The Way Our Hymns Have Changed

Over at the Together for the Gospel blog (accessible by clicking on the link to the right b/c I'm too lazy tonight to embed it in this text!) Mark Dever makes an amazing observation about how we American Evangelicals have a decreasing interest in thinking about the afterlife:

In my own denomination's hymnals, hymns about the afterlife drop in number from over 100 in the late 19th century to about 15 in the latest Baptist Hymnal (1991). Remaining hymns are neutered. The Baptist hymnal (1975 & 1991) both omit the wonderful 5th stanza from Cowper's great hymn "There is a Fountain". If you have the 1956 Baptist Hymnal you can still find it. "When this poor lisping stammering tongue Lies silent in the grave, Then in a nobler, sweeter song I'll sing Thy power to Save." Our reluctance to sing about the grave in church on Sunday only reveals how much our hopes have been entrusted to this life--and we do not wish to conceive of them being lost. Our treasures have been put too much in this world.