I can never predict when I will have a ‘think digital first’ moment. Today, it happened again in church while singing a hymn. You might think it had something to do with music and digital accompaniment, but that wasn’t it.
Our closing hymn was the nineteenth century’s “Jesus Saviour, Pilot Me.” The words evoke the symbolism of the nautical pilot who has responsibility for navigating a ship into safe harbour. While on a cruise, I watched as the pilot boat came alongside the cruise ship, matched speed and then the pilot leapt onboard, made his way to the bridge and safely guided the ship into port.
Today in church a teenage boy sat in front of me mumbling the lyrics to the hymn. As I watched him, I wondered what he knew of Jesus being described as a pilot. In all likelihood a pilot for him is someone operating an aircraft. And certainly at 35,000 feet it’s no big deal for a pilot to keep a plane safe over a "tempestuous sea.”
Sure enough, when asked after the service, he had no idea what the whole pilot thing was about. And I wonder how many others who sing that hymn have a similar dissociation. Maybe if you read some Mark Twain in school and knew about the pilots maneuvering the boats and barges up and down the Mississippi you would have some notion. But that’s asking a lot from memory.
Our artistic expressions of faith are more likely to involve fields and streams, than factories, parking lots and computers. Most of this is no doubt because our Lord made many references to plants, farming, fishing and harvesting. Some may argue that these represent the ‘natural’ world whereas computers and machines are the result of man’s creation. However, humankind learned how to farm. History tells us that. And there are lots of simple machines used in fishing and agriculture. So that argument may not hold water.
The ‘think digital first’ question is: How does the church, in its preaching and teaching through both hymns and spoken word relate to our 21st century reality?
Is not baptism comparable to reformatting a hard drive. Everything old is wiped away, all is made new and clean?
Isn’t sin like a virus in your operating system, corrupting data?
And rather than a nautical pilot who knows the way, isn’t Jesus rather like a GPS, guiding us?
Prayer is a tweet to our Father in heaven. And we are assured He is following us!
I’m not trying to be sacrilegious or flippant. If we are going to relate our faith to a digital generation, we need to update our vocabulary.
Anyone care to write a hymn in a ‘think digital first’ mode?
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6 comments:
I love the idea. As one who works in a high school, I see English teachers trying to get students enthused about literature written in 1910. If the topic doesn't have any relevance, it will not be absorbed by the student. The same with hymns - the more modern tunes and lyrics appeal to the younger crowd. A 'digital' hymn would be a great way to make Christian values more 'in tune' with a teen's world. :)
My only fear would be that something like the hymn "God of Earth and Outer Space" might result. With calls to God to "fling the spacecraft thro the air," this hymn frequently sets many a young (and I would suspect old) Christian to giggling. Likewise the hymn "Earth and All Stars" has a rather unfortunate reference to "test tubes loudly boiling."
I would suggest that utilizing contemporary imagery might well necessitate the use of a more contemporary musical genre. Otherwise, the song just ends up sounding silly. A digital hymn might well require a digital accompaniment.
Interesting comments Captain Thin. It caused me to wonder why we can sing about sheep,fields and fish without it sounding "silly"?
What makes modern allusions so awkward? Are we not convinced that God is with us as much in the park as in the parking lot?
I think some of the problem with the modern allusions to faith coming across as "cheesy" (and even you admit that they might be seen as much with your careful comment that you are not being sacrilegious)is that the Church represents the sacred and the ancient. It should represent, to a large degree, the unchanging God.
This is in contrast to a fast-paced secular world that seems to scream and shout "change" and often that change at a frenetic pace that leaves one to wonder "How did I get here?"
Now, I am not saying that modern allusions are in some way wrong or anything to that effect, just offering one possible opinion as to why they might not be received as easily as others.
In regards to hymns that have more "modern" tunes and lyrics, well, as a Lutheran convert, I can tell you that when us atheistic non-Christians were faced with "modern" church music with their lyrics trying oh so hard to be relevant, we always knew we were trying to be sold to, and it was almost always poorly done, and was more likely to elicit snickers and rolled eyes than anything "sacred."
When, however, even in movies we were faced with a cathedral and chanting, we knew that God was present.
Technology as a teaching tool for a class, or as a metaphorical allusion in a class, can be helpful. But Quinn's right; specific forms of technology are swiftly changing and have no real staying power as hymn references. What if we'd been singing about "floppy disks" in the early '90s? Anyone want to listen to a song like that today? Egh.
I think that Captain Thin is also correct that contemporary technology forms which are always changing are best suited to pop musical forms, which are also by nature ephemeral. But I disagree with lydiaparker that this is what the younger crowd is craving in worship. More like what our parents are telling us we ought to be craving, because they're still all such big fans of "Earth and All Stars," Terry Dittmer, and Don Wharton. I'm in my 20s, and I don't want to look back 30 years from now at the way I'm worshiping today, and cringe!
So actually (no offense, Mr. Adnams) I think a hymn that talks about Facebook, texting, and Tweeting would make me cringe today. ;o) Like Quinn says, it's lame when someone sounds like they're trying too hard to be relevant. Images and things that are timeless really are relevant, though. (I wouldn't put "Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me" in my top-10 hymn list by any means. If anything, you can point to that as an out-of-date technological reference that doesn't jibe as well today as it did back then.)
-Kelly
Any comments about The Lutheran Study Bible? You folks seem to have lost interest in the hymn topic.
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