God who acts to set right what we have messed up. It has been set by several composers, notably by songwriter Jim Strathdee. You can find that one in More Voices, the new supplement from the United Church.
North Carolina’s Mary Louise Bringle, published by Chicago-based GIA, has written hymns about Alzheimer’s patients and those who care for them, about gender roles, and about the Trinity in Play of the Godhead. She reminds us of the biblical connection between Christians, Jews and Muslims in her song In Star and Crescent. This one can also be found in More Voices, set by Jane Best, a songwriter from Manitoulin Island.
Speaking of gender language, Ruth Duck has been re-fashioning and enriching our language both for God and for humanity since the 70’s. Her recasting of the hymn Guide Us, O Thou Great Jehovah as Guide Us, O Thou Cloud of Presence is as startling as it is deeply biblical. She works in Evanston, IL, and can be found at ruthduckhymnist.net.
Dallas hymnwriter and congregational song leader John Thornburg describes God in one song as “the sculptor of the mountains, God the miller of the sand.” He also calls God “the nuisance to the pharaoh.” He originally wrote “God the fly in pharoah’s ointment,” but thought better of it. (It’s still a good thought.) The setting by Brooklyn-based composer Amanda Husberg starts out like a slow dance from a high school sock hop circa 1957, and then takes us to unexpected places in a melody that both dances and soars.
Pablo Sosa, from Argentina, often writes in the voices of the poor people of the world. In one song, Villancico Del Cartonero, a man who collects cardboard around the city finds an abandoned baby and gives it shelter in a “Made in Taiwan” box. In another, a man cries out in a hoarse voice, compelled to hope though unable to believe. Sosa writes popular songs, songs of the people, finding musical forms that add layers of meaning to the words. Sosa is now published by GIA.
As Dave Matthews says, “So much to say, so much to say.” In my next column: Canada’s own “Common Cup Company,” who invite us to think about the Holy Spirit in new ways; Presbyterian Glen Soderholm who writes a mean psalm rocker; Zimbabwe’s Patrick Matsikenyiri (quoted in another column), who writes out of the troubles that his country faces daily; Pennsylvania hymn poet Richard D. Leach, and songwriters Allison Lynn and her husband Gerald Flemming, newly returned to Toronto from Nashville, and more.
