One of the distinctive features of our congregation where I pastor is our Trinitarian theology. It’s the article of faith that structures all the faith and practice of our faith. A visit to Providence Church (CREC) in Pensacola,FL and you will notice that our liturgy, our hymns, and lives all find themselves in God who reveals himself as One in Three and Three in One. The Trinity, Bavinck says, “beats the heart of the whole revelation of God.” It’s in everything we do, and not just on Trinity Sunday. It’s embedded into our practices and dogmas.
The Trinity was not something built up in a Greek laboratory, the Trinity is. It’s the way God reveals himself to his people from the beginning to the end of history and for all eternity.
One way our Trinitarian theology is made known is through our singing. I always say that if you tell me what you sing I can probably tell you what you believe. Providence is part of a long tradition of churches that sings hymns written in the past, and by past I don’t simply mean 150 years ago (we sing those too), but also 1,750 years ago. It doesn’t necessarily mean we have a higher sense of who God is, but it does mean a sense of certainty that much of what is sung is leading us somewhere away from the sentimentalism so prevalent in our day to the worthiness of a God whose breadth and depth has no end.
Suffice to say, there are some beautiful human beings composing some great hymns today. Some of them are theologically sound and deeply Trinitarian in their thinking. But these composers don’t make it to any famous contemporary magazines; they lack the sex appeal of modern christian composers.
So, it did not come to me as a shock when the recent piece from Christianity Today entitled, “The Trinity Is Missing from Christian Worship Music” stated:
“The Trinity almost never comes up in the songs sung by American Christians, according to a new study of the 30 most popular hymns and the 30 most popular worship songs over the past five years.”
Further, as religion professor Michael Tapper observes, “In the music we sing, it seems like we’re not as Trinitarian as we think we are.” This conclusion is rather frightening. In one way it serves to remind us that what we sing in church matters. Of course, this assumes that pastors think about what the singing communicates. The reality is that many are not much involved in this field at all allowing less theologically inclined musicians to make decisions that can change the heart of a generation.
When the Church sings, she is not just singing as an exercise to get to the sermon, the church is sermonizing in her singing. She is doing theology with her voice. So, when we think of what we sing in our churches, it is imperative that we know what we are singing. In the end, we can sing about how all blessings flow from God, but forget to sing to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. If we do forget, our doxology is incomplete.
