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Adelaide and Emily discuss the debate between hymns and modern worship music. They argue that modern music is more musically diverse and easier for congregations to follow, while hymns have meaningful lyrics and are good for congregational singing. They also discuss the individual expression in modern worship music versus the careful examination of hymns. They touch on the importance of cultural representation in hymns and the connection to personal taste in modern worship music. They conclude by mentioning upcoming discussions and thanking their guests and sources. I'm Adelaide. I'm Emily. And this is Knights of the Round Table, where we discuss our posing views on topics at midnight. Today's topic is hymns versus hill songs or traditional versus modern worship music. Today we have two special interview guests, Mr. Winter and Miss Jensen. Well, you know what that means. See you at the Round Table. For our listeners who don't know, I attend a very traditional church, and I attend a much more modern church. So I'm going to be talking about why I think modern worship music is better than hymns. I think that it's much more intriguing to listen to. Hymns have a lot of the same musical notes over and over, whereas according to the Beehive, modern worship music has a lot more musically diverse because they have a different structure. I would argue that those repeated hymns, melodies, and stuff like that is what makes them good. It's very good for congregational singing. It's very easy to learn them and follow along with them because they have these repeated melodies. It makes them easy to sing in large groups, whereas with contemporary, it's a few people on a stage doing an excellent job of leading a much more complicated song. I would actually disagree with you there because hymns, while they are less musically diverse, are actually lyrically diverse because they have so many verses of different lyrics, which can make it very difficult for the congregation to follow along with the lyrics, whereas modern music has more intriguing notes to listen to and to sing, but they have repeated choruses so that it's easier for the congregation to follow along. Oftentimes in modern worship spaces, when things are up on a screen, they always have the word, but they rarely include the music. So for people who are new to the church, it might be hard for them to sing along because they don't have the music right in front of them. It's often portrayed with hymns. Another point that I would say is that God calls us in the Bible to sing new songs to Him, and modern music is new songs. Yes, there are many hymns that are old that we treasure, but there are also new hymns too. Hymns do not necessarily always mean old. There have been hymns that have been written as early as even in the 2000s, the 21st century, and stuff like that. Also, the reason that we like these old hymns, you know, not all old hymns, I'm going to claim, are good either. According to the article on Pathos, the body of hymnody we have today has been carefully examined and vetted, evaluated, and scrutinized by generations of pastors, scholars, hymnal committees, and congregants. To counter that, I would say, isn't it so much better that people can individually make worship songs to the Lord, and they can express their praise to Him, as opposed to hymns, which, you know, have gone through so many people, that it's not really an individual expression as much. I would say that a lot of people who are fans of traditional worship would say that worship is not about personal expression. It's supposed to be less about ourselves and more about God. Mr. Winter had a few thoughts on this as well. I think some of the issues that arise with some of the contemporary songs is that it very much focuses on what we do or how we feel, as opposed to dealing in objective truths. Well, where I would disagree with you and Mr. Winter there is that the Bible actually talks a lot about people, you know, playing trumpets, clapping their hands, making their own musical expressions to the Lord. He talks about how God wants our music to be jubilant and loud, and modern music can do a very good job of that, whereas hymns a lot of times are much slower and not as, you know, not as individual or as jubilant. Going from the Pathos website, you know, hymns are built for congregations, and churches are really about the people and the congregation. So they want to be involved in the congregation as much as possible. And well, as a quote from the article, hymns are a written tradition. Contemporary songs are a commercially recorded enterprise. This is important because recorded music is inherently non-congregational. It is fundamentally a piece to showcase an individual or small group. What I would say to counter that is that, first of all, a lot of people do still feel an emotional response to worship songs, even when they're not even at church. Miss Jensen talks about this. So I think it's very cool what she's saying with this, is that, you know, modern worship music to her is an expression of her faith becoming her own, her adult faith, and not just the faith she was more, you know, her parent's faith as a child. And another thing that the Beehive talks about is that modern worship is very theologically strong. For example, a song they named is What a Beautiful Name from Hillsong that talks a lot about God being, you know, the word at the beginning. Move on to another point here. So one thing that I really enjoy about hymns is it's a representation of a vast amount of history and also culture. Because there are hymns, I believe one of the earliest one is maybe from the year 300. The Savior of the Nations Come is a very old hymn, up to ones, like I said before, of present day. So it's covering, you know, hundreds and hundreds of years worth of history. And we also have a lot of hymns in our hymnal that we use every day from all kinds of cultures. And one of the amazing things about today's culture is that basically anyone can write a theologically strong modern worship music if they so choose. And so you really get even a more vast array of cultures displayed. Another thing that's really intriguing is that according to Miss Jensen, it sounds more like the music I choose to listen to that's not Christian or worship. So, you know, what's interesting about that is that she can really make a closer connection to modern worship music. She can really make a closer connection to God through modern worship music because it's something she relates to more and it's more closely aligned with the music that she listens to now. Now, another part of the article from Pathos, one of the actually benefits of hymns is the fact that they are not culturally popular and that they're not part of the culture of the day. And the Bible says like multiple times that we're not supposed to like, you know, we want to be set apart from the world. And I think that can apply in a lot of the things that we do. So I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing for the way that we worship to not be a part of mainstream culture. You know, modern worship music actually is not geared towards the, you know, the current cultural market because music no longer needs a record or, you know, a record label to help them produce the songs, which means that really you're getting even more niche songs that come out of people's experiences because, you know, people can write them and it doesn't at all need to be geared towards what is happening. And another thing is that hymns actually tend to be very similar to each other. So you're actually getting much more diverse music with modern worship music. The similarity is only in the fact that they're written towards a congregational style, as I discussed before. A lifelong Lutheran, for example, can hear the introduction of a hymn and immediately tell you if it's an Easter hymn or a Lent hymn because the sound of them is completely different. So while I do somewhat agree with what you're saying about, you know, hymns do differentiate, they have different styles, I just think that modern worship has that to a much greater extent because it does not have to be in that congregational style, although some modern worship music is. And I think that's a good place to wrap up our roundtable discussion. Thank you to all of our listeners. You are all what makes this possible. And I hope you enjoyed this week's Midnight Roundtable discussion on Hymns vs. Hillsong. Next week, we'll be discussing a more lighthearted topic, Blankets vs. Bedspreads. Tune in at midnight Central Standard Time next Friday to find out who is on which side. It's not only our amazing listeners that make this possible. You're right. So we'd like to shout out a few people who made this week's episode possible. To start, thank you to our wonderful interview guests today, Mr. Winter and Ms. Jensen, and their insight into today's topic. Next, Ms. Hinckley for providing a beautiful space for us to record our podcast. And the educational articles provided beneficial information to this discussion. I used seven reasons hymns are better than contemporary worship songs from pathos.com. And I used In Defense of Modern Worship Music from TheBeehive.live. That's all, and as always, see you when the bell tolls.