Why T. David Can't Write (for a Popular Audience)

an unusually hostile review of T. David Gordon’s Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns: How Pop Culture Rewrote the Hymnal (Phillipsburg: P&R, 2010), with advice on its appropriate use for pastors and sessions

T. David Gordon has helped me better understand the Christian duty of charity. In “Introductory Considerations,” (endnote 1) he writes “it is also our duty to employ charity in discussing ‘polemical’ theology, or controversial theology” (p. 40). Amen, and after reading Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns, I have developed a corollary to this rule: we shouldn’t make it difficult for others to employ charity toward us. Sadly, Gordon violates my corollary, and I am genuinely saddened because I largely agree with his approach to, and conclusions regarding, the music used in Christian worship.

I have never directly participated in “worship wars,” but at my age (endnote 2) I have had much opportunity to observe controversies over the music used in congregational worship. Since my college years, I’ve not liked to ask, “What kind of music may we sing?” The better question is “What kind of music should we sing?” That is, while the Scriptures do not explicitly prohibit or endorse particular genres of music, some are (vastly) better than others for congregational singing, and should be considered on musical and aesthetic merit. This is the refreshingly novel media-ecological perspective (“Preface,” pp. 9-18) Gordon employs in Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns, and likely why it has been so warmly received by pastors and professors alike. With that in mind, I recommended our session use it in our congregation’s home study groups. This was a mistake.

A mistake not because our members are wedded to the contemporary worship style Gordon decries (we use only the Trinity Hymnal and Psalter in our services) or are suspicious of aesthetic considerations. Instead, his writing style (endnote 3) erects barriers between him and his readers which unnecessarily prejudice them against his conclusions. I led one group discussion, and found about half the time was taken up with complaints about how Gordon presented his arguments before I was able to steer the conversation to their substance, with which most of the participants (grudgingly) agreed. (endnote 4)

Gordon is prone to overstatement, as in his evaluation of the guitar as an accompaniment for congregational singing. “[G]uitar-playing just doesn’t sound serious; it sounds like casual amusement” (p. 61). “The guitar is nearly hopeless for accompanying a chorus…. [T]he choice of a guitar as an accompanying instrument rules out [‘A Mighty Fortress Is Our God’] (endnote 5), as it does… ‘For All the Saints’” (p. 100). Then on page 132, in footnote 3 he praises the relatively recent hymns of Stuart Townend, which he notes “employ guitar.” If the guitar is “nearly hopeless” for accompanying Christian worship, how can a hymn which relies on it be commendable? When an author is unable to keep up a rhetorical stance, he invites the suspicion it is not entirely sincere.

Gordon also confuses his deductions with demonstrated conclusions. In his discussion of “commercial forces” (endnote 6) as a contributor to American culture’s present contemporaneity, he asserts that Gillette no longer manufactures the 1906 safety razor (or its replacement blades) which he prefers because the corporation wishes to keep the average consumer ignorant so that said consumer will purchase new models (p. 107). Mind you, he offers no documentation in support of this theory. With little effort, I can construct alternatives which account for the facts equally well: the 1906 model had too small a market share to make its continued production profitable for Gillette’s purposes; or Gillette actually believes its current razors are superior to its previous products. Of course, these theories do not fit Gordon’s predetermined conclusion, nor do they have the added advantage of showing him to be a man of cultivated old-world tastes.

Which in turn brings us to Gordon’s fastidiousness, in which he appears to take a peculiar exhibitionistic pride. As a new pastor, he determined “about 500” of the 700 hymns in his congregation’s hymnal “were not appropriate” “to corporate Christian worship” (p. 22). Denominational hymnal-revision committees are not to be trusted because they sometimes include popular “stinkers” to ensure their hymnals get used (p. 163). Gordon doesn’t “believe recently occurring events are worthy of [his] attention” (p. 113). Few in our congregation are as well-educated as T. David Gordon, but they know when an author is putting on airs.

Allow me to comment on one final example: on page 100, he relates how the congregation he pastored sang without accompaniment for six to nine months not because accompaniment was unavailable, but because what he (or, possibly, the congregation) considered appropriate accompaniment was unavailable. In sharing this anecdote, he offers no concession to the reality faced by many Churches whose members don’t sing very well, and lack musically gifted people who can teach them to sing or facilitate their singing with the best possible accompaniment. That is to say, the average Christian whose congregation is doing its level-but-in-all-honesty-mediocre best, as aesthetically unimpressive as that may be, to sing praises to their Savior each Lord’s Day almost cannot help but be irritated by page 100 of Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns.

And therein lies the tragic irony of an author who understands the relationship between messages and meta-messages (endnote 7) (pp. 65-66), but has written a book whose message is obscured by the average reader’s impulse to kill the messenger. I invoke tragedy seriously: T. David Gordon offers a much-needed reorientation to the now decades-long controversy over worship music which could help further the discussion along productive lines. Every chapter of this book offers insights which should help any Christian better understand how and why he sings to his Lord, but Gordon appears unable to present these in a manner irenic or helpful to a popular audience.

In retrospect, our session probably erred when we distributed Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns to our congregation, although I am confident in our members’ Christian maturity and ability to profit even from poorly presented arguments. To others, I recommend you read and study this book in session, perhaps along with your congregation’s musicians, and then determine how best to convey its insights to your members. For example, the pastor could give some lectures which distill this book’s arguments and perspectives. Odds are very good you will do a better job at applying charity to polemical theology than does T. David Gordon.

1) Fully a quarter of this book is taken up by a “Preface,” “Acknowledgements,” an “Introduction,” and “Introductory Considerations.” Seriously?

2) Forty-four but still boyishly handsome, thanks for asking.

3) One is tempted to say “his personality,” but that might not be entirely charitable.

4) The experience of our other church officers who led discussions was similar.

5)  See also p. 99. A factually incorrect assertion, incidentally: I witnessed it done at our presbytery’s Bible camp last summer. The guitar may not be the best accompaniment for this hymn, but it is competent.

6) Gordon invokes “commercial forces” in much the same way your paranoid uncle brings up “the Trilateral Commission.”

7) Speaking of which, I’m obviously fond of using the footnote to insert clever comments. Others, however, find Gordon’s similar practice off-putting. Also, he has a tendency to put some substantive information in his footnotes, which can be missed by those not trained to read them.