Proclaimer Blog
Do song words really matter that much?
Some Christians can get a bit hot under the collar about song words. I am often one of them, I confess. For, you see, I really believe that song words matter. This is primarily because singing to one another and with one another is a ministry of the word. “Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit” (Col 3.16-17). It’s one of the reasons why I value a well-edited hymn book. Some of that hard work has been done for you.
But here’s a question, to which I don’t really have an answer, only a view. How far do we go with precision over song words? In order to protect artistic merit, is some latitude acceptable? Let’s take a working example. At the EMA, we sung Dustin Kensrue’s Grace Alone. I freely confess it’s not my favourite song (“head full of rocks”?). But here’s a theological question.
Are we orphans before we are saved? For that is how the song begins? “I was an orphan lost at the Fall.” There is a sense, surely, in which we were not. It was not that we were fatherless before our salvation. It’s that we had the wrong father! I wasn’t wandering around the spiritual orphanage, I was in my father’s house from where I needed to be rescued, my father being the Devil. The language of orphan actually downplays my status!
Now, you may say I am picking a fight where one does not need to be picked. Fair enough, I take the point. I am rather agnostic about this song (which has some excellent lines and is good in its Trinitarian approach). But if singing is a ministry of the word, we should care about such representations, shouldn’t we?
Yes? No? What do you think?