I have heard for many years people in churches or on social media say something like this: “we need to sing more hymns because they are deeper than modern songs.”
But the problem with that statement is that… it’s simply not true!
Now, don’t get me wrong. I actually agree that we DO need to sing more hymns… but not because they are deeper. I’ll get back to that in a minute.
Normally, when someone says that hymns are deeper than “modern” music (or the even more vague title of “contemporary” music), they are suggesting that older songs (pre-1960, in my experience) contain theologically more robust lyrics. Or, to put it simply, they are saying that old songs are full of more truth than new songs (by “new,” someone normally means after the 1960s).
But again — that is just not true.
I can give you many examples of songs written in the last sixty years (which is a very diverse wide range of music to be lumped together) that contain much biblical truth and theological depth. For example, the song “Your Great Name” by Natalie Grant in 2010 lists at least nine specific outcomes of speaking the name of Jesus alongside ten different names given in the Bible for Jesus. Here are the verses: (Click here to continue reading the full article.)
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