Hymns as Literature
As I look back at my formative years, I see music and musical influences appearing as early as I can recall. I remember my brother’s Bee Gee’s drum set, the stack of Barry Manilow vinyls my mom had, and my other brother’s Iron Maiden and Kiss albums. In fact, I claimed the Kiss Destroyer album as my own because I developed an affection for it, the only way a four-year-old can. Crocodile Rock, The Warrior, Mr. Roboto, and Photograph were some of my favorite songs. Popular music was an integral part of my life much like a kidney or my epidermis. Because of my religious upbringing, I was prohibited from listening to much of the music that I liked, although, that hardly prevented me from continuing to buy cassettes and listening to the radio. By the way, dad, that Def Leppard cassette was not part of a research project for English class. I’m sure you already knew that.
Associated with my “devil music” prohibition was getting a steady dose of the classics at church on Sunday. By classics, I mean hymns. Though they compared very little to my taste in music, I tolerated them to a point of mild enjoyment. The songs were about God, people enjoyed singing them, and I was sure God enjoyed it so that was good enough for me.
Over the next couple of decades I experienced a shift in the way people viewed hymns in some of the Christian circles I was associated with. Praise and worship music emerged and a generation latched onto it claiming it as the new music for our generation appropriate for church. Many excluded hymns in favor of praise and worship and shunned hymns as being archaic, yet suitable for the older generations. Later, hymns were embraced and reinvented with a fresh touch when people realized they could mix popular music styles with old hymns. I’m not sure if this was done to appease the osteoperosis- and arthritis-afflicted fists being shaken in the air or they recognized the value and power of the teachings of those old, forsaken songs. Nevertheless, the hymn has emerged anew and afresh while living a parallel, unchanged existence in the traditional church equipped with a piano and organ.
Almost a decade ago, during a conversation with a fellow pastor on the importance of hymns and the emergence of new music, I remarked that hymns aren’t on the same inspired plane as the Bible. To which he replied, “I’d have to disagree.” I’d like to think that he intended to convey that some hymns are inspired insomuch as they put Scriptural content to music. It doesn’t make the hymn inspired but the content of the song consists of words from the Bible. Other hymns, although biblical and theological in content, are not inspired (God-breathed) because Charles Wesley, Fanny Crosby, and others were not contributors to the canon of Scripture. Are hymns the inspired Word of God? Not categorically. Do they communicate biblical truths? Mostly.
One reason a generation of Christians has abandoned the hymn is because of the musical style and the traditional piano/organ accompaniment. 
I’ve spent five paragraphs already talking about music and the ironic thing is this article isn’t really about music. Let me explain.
Hymns are an important and foundational heritage in the Christian church. I suppose, after a certain amount of years, the hymn book as we know it and its songs will exist in ecclesiastical history and will eventually be substituted for current and future styles of music and methods of worship. Hymns don’t have to be stricken from our worship just because a musical genre is dying a slow death.
My solution: reintroduce hymns as literature. Hymns - music = poetry. Package some up into a book and you have hundreds of years of literature expressing the human condition, the nature of God, and the power of salvation. Sure, it might take a long time to disassociate the melodies with the words but the message of the old hymns can still be a part of our personal and corporate worship experience. In fact, there are probably people in our churches, even our children, who are completely unfamiliar with hymns and so introducing “early Christian poetry” (hymns) to them wouldn’t carry the negative associations with it and they might embrace it as literature. In fact, many, if not most, hymns were originally written as poetry and the music was added years later so labeling them as literature would be returning them to their original state and intent.
If you know me, you’ll understand that I prefer more contemporary styles of music and singing a traditional hymn isn’t in my arsenal of spiritual warfare and personal worship. I do, however, appreciate the unique way hymns communicate aspects of God’s character, our need for salvation, the destructive nature of sin, the transforming power of the Spirit, the imminent return of Jesus, and our eternal life in Heaven.
Do you have any thoughts on the subject or a favorite early Christian poetry? Share it in the comments below.
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