Rethinking "Reckless Love"

By Bill and Karen Itzel Two years ago, I wrote an article in my series of Exegeting the Hymns where I looked at the lyrics of “Reckless Love” and concluded that we’d never sing it at the church where I led worship. That article took a lot of heat because there were so many strong feelings about the song and many in our church wanted to sing it. However, now that time has passed and I have heard many stories of how that song was such an encouragement, I have decided to look back over the lyrics, and see if I was being overly-critical. In doing so, I feel as though I made a mistake. I believe I was not as thoroughly bold as I should have been in my criticism. At that time, there were several reasons why I had to tone down my warning to the church, but I plan to remedy that here. I want to make it clear why I feel I need to write this. Many wonderful, caring pastors and worship leaders spend hours pouring over their song choices every Sunday to make sure God is worshipped in spirit