Article (Times): teaching theology through hymns under threat

[...] By the second half of the 20th century, British Christians were waking up to the possibility that hymns had become alien to those they were trying to attract to services. Whatever the merits of the hymn had been, plugging the Church into popular culture was no longer one of them and hymns were more likely to estrange than engage visitors.

Many attempts have followed to reinvigorate traditions of singing in worship. Electric bands are replacing pipe organs; worship songs and choruses are replacing 18th and 19th-century hymns; and computerised projection screens are beginning to replace hymn books. A number of very fine songs and hymns have been added by contemporary writers to the diet of English-speaking churches. Yet the question grows daily more pressing: is the era of the congregational singing of hymns — and songs — ending as a fruitful part of Christian life and worship in Britain?

If the answer to that question is “yes”, it challenges most acutely those churches that rely more heavily on hymns as a vehicle for theological teaching than on liturgy. Read more