Gospel music and Gospel hymns are used as an aid to evangelisation. They're an accepted feature of revivalist meetings and an important method of praising God.
Music has always been a powerful tool in human affairs. Think of the use that has been made of it in battle – bands, bugles, drums and bagpipes all strike fear into the heart of the enemy; background music in shops is carefully chosen to entice customers to stay longer and spend more; even the Nazis used orchestral music to "anaesthetise" their victims before gassing them.
Music is used extensively in therapy, and in our most fundamental spiritual activity - in worship. Music can act as an anaesthetic or a powerful stimulant. When was the last time you went for a day without hearing any?
How did Gospel music begin?
The Eighteenth-Century English brothers John and Charles Wesley were deeply influential in the development of evangelical or gospel hymns. Their type of Gospel music - which was known as Evangelical music - was in complete contrast to the metrical psalms which were prevalent in the Church of England at the time.
The Wesleys wanted to stir the emotions and feelings of the congregation and this was directly contrary to the intentions of those who perpetuated metrical psalms - who wished to make scripture available in a language which could be easily "understanded of the people". The Established Church was deeply suspicious of evangelical hymns and many people felt that Gospel music was "beneath them" ... this snobbishness still dogs the development of church music.
Three other Nineteenth-Century Gospel music influences should be mentioned: The Salvation Army, Moody and Sankey, and the seminal effect of Negro Spirituals on Gospel Music.
The Worship War!
Today, worship has reached a situation in which individuals have become strongly partisan about the church music they like - some prefer traditional music and others will only attend services which are based on Folk and Gospel.
In America this has become known as the "Worship War". In a strange way it mirrors the Nineteenth Century where some people only used Evangelical hymns and others stuck limpet-like to their metrical psalms.
Of one thing we can be certain: there has been an explosion in contemporary hymnody - a great renaissance. Ideally all styles and traditions should be used in the praise and worship of Almighty God. Tolerance is essential for successful worship.
Moody and Sankey
Now to Moody and Sankey. Dwight Lyman Moody (1837 - 1899) and Ira David Sankey (1840 - 1908) were revivalist evangelicals who preached and sang to vast crowds in England and America - they also undertook missionary work. The words were written by Moody, and Sankey wrote the tunes of their characteristic Gospel music.
They evolved their own style of Gospel hymn which most people found very attractive and, like the Wesleys and the Salvation Army, used it to raise the commitment and fervour of the hundreds of thousands they preached to. They were idealists who refused to take a penny from their hymn royalties.
Moody and Sankey continued to establish Gospel Music as the major force in Church music. One of the hymn books which included their work, Sacred Songs and Solos, sold over 80 million copies in fifty years and it remains in print to this day - an astonishing achievement.
Moody and Sankey's missionary visit to Tahiti produced an extraordinary side-effect. The Tahitians adapted Sankey's Victorian harmonies into their own folk music with fascinating results. So when you visit the South Seas you will hear English Nineteenth-Century Gospel Music alive and well and sung with much fervour in the Pacific sunshine!
The Salvation Army
The Salvation Army was formed by General Booth in order to combat the influence of alcohol and to improve the appalling social conditions in which ordinary people lived, and to bring the spiritual to their lives. The "Sally Army", like Wesley's Methodists, preached total abstinence.
Booth teamed up with the great Cardinal Manning of Westminster who also preached abstinence. They used to hold great rallies and marches to publicise the effects of drink. This was the time of "Gin Alley" as made famous in the Eighteenth-Century prints of Hogarth, when cheap (and largely poisonous) gin was destroying the fabric of family and society.
It was rumoured that many of the thousands who attended these rallies were themselves tight but this didn't seem to affect either Manning or Booth! The Salvation Army would play their own hymns - often based upon popular tunes of the time - with their own bands and choirs. Revivalist music - a herald of Gospel music - became a very powerful weapon in their armoury.
So many people have heard a Salvation Army band playing on a street corner. As a boy I used to go to Portsmouth's Southsea beach on a Sunday just to hear the Salvation Army band playing Gospel hymns.
Music will forever be associated with the Army and many professional musicians entered their profession through playing in their brass bands. Their influence on Gospel Music cannot be overestimated and their hymn-playing still stirs people's feelings and emotions.
Evangelical hymns have produced some very funny ditties. I'm always very amused by two which employ the device of repeating syllables:
"I want a man, man, man, mansion in the sky"
and
"Take the pil, pil, pil, take the pilgrim's way"
You need to exercise great care when writing hymn texts!
Incidentally, like General Booth, Cardinal Manning was an extraordinary character. He was a convert Anglican clergyman whose wife died before he made the move to Catholicism. When he was a Cardinal he used to keep her picture on his desk and when visitors asked him who the beautiful young lady was he would answer, "My wife". This always caused consternation! He was immensely popular, and over 100,000 people lined the streets of London at his funeral.
It is interesting to compare the Salvation Army with the Wesleys' Methodism. Both were founded on the principle of total abstinence and both used Gospel hymns as a powerful tool in their crusade against drink. They both espoused the principle that words and music should raise the emotional level at meetings and inspire great fervour among people.
Thousands attended their services and they left high on the drug of music!
The Gospel music services of today are basically a re-run of those held by the Wesleys and the Salvation Army. The music and its presentation are different but the emotional intensity remains the same.