Words of Wonder

Our songwriting group is going to discuss an article by Bob Kauflin, which is actually a chapter from a book, which is, in turn, sort of "proceedings" from a conference. The title of the chaper is: "Words of Wonder: What Happens When We Sing?" and the book is The Power of Words and the Wonder of God, eds. Justin Taylor and John Piper.

Kauflin immediately makes his claim about the importance of music to the church, and specifically, the importance of singing. His lengthy quote of Luther bears repetition, because it sets the tone for the whole essay:

When man's natural ability is whetted and polished to the extent that it becomes an art, then do we note with great surprise the great and perfect wisdom of God in music, which is, after all, His product and His gift; we marvel when we hear music in which one voice sings a simple melody, while three, four, or five other voices play and trip lustily around the voice that sings its simple melody and adorn this simple melody wonderfully with artistic musical effects, thus reminding us of a heavenly dance where all meet in a spirit of friendliness, caress, and embrace...A person who gives this some thought and yet does not regard it [music] as a marvelous creation of God, must be a clodhopper indeed and does not deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of dogs.


Kauflin notes: "We may not want to imitatate Luther's attitude, but we do want to imitate his passion for singing - because God himself is passionate about singing." He then goes on to provide proof texts, such as Ephesians 5:19 (part of being filled with the Spirit is singing certain songs), Zephaniah 3:17 (God sings), and Hebrews 2:12 and Psalm 22:22 (Christ "sings," although figuratively).

He then delves into the most important subject of his text, which is the importance of words to singing. He divides Christian attitudes into three categories:
1) Those who think music supercedes the Word - that it is more moving and more important.
2) Those who think music undermines the Word, and would separate them entirely.
3) Those who think music should serve the Word, and he is in this camp. And so am I.

He observes several ways music can serve the Word. First, it can help us remember words. This is very important, because memory is important. What we remember is what we really live by, regardless of what we may "know." I think of songs as ways of speeding up access to memory, like increasing RAM speed (surely in five years this will be an obsolete metaphor).

To make words memorable, Kauflin urges us to "use effective melodies." His example is "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing," which he describes is "a well-crafted lyric set to a memorable, singable, and pleasing tune"(125), and with this I would agree. Sometimes the melody of a hymn can be updated for a new generation, and Kauflin notes this is a good thing, preserving the lyrics for that generation.

Since we remember what we sing, Kauflin urges us to "sing words that God wants us to remember." He quotes Gordon Fee, "'Show me a church's songs and I'll show you their theology'" (126). A thought-provoking question is, what does my church's music say about my theology? A surprising point he makes is that we ought to memorize songs.

To further his argument about the benefits of songs for the church, Kauflin posits that "singing can help us engage emotionally with words." Kauflin describes two ways this works: songs allow us to take more time to reflect on the meaning of words, by adding a celebratory, mournful, or reverent melody music can augment the sentiment of the words we're singing. He makes the familiar point that music alone cannot make a propositional claim; only words are capable.

He then goes on to defend why it is important that songs do affect us emotionally. This was one of the most interesting parts of the paper to me. Kauflin wrote, "The emotions that singing is meant to evoke are responses to the truths we're singing about God - his glory, his greatness, and his goodness. Vibrant singing enables us to connect truth about God seamlessly, with passion, so that we can combine doctrine and devotion, edification and expression, mind and heart"(130). I like this kind of thinking.

The last benefit of singing he addresses is that it "can help us use words to demonstrate and express our unity." Very simply, "[s]inging enables us to spend extended periods of time communicating the same thoughts, the same passions, and the same intentions" (131). In singing corporately, we unite as a corpus - a body. Toward this end, Kauflin advises that we "sing songs that unite rather than divide the church" (131), recognize the functional limits of creativity for church music (132), remember that we are united by the gospel, not music (132) and anticipate singing in heaven (134).

The last point is thought-provoking from a writer's perspective. If I were a strict Reformed theologian, which I'm not, I would believe that the finest works of earth will find their place in God's kingdom. Like I said, I'm not Reformed - as far as I've looked into it I can't quite swallow it all - but I am intrigued by this idea. It has often made me wonder if there are any songs I know today that will make it into heaven's repertoire.