Nonsense Novels: A Book Review

It’s not often that I burst out laughing when reading quietly to myself. I think Dickens was the first author who instructed me how to laugh out loud from a book, just as Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables series taught me to weep disconsolately at the age of nine. But it is no surprise that the stories of Canadian author and humorist Stephen Leacock cause one to laugh frequently, at times even hysterically.

Hymns of the Church: Irrelevant for Today? Part 2

“So heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets
When I think about the way He loves us…”

It’s probably not the worst song ever sung during a worship service, but I think everyone will agree it could be better, although it definitely has a catchy tune. This song was even nominated for a Dove Award for Rock/Contemporary Recorded Song of the Year in 2010. And yet, how good of a song is it for the corporate worship of God’s people? Does it lend itself to a large group singing together? Does it express deep truths, or will its sentimental style speak to some but not others?

Hymns of the Church: Irrelevant for Today?

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind but now I see.

I am sure that any American Christian will know the words of this classic hymn, Amazing Grace, written by John Newton in 1779. But for many Christians today, that and perhaps a few Christmas songs are the only hymns they know. In churches around the world hymns are being replaced with other forms of worship music, and a powerful Christian heritage is being lost.