Last October, Bishop Sean McKnight of Jefferson City, Missouri, banned about a dozen hymns from being played at masses in his diocese.

Unfortunately, he reversed the ban a few weeks later, because if Susan from the parish council doesn't get to sing Table of Plenty, there will be hell to pay.

But in today's episode, I'm going to talk about what's wrong with these hymns and why they need to die.

But before I do that, I just want to thank our supporters at trendhornpodcast.com. You are the reason this channel has not died and does not need sponsors. If you want to help our work, please visit trendhornpodcast.com. And don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss our great content. Now, to be clear, I give a wide tolerance to the kind of music people like. I mean, I'm the guy who goes to see Chicago cover bands,

so I'm not one to judge anybody's musical preferences. I also appreciate having guilty pleasures

when it comes to religious hymns. For example, do I think on eagle's wings is cheesy? Yes. Do I cry when I hear

on eagle's wings played at a funeral? Every time. But the hymns I want to talk about today are the ones that

have bad theology. So if singing is praying twice, then singing bad theology drills that error

deeper into the soul than just hearing the error.

So let's start with a classic example of this with the song, All Are Welcome.

Whenever you say this is a bad hymn, you get accused of being, well, not welcoming.

But this song makes it sound like we're trying to recruit people into our club to boost membership,

not call people to repentance to receive the holy sacrifice of the Eucharist.

Here's some of the lyrics.

Let us build a house where love can dwell, and all can safely live,

a place where saints and children tell how hearts learn to forgive,

built of hopes and dreams and visions,

rock of faith and vault of grace, here the love of Christ shall end divisions. The hymn keeps repeating

the phrase, let us build a house, which makes it sound like we sinners create the church, instead of

the church creating or recreating us in Christ's image.

The USCB's doctrinal committee agrees with this, and it calls the hymn objectionable on ecclesiological

grounds. This hymn also makes it sound like God died on the cross, and now it's just up to us to

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