A Wesley hymn on penguins?
Matt MacGregor
Would you sing a hymn written by a computer? I wonder how you would back up your answer to that question. I suspect the instinctive answer of many would be ‘no.’ But why not?
The answer cannot be because a computer won’t be good at it. AI technology probably became a better songwriter than you some years ago. I took the liberty of asking ChatGPT to write a hymn in the style of Charles Wesley about penguins:
Let’s sing – more about us, apparently
en staff
How has worship music changed over time? A Christian researcher, Asa Childless (pictured), says his research shows the most significant change is that we’re now more centred on ourselves in our singing.
‘The most significant change I noticed … is the rise of individualism,’ he says. ‘This is marked by a drastic increase in the percentage of singular first-person pronouns (me, myself and I) over plural ones (we, our and us). Whilst 67% of Isaac Watts’ first-person pronouns are singular, this steadily rises to 93% by the time we reach Elevation Worship.’ But Asa adds: ‘There is another side to this story. When Stewart Townend (1963–present) was put to the same tests, his results were closer to Watts and Newton than the worship groups in each case. Rather than writing off an entire era, let us sing God-centred praises regardless of when our songs were written.’
Ben Slee
Milla Ling-Davies
Catherine MacKenzie
350 years on: the life and lyrics of Isaac Watts
‘Religion never was designed to make our pleasures less’
I almost missed this anniversary and hadn’t realised that Isaac Watts was born not far from where I now live. He’s a hero of mine and given that I won’t be writing posts in another 350 years, I’ll make my pitch now for this unusual chap who cheerfully lived through perilous times.
Everyone has heard something he wrote. Even if church is absolutely not your thing, you’ll struggle to make it to New Years Day without hearing several arrangements of Joy to the World, a cheerful anthem with added zest from Handel’s magnificent melody. Meanwhile, the more mournful, O God our help in ages past, seems to be the sort of thing religious people sing, at least in films and dramas. I vaguely recall Ichabod Crane warbling it nervously in a Sleepy Hollow cartoon I saw as kid.