The Thing with the Hymns

This Holy Week brought with it so many opportunities to sing glorious hymns to the Lord. It's my favorite time of the Church year. Reflecting on the music of the past week had me thinking about a practice that has increasingly been driving me nuts. I could write a pretty lengthy series of posts, but today here's just a brief outline of why I'm opposed to the popular practice of adding choruses to old hymns.

It Doesn't Improve Them
I could leave it at that, really. Have any additions really made the work better? If not, why do it? I can only think of bad reasons, some of which are below.

Hymns Don't Do That
In a hymn, the verses go together to form a complete thought. Like sentences in a paragraph, each verse relates to the one before or after it. In a song, the verses relate to the chorus. Interrupting the train of thought to a hymn, and omitting some key verses, puts the expression of the thought out of joint and interjects a non sequitur.

Pride
In most of these instances we're dealing with works that have been in regular widespread use for at least a century or two. They haven't exactly demonstrated a lack of some sort which needs to be fixed. Yet an industry that for the most part produces works considered passé and out of rotation within ten to fifteen years (when was the last time you sang "Shine, Jesus, Shine?") presumes to evaluate, edit, and improve upon them? What cascade of absurdities has to be accepted to buy into the delusion that one is qualified to do this?

More Pride
What makes us believe that our entertainment mentality ought to be the norm to which any inclusion of older music must conform? Can we not seek to include this art and respect its form and content to the best we can in our individual settings?

I'm Cynical
This is my own personal issue but if I've thought of this, surely at least someone involved has, too. Hymns are pretty much all in the public domain. If I record one and (by some miracle) my arrangement gets airplay and use in Churches, I might sell some records and make some money. But if I add a chorus in between the verses, I've written half the song, and I get publishing royalties every time it's played on the radio and in your Church.

It's Self-Centered
This is the big one for me. Today our worship is very self-oriented. We tend to gather as congregations of individuals and not one people unified across all time and space,  which is what the Bible teaches. The felt needs and likes of each individual in the pews are driving what we sing and do. Novelty is king. People may not like these hymns done this way; we must jazz them up. It's not true, but even if it were, it is exactly this mentality out of which people need to be trained. We worship with those who have gone before us, and so it is only right to sing their music. We should do the same if the music of the future ever becomes available! Love and mutual submission ought to make us respect these great works and seek to add our voices to them in deference to the greater Body.

That's the main gist of it. Your thoughts are welcome.