I’m having a ball reading T. David Gordon’s Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns.
Many of Gordon’s asides are interesting in themselves.
Part of the book is an extended evaluation of the use of the guitar to lead congregational singing in corporate worship.
Having written that:
There is no good musical reason to insist on accompanying congregational song with a guitar; it is poorly suited to the task and it profoundly limits the other choices that can be made once it is chosen. We simply cannot accompany Martin Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” successfully with a guitar.
Gordon provides the following footnote:
Some years ago, my former colleague David Wells told me of an encounter with a student at the photocopier. David was copying a draft of a chapter of his Above All Earthly Pow’rs: Christ In A Postmodern World and the student found the title interesting. David told her it was from Luther’s hymn, and she asked, “What hymn?” David told her it was from “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” and she replied that she was not familiar with that hymn. Imaging a student in a theological seminary who has never heard “A Mighty Fortress”! How do we account for this remarkable ignorance? Luther’s hymn cannot be accompanied by a guitar, and therefore the hapless young woman had never heard it.
Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns, Pg 99.
“A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” is little less than the ‘national anthem’ of the Protestant Reformation. It encapsulates Luther’s own expression of a faith that saw him stand in defiance of the Roman Catholic church at a time when that was the only church in Europe. It has rung through the centuries. What theological discourse could not silence is being marginalised by something as innocuous as the guitar. If only the papacy had known it was that easy.
My children have attended a Lutheran School for seven years. There is a weekly all-school chapel service and other devotional times for different segments of the school. I have heard the songs and theology of Australian, US and British Evangelical Pentecostalism endlessly sung, over and over. I have not recognised any songs older than thirty-five years of age, and nothing like a Protestant hymn, Lutheran or not. (Perhaps Chris Tomlin’s reworking of ‘Amazing Grace’ once or twice). Imagine attending a Lutheran School and not even hearing, let alone learning “A Mighty Fortress” as part of your Christian formation.
All because of a commitment to contemporary relevance.
The Roman Catholic Church could not silence Martin Luther, but all it takes is a guitar.
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