Happy but not Clappy : WorshipSongs in a Catholic Context
"It was happy but not clappy."
So said a retired priest who recently attended one of our monthly 'New Fire' Masses, where we aim to combine the Charismatic and the Catholic, the Traditional and the Contemporary. The comment was, I believe, intended to be complimentary!
The term 'Happy-Clappy' is, of course, often used in a quite derogatory sense, usually by traditionalists to describe modern Evangelical or Evangelical-Charismatic worship. I must confess that I have often used the phrase in this context in the past to express varying degrees of disapproval and even disdain.
As a classically trained musician and a committed Anglo-Catholic, for many years I poured scorn on all such worship which I saw as being at best banal and at worst positively infantile. Whilst I remain unapologetic in my criticism of any worship that is liturgically illiterate or simply 'dumbed-down' to the lowest common denominator, a broadening (or should that be 'catholicising'?) of my secular musical tastes over the years and a recent experience of Charismatic renewal have changed my perceptions.
I now believe that there is a clear distinction between an adult congregation embarrassingly performing 'action songs' devised for infant school children and singing some of the excellent worship songs written over recent years.
Let's face it, there were some ghastly, trite 'ditties' penned in the late twentieth century, the continuing use of which in my opinion ought to be a criminal offence. On the other hand, Victorian hymnody includes a good deal of theological and musical doggerel. I'm not sure that the musings of Mrs Alexander are much better than the simplistic repetitions of 'Our God is a great big God' or the nauseating schmaltzy chords of such modern 'Catholic' classics as 'In bread we bring you Lord, our bodies' labour.'
Some church people used to ask, "Why should the devil have all the best tunes?". It was a fair enough question. For some reason, for quite some time, so-called 'modern' church music came nowhere near the standard of secular music, nor actually could much of it be genuinely described as 'modern'. But the situation has changed. A few months ago I played a CD of some of the most recent worship songs to a non-believer friend of mine. Although he didn't 'get' the religious sentiments of the lyrics, he loved the music and said that he would happily go to a concert given by the likes of Matt Redman or Stuart Townend!
The simple truth is that every age has produced good, bad and indifferent musical resources for worship. There will always be those who will immediately label anything contemporary as being bad, and those who will insist that everything traditional is boring. The rest of us need to evaluate each work on its merits.
Whatever our church tradition, what is offered in the worship of Almighty God ought always to be of the very best possible quality. That is why I'm unapologetically fussy about how the liturgy is celebrated. Where the music of worship is concerned, there must be two considerations - i.e. is this good music, and do the lyrics express appropriate sentiments rooted in a sound theology? And there, of course, is the rub. Most Worship Songs come from within a conservative evangelical tradition and whilst their melodies may also appeal to those of a more Liberal or Catholic disposition, the theology of the lyrics is often contentious, to say the least. One only has to think of Townend's 'In Christ Alone'. This is surely one of the most popular hymns of our time with congregations of all shades, but what about that line?
Just in case you don't know, the lyrics in question are:
'til on that cross as Jesus died
the wrath of God was satisfied
Someone once said to me, "That's a perfectly good hymn, ruined by its insistence on penal substitutionary atonement." Its writer says that this concept underlies the whole meaning of the hymn and he expressly forbids any changing of the words to suit an alternative theology. In reality, of course, most congregations won't even notice, let alone understand (or possibly even care about) the theological nuances, whereas those responsible for ordering worship can be faced with a dilemma. The same is equally true, however of these familiar words:
There was no other good enough
to pay the price of sin
he only could unlock the gate
of heav'n and let us in.
This all goes to prove that there is indeed nothing new under the sun. Clergy have been either compromising or editing and banning hymns for being too Protestant, too Catholic, too maudlin or too militaristic for decades, if not for centuries, and they will doubtless continue to do so. In the meantime, as some of the old 'tribalism' of 'churchmanship' is eroded, and as a growing number of sacramentally-minded congregations experience renewal in the Holy Spirit, one can only hope that a blind and unthinking prejudice against music that is remotely contemporary will give way to a more objective, open-minded readiness to at least evaluate both the music and lyrics. Above all, there should be a recognition that the traditional and the contemporary can work together.
In our 'New Fire' Mass we haven't compromised at-all on our Catholic ritual, nor will we so long as I'm in post; but we have found great blessings in using worship songs that express the additional dimensions that we are now experiencing through the movement of the Holy Spirit. If this is what it means to be 'happy but not clappy', long may it continue!
So said a retired priest who recently attended one of our monthly 'New Fire' Masses, where we aim to combine the Charismatic and the Catholic, the Traditional and the Contemporary. The comment was, I believe, intended to be complimentary!
The term 'Happy-Clappy' is, of course, often used in a quite derogatory sense, usually by traditionalists to describe modern Evangelical or Evangelical-Charismatic worship. I must confess that I have often used the phrase in this context in the past to express varying degrees of disapproval and even disdain.
As a classically trained musician and a committed Anglo-Catholic, for many years I poured scorn on all such worship which I saw as being at best banal and at worst positively infantile. Whilst I remain unapologetic in my criticism of any worship that is liturgically illiterate or simply 'dumbed-down' to the lowest common denominator, a broadening (or should that be 'catholicising'?) of my secular musical tastes over the years and a recent experience of Charismatic renewal have changed my perceptions.
I now believe that there is a clear distinction between an adult congregation embarrassingly performing 'action songs' devised for infant school children and singing some of the excellent worship songs written over recent years.
Let's face it, there were some ghastly, trite 'ditties' penned in the late twentieth century, the continuing use of which in my opinion ought to be a criminal offence. On the other hand, Victorian hymnody includes a good deal of theological and musical doggerel. I'm not sure that the musings of Mrs Alexander are much better than the simplistic repetitions of 'Our God is a great big God' or the nauseating schmaltzy chords of such modern 'Catholic' classics as 'In bread we bring you Lord, our bodies' labour.'
Some church people used to ask, "Why should the devil have all the best tunes?". It was a fair enough question. For some reason, for quite some time, so-called 'modern' church music came nowhere near the standard of secular music, nor actually could much of it be genuinely described as 'modern'. But the situation has changed. A few months ago I played a CD of some of the most recent worship songs to a non-believer friend of mine. Although he didn't 'get' the religious sentiments of the lyrics, he loved the music and said that he would happily go to a concert given by the likes of Matt Redman or Stuart Townend!
The simple truth is that every age has produced good, bad and indifferent musical resources for worship. There will always be those who will immediately label anything contemporary as being bad, and those who will insist that everything traditional is boring. The rest of us need to evaluate each work on its merits.
Whatever our church tradition, what is offered in the worship of Almighty God ought always to be of the very best possible quality. That is why I'm unapologetically fussy about how the liturgy is celebrated. Where the music of worship is concerned, there must be two considerations - i.e. is this good music, and do the lyrics express appropriate sentiments rooted in a sound theology? And there, of course, is the rub. Most Worship Songs come from within a conservative evangelical tradition and whilst their melodies may also appeal to those of a more Liberal or Catholic disposition, the theology of the lyrics is often contentious, to say the least. One only has to think of Townend's 'In Christ Alone'. This is surely one of the most popular hymns of our time with congregations of all shades, but what about that line?
Just in case you don't know, the lyrics in question are:
'til on that cross as Jesus died
the wrath of God was satisfied
Someone once said to me, "That's a perfectly good hymn, ruined by its insistence on penal substitutionary atonement." Its writer says that this concept underlies the whole meaning of the hymn and he expressly forbids any changing of the words to suit an alternative theology. In reality, of course, most congregations won't even notice, let alone understand (or possibly even care about) the theological nuances, whereas those responsible for ordering worship can be faced with a dilemma. The same is equally true, however of these familiar words:
There was no other good enough
to pay the price of sin
he only could unlock the gate
of heav'n and let us in.
This all goes to prove that there is indeed nothing new under the sun. Clergy have been either compromising or editing and banning hymns for being too Protestant, too Catholic, too maudlin or too militaristic for decades, if not for centuries, and they will doubtless continue to do so. In the meantime, as some of the old 'tribalism' of 'churchmanship' is eroded, and as a growing number of sacramentally-minded congregations experience renewal in the Holy Spirit, one can only hope that a blind and unthinking prejudice against music that is remotely contemporary will give way to a more objective, open-minded readiness to at least evaluate both the music and lyrics. Above all, there should be a recognition that the traditional and the contemporary can work together.
In our 'New Fire' Mass we haven't compromised at-all on our Catholic ritual, nor will we so long as I'm in post; but we have found great blessings in using worship songs that express the additional dimensions that we are now experiencing through the movement of the Holy Spirit. If this is what it means to be 'happy but not clappy', long may it continue!
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