Of Hymns and Hymnals

These days, it's hard to find a good hymnal. We have those of the mainline denominations which have their own liberal bias. They are usually obsessed with their need to be "politically correct." They omit hymns with any military imagery, or other references which they find offensive. Their language must be gender-neutral. Their collections of hymns are theologically slanted toward social messages and modern symbolism which is often hard to follow. As a result, they are not usually very good literature. These hymn books also contain collections of modern hymns which meet these criteria, but which few congregations know or would even care to sing. Then, there are the other hymnals, often produced by independent publishers, attempting to capture the more evangelical church market. They are not obsessed by the need for gender-neutral language; but they do feel the urge to be contemporary and relevant. One result of this is that they try to purge hymns of all language that smacks of the King James Version of the Bible. And since they do want to seem socially relevant, they may include many hymns that are left out of the more liberal hymnals, but with a twist--to make them more acceptable to modern sensibilities. In either case, you wind up with many hymns which purport to be what they in fact are not. Some of the names are the same, but the hymns are effectively rewritten to reflect 21st-century sensibilities. I prefer the older hymnals. I know that even in the older hymn books, the verses which were actually used for certain hymns could vary. But at least, they were not often changed. The choice of hymns would reflect certain biases of a committee or publisher; but at least, the familiar words were not ripped to shreds for essentially political reasons. The theology reflected in those hymns was more in keeping with traditional teachings of the churches. These days, whether trying to appeal to a certain kind of evangelical on the conservative side of the spectrum or the more liberal and "progressive" Christians of another ilk, those who compile and publish hymn books seem to be trying to outdo one another in tampering with the musical heritage of the church. The big losers in all this will be the next generation of Christians.