Dr. T. David Gordon was kind enough to answer a few questions regarding his forthcoming book, Why Johnny Can't Sing Hymns: How Pop Culture Re-Wrote the Hymnal (to be published by P&R early this summer), which is a sequel to his excellent book on preaching, Why Johnny Can't Preach: The Media Have Shaped the Messengers, which I blogged on here, here, and here (and highly recommend). Dr. Gordon is Professor of Religion and Greek at Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania. Prior to teaching at Grove City College, he taught New Testament for thirteen years at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
What led you to write Why Johnny Can't Sing Hymns, and how is it different from the abundance of books recently published on the subject of music and/or worship styles in the church?
Both books (Why Johnny Can't Preach and Why Johnny Can't Sing Hymns) are informed by my study of media ecology; therefore, my perspective on the matter differs from that of non-media-ecologists. In the last 70 years, substantial changes happened to music in American culture:
- music moved from being participatory to passive (folk music, performed by average people, has all but disappeared, and has been replaced by pop music)
- music went from being communal to being, largely, individual (began with the Sony Walkman, but music is now heard solitarily)
- because of the commercial interests, pop music has replaced sacred music, classical music, and folk music. For the vast majority of Americans, the only music that SOUNDS like music is pop music, because they are surrounded by it. It is in the “background” when shopping, putting gas in the car, dining in restaurants, on TV and film. So nothing else registers as music. The consequence is that many churches have effectively abandoned the church’s rich history of hymnody for trifling contemporary stuff.
You talked quite a bit about reading poetry and the importance of verse in Why Johnny Can’t Preach. Do you see a connection between our sparse reading of poetry today and our inability to sing hymns?
There probably is a relationship between not reading poetry and tolerating contemporary worship music. If one reads poetry, one comes to appreciate language that is well-crafted; in the process, one becomes less accepting of language that is poorly crafted. So, most contemporary worship makes me cringe not only musically but also lyrically (not to mention theologically). The commercial forces in our culture want us to be content with pablum, because it is easier to produce pablum than really good stuff. Those commercial forces have pushed us away from demanding disciplines such as reading verse (where there is almost no room for significant commercial profit); and in the process, we as a culture no longer notice inferior art, because we are surrounded by it.
Does the inability to sing hymns seem to be a generational problem (say fifty-somethings and under), or is it more widespread than that?
There’s probably a small generational difference, because some younger people now have never been in a church where many hymns were sung, so they are entirely unfamiliar with them. But many middle-aged people have also been influenced by a culture in which pop music has effectively crowded out all other forms.
Are you encouraged by what seems to be a current trend of returning to both writing and singing theologically rich hymns?
I’m not sure I’ve observed a trend of writing good hymns yet. I’ll be delighted if one emerges, of course; but I don’t believe it will happen. Nor would this solve the problem. The problem is the discarding of older forms. Christianity is not a new religion, and whenever it is “dressed up” in contemporary garb, that itself is problematic; it sends the wrong meta-message. The solution, that is, is not to write BETTER contemporary-sounding music, but to write music that doesn’t SOUND contemporary. E. Margaret Clarkson just died in the last five years or so. She was a Canadian hymnwriter, who wrote many hymns. But none of her hymns SOUND contemporary. If one didn’t know better, one might think some of her hymns were written a century or two ago. To me, THAT is the solution; to jettison contemporaneity itself, as a value inconsistent with the Christian religion. You’ll have to read the book to see if my arguments on this point are persuasive.
Can you give us a glimpse into how the book is arranged or structured?
Here is the Table of Contents:
Introduction: My Pastoral Concerns
Chapter One: Introductory Considerations
Chapter Two: Aesthetic Relativism
Chapter Three: Form and Content
Chapter Four: “Meta-message”
Chapter Five: “Sacred Music”?
Chapter Six: Three Musical Genres
Chapter Seven: Musical Questions
Chapter Eight: Contemporaneity as a Value
Chapter Nine: Song and Prayer
Chapter Ten: The Mind, Sentiment, and Sentimentality
Chapter Eleven: Ritual (Formality and Informality)
Chapter Twelve: Strategic Issues
Chapter Thirteen: Concluding Thoughts
Chapter Fourteen: Teaching Johnny Hymnody
