Summer and Winter: Modern Christian Pop vs Shape-Note Hymns

Leah Libresco is one of my favorite writers. If you aren't following her blog Unequally Yoked you should. And if you struggle with prayer be sure to check our her book Arriving at Amen

Two weeks ago Leah called about an article she was writing for Nate Silver's 538 blog over at ESPN. If you know 538 you know its specialty is bringing quantitative and statistical analysis into political and cultural conversations.

Leah had come across shape-note singing of old Christian hymns at local sings and noticed a difference between the lyrical content of those hymns and the content of contemporary Christian pop songs. Specifically, Leah plotted the ratio of negative to positive words across these genres.

You can read about Leah's analysis, and some of my reflections about her findings, in her article "The Sun Is Always Shining In Modern Christian Pop."

Also, if you don't know anything about shape-note singing I'll be posting about that tomorrow.

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