(This is one of many articles from our “Music” series which examines God’s Word to discern godly music and musicians from wrong music and musicians. The scriptural study, “Music’s Boundaries”, may be helpful to the reader if you do not understand why the following song writers and hymns are to be avoided.)

B

“The Battle Hymn of the Republic” – Julia Ward Howe, the author of this Civil War song, was a Unitarian, a Universalist, and had ties to Transcendentalists. All 3 belief systems reject a number of crucial, fundamental doctrines of Christianity like salvation by faith through grace, Christ’s deity, eternal damnation in hell, etc…. Julia Howe also preached often in Unitarian pulpits. She was one of the early and loud feminists in America.  The Boston Sunday Post headline, dated 10 June 1900, states “ ‘Woman Will Dominate the World, and the Man of the Future Will Follow and Not Lead Her.’ Remarkable Prophecy by Julia Ward Howe….”  This liberal stance on religion, politics, and life in general greatly damaged her relationship with her husband. She was unhappy in her marriage, wrote and published numerous works without her husband’s knowledge nor approval, and often wrote about and hinted her marital discontent throughout her various writings. All of these terrible choices resulted in her separation from her husband in 1952. They separated from each other but did not divorce because of her unwillingness to leave behind their two children whom her husband threatened to keep if she did divorce.

F

“Faith of our Fathers” – This well-known hymn is actually a Catholic hymn, written in 1849 by Frederick William Faber who switched sides from being Anglican to Catholic. Faber wrote the hymn in memory of the Catholic Martyrs from the time of the establishment of the Church of England by Henry VIII. Many aren’t aware of this fact because one verse is usually omitted: “Faith of our Fathers! Mary’s prayers Shall win our country back to thee: And through the truth that comes from God England shall then indeed be free.” The removal of this obvious verse causes all who sing the hymn to be deceived thinking that they are singing of believers who were martyred for biblical truth.

G

The Gaithers – Anything written by the Gaithers including: “He Touched Me”, “Because He Lives”, “The Longer I Serve Him”, “The King Is Coming”, “It Is Finished”,  and “Jesus, There’s Something About That Name”. (See “What Is CCM and Southern Gospel?”, “Southern Gospel Revealed”,  and “‘Cleaning Up’ CCM and Southern Gospel” in “CCM and Southern Gospel” series for more information.)

The Getty’s/Stuart Townend (Anything written by the Getty’s and/or Stuart Townend. For more information, please read “‘Cleaning Up’ CCM and Southern Gospel”.)

J

“Just A Closer Walk With Thee” – The original author is unknown although the version printed in modern hymnbooks today is from Kenneth Morris who published his arrangement in 1940. This hymn is not recommended because of its heavy use of jazz. (Kenneth Morris also had affiliations with Thomas A. Dorsey who wrote the jazzy hymn “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” also mentioned in this list.)
Note: Fanny Crosby wrote the lyrics to “Closer Walk with Thee” under one of her pseudonyms, Martha J. Lankton; and William Kirkpatrick wrote the music which was published in 1885. However, “Closer Walk with Thee” is not the same hymn as the modern blues hymn commonly sung today “Just A Closer Walk With Thee”. Some also imply the two songs having similar lyrics which they do not.

“Just A Little Talk With Jesus” – The popular “Just A Little Talk With Jesus” includes the phrase “when you feel a little prayer wheel turning”. The “prayer wheel” is not Christian nor biblical in origin. The prayer wheel is from Tibetan Buddhism. These are the large revolving cylinders that people turn as they pass one by one. According to Tibetan Buddhism, the more mantras are chanted, the more devotion to the Buddha is expressed, and the suffering of reincarnation can be freed. Therefore, in addition to orally reciting the prayers, Tibetan people put the mantras into the prayer wheels. They believe that every turn of the wheel will have the same meritorious effect as reading the sutra once, and rotating constantly represents that they are repeatedly chanting the mantras hundreds and thousands of times.
“A little prayer wheel turning” as the song says is the smaller variation that most modern Tibetan Buddhists carry with them. In Tibetan areas, you can see believers, regardless of gender, old and young, holding a prayer wheel in their hands, turning non-stop. Most Tibetans, especially the elderly, cannot recite sutras fluently, so they turn the prayer wheels instead of chanting. There are also prayer wheels turned by wind or water.
Certain Pentacostals and charismatics as well as some African American churches absorbed the heathen practice of prayer wheels used by the Buddhists in their churches. Cleavant Derricks, the author of the hymn, would have seen them in the churches he associated with when he wrote the song in 1937.

P

“Precious Lord, Take My Hand” – The hymn, “Precious Lord, Take My Hand”, was written by Thomas A. Dorsey in 1932. Although the son of a preacher, Dorsey forsook the Lord and became a successful jazz and blues musician in Chicago. After several close calls with death, Dorsey somewhat came back to God writing and singing “Christian” music. While away from his pregnant wife leading the music for an extended meeting, Dorsey learned that his wife had delivered their son, but that she had died in the process. Dorsey rushed back to Chicago only to have his infant son also die a few hours later. In great depression and anger, Dorsey is said to have stated, “God, You aren’t worth a dime to me right now!” Shortly after, still devastated, Thomas A. Dorsey wrote the words and music to “Precious Lord, Take My Hand”.
This hymn is not recommended because of Dorsey’s weak spirituality and spiritual state at the time of writing his song. This resulted in Dorsey’s music having jazz and blues chords.