I can never understand what singing 'All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place,' is supposed to achieve.
Go and welcome people. Don't just sing about it.
That first “All” should be “all,” with a lower case c, as it doesn’t actually start the sentence.
The hymn was written for the consecration of a church, and is essentially a prayer that the church will be a place where all are welcome, that the church will live into its calling.
In which case it would make sense in that original context.
It doesn't make much sense to me to sing it congregationally on any other occasion unless it's an attempt to convince each other that we are all lovely, wonderful, inclusive and welcoming people. Which may or may not be the case.
But then a lot of hymns and worship songs, as well as traditional liturgical texts contain aspirational statements.
Apologies for the upper-case 'A'.
@ChastMastr I'm told that the dreadful puns tend to occur in troporia to local Greek, Russian and Balkan Saints. They tend to riff on the Saint's name. They are ironed out when translated into English. I'll try and find some examples.
That said, English translations of Orthodox liturgical texts and hymns are generally very clunky and written in faux Elizabethan English.
I like those which contain contrasts and paradoxes, 'He who is invisible is made visible ...' etc
But we are getting away from CCM and such. It's significant and unsurprising I think that we can cite artists and examples from 30 or 40 years ago. What are younger Christians listening to in terms of CCM these days?
I saw Don Francisco in concert years ago in Newport. An excellent storyteller in song. Recently I discovered Dolly Parton did a cover of "He's Alive" which is told from Peter's point of view after the crucifixion through to his encounter with the resurrected Jesus.
From the archives, here is Don Francisco singing “He’s Alive” and if you look carefully you’ll see a young Dolly Parton in the audience.
I can never understand what singing 'All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place,' is supposed to achieve.
Go and welcome people. Don't just sing about it.
That first “All” should be “all,” with a lower case c, as it doesn’t actually start the sentence.
The hymn was written for the consecration of a church, and is essentially a prayer that the church will be a place where all are welcome, that the church will live into its calling.
In which case it would make sense in that original context.
It doesn't make much sense to me to sing it congregationally on any other occasion unless it's an attempt to convince each other that we are all lovely, wonderful, inclusive and welcoming people. Which may or may not be the case.
But then a lot of hymns and worship songs, as well as traditional liturgical texts contain aspirational statements.
I deliberately chose "All are welcome" at my induction service, to express my aspiration as to what I hoped this church would be.
I can never understand what singing 'All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place,' is supposed to achieve.
Go and welcome people. Don't just sing about it.
That first “All” should be “all,” with a lower case c, as it doesn’t actually start the sentence.
The hymn was written for the consecration of a church, and is essentially a prayer that the church will be a place where all are welcome, that the church will live into its calling.
In which case it would make sense in that original context.
It doesn't make much sense to me to sing it congregationally on any other occasion unless it's an attempt to convince each other that we are all lovely, wonderful, inclusive and welcoming people. Which may or may not be the case.
I’m sure you know that just because it doesn’t make sense to you doesn’t mean it doesn’t make sense to others.
I’ve never encountered it where it appeared to be “an attempt to convince each other that we are all lovely, wonderful, inclusive and welcoming people.” To the contrary, it generally hits more as a challenge—are we really as inclusive and welcoming as we might like to think we are?
Sure, and I know I'm being deliberately awkward. I know it's biblical to exhort and challenge one another but for whatever reason I'm uncomfortable about songs that seem more about 'us' than addressed to Almighty God.
But I recognise that a lot of hymns are like that, right across the board.
By the same token I feel uncomfortable with those contemporary worship songs that tell God how fervent and devoted we are when my actions and attitudes aren't anywhere near in line with that.
I'm sure I'm not the only one.
I'm not 'against' the 'all are welcome' song or opposed to its sentiments but it evokes a similar reaction to how I feel when I attend an evangelical service where the lead guy or gal spends the first 5 minutes telling us how welcome we are and how 'excited' they are that we are there ... etc etc etc.
Perhaps I'm an awkward so and so. As soon as someone says, 'all are welcome', I think, 'really?'
Or when a preacher or worship leader tells me how welcome I ought to feel I immediately feel the opposite.
I hate false bonhomie or a welcome which has the unspoken addition "...provided you're like us". I also agree that possibly more hymns and worships songs ought to be about God rather than "m"e and how "I" feel (although quite a lot of the Psalms seem to fall into that category!). Nevertheless I find it hard to identify with your comments on this occasion.
I hate false bonhomie or a welcome which has the unspoken addition "...provided you're like us". I also agree that possibly more hymns and worships songs ought to be about God rather than "m"e and how "I" feel (although quite a lot of the Psalms seem to fall into that category!). Nevertheless I find it hard to identify with your comments on this occasion.
Same here.
And if I’m honest, I find them a bit of a screed that is really quite predictable in threads on contemporary church music.
If you actually read the verses of "all are welcome" it's abundantly clear that it's aspirational, not a statement of current fact. I have a growing dislike of the song because we have it all the bloody time but that's a different issue.
I think grammatically 'All be welcome' would make it clearer that it's an aspiration.
Wild Goose songs always make me feel that they'd work better as sermons or lectures. I can't put my finger on why - it may just be that John Bell was an outstanding preacher and no musical accompaniment could match John Bell's delivery of the same sentiments.
I hate false bonhomie or a welcome which has the unspoken addition "...provided you're like us". I also agree that possibly more hymns and worships songs ought to be about God rather than "m"e and how "I" feel (although quite a lot of the Psalms seem to fall into that category!). Nevertheless I find it hard to identify with your comments on this occasion.
Same here.
And if I’m honest, I find them a bit of a screed that is really quite predictable in threads on contemporary church music.
My being - or perhaps rather 'feeling' - deliberately awkward can I think further discussion (it's up to others to decide whether it's 'good') insofar as I don't intend a value judgement on the song itself or on @Baptist Trainfan for choosing it for his inaugural service.
What I saying is that I'm being 'deliberately awkward' in not going along with it as it were even though the aspirations it expresses are clearly laudable.
That betokens 'awkwardness' on my part rather anything 'wrong' with John Bell or anyone else.
'I sang a dirge and you did not mourn, I played a pipe and you would not dance,' sort of thing.
I s'pose I find the earnest preachiness of songs like that somewhat hard to take. As @Dafyd observes, material of this kind tends to work better in sermons.
As for the 'all the bloody time' aspect that @Arethosemyfeet identifies ... I'm not sure any Christian tradition escapes that entirely.
With some liberal Protestant churches you know you're going to get the same selection of standards that express particular aspirations.
Equally, in charismatic evangelical circles it tends to be the same handful of worship songs over and over again.
In my own Big T Tradition it's the same annual cycle of services round and round, rinse and repeat.
Any repeated activity becomes well, repetitive over time. That may be good, bad or indifferent. Rule on rule, line on line, a little here, a little there.
But we've got onto worship songs and hymnody again rather than CCM which is what this thread is about.
I've yet to look up the Daniel Amos links @ChastMastr recommended.
I will get round to that in due course.
Meanwhile, apologies if I derailed the thread. Let's shunt it back on track.
Up in the night ... must develop a regular sleep pattern. I often nod off in the afternoon and then wake up in the wee small hours.
I looked up Daniel Amos's 'Alarma', @ChastMastr. I thought they were singing 'Obama' ... 😉
I also watched part of a 2011 gig on You Tube. Standard rock format and tropes and nothing wrong with that. I'd have enjoyed seeing them live and a cut above the average Christian rock band I thought.
I didn't listen to enough to assess whether they were as quirky or as innovative as you've suggested but Wikipedia indicates a range of both familiar and unfamiliar references - authors I'd not heard of for instance.
So, yes, nice one.
Thanks for introducing me to them.
A few people have mentioned / asked what's going on with the more recent CCM scene.
Can anyone shed any light on that?
We are all of a certain age it seems but someone must be able to comment on that.
I would concur with the Wild Goose comment - I think they want to be different and not just "Shiny Happy People". But they don't make easy songs.
I once heard someone say "Christians don't tell many lies. But they sing a whole lot". It stuck with me (hence why I remember it now). It may be aspirational, but I think we have seen with the rhetoric of the right that aspirational so often becomes "Lets redefine words so that we can claim this is happening here and now with us. And only us."
It is verbal manipulation. It is carefully thought out wordplay.
One reason I feel happier with the Quakers is we don't have anything like as much manipulative word-play. I won't say none. But when it is in every song and every sermon, it can be too much.
I came face to face today with the extent to which my aversion to CCM is stylistic. A joint service tomorrow has a Hillsong version of My hope is built on nothing less and all the online versions of it just weird me out. I have no issue with the traditional hymn version, and most of the words are the same. I'd like to believe it's just that I don't like Hillsong as an organisation, but there are plenty of hymns I like that have a somewhat dubious source. No, it's the style, it just rubs me up the wrong way. I'm hoping that it will sound less disagreeable in the hands of skilled musicians but right now.
I think our aversion to various things can very much depend on the associations we bring to them.
I think the same applies to 'holy places' and 'sacred spaces' too - rather than these locations being 'spiritually radioactive' as it were - although I am someone who does have a pronounced 'sense of place' and of genius locii and so forth. Samuel Palmer's 'mystic glimmer behind the hills'.
I remember reading how recordings of regional UK accents 'scored' very differently when played to US audiences that didn't have the same associations with the regions represented that UK listeners might.
I know the old arrangements of My Hope Is Built On Nothing Less but am not familiar with the Hillsongs version.
As an experiment in 'guilt by association' or otherwise I'll look them up online now in a minute as we'd say in South Wales to see whether or not they weird me out as they do to @Arethosemyfeet.
We all carry a lot of cultural baggage. I can cope with a lot more sentimentality when it's presented in Welsh hymns in the minor key, for instance, than I can in other forms. That's purely a cultural reaction given my South Walian roots.
There are a whole range of factors involved in our responses to things.
I'll be back in a tick with with my response to the afore-said Hillsongs arrangement.
Perhaps I ought to wait awhile and run a sweep so Shipmates can guess what it's going to be.
I sing the Hillsong version all the time and it doesn’t weird me out, perhaps it is just what we are used to.
This thread’s beginning to look a lot like yet another thread bashing worship songs. I sometimes wonder why I bother sticking around this board.
Rightio - back from listening to a few versions of My Hope Is Built On Nothing Less.
I listened to two - or part of two - Hillsong versions and one non-Hillsongs US version with a pronounced revivalist flavour.
None of them 'weirded' me out - perhaps because I'm familiar with the style in each case - although I'd not heard any of these particular arrangements before.
So those of you who may have anticipated I'd slag them off were wide of the mark on this occasion.
I must admit I preferred the older and more 'revivalist' version, perhaps because it stuck to the original words and didn't introduce any additional material or flourishes.
That doesn't mean the Hillsongs version offended me in any way. It didn't but then I didn't find it particularly uplifting either.
The Hillsong version is sung a lot in UK Baptist circles. All right, some folk may dislike the musical genre or regard it as "not being the proper version" - but it clearly seems to "click" with many folk in a way that the traditional version doesn't. That is surely a virtue; and its lyrics have decent content.
BTW it's interesting to note how some "traditional" hymns have come back into the sung repertoire, eg "Here is love, vast as the ocean" or "Be thou my vision" (although I intensely dislike arrangements of the latter with a driving beat, YMMV).
I sing the Hillsong version all the time and it doesn’t weird me out, perhaps it is just what we are used to.
This thread’s beginning to look a lot like yet another thread bashing worship songs. I sometimes wonder why I bother sticking around this board.
I thought I'd made it very clear that this was about my personal taste, not bashing CCM, I'm sorry that this wasn't the case. To say it more explicitly: whatever disagreements I might have with the source churches of much CCM, whatever disagreements I might have with the theology, my visceral reaction does not seem to be a result of these but rather is my personal aversion to the style. I am far more tolerant of wonky theology or sources in churches I vehemently disagree with when it comes to traditional church music (I love traditional Gaelic psalmody, for example, and that is practically welded to hardline Calvinism) and things in a folk or pseudo-Celtic style than I am of this style of CCM, and that's something I need to sit with and work out why, because I haven't reckoned with it properly.
It's going to be hard to discuss a reaction that is a mystery to the person having it.
Like any cover, those hymn re-harmonizations are going to divide opinion, and there's going to be plenty to object to if one chooses; whether it be the addition of syncopation, selection of verses, the added bridge, or the fact that they are often pitched to be most comfortable to a tenor.
That said I feel the Hillsong's version is one of the better examples of these (and at least doesn't shy away from including a verse that's a bit more 'blue') and in general the theology of Hillsong's music output is far better than the theology of the church (though at this point all the major sources of modern worship music have had their scandals, so pick your poison I suppose).
@Heavenlyannie - if it helps, I'm not averse to all worship songs and choruses nor CCM for that matter. I was pleased @ChastMastr introduced me to Daniel Amos, for instance.
I'd have had no problem about going to see any of their gigs, although I'm not going to dash out and buy their albums.
I'm a bit like @Arethosemyfeet on this one. I'm happier with folky and faux-Celtic styles than with Hillsongs style arrangements, although I didn't feel 'weirded out' or 'offended' by this particular example. I'm not particularly fond of the original in this instance but find myself having a preference for it.
I don't like the added bridge and so on, but that's a subjective reaction and I'm not criticising anyone for singing the Hillsongs version.
I'm out of the loop with contemporary worship songs and don't encounter them that often, but agree with @chrisstiles that the general theological content of Hillsongs worship material is better than what they teach and preach.*
The same applies to Bethel songs I would add, and Bethel's theology (such as it is) is decidedly dodgy I feel. I wouldn't say that about all evangelical charismatic churches though, even though I'm on a different page.
I knew, and respected, a URC minister who used to 'vet' all the songs sung in his church for theological content.
His wife liked contemporary worship songs and was disappointed that some of her favourites didn't pass his 'soundness' test.
Not that many got through the net.
*Interestingly, a few years ago I met a group of young people from a Hillsongs church at an ecumenical conference largely made up of old farts like me.
I was impressed by them and at the risk of sounding like a patronising old git, I found them more theologically savvy than I expected.
Talking of reworking traditional hymns has anyone come across an album by Jars Of Clay that was all rock/contemporary arrangements with new tunes to exactly such hymns. I thought it was pretty good. I don't know what happened to my CD -guess I must have lent it to someone...
I sing the Hillsong version all the time and it doesn’t weird me out, perhaps it is just what we are used to.
This thread’s beginning to look a lot like yet another thread bashing worship songs. I sometimes wonder why I bother sticking around this board.
I thought I'd made it very clear that this was about my personal taste, not bashing CCM, I'm sorry that this wasn't the case. To say it more explicitly: whatever disagreements I might have with the source churches of much CCM, whatever disagreements I might have with the theology, my visceral reaction does not seem to be a result of these but rather is my personal aversion to the style. I am far more tolerant of wonky theology or sources in churches I vehemently disagree with when it comes to traditional church music (I love traditional Gaelic psalmody, for example, and that is practically welded to hardline Calvinism) and things in a folk or pseudo-Celtic style than I am of this style of CCM, and that's something I need to sit with and work out why, because I haven't reckoned with it properly.
Having found the rendition at church this morning thoroughly unobjectionable I can only surmise my discomfort was due to the performance style. Embarrassingly it may even be as simple as a prejudice about the Americanised (when not actually American) accent that seems to feature in a lot of CCM. I do recall at university, where the chapel used a fair amount of modern worship songs, why those most familiar with them seemed to put on an American accent for them, even when the author was not American.
Interesting that you found it unobjectionable when I was sung in church @Arethosemyfeet.
My little experiment upthread where I posted some thoughts them went and watched some of the videos was perhaps a parallel case. I didn't find the videos at all objectionable even though I, and no doubt others, expected me to do so.
I think the associations thing come into play here, as well as the affectation of 'mid-Atlantic' or faux American accents.
This sort of thing can happen across the board. For instance, I've not met any British priests who've become Orthodox who affect a Russian, Greek or other accent but I'm told they do exist.
I think it's the case that choral music, particularly in Anglican settings outside southern England, can adopt a very English set of vowel sounds. I'm not entirely sure how separable particular musical styles are from the "voice" used for them. We also had an unaccompanied psalm today, half in Gaelic half in English, and I matched the voice of the man leading, who is a native of the Hebrides, rather than trying to fit my English choral sounds into that musical style. At the same time I don't think I'd be as comfortable adopting Black gospel music "voice" to sing a Spiritual. I wonder if there is something of cultural power dynamics here - making space for Gaelic cultural tradition feels right, here on its home soil, whereas trying to import Black culture into an all-white setting seems disrespectful. White evangelical culture, on the other hand, feels invasive and threatening.
IMO; YMMV etc etc
I have a related problem, in that if I sing hymns in my speaking voice I sound like a bad (and somewhat misplaced) Billy Bragg tribute act. I don't really know what to do about that, but I'm sure I sing wierd as a result. Church people don't seem to mind too much, as I'm loud and it pulls the small congregation along. I was at a friends house in Ireland recently singing folk around the dinner table - there's a short recording, which I shudder to listen to.
White evangelical culture wouldn't necessarily feel 'invasive' within a white evangelical context. Some individuals may find it so in which case they are likely to move on. There are a lot of lapsed Catholics around due to pre-Vatican II heavy-handedness and current stances that people cannot accept. There are plenty of nominally and culturally Orthodox people in majority-Orthodox countries and in the 'diaspora' a lot of teens and young adults drop out of it also.
There are all sorts of factors in play.
I visited an Anglican church that was open as part of the Heritage Open Days scheme - a wondrous scheme indeed and I try and get around places that are open each September when it comes around. The church seemed moderately 'high' with a female incumbent and had a 'lady chapel' which was billed in the notes as 'Mary always listens'.
This contained some Marian imagery and a rack for candles and some Orthodox icons of Mary and some local Anglo-Saxon Saints.
Was this 'cultural appropriation'? Was it inappropriate? Invasive?
No, I don't think so. But then, neither am I completely comfortable with an eclectic mix of 'let's have a bit of that and a bit of that and a ...'.
I spent several decades doing that. We can spend so much time borrowing from other expressions that we can lose out on what's precious and distinctive about our own.
At the same time, I don't necessarily see anything 'wrong' in borrowing from other traditions in and of itself.
But we are getting a long way from CCM.
We still haven't heard from any younger posters - are there any? - on what's going on in the current CCM scene.
White evangelical culture wouldn't necessarily feel 'invasive' within a white evangelical context.
Obviously. But the likes of Hillsong, HTB etc are expansionist and trying to turn other churches into copies of themselves, and their musical styles are part of that in a way that just isn't true of Wild Goose or OCP. I know you're going to come back with "oh, but the Anglo-Catholics did the same thing in 18XX" so let me pre-empt that by saying I'm aware, and also aware that was over a century ago and not on the same organised (and well-financed) scale.
Well, I wasn't going to say that, @Arethosemyfeet, but I was going to echo a point @chrisstiles made earlier that all manner of things we say and sing can have dubious roots.
If we want everything to be squeaky-clean and without taint then we would have to convince ourselves that all this stuff dropped down from heaven without human agency.
As you've raised the 'expansionist' issue, I'd certainly suggest that plenty of movements within Christianity have acted that way.
You've mentioned the Anglo-Catholics, and no, they didn't have the sort of corporate machinery that might characterise a group like Hillsongs but they had wealthy sponsors and backers.
John Wesley 'took over' more religious 'societies' than he actually founded. He always had a eye to the main chance. Does that mean we should reject hymns written by his brother Charles?
I think you're reinforcing my point that it's the associations we might have with the sources of various songs/arrangements that can shape our reactions.
Neither of us particularly 'objected' to the Hillsongs arrangement of the particular hymn we've been discussing, although we both have grave reservations about Hillsongs as an outfit.
Some people will have reservations about Wild Goose because they think it's too liberal or too 'woke' - again associations rather than the quality, aesthetics or singability of the songs themselves.
Heck, it's only in recent years that Baptists and other 'non-conformists' in the UK have become more comfortable with concepts like retreats and pilgrimages, spiritual direction/accompaniment and 'neo-monastic' movements etc.
Previously they would have harboured reservations because of the Catholic associations with such practices.
Hillsongs and HTB are hardly likely to launch a take-over bid for your wee Kirk up in the Hebrides.
As an aside, I know an Anglican team parish in the south of England which shrugged off HTB's involvement and input a year or so back. This was largely for financial considerations. They didn't want to keep paying however much it was that HTB required.
But I met a number of people who'd left for nearby parishes in surrounding villages because they couldn't cope with the way the bright young things foisted upon them operated.
That said, the church was growing as a result of social and community outreach and various laudable initiatives - but also transfers from other churches in the town.
To all intents and purposes, though, given the 'style' and the repertoire I'd have thought it was still under the HTB umbrella.
There is a fairly homogeneous monoculture now in terms of style and content across the charismatic-lite scene, whoever is in charge and whoever pays the bills.
The other thing I was going to say is that we are still drifting further from CCM and still haven't heard from people able to comment on its current iterations.
I get the impression that the black Gospel Music scene is thriving, for instance, with plenty of new and up-and-coming artists, but it isn't a scene I know much about.
As an aside and hopefully not a tangent and in the interests of fairness and balance - I have heard of an Anglo-Catholic style parish which was relieved to find that the HTB-ites pretty much allowed them to do their own thing once the 'take-over' had taken place.
Although in this instance I think they ended up with separate services.
I met an Anglo-Catholic woman from north London recently whose Rector was very concerned about an imminent HTB 'church-plant' arrangement. She was also very nervous about it herself, fearing that an alien style might be forced upon them.
If a new thread is spawned, I'd like to see it focus on what 'good practice' might look like when it comes to shoring up struggling congregations or church-planting and what-not rather than it slagging off the usual suspects such as Hillsongs or HTB.
Not that I carry any brief for either of them of course but there must be ways of learning or applying some principles without necessarily following their template.
The various 'new church' restorationist networks went through a phase of absorbing or taking over existing independent fellowships or churches in denominations such as the Baptists Brethren or the various Pentecostal groups. When this proved problematic they switched to planting their own churches from scratch with mixed results.
RCs and Orthodox can be accused of 'sheep-stealing' also.
Shamelessly double posting, but I remember Hewitt publishing a little book of congratulational songs. It absolutely bombed. I think the problem was that churches who wanted to sing about the subjects covered in the songs didn't use guitars
One might have assumed that at least in theory some of them would have been open to folk music because of the various cultural/political currents over the years.
Actually he was protestant, if he'd been Roman Catholic there would not have been a problem. Christian Folk anyone! I think I may have gone to the only Protestant congregation into it. It seemed to surprise my RC friends at uni when I knew the words. My understanding is that in 70s and 80s this was as close in UK as RCC got to Charismatic choruses.
Up in the night ... must develop a regular sleep pattern. I often nod off in the afternoon and then wake up in the wee small hours.
I looked up Daniel Amos's 'Alarma', @ChastMastr. I thought they were singing 'Obama' ... 😉
I also watched part of a 2011 gig on You Tube. Standard rock format and tropes and nothing wrong with that. I'd have enjoyed seeing them live and a cut above the average Christian rock band I thought.
I didn't listen to enough to assess whether they were as quirky or as innovative as you've suggested but Wikipedia indicates a range of both familiar and unfamiliar references - authors I'd not heard of for instance.
So, yes, nice one.
Thanks for introducing me to them.
A few people have mentioned / asked what's going on with the more recent CCM scene.
Can anyone shed any light on that?
We are all of a certain age it seems but someone must be able to comment on that.
If you jump ahead to the doppelgänger album, you will definitely find stuff that is more quirky from Daniel Amos. When the first song is a modified version of TS Elliot’s poem “the Hollow Men” sort of sung/chanted to the tune of the last song from the previous album, run backwards… 🥰
Shamelessly double posting, but I remember Hewitt publishing a little book of congratulational songs. It absolutely bombed. I think the problem was that churches who wanted to sing about the subjects covered in the songs didn't use guitars
One might have assumed that at least in theory some of them would have been open to folk music because of the various cultural/political currents over the years.
Actually he was protestant, if he'd been Roman Catholic there would not have been a problem.
I know he was protestant? The comment still applies.
Indeed, but we seem to have ended up in a worship songs tangent rather than on CCM.
Yes, I’m not really thinking of worship songs at all, but of the sorts of things one might theoretically have found on the radio on a religious stations decades ago or currently. There is apparently a big movement towards “worship songs“ in Christian contemporary music these days as opposed to anything that might be considered controversial or challenging or anything like that. I mean like apparently a particular kind of worship song that doesn’t really… I’m sorry to say whenever I turn on those stations they just sound really boring to me. But there’s a lot of great stuff from the past and even stuff semi-recently. Amy Grant is even doing interesting things that have gotten some pushback—check this out, for instance. (Yasgur’s farm is where Woodstock was held.) It’s not an explicitly religious song per se but Amy is definitely still Christian, despite claims by her detractors.
Indeed, but we seem to have ended up in a worship songs tangent rather than on CCM.
Yes, I’m not really thinking of worship songs at all, but of the sorts of things one might theoretically have found on the radio on a religious stations decades ago or currently. There is apparently a big movement towards “worship songs“ in Christian contemporary music these days as opposed to anything that might be considered controversial or challenging or anything like that. I mean like apparently a particular kind of worship song that doesn’t really… I’m sorry to say whenever I turn on those stations they just sound really boring to me. But there’s a lot of great stuff from the past and even stuff semi-recently. Amy Grant is even doing interesting things that have gotten some pushback—check this out, for instance. (Yasgur’s farm is where Woodstock was held.) It’s not an explicitly religious song per se but Amy is definitely still Christian, despite claims by her detractors.
I appreciate the Hostly admonition although I took no offence at the comments made.
Brothers and sisters, I ask your forgiveness though for taking this thread into Purgatorial territory almost and from to the brink of Hell.
I was unwise in the wording of some posts and should have said I was 'playing devil's advocate' rather than being 'deliberately awkward" which was an unfortunate choice of phrase on my part.
Although 'devil's advocate' is also far from Heavenly.
I appreciate @ChastMastr's comments about Daniel Amos and how Amy Grant appears to have broadened out. I was only familiar with one or two of her songs.
I noticed that BBC Radio 4's Sunday service took a Gospel music theme this week. More of a mixture of prayers, reflections and chat with illustrative tracks than a service as such.
One of the Gospel singers involved gave a potted history of the UK black Gospel Music scene. It is essentially a fusion of southern US and Moody and Sankey influences with the Caribbean four-line worship chorus. There was a brief mention of Nigerians but nothing on whether influences from there or from Ghana or other African countries were gaining traction.
There was an observation that developments here in the UK had crossed the Atlantic and were influencing black Gospel in the States.
I know very little about Gospel Music although I've attended a few concerts in my time. It does seem to be a thriving and developing scene with up-and-coming new artists.
I'm still wondering whether any Shipmates may have some insights into how the CCM scene is developing now rather than it being a '70s and '80s nostalgia fest.
I was very glad to see, at last, someone mentioning Jars of Clay. Their albums of original music - not covers of hymns/worship songs - contain some excellent songs, good enough that they wouldn’t embarrass you if they cropped up amongst your secular favourites whilst sitting with friends, or driving. (Fitting in with my musical tastes isn’t necessarily a good thing, per Mrs Bantam). Try “Call My Name” or “Two Hands” (both on YouTube) the latter slightly marred by the unwise sotto voce echoing of the words “our souls”….which can easily be misheard!
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There are, but there are many bands who write specifically for the chart success.
I am talking about the last 20 years. It used to be possible - in fact expected - to do both.
Also, don't get me onto the Beatles.
In which case it would make sense in that original context.
It doesn't make much sense to me to sing it congregationally on any other occasion unless it's an attempt to convince each other that we are all lovely, wonderful, inclusive and welcoming people. Which may or may not be the case.
But then a lot of hymns and worship songs, as well as traditional liturgical texts contain aspirational statements.
Apologies for the upper-case 'A'.
@ChastMastr I'm told that the dreadful puns tend to occur in troporia to local Greek, Russian and Balkan Saints. They tend to riff on the Saint's name. They are ironed out when translated into English. I'll try and find some examples.
That said, English translations of Orthodox liturgical texts and hymns are generally very clunky and written in faux Elizabethan English.
I like those which contain contrasts and paradoxes, 'He who is invisible is made visible ...' etc
But we are getting away from CCM and such. It's significant and unsurprising I think that we can cite artists and examples from 30 or 40 years ago. What are younger Christians listening to in terms of CCM these days?
I haven't the first idea.
From the archives, here is Don Francisco singing “He’s Alive” and if you look carefully you’ll see a young Dolly Parton in the audience.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4Lmv_xR6_q8&t=10s&pp=2AEKkAIB&ra=me
Great song.
I deliberately chose "All are welcome" at my induction service, to express my aspiration as to what I hoped this church would be.
I’ve never encountered it where it appeared to be “an attempt to convince each other that we are all lovely, wonderful, inclusive and welcoming people.” To the contrary, it generally hits more as a challenge—are we really as inclusive and welcoming as we might like to think we are?
But I recognise that a lot of hymns are like that, right across the board.
By the same token I feel uncomfortable with those contemporary worship songs that tell God how fervent and devoted we are when my actions and attitudes aren't anywhere near in line with that.
I'm sure I'm not the only one.
I'm not 'against' the 'all are welcome' song or opposed to its sentiments but it evokes a similar reaction to how I feel when I attend an evangelical service where the lead guy or gal spends the first 5 minutes telling us how welcome we are and how 'excited' they are that we are there ... etc etc etc.
Perhaps I'm an awkward so and so. As soon as someone says, 'all are welcome', I think, 'really?'
Or when a preacher or worship leader tells me how welcome I ought to feel I immediately feel the opposite.
Is it just me?
Same here.
And if I’m honest, I find them a bit of a screed that is really quite predictable in threads on contemporary church music.
Wild Goose songs always make me feel that they'd work better as sermons or lectures. I can't put my finger on why - it may just be that John Bell was an outstanding preacher and no musical accompaniment could match John Bell's delivery of the same sentiments.
My being - or perhaps rather 'feeling' - deliberately awkward can I think further discussion (it's up to others to decide whether it's 'good') insofar as I don't intend a value judgement on the song itself or on @Baptist Trainfan for choosing it for his inaugural service.
What I saying is that I'm being 'deliberately awkward' in not going along with it as it were even though the aspirations it expresses are clearly laudable.
That betokens 'awkwardness' on my part rather anything 'wrong' with John Bell or anyone else.
'I sang a dirge and you did not mourn, I played a pipe and you would not dance,' sort of thing.
I s'pose I find the earnest preachiness of songs like that somewhat hard to take. As @Dafyd observes, material of this kind tends to work better in sermons.
As for the 'all the bloody time' aspect that @Arethosemyfeet identifies ... I'm not sure any Christian tradition escapes that entirely.
With some liberal Protestant churches you know you're going to get the same selection of standards that express particular aspirations.
Equally, in charismatic evangelical circles it tends to be the same handful of worship songs over and over again.
In my own Big T Tradition it's the same annual cycle of services round and round, rinse and repeat.
Any repeated activity becomes well, repetitive over time. That may be good, bad or indifferent. Rule on rule, line on line, a little here, a little there.
But we've got onto worship songs and hymnody again rather than CCM which is what this thread is about.
I've yet to look up the Daniel Amos links @ChastMastr recommended.
I will get round to that in due course.
Meanwhile, apologies if I derailed the thread. Let's shunt it back on track.
I looked up Daniel Amos's 'Alarma', @ChastMastr. I thought they were singing 'Obama' ... 😉
I also watched part of a 2011 gig on You Tube. Standard rock format and tropes and nothing wrong with that. I'd have enjoyed seeing them live and a cut above the average Christian rock band I thought.
I didn't listen to enough to assess whether they were as quirky or as innovative as you've suggested but Wikipedia indicates a range of both familiar and unfamiliar references - authors I'd not heard of for instance.
So, yes, nice one.
Thanks for introducing me to them.
A few people have mentioned / asked what's going on with the more recent CCM scene.
Can anyone shed any light on that?
We are all of a certain age it seems but someone must be able to comment on that.
I once heard someone say "Christians don't tell many lies. But they sing a whole lot". It stuck with me (hence why I remember it now). It may be aspirational, but I think we have seen with the rhetoric of the right that aspirational so often becomes "Lets redefine words so that we can claim this is happening here and now with us. And only us."
It is verbal manipulation. It is carefully thought out wordplay.
One reason I feel happier with the Quakers is we don't have anything like as much manipulative word-play. I won't say none. But when it is in every song and every sermon, it can be too much.
I think the same applies to 'holy places' and 'sacred spaces' too - rather than these locations being 'spiritually radioactive' as it were - although I am someone who does have a pronounced 'sense of place' and of genius locii and so forth. Samuel Palmer's 'mystic glimmer behind the hills'.
I remember reading how recordings of regional UK accents 'scored' very differently when played to US audiences that didn't have the same associations with the regions represented that UK listeners might.
I know the old arrangements of My Hope Is Built On Nothing Less but am not familiar with the Hillsongs version.
As an experiment in 'guilt by association' or otherwise I'll look them up online now in a minute as we'd say in South Wales to see whether or not they weird me out as they do to @Arethosemyfeet.
We all carry a lot of cultural baggage. I can cope with a lot more sentimentality when it's presented in Welsh hymns in the minor key, for instance, than I can in other forms. That's purely a cultural reaction given my South Walian roots.
There are a whole range of factors involved in our responses to things.
I'll be back in a tick with with my response to the afore-said Hillsongs arrangement.
Perhaps I ought to wait awhile and run a sweep so Shipmates can guess what it's going to be.
Some might say it's a foregone conclusion ...
This thread’s beginning to look a lot like yet another thread bashing worship songs. I sometimes wonder why I bother sticking around this board.
I listened to two - or part of two - Hillsong versions and one non-Hillsongs US version with a pronounced revivalist flavour.
None of them 'weirded' me out - perhaps because I'm familiar with the style in each case - although I'd not heard any of these particular arrangements before.
So those of you who may have anticipated I'd slag them off were wide of the mark on this occasion.
I must admit I preferred the older and more 'revivalist' version, perhaps because it stuck to the original words and didn't introduce any additional material or flourishes.
That doesn't mean the Hillsongs version offended me in any way. It didn't but then I didn't find it particularly uplifting either.
BTW it's interesting to note how some "traditional" hymns have come back into the sung repertoire, eg "Here is love, vast as the ocean" or "Be thou my vision" (although I intensely dislike arrangements of the latter with a driving beat, YMMV).
I agree about the unwelcome driving drum beat in some arrangements of Be Thou My Vision.
I'm in a different Tradition now of course but still like a good hymn.
I'm not sure why the Hillsongs version of My Hope is ... should 'click' with people more than the older one though.
Nor why that's a virtue ... 😉
But one man's fish is another man's poisson.
I thought I'd made it very clear that this was about my personal taste, not bashing CCM, I'm sorry that this wasn't the case. To say it more explicitly: whatever disagreements I might have with the source churches of much CCM, whatever disagreements I might have with the theology, my visceral reaction does not seem to be a result of these but rather is my personal aversion to the style. I am far more tolerant of wonky theology or sources in churches I vehemently disagree with when it comes to traditional church music (I love traditional Gaelic psalmody, for example, and that is practically welded to hardline Calvinism) and things in a folk or pseudo-Celtic style than I am of this style of CCM, and that's something I need to sit with and work out why, because I haven't reckoned with it properly.
I can't comment on CCM; some modern worship music seems good to me, much seems naff, both in music and content.
Like any cover, those hymn re-harmonizations are going to divide opinion, and there's going to be plenty to object to if one chooses; whether it be the addition of syncopation, selection of verses, the added bridge, or the fact that they are often pitched to be most comfortable to a tenor.
That said I feel the Hillsong's version is one of the better examples of these (and at least doesn't shy away from including a verse that's a bit more 'blue') and in general the theology of Hillsong's music output is far better than the theology of the church (though at this point all the major sources of modern worship music have had their scandals, so pick your poison I suppose).
I'd have had no problem about going to see any of their gigs, although I'm not going to dash out and buy their albums.
I'm a bit like @Arethosemyfeet on this one. I'm happier with folky and faux-Celtic styles than with Hillsongs style arrangements, although I didn't feel 'weirded out' or 'offended' by this particular example. I'm not particularly fond of the original in this instance but find myself having a preference for it.
I don't like the added bridge and so on, but that's a subjective reaction and I'm not criticising anyone for singing the Hillsongs version.
I'm out of the loop with contemporary worship songs and don't encounter them that often, but agree with @chrisstiles that the general theological content of Hillsongs worship material is better than what they teach and preach.*
The same applies to Bethel songs I would add, and Bethel's theology (such as it is) is decidedly dodgy I feel. I wouldn't say that about all evangelical charismatic churches though, even though I'm on a different page.
I knew, and respected, a URC minister who used to 'vet' all the songs sung in his church for theological content.
His wife liked contemporary worship songs and was disappointed that some of her favourites didn't pass his 'soundness' test.
Not that many got through the net.
*Interestingly, a few years ago I met a group of young people from a Hillsongs church at an ecumenical conference largely made up of old farts like me.
I was impressed by them and at the risk of sounding like a patronising old git, I found them more theologically savvy than I expected.
Having found the rendition at church this morning thoroughly unobjectionable I can only surmise my discomfort was due to the performance style. Embarrassingly it may even be as simple as a prejudice about the Americanised (when not actually American) accent that seems to feature in a lot of CCM. I do recall at university, where the chapel used a fair amount of modern worship songs, why those most familiar with them seemed to put on an American accent for them, even when the author was not American.
My little experiment upthread where I posted some thoughts them went and watched some of the videos was perhaps a parallel case. I didn't find the videos at all objectionable even though I, and no doubt others, expected me to do so.
I think the associations thing come into play here, as well as the affectation of 'mid-Atlantic' or faux American accents.
This sort of thing can happen across the board. For instance, I've not met any British priests who've become Orthodox who affect a Russian, Greek or other accent but I'm told they do exist.
IMO; YMMV etc etc
White evangelical culture wouldn't necessarily feel 'invasive' within a white evangelical context. Some individuals may find it so in which case they are likely to move on. There are a lot of lapsed Catholics around due to pre-Vatican II heavy-handedness and current stances that people cannot accept. There are plenty of nominally and culturally Orthodox people in majority-Orthodox countries and in the 'diaspora' a lot of teens and young adults drop out of it also.
There are all sorts of factors in play.
I visited an Anglican church that was open as part of the Heritage Open Days scheme - a wondrous scheme indeed and I try and get around places that are open each September when it comes around. The church seemed moderately 'high' with a female incumbent and had a 'lady chapel' which was billed in the notes as 'Mary always listens'.
This contained some Marian imagery and a rack for candles and some Orthodox icons of Mary and some local Anglo-Saxon Saints.
Was this 'cultural appropriation'? Was it inappropriate? Invasive?
No, I don't think so. But then, neither am I completely comfortable with an eclectic mix of 'let's have a bit of that and a bit of that and a ...'.
I spent several decades doing that. We can spend so much time borrowing from other expressions that we can lose out on what's precious and distinctive about our own.
At the same time, I don't necessarily see anything 'wrong' in borrowing from other traditions in and of itself.
But we are getting a long way from CCM.
We still haven't heard from any younger posters - are there any? - on what's going on in the current CCM scene.
Obviously. But the likes of Hillsong, HTB etc are expansionist and trying to turn other churches into copies of themselves, and their musical styles are part of that in a way that just isn't true of Wild Goose or OCP. I know you're going to come back with "oh, but the Anglo-Catholics did the same thing in 18XX" so let me pre-empt that by saying I'm aware, and also aware that was over a century ago and not on the same organised (and well-financed) scale.
If we want everything to be squeaky-clean and without taint then we would have to convince ourselves that all this stuff dropped down from heaven without human agency.
As you've raised the 'expansionist' issue, I'd certainly suggest that plenty of movements within Christianity have acted that way.
You've mentioned the Anglo-Catholics, and no, they didn't have the sort of corporate machinery that might characterise a group like Hillsongs but they had wealthy sponsors and backers.
John Wesley 'took over' more religious 'societies' than he actually founded. He always had a eye to the main chance. Does that mean we should reject hymns written by his brother Charles?
I think you're reinforcing my point that it's the associations we might have with the sources of various songs/arrangements that can shape our reactions.
Neither of us particularly 'objected' to the Hillsongs arrangement of the particular hymn we've been discussing, although we both have grave reservations about Hillsongs as an outfit.
Some people will have reservations about Wild Goose because they think it's too liberal or too 'woke' - again associations rather than the quality, aesthetics or singability of the songs themselves.
Heck, it's only in recent years that Baptists and other 'non-conformists' in the UK have become more comfortable with concepts like retreats and pilgrimages, spiritual direction/accompaniment and 'neo-monastic' movements etc.
Previously they would have harboured reservations because of the Catholic associations with such practices.
Hillsongs and HTB are hardly likely to launch a take-over bid for your wee Kirk up in the Hebrides.
As an aside, I know an Anglican team parish in the south of England which shrugged off HTB's involvement and input a year or so back. This was largely for financial considerations. They didn't want to keep paying however much it was that HTB required.
But I met a number of people who'd left for nearby parishes in surrounding villages because they couldn't cope with the way the bright young things foisted upon them operated.
That said, the church was growing as a result of social and community outreach and various laudable initiatives - but also transfers from other churches in the town.
To all intents and purposes, though, given the 'style' and the repertoire I'd have thought it was still under the HTB umbrella.
There is a fairly homogeneous monoculture now in terms of style and content across the charismatic-lite scene, whoever is in charge and whoever pays the bills.
The other thing I was going to say is that we are still drifting further from CCM and still haven't heard from people able to comment on its current iterations.
I get the impression that the black Gospel Music scene is thriving, for instance, with plenty of new and up-and-coming artists, but it isn't a scene I know much about.
Although in this instance I think they ended up with separate services.
I met an Anglo-Catholic woman from north London recently whose Rector was very concerned about an imminent HTB 'church-plant' arrangement. She was also very nervous about it herself, fearing that an alien style might be forced upon them.
This may be matter for another thread.
Not that I carry any brief for either of them of course but there must be ways of learning or applying some principles without necessarily following their template.
The various 'new church' restorationist networks went through a phase of absorbing or taking over existing independent fellowships or churches in denominations such as the Baptists Brethren or the various Pentecostal groups. When this proved problematic they switched to planting their own churches from scratch with mixed results.
RCs and Orthodox can be accused of 'sheep-stealing' also.
Tricky areas all ways round.
Some people have no other register.
I'd like to remind everyone about Commandment 3: Attack the issue, not the person.
Heaven is not a place for that behavior.
Thank you.
jedijudy Heaven Host
Hanging the robes back in the closet.
Actually he was protestant, if he'd been Roman Catholic there would not have been a problem. Christian Folk anyone! I think I may have gone to the only Protestant congregation into it. It seemed to surprise my RC friends at uni when I knew the words. My understanding is that in 70s and 80s this was as close in UK as RCC got to Charismatic choruses.
If you jump ahead to the doppelgänger album, you will definitely find stuff that is more quirky from Daniel Amos. When the first song is a modified version of TS Elliot’s poem “the Hollow Men” sort of sung/chanted to the tune of the last song from the previous album, run backwards… 🥰
I know he was protestant? The comment still applies.
Yes, I’m not really thinking of worship songs at all, but of the sorts of things one might theoretically have found on the radio on a religious stations decades ago or currently. There is apparently a big movement towards “worship songs“ in Christian contemporary music these days as opposed to anything that might be considered controversial or challenging or anything like that. I mean like apparently a particular kind of worship song that doesn’t really… I’m sorry to say whenever I turn on those stations they just sound really boring to me. But there’s a lot of great stuff from the past and even stuff semi-recently. Amy Grant is even doing interesting things that have gotten some pushback—check this out, for instance. (Yasgur’s farm is where Woodstock was held.) It’s not an explicitly religious song per se but Amy is definitely still Christian, despite claims by her detractors.
“The 6th of January (Yasgur’s Farm)”:
https://youtu.be/jAl05lQm4nQ?is=dSUqteS2xsy0ZvLm
And a more explicitly Christian one, “Beautiful Lone Companion,” from just four months ago:
https://youtu.be/seNi2SyMNJM?is=2Ec1neSnZ2lJLOUo
Brothers and sisters, I ask your forgiveness though for taking this thread into Purgatorial territory almost and from to the brink of Hell.
I was unwise in the wording of some posts and should have said I was 'playing devil's advocate' rather than being 'deliberately awkward" which was an unfortunate choice of phrase on my part.
Although 'devil's advocate' is also far from Heavenly.
I appreciate @ChastMastr's comments about Daniel Amos and how Amy Grant appears to have broadened out. I was only familiar with one or two of her songs.
I noticed that BBC Radio 4's Sunday service took a Gospel music theme this week. More of a mixture of prayers, reflections and chat with illustrative tracks than a service as such.
One of the Gospel singers involved gave a potted history of the UK black Gospel Music scene. It is essentially a fusion of southern US and Moody and Sankey influences with the Caribbean four-line worship chorus. There was a brief mention of Nigerians but nothing on whether influences from there or from Ghana or other African countries were gaining traction.
There was an observation that developments here in the UK had crossed the Atlantic and were influencing black Gospel in the States.
I know very little about Gospel Music although I've attended a few concerts in my time. It does seem to be a thriving and developing scene with up-and-coming new artists.
I'm still wondering whether any Shipmates may have some insights into how the CCM scene is developing now rather than it being a '70s and '80s nostalgia fest.