A response to Andrew and others...

 First of all, yes, maybe Satan works to divide the church.  But maybe it's not entirely the critical brother's fault, as is generally argued.  A particular church group is happy for many years, then new junk appears out of nowhere.  New choices.  Alternatives.  Many embrace the new choices and just expect the more conservative brethren to follow suit with this entertaining new thing they've found.  So where did the division begin, then?  With the introduction of the new thing, of course!  Not necessarily saying I disagree with any and all change, it's quite the opposite, and I'm much more liberal than you or most anyone you know in many ways, but to slight the questions and concerns and feelings of the more conservative folks is more the cause of division than anything else in the church.  And usually it's done by wide-eyed, idealistic adolescents, AKA "fools".  Sometimes it's older folks who had a bad experience with a conservative-minded group at one time, so they're permanently idealistic to a fault.  But usually it's kids and younger people begging for this stuff because it suits their palate better.  I don't believe that worshipping God in an even better way is generally at the forefront of their train of thought, including in the case of this hymn book.  It's usually just preference for new songs because they find them more entertaining.  My own personal bias is that I actually find them far less entertaining, but for the record, I've been upfront about that.  CCM and modern praise music generally disgust me on an artistic front, as well as a theologically sound front.  They hurt my palate, but I would try harder to stomach Hillsong and Veggietales and all this ridiculousness that we've turned Christianity into if I felt there was much usefulness in them to advance my Christian walk or anyone else's.  I feel that it hurts everyone's walk and understanding of God and His plans when we embrace all of this Christianized junk food.  It's worldliness dressed up in a Jesus shirt.  I agree with Tozer on things like this, who had the attitude that if you want to be entertained, just go to a regular movie!  Don't watch some poorly made, unbiblical Jesus movie so you can convince yourself you're being spiritual.  You're not!  You're just living in the flesh with bad quality art which is usually pretty unbiblical, or at the very best, biblical in the most shallow sense.

When Christians talk about how critical, negative brothers are the ones splitting up the church, I have to wonder if they've ever read any of Paul's writings to his own flocks, or Jesus talking gobs of negativity to His disciples, or the prophets in all their infamy upsetting the happy state of Israel and all the new forms of idolatry and other religious practices that they would add daily to their own religion to keep things interesting.  These people did not hold the popular opinion much of the time, but they all had very good points.  And all anyone did around them was tell them to chill out or we'll kill you, because you're wrecking our vibe.  Then they killed those prophets, in many cases.

I'd like to take an aside here and note that I know Andrew isn't calling me an actual pharisee and was not making a mean-spirited argument.  I know that Andrew isn't like that.  Still, I end up lumped in with that side of this argument and am carrying my position and also his own position to an extreme for the sake of making a point.  Nothing more.  I also know that Andrew isn't a dumb teenager, but that is the crowd he will be lumped into for this argument.  Sorry!  It's the meanies vs. the dummies!

So anyway, that's why I hate the argument you put up there.  Quite often IT IS the more liberal-minded, free-spirit Christian who is stepping in some BS and causing the schism, and they always paint their critics as pharisaical.  Negative Nancies.  Party poopers.  Meanies.  And they get blamed for division, when really they saw problems that they had a hard time explaining to their very positive-thinking counterparts.

Andrew and others, are we convinced here that the church as a whole in America is pretty hardcore devoted to Jesus and every action they make is in His interest?  Or do we feel that maybe we're sort of watered down here in modern America?  That is the real question.  If you think everything is hunky dory in the modern American church, then there is not much to be careful for.  We can trust all sources and indulge in anything that claims to at least pay lip service to God.  However, if you think there's some deep-seated problems with American Christianity and that it's quite watered-down and lackadaisical in all the important things, then you've got to wonder why that is and where it's coming from, right?

The true church as a whole was a bit heavy on the legalism in the 1950's.  I think we all can agree.  So we corrected that starting in the 60's and we've seemingly kept the steering wheel turned a bit to the left for so long that I feel we have gone off the road and are turning in the other direction.  But you can't have conversations with anyone about how far we've gotten from the seriously devoted Christianity of 100 years ago, because all that is remembered is the legalism and you are immediately branded an uptight pharisee, which I should obviously not be to anyone who knows me well.  And it also makes people take an honest look at themselves and say, "Am I really very devoted, or do I just play a part?"  And people don't like asking themselves that question, because they know the answer without asking in most cases and find it depressing how much they lack in a spiritual sense.  So we plant our heads firmly and deeply in the sand in order to feel happy.  We cherish our egos.  We love ourselves.  We want to think we're doing a good job for God.  But are we?

I get the impression from several places in the bible that the church is not going to be in a good state when Jesus comes back to collect us in the clouds.  I get the idea that we'll be "sleeping" from several passages.  Not paying attention.  Focused on the world that we've gotten comfortable in.  Shallow and going through the motions.  That is the impression that I get from all over the new testament and the impression I get from looking at Christendom around me.

Do we even understand the concept of "Christendom" that the old brethren used to regularly talk about anymore?  If we do understand that idea, then the assemblies have apparently decided to embrace it and become part of it.  If we don't understand that concept, then we are ignorantly being sucked into what is called "Christendom", which is basically nothing more than all the wood, hay, and stubble of the true church.  The grey area where the world and the church meet.  The leaven in the meal.  And the assemblies got themselves into that position by trading their Little Flock hymns for Christendom's greatest hits, and trading their JND collected writings for very shallow and alarmingly heretical teachers like John Piper and Beth Moore.  We're trading the good things we had for garbage so we can be more like the rest of Christendom, and then we wonder why our adult kids leave and go to some big, dumb megachurch.  It's because all they see is a bunch of shallowness in a small pond, so they go for the same shallowness in a bigger pond with more entertaining babysitters for their kids and more entertainment for themselves.  Very little distinguishes the average open assembly from a big, dumb megachurch anymore besides the fact that they maintain the bread breaking ritual.  All the theology that was behind the few distinctions we had is disappearing, so we are naturally grabbing on to all the garbage that the rest of the church involves themselves in.  The open assemblies don't know why they believe what they believe anymore and seem sort of proud of it.

In the couple years I spent in an open assembly, I saw very little difference in what they believed compared with the average modern reformed baptist church, which is what I was trying to get away from when I went to an open assembly in the first place.  People used to flock to plymouth brethren assemblies for their teachings on prophecy and typology and dispensational timeline and all that stuff.  Now you have to go to a Calvary Chapel to hear that stuff, apparently.  Assemblies hardly teach it.  They seem afraid of it.  Especially the typology stuff.  And that's silly.  I have actually been sort of scolded a couple times for feebly, nervously stuttering out some typical applications that jumped out at me during group studies.  In fact, most any thought I had, which was usually quite in line with what the older brethren taught, was usually shot down and got me strange looks.  So I would be quiet.  When I was quiet for too long, I would be asked to speak up.  This cycle would repeat bi-weekly.  I guess I was supposed to go get myself a commentary by some reformed author and say what he said.  Then I would fit in.

The open assemblies read John Piper and Tim Keller and R.C. Sproul and Rick Warren and have become infected by their very comfortable, very earth-focused outlook on life.  Piper's "Christian Hedonism", with his expectation for Christianity to slowly take over planet earth, and not believing in a pretrib rapture, and the colorings of Calvinism, combined with an apparent belief that the Westminster Catechism is practically inspired by God, has led him and a couple generations of sheep to believe that our only goal in life is to bring God glory, and we can best bring Him that glory by just living our lives like everyone else and representing God through whatever our favorite hobbies are, most notably music, and bragging to the poor, cynical alcoholics around us how #blessed we are.  See my house?  I'm #blessed!  Not that we shouldn't be happy with the material gifts we are given, but the true blessings from God are spiritual ones, which are ignored in place of the material ones.  And He usually gives us those spiritual blessings through hardship allowed in our lives, which we credit to Satan because we were never taught in the 20,000 hours we've spent listening to bible exposition that God dishes out spiritual blessing by allowing bad things in our lives, quite often.

Back to the point though.

We make a much bigger deal out of music than the new testament does.  We refer to it as "music ministry" a lot of the time, as if that's an idea that came from the new testament.  And then we fall back on stuff that was written for Levitical priests for the justification of our focus on this ministry department that we have created.  Arts and crafts ministry and music ministry are the most common types of service that I see in the church as a whole today.  Christian Martha Stewartism.  And Christian Musicism.  What John Piper calls "Christian Hedonism".  What we may as well call WoodHayStubble-ism.  This is what we're most concerned with.  It's mostly a waste of time and makes Christianity look like nothing more than a lifestyle that demands bad taste in art, and little else, besides a heavy emphasis on politics and not ever being negative.  We MUST be utterly positive and never, ever critical of anything!

Some may say that I'm wise as a serpent and also as gentle as one (or merely as gentle as one and not very wise), but I know that and I try hard to work on that and bring some sort of balance.  I know I'm heartless and it keeps me up some nights.  Most Christians I meet though, on the other hand, are wise as doves and gentle as doves.  Bird-brained and proud of it, but kind.  Paul says that love is the greatest thing, but he never said to just throw away everything else!  Not yet!  Not in this horrible world!  Instead we were warned, warned, WARNED of prowling peoples and philosophies and other snares, which we don't seem to take very seriously.  I'm not afraid of HBO or The Beatles because I know they're evil.  They are obviously evil.  What we have been most warned against is stuff creeping into the church, a little here, a little there, until we end up as some sort of neo-Romanists.

Doesn't anyone understand how the Catholic church became what it became?  Does no one look at Mars Hill Bible Church and say, "How did it get like that?"  My dad was calling Rob Bell the antichrist's favorite lackey before he even left Calvary!  I thought he was just being critical, but years later I could see it.  Then a few years after that everyone else could see it.  And now Rob Bell doesn't even bother calling himself Christian anymore.  Yet, how many were fooled by his thinking 20 years ago, even among the assemblies?  And how many dove head-first into the purity ring movement before Josh Harris and his wife divorced and revealed that they no longer consider themselves Christian?  And how many similar stories and scandals have come out of CCM and Bethel/Hillsong over the last twenty years?  And now here the assemblies are, late to the scene, ready to adopt this garbage music from really questionable sources when the rest of the serious Christians in the church have already begun to take notice of the problems with that scene.  Why does the song "Pretty Fly For A White Guy" come to mind when I contrast modern open assemblies with the rest of the church around them?  We're a bit late on the whole Hillsong craze, guys!  Haha!

Just 50 years ago the open brethren and the exclusive brethren basically had the same theology, with the only major difference being in the reception of believers at communion.  Today that is not the case.  When the open brethren traded in their John Darby and William Kelly books for John Piper and Tim Keller books, they adopted that theology and started thinking a lot like their reformed teachers do.  They adopted the covenant worldview, albeit unintentionally and unnoticed, but to an exponential degree considering the following generations of believers who just accept whatever their parents and pastoral care tells them and build further upon that flawed foundation.  You think I'm nuts?  Go to the Voices For Christ website and look up the word "dispensational" or "covenant" in the search engine.  You can listen to Jabe Nicholson or William MacDonald ranting about this 25-35 years ago, right at the beginning of this whole thing, as far as I can figure it.  They were on to something, but alas, they were ignored.  The same people who each have William MacDonald's works on his shelves will hardly give any consideration to what he saw coming into the church before he died.  Is that ridiculous?  I think so.

As for Hillsong lyrics, here is a few to consider.  I'm sure it will be blown off in the interest of entertainment and unity and fellowship and not wanting to appear pharasaical and divisive and all those other boogeymen that we're all so very afraid of, but they've got some lyrics which are unbiblical in the few songs I've looked at in this hymn book.  If you want to be upset and make a stink about the lyrics to the hymn book compilers, here's your chance.  I'm not going to bother, because I have decided to not bother darkening the door of an open assembly again and consider myself an outsider, as I did a few years ago.  I want to do church, but I have to have more in common in a spiritual sense with the believers I meet with.  There's just too many problems otherwise.  I felt very miserable and alone within the open brethren culture.  Izzy and I didn't fit in.  It was obvious.  We tried.

Hymn 292 is "This Is Amazing Grace".  In the chorus, praising Jesus, it misappropriates the cross-bearing that He Himself told us to do ourselves, with it being done by Him.  It says, "This is the meaning of grace, This is unfailing love, That you would take my place, That you would bear my cross...."  So where does the new testament teach that Jesus would bear our cross?  It doesn't.  We bear our own cross.  Also, none of this is the meaning of God's grace as the lyrics would suggest.  This song is blatantly unbiblical, but no one will care, I'm sure.

Hymn 147 is "What A Beautiful Name".  The first two lines in the second verse are entirely unbiblical.  It's fitting though, because bringing heaven to earth is an important aspect in modern American theology and the covenant theology of yesteryear which we have re-embraced throughout the church.  Again though, no one will be upset about it, while still claiming to hold the bible as the authority for what they believe and never compromising.

Hymn 389 is "Good, Good Father".  The first verse has some very interesting things in it.  "I've heard a thousand stories of what they think you're like, but I've heard the tender whisper of love in the dead of night, and you tell me that you're pleased, and that I'm never alone."  These people (Christians?) from the modern charismatic denomination often claim to get special revelation from God.  That He plainly speaks to them regularly.  And maybe it's the case, though I doubt it, but it still shouldn't be encouraged on a public platform.  And anyway, these whispers that you claim to hear in the dead of night are more important than what has already been revealed in the bible?  Why not mention some bible verse or story that we can all relate to, instead of some spiritual excitement that we all have to take your word for and then try to feel what you felt with so little description?  Are you trying to encourage me to get God to reveal special revelation to my own person?  That's what it seems like.  ...And then I LOVE how it says how pleased God is when He looks at this believer.  Of course, that could be biblical in the way that God sees Jesus when He looks at us, but I get the impression from learning about these modern charismatic denominations that the same thing doesn't come to mind for them.

I'm sure there's other examples, but I don't have the time to pick through a bunch of lyrics to songs that I would just throw in the trash anyway, based on where they came from.  The older brethren had principles revolving around the idea that "a little leaven leavens the whole lump" and how we should stay out of "unequal yokes" for reasons exactly like this Bethel/Hillsong hymn stuff.  I understand your point that it doesn't offend your conscience.  I am a firm believer in Romans 14 and it was probably the first chapter I ever memorized when I was younger.  I doubt I could remember it so clearly anymore, but I still get the idea.

That said, a hymn book is something used by entire assemblies.  It ought to be put together by conservative and discerning elder types who will respect that maybe some folks could get the wrong idea from certain lyrics or certain teachings from the institutions that these songs come from.  You already commented that a good tree brings forth good fruit and vice-versa.  So then, are you really trying to tell me that good fruit came from these extremely heretical denominations that are involved with this music?  Is it an equal yoke?  Is there no leaven to be feared from groups who teach blatant prosperity gospel, dance around the topic of calling homosexuality sin, and get into straight-up occult practices such as grave-soaking and Word Of Faith mumbo jumbo?  This isn't your grandpa's pentecostalism.  This is a whole new monster and our spiritual leaders who put this hymn book together are essentially giving them the "okay" by including the products of their ministry in our hymn book.  May as well start passing out shirts saying "We Would Like To Be Like Bethel Church Some Day".

John Darby would vomit his communion meal on that hymn book and ask for his mere two songs to be taken out, since no one is going to bother singing them anyway.  Modern exclusive leaders would feel similarly.  So would outsiders of yesteryear who thought along the same lines, like Arno Gaebelein or J. Vernon McGee.  So would the more old school open brethren like the Pell family here in Grand Rapids or Harold MacKay or any Van Ryn who died before the year 2000.  Will we blow all of them off as being merely stuffy and not as spiritual as modern brethren?  Not as devoted to Christ and well-studied as our modern brethren?  If you would say so, then pardon me while I laugh hysterically!

I'm sure you'll still find reasons to disagree with me, so my final point is some of the Mormon hymns I was talking about that you should write our hymn book editors about to include in the next edition, since no one seems to care about the fountain that we drink from, so long as the water tastes good.  Look up these lyrics and tell me where you find the problems:

I Believe In Christ

Lord I Would Follow Thee

Do What Is Right (A good one for Sunday school)

So, a summary of my points is:

 - The pharasaical boogeyman is a tired, cheap argument.

 - Satan loves to introduce a new choice to cause division, no different than the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Choice is his favorite tool.

 - Entertainment is more the cause of introducing these new songs with questionable lyrics and even more questionable writers/organizations, not more devoted worship.  #ProveMeWrong

 - The church in America is watered-down to a pathetic state and no one seems to care.  It is done by wood/hay/stubble additions, which mostly revolve around Christianized entertainment.  Leaven in the meal.  Embracing Christendom.

 - Exclusives, older brethren writers, outsiders of yesteryear, and even open brethren from 50 years ago would never accept songs coming from some of these sources.

 - Some of the songs in that book DO have questionable lyrics.

 - The principles of a little leaven, the unequal yoke, Christendom, history of the church, etc... and how we are embracing these things and ignoring many biblical principles.

 - Some Mormon hymns are technically more biblical than some of the hymns in this new book.  That is gross!

Andrew and John Mark, I have only decided to write this when I saw you guys commenting things along the lines of not even understanding why anyone would have a problem with any of this stuff.  What I wrote above are examples of what is going on in a person's head who has a problem with some of the questionable "hymns" added to this book.  Brethren from 50 years ago would've thrown a fit over them.  They were getting upset with Keith Green and the Gaither family, which I thought was going a bit far, because they were all obviously serious believers.  They were good trees, even if we didn't agree with all their theology.  Bethel stuff and Hillsong stuff has some really creepy theology though.  Look into it!  Judging a tree by the fruit it bears is how to do things, but looking at the songs themselves as the only fruit born by their organizations is incomplete judgement.  Those trees have born a lot of other fruit to inspect.  I urge you to look into their doctrinal fruits and then reapply the rule of judging a tree by it's fruit.  Then we'll talk about the tree they come from and whether the song-fruit has any value coming from a bad tree.

Anyway, I'm sorry for hammering this thing so hard.  I will be keeping my hymn books because I want to utilize the guitar chord book (some day) to play the songs I do like.  If I ever have children though, I may rip those pages out which I find possibly offensive.  Or maybe just leave them in there as a lesson to my children about the leaven being mixed in with the meal and that we often have to double-check pastoral care as they either aren't always paying attention or are actually up to no good when they put stuff like this together for us.  I'm sure a guy like Crawford Paul probably just wasn't paying attention because he's a little overly positive, like all modern open brethren, from what I saw mixing with them at a couple conferences and facebook groups.

Again, I wouldn't have made such a big deal if no one had made comments about how they can't understand why anyone would have a problem with such a small thing.  My grandpa would've started crying and immediately prayed for these poor open brethren and their waywardness because he loved Christans very much and hated to see them make these kinds of mistakes.  You would find very few brethren of his generation, open or otherwise, even baptists and bible church people, who would have no problem with the inclusion of these songs.  They would be shocked that anyone would associate themselves with Bethel or Hillsong openly and in a public format.

Hugs and kisses forever!

Jon