There's Going to Be a Great Day

As Monty Python would say - "And now for something completely different." Here is a 1943 recording of the charming Dinah Shore singing "There's Going to Be Be Great Day". This is posted as part of the pre-Hebrews theme of reminding us that people in prior times had motivators and pressures that we can't always fully appreciate. And if we have trouble with something this close to our own era, we will need to be even more careful with stuff that goes back 2,000 years.

This was produced during World War II before fortress Europe was breached by the Allies, and the year my Mom and Dad were married. It's hard to conceive of the state of mind of people in those days. Certainly North Americans were more disposed to Christianity back then, and the pressures of war inclined many to think more of their mortality and of God, their Maker than they may otherwise have done. And the topic of this song is about final judgment and justification by faith. But I have no idea whether it was entertainment or preaching - whether it reached out to a pious and faithful populace or was itself merely sentimentality produced by the extraordinary stresses of the time.

What were the stresses in the time that Hebrews was written? What was the state of the society? What pressures were bearing upon the Jews, the Christian Jews and the church as a whole? We may not be able to know infallibly, but we ought at least to bear the questions in mind as we study.

I'm not saying this "modern era" song is a hymn, or that it is doctrinally sound - nor even that the artists were necessarily genuine Christians. I'm not saying that they were glorifying God, and there is certainly no mention of Jesus Christ. But if I had been a Christian alive at the time, I would have taken what I could from this, thanked God, and moved on with more hope.


There's Going to Be Be Great Day - Dinah Shore (1943)