Not trying to argue, but even “traditional” hymns were new at one time.
Music is tied to culture, and people are going to worship according to their cultural bent. Besides, I have been to many churches over the years that sang nothing but traditional hymns, and more than one were not places filled with people worshipping and adoring the Lord. My church home is one where we do worship using guitars, drums, keyboards and the like, and we have a strong core group of passionate Christ-followers that seek to serve and love.
Sorry to disagree. I’ve read the “lyrics” in praise songs. Juvenile, pedestrian, hackneyed, uninspired tripe. A friend of mind calls them “seven-eleven.” Seven words repeated eleven times. They’re like junk food compared to the gourmet feast that is the traditional hymn. “Open the eyes of my heart, Lord,” is one example of this junk. Think of the image—a human heart covered with eyeballs that suddenly fly open. It’s grotesque. Alan Jay Lerner, who wrote the lyrics to great Broadway shows, hated some of the lyrics he wrote for “I Could Have Danced All Night,” from my “My Fair Lady.” The line he hated most was “when all at once my heart took flight.” Never, he said, have human body parts flying around or expressing emotions or having eyeballs.
These praise songs are composed by people of little talent who are appealing to worshippers who accept mediocrity just because they think it’s “in” and younger people like it. A principle of economics is that the bad currency crowds out the good. That’s what’s happening in our churches.