Matthew Kaemingk

This article first appeared in Public Justice Review and is reprinted here with permission.

September 11 fell on a Tuesday. Five days later, on Sunday, September 16, millions of American Christians, shocked, angry, and grieving, filed into church.

The music began to play. Some were invited into the defiant and militant melodies of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “God Bless America.” Some were invited into a time of mournful silence, prayer, and reflection. Others just sang the same old songs as if nothing had changed at all.

It is a hazardous thing to criticize a worship song. The songs we sing in church are dear to us—sacred even. Their potency comes from the fact that, over time, the songs become a part of us. Like eating and drinking, the rhythms and rhymes of these songs have a way of seeping deep into our marrow.

So it is with a bit of trepidation that I criticize the much-beloved hymn below.