Hold the Superlatives, Please

hands

Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was “terrible,” describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”: make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers “Please will you do my job for me.” (C.S. Lewis)

Lewis helps us to recognize a lot of modern Christian songwriting for what it is: laziness. No doubt, many of these songs are vast improvements on the Bliss and Crosby cliché-mill. Certainly, it’s a breath of fresh air to be singing about the faith without a constant nautical theme: waves, anchors, lighthouses and ships ahoy. And any serious Christian will be thankful for an injection of sound theological ideas into the gelatinous world of evangelical conviction.

With all that said, I find Lewis’ sentiment played out before me in not a few modern songs. These songs seem to try to gather as many superlative adjectives as possible that will fit the metre of the song. These are then piled on top of one another, and the result is a rapid-fire of high-concentrate adjectives. The resulting lyrics are something like: “Indescribable majesty, incomparable glory, unbounded mercy, immeasurable beauty…You’re the highest, greatest, most wonderful, most awesome”—you get the idea.

Yet for all this, the effect is palpably flat. Instead of soaring into the heights of praising God as the ultimate Being, one sings these super-hero adjectives with a sense of dull oughtness: yes, I should feel God’s surpassing value, but I don’t. Perhaps if I keep singing these superlatives with sincerity, I will.

Some worshippers succeed, others don’t. Some do better at creating placebo emotions to connect to an incomplete thought, until like Pavlov’s dog, the melody of the song manages to bring those feelings back every time. Others content themselves with the thought that ascribing superlative adjectives to God is surely the right way to go, even if little moral excitement is raised in response to them.

Lewis helps us to see the difference between mere ascription and description. Ascription is fine in its place—and yes, the psalmists certainly use ascriptions of praise. They rarely, if ever, do this apart from some metaphorical description of God. Ascription by itself does little to fire the imagination of the reader, or in our case, the worshipper. The job of a writer of works of imagination (as poetry is) is to do more than report matters, but to transport the reader through the imagination. Likewise, a songwriter wants to do more than simply inform disinterested listeners as to the objective worth of God. A songwriter wishes to draw Christians to encounter the beauty of God through poetic descriptions. As a work of imagination, poetry has its power through descriptive analogies. We feel God’s satisfying glory not when we sing, “You are incomparably satisfying,” but when we sing, “We taste Thee, O Thou living Bread, and long to feast upon Thee still.” We feel God’s power not when we sing, “You are unimaginably powerful,” but when we sing, “Thy chariots of wrath the deep thunder clouds form.” We feel God’s love not when we sing, “Your love is unbelievable,” but when we sing, “The King of Love my Shepherd is, Whose goodness faileth never, I nothing lack if I am His, And He is mine forever.” Description evokes affection; ascription, by itself, simply invites agreement or disagreement.

Merely stringing adjectives together that rhyme or fit the melody is ultimately a kind of laziness on the part of the writer. By saying nothing more than God is indescribable (which is surely the laziest of all adjectives), incomparable, or unbelievable, the songwriter fobs off the responsibility of imagining God rightly to the worshipper. The result is a frustrating emptiness as we sing. The writer has cheated us, and abandoned us before his work is done. He has found a pleasing melody and invited us to feel something toward God. Just as we begin to use our minds to consider God, he leaves us with a true ascription of praise about God with nothing to help our affections to rise to the occasion. He expects us to do imaginative pole-vaulting with the twigs of his superlative synonyms. We are to do his work for him, and he skips town unmolested because he dumped a bunch of fancy-sounding adjectives upon us to the melody of a pretty ballad.

God’s people need better. Songwriters can do better. It is not as if we don’t have an inspired songbook to show us how it’s done.

A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.
O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;
To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.
Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.
Thus will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name.
My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips:
When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches.
Psalm 63:1-5

DaviddB Bio

David de Bruyn completed Media Studies and a Bachelor of Theology in his native land, South Africa, before pursuing the Master of Arts in Theology through Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was ordained to the ministry in 2005 and currently pastors New Covenant Baptist Church in Johannesburg, South Africa. Since 1999 he has presented a weekly radio program that is heard throughout much of central South Africa. He also blogs at Towards Conservative Christianity.

Discussion

The King of Love my Shepherd is, Whose goodness faileth never, I nothing lack if I am His
I can appreciate poetry, but this lyric sounds as if it was written by a Shakespearean Yoda.

[dmicah]
The King of Love my Shepherd is, Whose goodness faileth never, I nothing lack if I am His
I can appreciate poetry, but this lyric sounds as if it was written by a Shakespearean Yoda.
Hey, if communication is the key, then a Shakespearean Yoda might be the ultimate compliment.

I mean, Shakespeare continues to be held up as the ultimate communicator, and Yoda motivated Luke Skywalker to kick some serious empire butt.

Lee

[dmicah]
The King of Love my Shepherd is, Whose goodness faileth never, I nothing lack if I am His
I can appreciate poetry, but this lyric sounds as if it was written by a Shakespearean Yoda.
Your statement denies itself.

[DavidO]
[dmicah]
The King of Love my Shepherd is, Whose goodness faileth never, I nothing lack if I am His
I can appreciate poetry, but this lyric sounds as if it was written by a Shakespearean Yoda.
Your statement denies itself.
And your statement denies the ability to catch some humor. Too serious you are, DavidO. :D

I am amazed at the insight of those who know how people feel or should feel when they sing. I wonder if the author knows real people who sing “these super-hero adjectives with a sense of dull oughtness” or if that’s how he would sing them if he sung them. Or how does he know that some are “creating placebo emotions.” Is there any way to verify that? No, I didn’t think so. It sounds more like an agenda than sound arguments.

“One,” “we,” and “I,” ‘some,” “others” are all covered. Anyway I thought it wasn’t about how we “feel.” Sure, there’s a lot to criticize with much contemporary music. But thankfully the author really only speaks for himself when he says:

“Instead of soaring into the heights of praising God as the ultimate Being, one sings these super-hero adjectives with a sense of dull oughtness: yes, I should feel God’s surpassing value, but I don’t. Perhaps if I keep singing these superlatives with sincerity, I will.”

“Some do better at creating placebo emotions to connect to an incomplete thought, until like Pavlov’s dog, the melody of the song manages to bring those feelings back every time. Others content themselves with the thought that ascribing superlative adjectives to God is surely the right way to go, even if little moral excitement is raised in response to them.”

“The result is a frustrating emptiness as we sing.”

Some of this may be true somehow sometimes for some people somewhere with some songs with some feelings.

Would like to see, possibly in a follow-up article, a few examples of modern hymnody that meet the author’s desire “to encounter the beauty of God through poetic description.”

Tom Vietti

should we really be taking lewis’ advice about journalistic prose as advice for poetry? especially when he specifically gives allowance for poetry to follow a different path? at least lewis wasn’t bold enough to criticize wordsworth.

here’s one place for reading the whole letter:

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/04/c-s-lewis-on-writing.html

[ChrisC] [S] hould we really be taking [L] ewis’ advice about journalistic prose as advice for poetry?
In a word, yes. The “show, don’t tell” axiom is the standard beginning point in modern poetry workshops . The reason for this is not that poetry must be all “showing” and no “telling”, but that one of the primary pitfalls beginning (and even intermediate) poets face is not bringing the reader along to the point of insight. Effective poetry recreates the epiphany for and within the reader rather than merely recounting it to him.

yeah, like i am really gonna take advice from c.s. lewis- a man whose books are full of pagan ideas and mysticism. unlike john milton, who included greek and roman mythology in his works, as a way to contrast the weakness of ancient myths with the strength of true religion, c.s. lewis seemed to take the opposite approach, and attempted to persuade his readers that mythology, magic, and christianity are all compatible.

I don’t disagree with the aesthetic point being made about poetry and imagery in hymnology as opposed to some contemporary worship songs, but something else Lewis said about attending church might be worth reflecting on:
I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music. But as I went on I saw the great merit of it. I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and different education, and then gradually my conceit just began peeling off. I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize you aren’t fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit.

David’s got a good point in the essay. These days we make everything disposable-style… cheap, fast, here today, gone tomorrow.

And I’ve also often found that songs that just pile on generalities don’t do much for me—even less when paired with the musical equivalent of glittering generalities. The imagery of the Psalms doesn’t always “work” for me, either, probably because many of the metaphors come from a lifestyle I don’t live (so much of David’s work appears to draw from his days running for his life in the wilderness or leading armies against invaders or battling intrigue in his palace). But it’s amazing how often and how well those images do work.

To use another analogy, if you develop a taste for really good food, you easily know the difference between a great meal and deep fried Twinkie-on-a-stick… though it can be really hard to explain the difference in words.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

i agree with aaron. most of today’s religious music is what i would call ‘junk food full of preservatives’. this is a natural result of having several generations of americans growing up on rock music and mtv. the music is all about the style, and how it makes us feel, not about the quality of the music, and the words that are being sung.

in order for christian musicians to be able to write deep, spiritual songs, they must be willing to turn off the TV and radio, and spend time studying the Word, and worshiping the God of Israel.

[christian cerna] yeah, like i am really gonna take advice from c.s. lewis- a man whose books are full of pagan ideas and mysticism. unlike john milton, who included greek and roman mythology in his works, as a way to contrast the weakness of ancient myths with the strength of true religion, c.s. lewis seemed to take the opposite approach, and attempted to persuade his readers that mythology, magic, and christianity are all compatible.
Also, using uppercase and lowercase is good literary style.

[Shaynus]
[christian cerna] yeah, like i am really gonna take advice from c.s. lewis- a man whose books are full of pagan ideas and mysticism. unlike john milton, who included greek and roman mythology in his works, as a way to contrast the weakness of ancient myths with the strength of true religion, c.s. lewis seemed to take the opposite approach, and attempted to persuade his readers that mythology, magic, and christianity are all compatible.
Also, using uppercase and lowercase is good literary style.
true. it is more aesthetically pleasing to the eyes. and it’s much easier for my tired fingers.

I guess my point is Christian, that if you don’t care to uppercase appropriate text in your comments, why should you criticize those who don’t go through the trouble to have good lyrical composition? Maybe poor composition is better for their tired fingers too?