Anglican Music

Small victory for the Anglican diaspora

2011-10-02T23:34:00.000-07:00

While a few of the Schism I crowd left ECUSA with their property, before the Dennis Canon, and a few parishes (and three diocese) are in court to keep the facilities they owned prior to the split — the reality is that many Schism II parishes left with only their people and a great deal of hope. These parishes have been renting other churches (off peak), schools, community centers or other meeting space. (Such rented facilities were also the norm for other new church plants for decades.)

Today St. James of San Jose completed what must have been one of the quickest ACNA journeys in the wilderness, as they celebrated their first day worshiping in their own sanctuary. The parish was formed by ECUSA refugees in March 2009 from St. Edwards, the last evangelical parish in the Diocese of El Camino Real (headed by a Nashotah House grad).

The parish spend the intervening months renting space at San Jose and Saratoga community centers, pioneering the “church in a box” weekly setup process.

The new sanctuary was formerly a small community church in Willow Glen, that had largely sat empty since its pastor retired. St. James visited the parish in Spring 2010, then forgot about it until it was offered the parish again this summer — with the owners generously selling at a price far under market.

St. James held its first two services at the parish on Sunday — the 9:00 am Rite I with hymns and the 10:30 Rite II with rock band. Having a sanctuary solves the problem of midweek services, including Ash Wednesday, Good Friday and Christmas.

Five miles from their former St. Edwards home, the new location puts the ACNA back in Northern California's most populous city, as part of Father Ed McNeill's efforts to build for ACNA a Diocese of San Francisco Bay. It also allows Rev. McNeill and others to focus on planting additional ACNA parishes in Northern California, and to help those parishes gain their own permanent church facilities.

Anglo-Lutheran worship

2011-06-12T18:36:00.000-07:00

For the first time since they processed away from their building, today I attended Holy Trinity (ACNA) in San Diego, which now worships at the LCMS parish next door to their longtime sanctuary.

As it happens, it was also the observance of feast of Pentecost, so I was able to witness their high feast worship style. It was nothing but “bells and smells” (as my choir buddies used to call it) with full incense at the most Anglo-Catholic of the Schism II parishes in San Diego. I estimate about 75 people were in the sanctuary for the 8 a.m. service.

The choice of the opening and closing hymns were about as Anglican as you can get — both with Vaughan Williams tunes from The English Hymnal: “Hail thee festival day!” (Pentecost edition) and “Come down, O love divine.”

However, the “Hail thee” was rendered in an unusual format by the Lutheran hymnals that Holy Trinity is using while temporarily meeting at Bethany Lutheran in OB. One unusual quirk is that the Lutherans decided that RVW only gets one hymn for three feast days — Easter, Ascension and Pentecost — with 3 variants specified for the chorus, verse 1 and verse 2. Without having the hymnal in front of me, it was impossible to say what damage this did to the CoE conception of the hymn.

The other change was more obvious. Instead of the PECUSA (1940, 1982):

Hail thee, festival day! blest day that are hallowed for ever;
Day whereon God from heav’n shone in† the world with his grace.

the Lutheran Book of Worship (and also the other Bethany parish hymnal, the Lutheran Service Book) render the refrain as

Hail thee, festival day! blest day to be hallowed forever;
Day when the Holy Ghost shone in the world with his grace.

(† The English Hymnal (#630) says “shown on the world” but the refrain is otherwise the same.)

The translation of the Fortunatus was attributed to the LBW, a ELCA hymnal that was rejected by the LCMS due to doctrinal errors. But the LSB translation is no better.

As far as I could tell, the other RVW hymn was divine (with words similar to those of H40 #376).

In the middle, Holy Trinity sang as its second communion hymn “O Lord, we praise you” which was unfamiliar to these Anglican ears but with a pedigree about as Lutheran as they get: verse 1 from 15th century Germany, verses 2-3 from 16th century Martin Luther hymself, and a 1524 tune from a German hymnbook.

So in the end, this was an English-American-Lutheran blended worship service — a bit unfamiliar but better than a rock band playing 19th century hymns.

PECUSA hymnals: first 130 years

2011-06-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

In reading about the American prayer book, I found interesting snippets of history regarding the PECUSA hymnals of the 19th and early 20th century. The source was William Sydnor, The Real Prayer Book: 1954 to the Present (1978).

The end of Chapter VII (on the 1892 BCP) and beginning of Chapter VIII (on the 1928) summarize American hymnals up to that date. (No mention is made of Hymnal 1940.) According to the book, the American church distributed hymns as follows:

1786: 51 hymns, 8 pages of tunes, appended to end of proposed prayer book
1789: 27 hymns (no tunes) as an appendix
1826: 212 hymns (no tunes) appended to the prayer book
1828: tune book published by Rev. Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright
1871: 502 hymns in first stand-alone hymnal
1896: 679 hymns
1916: 559 hymns, adding 126 and dropping 200. Sydnor favorable quotes a contemporaneous account that praises Hymnal 1916 as “a visible demonstration of the liberality of the [General] Convention to new devotional demands.”

Of course, regular readers know that PECUSA has since published two main hymnals, Hymnal 1940 and Hymnal 1982.

It turns out that this history came from the preface to the Hymnal 1940 Companion, a must have book for any Anglican musician. (By now I would also own the companion to Hymnal 1982, except that it’s multiple books totaling hundreds of dollars, which I am acquiring as I can find them available used.)

Although it’s the only book I’ve found about the history of the American prayer book, I can’t say I care for the book overall. It was written as an apologia for the 1979 prayer book and in the sort of temporo-centrist conceit common to that century, claims that the vast transformation of industrial society justifies new approaches to worship and theology. As with Oremus, it also justifies modernist revisionism with the claim “things were always changing anyway.”

Actually the Brits managed just fine with one prayer book for 300 years. The late Peter Toon argued that if you changed the thees and thous, it would make a fine prayer book for 21st century Americans.

Good Good Friday hymn

2011-04-22T23:19:00.000-07:00

Tonight I ended Lent the same way it began — by worshiping at the local LCMS parish that I once attended. (Due to a schedule mixup, we missed the service at our Anglican parish.)

It reminded me of my days in their choir, particularly the good days when we got to sing Bach and other traditional four part harmonies. Out of The Lutheran Hymnal, we sang “Jesus, I will ponder now” — something I’ve never heard in a ECUSA/Anglican service but was very familiar from my LCMS period.

My former section partner drafted me to the choir to help him with another local favorite — “God so loved the world” by John Stainer.

However, the musical highlight of the Tenebrae service was the hymn I consider the quintessential Good Friday hymn: “O sacred head now wounded.” It was sung in between passion lessons as the candles were extinguished.

The original 12th century Latin text (Salve caput cruentatum) is attributed to St. Bernard of Clairvaux, but the hymn owes its origins to the German Lutheran reformers: a German adaptation by Paul Gerhardt, the melody (Passion Chorale) by Hans Leo Hassler (1601).

Despite its Lutheran bonafides, it’s also a familiar tune among Anglicans. Oremus lists the hymn as being in all the major Anglican hymnals: Hymns Ancient and Modern, The English Hymnal, Songs of Praise and New English Hymnal in England, Hymnal 1916, Hymnal 1940 and Hymnal 1982 in the US, as well as hymnals from Ireland, Canada and Australia.

The Lutheran Hymnal (1941) uses their own harmonization while ironically the Anglicans seem to use the Bach harmonization (with many more passing notes). The Lutheran Service Book (2006) lists both harmonization.

The other major difference is in the German to English translation. Hymnal 1940 (#75) and Hymnal 1982 (#168) use an English translation by Robert Seymour Bridges that begins:

O sacred head, sore wounded
Defined and put to scorn.
O kingly head, surrounded,
with mocking crown of thorn.

while the American Lutherans use an unattributed translation from the TLH that’s slightly different:

O sacred Head, now wounded,
With grief and shame weighed down.
How scornfully surrounded
With thorns, Thine only crown.

I’ve sung both so at this point both seem OK. A more serious difference is that the Lutherans keep all 10 verses, while the ECUSA hymnals only keep 4 and 5 respectively (a rare example of where H82 is an improvement). Alas, the LSB drops down to 4 verses for Bach and 7 verses for the TLH harmonization.

Still, it’s hard to imagine a hymn more appropriate for Good Friday. It would be a “must sing” hymn for Good Friday if I were a Continuing Anglican music director, just as it is at this LCMS parish. The only other hymn that comes to mind is the Negro spiritual “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” (H40: #80) which we used as an anthem one year at this LCMS parish.

Update Saturday 3:30 p.m.: Catching up on Issues Etc., I found that on Friday it broadcast an interview with Pastor Will Weedon on this very hymn. Quoting Dr. C. Matthew Philips of Concordia U Nebraska, Pastor Weedon attributes the Latin text to Arnulf of Louvain, a 13th century poet and abbot.

A quick search on Google Scholar reveals a 2005 article that says:

Gerhardt could still use medieval models for his hymnody, including Arnulf of Louvain, whose 'Salve caput cruentatum' lies behind the well-known 'O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden' ('O sacred head surrounded').

Bono's Amazing Grace

2011-02-27T15:18:00.000-08:00

A 2005 book — Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas — includes long interviews with the U2 frontman. The Anglican blog “Baby Blue Online” (quoting the blog “The Poached Egg”) excerpts passages about his Christian faith, including his personal relationship with Christ, his occasional suspicion of organized religion, giving his famous shades to Pope John Paul II, and how he sees “the Old Testament as more of an action movie.”

Any doubts about Bono being a Christian — rather than yet another New Age rock star — is dispelled by his impassioned explication of my favorite Scripture passage (John 14:6):

Look, the secular response to the Christ story always goes like this: he was a great prophet, obviously a very interesting guy, had a lot to say along the lines of other great prophets, be they Elijah, Muhammad, Buddha, or Confucius. But actually Christ doesn't allow you that. He doesn't let you off that hook. Christ says: No. I'm not saying I'm a teacher, don't call me teacher. I'm not saying I'm a prophet. I'm saying: "I'm the Messiah." I'm saying: "I am God incarnate." And people say: No, no, please, just be a prophet. A prophet, we can take. You're a bit eccentric. We've had John the Baptist eating locusts and wild honey, we can handle that. But don't mention the "M" word!

I don’t know if Bono has read C.S. Lewis, but he ends up at the exact same conclusion as Mere Christianity: “either Christ was who He said He was – the Messiah — or a complete nutcase.”

More directly relevant to this blog, another answer by Bono reminded me of the old devotional “Amazing Grace”:

I really believe we've moved out of the realm of Karma into one of Grace. … at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics; in physical laws every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It's clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the universe. I'm absolutely sure of it.

And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that "as you reap, so you will sow" stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff.

However, the hymn by John Newton takes the implication of grace one step further. The second and third verses (H82: #671) also emphasize the transformational nature of our salvation through faith:

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed!

Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

Given all Bono has genuinely done to comfort the afflicted, perhaps we can take his actions (rather than his words) as a testimony to the transformational power of God’s saving grace.

Wonderful hymnology resource

2011-01-10T12:02:00.000-08:00

I’ve previously quoted from John Julian’s 1892 Dictionary of Hymnology, because it is available in PDF form on Google Books.

However, now the formatted, searchable text is available on Hymnary.org. For example, here is a listing of hymn compilations from the entry for the late great John Mason Neale:

(1) Hymns for Children. Intended chiefly for Village Schools. London, Masters, 1842. (2) Hymns for the Sick. London, Masters, 1843, improved ed. 1849.
(3) Hymns for the Young. A Second Series of Hymns for Children. London, Masters, 1844.
(4) Songs and Ballads for Manufacturers. London, Masters, 1844.
(5) Hymns for Children. A Third Series. London, Masters, 1846.
(6) Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences. London, Masters. 1851; 2nd ed. 1861; 3rd. ed. 1863.
(7) Hymnal Noted. London, Masters & Novello, 1852: enlarged 1854. Several of the translations were by other hands. Musical editions edited by the Rev. T. Helmore. It is from this work that a large number of Dr. Neale's translations from the Latin are taken.
(8) Carols for Christmas and Eastertide. 1853.
(9) Songs and Ballads for the People. 1855.
(10) The Rhythm of Bernard de Morlaix, Monk of Cluny, on the Celestial Country. London, Hayes, 1st ed. 1858: 3rd ed., with revision of text, 1861. It contains both the Latin and the English translation.
(11) Hymns of The Eastern Church, Translated with Notes and an Introduction. London, Hayes, 1862: 2nd ed. 1862: 3rd ed. 1866 : 4th ed., with Music and additional notes, edited by The Very Rev. S. G. Hatherly, Mus. B., Archpriest of the Patriarchal (Ecumenical Throne. London, Hayes, 1882. Several of these translations and notes appeared in The Ecclesiastic and Theologian, in 1853.
(12) Hymns, Chiefly Mediaeval, on the Joys and Glories of Paradise. London, Hayes, 1865. This work contains notes on the hymns, and the Latin texts of the older amongst them.
(13) Original Sequences, Hymns, and other Ecclesiastical Verses. London, Hayes, 1866. This collection of Original verse was published posthumously by Dr. Littledale.

The online, indexed, searchable version of the Dictionary of Hymnology is a great resource for those tracking the origins and authorship of the great hymns of the past centuries. The coverage obviously stops at the end of the 19th century — but except for Ralph Vaughan Williams or perhaps Healey Willan, that’s no great loss.

One child, three kings

2011-01-05T00:01:00.000-08:00

On the Dec. 24 episode of Issues Etc., the first hour examined the Christmas hymn “What Child is This?” The show featured two LCMS pastors, host Todd Wilken and regular guest Will Weedon.

The show examined the three 19th century verses by William Chatterton Dix (1837-1898), set to the Elizabethan tune “Greensleeves” (H40: #36; H82: #115). Pastor Weedon noted it is one of three familiar Dix hymns — the same three that are in Hymnal 1940: “What Child” (#36), “As with gladness men of old” (#52 for Epiphany) and “Alleliuia, sing to Jesus” (#347, sung to Hyfrydol).

Rev. Weedon is a little more like me — an enthusiastic tyro rather than a scholar — than some of the show’s other experts like seminary professor Dr. Arthur Just. Still, like nearly all of the Issues Etc. episodes on familiar hymns, I enjoyed it immensely.

As it turns out, Dr. Just discussed this same hymn three years ago on Issues Etc. And two years ago, Pastor Wilken discussed the hymn in a discussion of listeners’ favorite hymns.

The discussion of the first verse was quite consonant with the earlier interview with Dr. Just: answering the question, who is Jesus of Nazareth and this baby in the manger? As Pastor Weedon notes, the first verse ties back to Luke 2 — by my reading, specifically Luke 2:15-16:

And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.

And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.

(Ironically, the other hour of the Dec. 24 show was Dr. Just talking about the Luke 2 account of the Nativity.)

The first verse also seems to evoke other hymns from this text, including “While shepherds watched their flocks by night” and of course “Hark, the herald angels sing.”

On the second verse, Pastor Weedon notes that the ox and ass are not in the New Testament, but are inferred (by Dix and others romanticizing the Nativity) from their presence in Isaiah 1:3:

The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib,
but Israel does not know, my people do not understand."

Beyond this, two LCMS pastors emphasize Jesus coming to die on the cross. I suspect my regular reader jleebcd would argue this is an excessively Lutheran (or LCMS) fixation of making everything in the Old and New Testaments about the cross. But this reference seems more than just a Lutheran one — completely consistent with the 3rd verse of Charles Wesley (i.e. Methodist) hymn “Hark!”

Mild he lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die:
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.

In the third verse, Pastor Weedon notes that the text leaps forward to Epiphany, with its reference to the three wise men (or kings) of Matthew 2. (Listening to LCMS pastors is always a good way to improve my German cultural knowledge — here that Epiphany is “Dreikönigsfest” — literally, "festival of the three kings.”)

Again, Pastor Weedon ties the New Testament narrative back to an Isaiah prophecy, this one from Isaiah 60:1-3 (earlier used as the text of that wonderful Messiah aria):

Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.

For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.

And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.

This makes my third posting on Dix’s hymn — each time about a separate mention of the hymn on Issues Etc. Each time I’ve learned something new about the hymn and how it can be used to communicate Christian doctrine. This is one reason that no matter how busy my December or early January, I always make sure to listen to back shows of Issues Etc. that air during this season.

Imagine standing against bigotry

2010-12-31T00:01:00.000-08:00

In less than 24 hours, more than 100,000 revelers will be crammed into Midtown Manhattan, waiting for the “ball” to drop above Times Square. If this year matches previous years, the lead up to the final countdown will include John Lennon’s peace anthem, “Imagine.” Lennon described his Billboard #1 hit this way:

'Imagine' is a big hit almost everywhere -- anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional, anti-capitalistic, but because it is sugarcoated it is accepted. Now I understand what you have to do: Put your political message across with a little honey."

So before he gets to describing his socialist nirvana, Lennon first trains his caustic political commentary on the church:

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

As a kid I sang along with most of the Beatles songs, but as an adult Christian I hold this song and similar sentiments anathema (in the New Testament sense of the word).

Still, I wonder how many nominal Christians will hear the song tonight — on TV or in person — and ignore this “sugarcoated” attack on their faith and (one would hope) their entire identity. And I often wonder why the Catholic League, Focus on the Family or some other group hasn’t complained about its use in a public setting — to me a more offensive choice than any moment of silence. (Apparently in 2005 the president of the Catholic League did complain in a TV interview about efforts to make Lennon’s prediction a reality.)

Christians here take their faith seriously, so perhaps there’s hope. Conversely, in May 2009 the Liverpool (Church of England) Cathedral allowed the song to be played on its church bells despite complaints that (as Lennon bragged) the song is anti-religious.

Words mean something — in TV ads, radio jingles, hymns, rap music and pop anthems. It seems that Christians have an obligation to consider all the words they come across in life and the culture, particularly when instructing their (and others’) children in how to live out a Christian life.

Update, June 29: According to a former aide, Lennon actually repudiated his former socialist ideals in the final years of his life and strongly: preferred Reagan over Carter:

"I also saw John embark in some really brutal arguments with my uncle, who's an old-time communist... He enjoyed really provoking my uncle... Maybe he was being provocative... but it was pretty obvious to me he had moved away from his earlier radicalism.

"He was a very different person back in 1979 and 80 than he'd been when he wrote Imagine. By 1979 he looked back on that guy and was embarrassed by that guy's naivete."

An end to one Anglican tradition in San Diego

2010-12-28T23:59:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, the parishioners of Holy Trinity (ACNA) in San Diego held their final Sunday worship service in the sanctuary (a half mile from the Pacific) that they have called home for six decades. Having surrendered their legal fight with the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego, on Thursday their rector will hand over the keys to the diocese.

A brief story ran last week in the neighborhood weekly, the Peninsula Beacon. On Wednesday, the San Diego Union-Tribune is running a major feature story on this, the last Schism II church in San Diego to surrender its building. (The next to last parish, St. Anne’s of Oceanside, gave up their property a year ago.)

Attending services on both Dec. 25 and 26 at Holy Trinity was very poignant for me, and not because this was the second time I witnessed an ACNA parish surrender their building to TEC. This one was more personal, because this is the parish that my father once attended.

At both services, Fr. Lawrence Bausch, SSC made reference to the move. The Christmas service emphasized Christ coming for our eternal salvation, and thus the need to focus beyond temporary and temporal concerns. The Christmas 1 sermon highlighted some of the history of the parish, which began worship at an Ocean Beach home on Trinity Sunday 1921. (A 95-year-old parishioner attended both the first service and Sunday’s final service in their longtime sanctuary.)

Despite the sadness, it was no surprise: this move has been a long time coming. Holy Trinity (along with St. Anne’s and a third parish in Fallbrook) was first sued in 2007. Other than St. James Newport Beach, I believe all the other California churches have given up on their fights against their respective dioceses. (TEC litigation against the Diocese of San Joaquin poses different legal issues.)

I’ve followed the Holy Trinity situation intermittently over the last three years. Last summer, the vestry and then an all parish meeting decided to abandon the legal appeals and hand over the building to the TEC. As I understand it, the expenditure was certain but the benefit highly uncertain, and at this point the church leaders decided that it was time to move on (both figuratively and literally).

Unlike in Oceanside, the diocese was in no hurry to get the building back. There is a very liberal parish, All Souls, less than two miles away. There is no rump “Episcopalian” membership of Holy Trinity — the entire parish is leaving lock, stock and barrel. Unlike the other disputed properties, the diocese does not even list Holy Trinity in its church finder. Plans to hold a Jan. 9 service as the nucleus of a new congregation seem unlikely to succeed. At the same time, the Union reports that the diocese wanted $2 million to sell the building and was unwilling to rent it to Holy Trinity.

Meanwhile, the “farewell to the building” service (with about 100 people present) was the most crowded I’ve seen since the litigation began. I only recognized a handful of people, in part because (as with elsewhere in California) people have been moving to lower cost locations as the economy has soured.

As the Union article notes, the Holy Trinity faithful are moving (literally) next door to the sanctuary of a much larger LCMS parish, Bethany Lutheran. Sunday’s service concluded at Bethany with a joint prayer between Father Bausch and Pastor Steven Duescher. The combined congregations sang “The Church’s One Foundation” from the Lutheran Service Book (words by Samuel Stone, tune by S.S. Wesley).

However, in the shared space, Holy Trinity will have a less than desirable Sunday worship time: 8:00, before the home parish (10:30), Immanuel Korean Church (12:30), and a non-denominational church (5:00). The facilities (especially parking) are spacious, but the time will be a challenge over the long haul.

Fr. Bausch was called to Holy Trinity in 1979, and he fits the parish so well that it’s hard to imagine the parish with anyone else. How many Episcopal (let alone Anglican) priests are regular surfers? However, his position at Holy Trinity is perhaps a fluke, since in 1979 he was also being considered at another Anglo-Catholic parish in the diocese, St. Michael’s of Carlsbad. The rector called to St. Michael’s in 1979 retired in 1995, and his replacement was forced out earlier this year by the Bishop of San Diego. Once the largest Anglo-Catholic parish in the diocese, St. Michael’s is now destined to become a bastion of high church progressives as its Anglo-Catholic members have formed a new ACA parish, St. Augustine of Canterbury.

In some ways, however, the San Diego ACNA parishes — even without permanent facilities — seem on a more sound foundation than much of ACNA — perhaps due to the mutual support that they provide to each other. Five San Diego area parishes are among 19 in the Diocese of Western Anglicans. These five in San Diego County (population 3 million) contrast with three in Los Angeles County (population 9 million). In part, this seems a testimony to two doctrinally sound (and one decent) bishops who preceded James Mathes, keeping them in the ECUSA longer than most of the West Coast — whereas L.A. and Bay Area are home to many Schism I parishes (ACA and APCK, respectively) that formed decades due to local heresies by people like Jim Pike.

Still, any parish without a building has a long row to hoe. Holy Trinity starts with their 1928 BCP (which the diocese had no use for) but will need to rebuild most of the other assets it had accumulated over the past 90 years.

Update: Photos taken during and after Dec. 26 worship service.

The Grinch who ruined Advent

2010-12-24T16:00:00.000-08:00

In eight hours, it will be Christmas Day. While the gift giving and receiving no longer provide the excitement of my youth, I do very much enjoy the chance to listen to (and sometimes sing) my favorite hymns of the year. Normally on Black Friday, I load up my 471 Christmas songs on my iPod and play them through the month of December.

But this year, Baptist-turned-Episcopalian-turned-Orthodox pedant Terry Mattingly (of GR and TMatt fame) has been on a tear to ban Christmas carols before December 25. If we were in a Antiochian Orthodox theocracy (fat chance), none would be allowed on the radio, malls or churches before 12:01am tomorrow morning.

It’s been part of his nonstop campaign this month to convince reporters to adopt his typology of American holiday observance: “The Holidays” (the politically correct aversion to the "C" word) vs. “Christmas” (the fat guy in the red suit) vs. "the Nativity of our Lord” (guess which one he thinks is genuine.) He posted on this theme on Dec. 7, Dec. 14 and Dec. 23 on GetReligion, and Dec. 13 on his personal website.

On one level, I see his point. I don’t think that Christmas carols should be sung on Sunday morning in church, when we observe the season of Advent. (And, in fact, made sure this was the policy at our church.) They are two different liturgical seasons for Anglicans, the readings are different, the theology is different — and we have a great selection of historic Advent hymns to choose from.

I could certainly endorse his 2009 column in which he called for keeping the two seasons distinct: the preparation for the coming (or second coming) of our Lord is different from the celebration of it. He quoted from an essay by a Baptist preacher and seminary professor:

Advent … comes to us from a Latin term that means ‘toward the coming.’ The purpose of this season was to look toward the coming of Christ to earth; it was a season that focused on waiting. As early as the 4th century A.D., Christians fasted during this season.

However, I disagree with his current jiihad against premature Christmas revelry, on points both big and small.

The smallest point is on use of carols on Dec. 24. Yes, it’s not Christmas until 12:01am, and for years (centuries?) Christians observed a Christmas vigil to take communion after midnight. When I was newly married and in the choir, I went to the midnight mass and enjoyed it greatly. However, my new bride tried it once and concluded that she couldn't stay up that late and function the next morning.

I believe drawing from Jewish tradition, many Christian feasts are observed after sundown the night before. Most Anglican churches I know jump the gun by a few hours with a family Christmas Eve service around 4 or 5 p.m. Is it so doctrinally wrong to sing these carols two (or eight) hours early to accomodate the realities of young children and their sleep schedule.

TMatt also blasts the habit of Lessons and Carols to be performed on some Sunday in Advent, rather than during the 12 days of Christmas. What planet has he been on? I know that the December date has been the norm among Episcopalians for more then 40 years — since I sang at several such services as a choirboy. And I’d be willing to wager $100 that I could find such services during Advent in 19th century England, even during the height of the Oxford Movement.

But let’s set that aside and come to the real point: take your hands off my iPod — particularly the 228 of the 471 songs that celebrate Baby Jesus. (Or, if you prefer, “The Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” as TMatt calls it.)

The exigencies of work are such that for more than a decade, I have frequently been out business travel the week before Christmas, up until Dec. 23 or even Dec. 24. One year on Dec. 24, I attended a Sunday morning Anglican service in Yokohama and then the Christmas Eve service at home in California. Christmas music — particularly the sacred kind — is how I prepare myself for the observance of the Christmas season.

Choirs sing Christmas songs in November or even earlier to practice their parts. Why not allow amateur hymn-lovers to remind themselves of the forgotten lyrics of verses 4 and 5 so they’ll be ready for Christmas morn?

Finally, let’s not forget the big picture: the point of Christmas carols — like any other hymns or sacred music — is to communicate and reinforce the faith. In an increasingly secular world, more time spent singing Christmas carols can’t be a bad thing, particularly with the generations growing up (unlike I did) in a world when schools and malls and radio stations no longer sing about the Christ in Christmas.

I was proud to hear my youngest explain to us today: “Christmas isn’t about the presents. It’s about the birth of Jesus.” After remarking on the role of music in celebrating His birth — and how the Christmas carols are her favorite church music of the year — she concluded: “You get to sing amazing music.” I’d say that carols such as The First Noël and Hark the Herald Angels Sing are doing a pretty good job of what the composer and lyricists intended, of preserving the faith across the generations.

As it turns out, we no longer attend service on Christmas Eve: the competing family celebrations make it impractical to get away, even at 4pm. So as we have for the past four or five years, tomorrow morning at 10am we’ll be in church singing our favorite hymns, at a time authorized by Metropolitan Mattingly.

But for the rest of you, enjoy your Christmas hymns today — on the radio, in your car, and of course in church this evening.

Joy to the world! The Lord is come!

Lo he comes

2010-12-19T23:49:00.000-08:00

We went to two Advent 4 services this morning — one our regular service, one a baptism at another. This is the last of the four weeks where we anticipating the coming of our Savior: the next time we’re in church (either Friday night or Saturday morning), it will be the Christmas season.

The two parishes are Continuing Anglicans and within driving distance of each other. Otherwise, there’s not a lot in common: one was H40 and 28 BCP, the other H82 and 79 ASB.

But the one thing they had in common was two hymns about Jesus’ coming: “O come, O come Emmanuel” (H40: 2, H82: 56) and “Lo, he comes with clouds descending” (H40: 5; H82: 57/58.) By my count, these are two of the seven hymns that form the canon of Advent — the accepted Anglican Advent hymns of the past century.

While I’ve written about Veni Emmanuel, the Charles Wesley hymn I think is underappreciated and worth further mention. (Interestingly, Hymnal 1940 Companion lists it as an Advent 2 hymn, but neither of us got it “right.”)

The 18th century text has two 18th century tunes: St. Thomas and Hemsley, and each parish chose a different tune to end their respective services. The former is the one I grew up hearing as a child in ECUSA parishes, and the voice leading makes it pretty straightforward to sing. (Episcopalian refugees today at the early service also seemed to recognize the tune.) H40 companion says it’s attributed to John F. Wade, from the same manuscript as Wade’s Adeste Fidelis.

I find Hemsley (by Thomas Olivers) intriguing, but more than a little challenging. The choir at the 2nd service was strong enough to carry us, but I think it would have been beyond our abilities at the 1st service with a much weaker choir.

So the Wesley words are a worthy conclusion to Advent in either form, with the choice of melody depending more on musical ability than musical merit.

Halfway through Advent Year A

2010-12-05T18:58:00.000-08:00

At church I’ve been helping to pick hymns for Advent, which somewhat makes sense since the music leaders are not Episcopalian or Anglican but also is a bit odd given we use Hymnal 1982, for which my feelings are well-advertised. (And no, this blog does not solely exist to knock H82.)

It’s also a little confusing because Hymnal 1940 has a built-in lectionary guide for hymns but ECUSA decided to make a buck selling ancillary products to achieve the same goal in H82. (Reviews of those products some other time.) Plus the 1979 prayer book has its lectionary and so the H82 guides are tied to that lectionary, but our Schism II parish is using the RCL which is slightly different.

Still, it’s a lot of fun to apply what little I know about hymns to weekly worship and I got many positive comments today from the hymn-lovers among our fellow parishioners. (In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.)

In trying to come up with four hymns each week — matched to three readings and a Psalm for each of four Sundays — it’s been a mixed bag. Sometimes the text is really really clear; in some cases, a hymn guide makes a linkage that I don’t see (but I used the hymn anyway); and in some cases, there’s no obvious linkage so the hymns all tie to one of the other readings.

I started by keeping out Christmas hymns and making sure the best Advent hymns got scheduled. I started from my list last year of the most consistently popular Advent hymns. I supplemented this with a very good (i.e. I agree with it) overview of the best Advent hymns in H82, from Full Homely Divinity (which like this blog seems to anonymously posted by a virtual online ministry.)

There is also the online cross-reference for choosing H82 hymns at the website of Dr. Shirley, using a lectionary cross-reference by Charles Wohlers and Rev. Richard Losch. The Isaiah readings were particularly difficult without this list.

One problem common to any season is that some hymns can be used at any time, not necessarily for a given Sunday. At least half of the hymns from my greatest hits list are of the “the Messiah is coming” variety which of course is the whole theme of Advent. Some hymns (or readings) may focus on the specific Baby Jesus aspect, or on Mary or on his second coming.

So some of what I did was organize the H82 hymns from a H40 sensibility. (This is after all our Rite I service, many of whom used the H40 for years.) At any parish that I’m at, I’m going to pick/lobby for the first hymn of the first week of the church year to be Hymn #1 from H40 (H82 #66): “Come, thou long-expected Jesus.” It’s appropriate to be sung at any time during Advent, but both by convention and its bright nature, it provides a strong (and reassuring) signal about our focus this time of year.

Conversely, it’s hard to pick the right time for Veni Emmanuel (H40 #2, H82 #56) because it fits so well through out the season. At least one friend joked that if I had my way we’d do it every week which is not far from the truth. This year, however, I advised using it to bracket the last Gospel of Advent in the RCL Year A (Matthew 1:18-25), the story of the angel visiting Joseph. In particular, verses 21-23:

21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."
22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
23 "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,and they shall call his name Immanuel" (which means, God with us).

(With a better choir, we’d use recitative and air from the Messiah.)

The other theme that comes up throughout the season — but particularly on Advent 2 — is John the Baptist. There are several hymns that talk about John, but the mandatory one is “On Jordan's bank the Baptist's cry” (H40 #10, H82 #76) which fortunately is both familiar and easy to sing.

At times the choices were highly idiosyncratic. For Advent 3, both Isaiah 35:1-10 and Matthew 11:2-11 make explicit reference to opening the eyes of the blind. To me, this suggested six words of “Amazing Grace” (“was blind, but now I see”) which seemed like a good enough excuse to lay on four verses of this congregation favorite.

Alas, a bridge too far this morning was to program Sleepers Wake (H40 #3; H82 #61). The Philip Nicolai tune is long and difficult and I don’t think it’s familiar to American Anglicans. I don’t recall hearing it as a kid, so I think I may have mistakenly classified it as familiar from my brief sojourn as an LCMS Lutheran (where it is much beloved). This is a very challenging hymn, and of the four Anglican (3 continuing, 1 TEC) congregations I have most often attended over the past five years, I’m not sure any of them could do it without a strong well-practiced choir.

I also learned that if there’s a three verse limit — four for the sequence hymn — that verses should be consciously chosen for each hymn. For “Creator of the stars of night” (H40: 6; H82: #60) — the John Mason Neale translation of the 1st millennial text — I picked the first verse and the last two. The final verse is a trinitarian ending that I didn’t want to omit, but frankly I thought the penultimate verse (of the H82-altered text) was the most germane to Advent:

Creator of the stars of night,
Your people’s everlasting light,
O Christ, Redeemer, save us all,
We pray you hear us when we call.
…
Come in your holy might, we pray,
redeem us for eternal day;
defend us while we dwell below
from all assaults of our dread foe.

To God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Spirit, Three in One,
praise, honor, might, and glory be
from age to age eternally.

Now that I move from the theoretical to the practical, there are at least four dimensions for choosing a hymn:

Fit to the readings
Importance of the hymn (historically, musically, etc.)
Inherent singability
Site-specific singability, i.e. familiarity to this congregation

We’ll use these criteria next year for Advent, and will probably apply them next month when we re-open the Sanctus selection.

Episcopalians for H40

2010-12-04T21:48:00.000-08:00

In looking for Advent hymns, I found a couple of unexpected tributes to my favorite hymnal in the blog of a TEC priest. Not a cradle Episcopalian, Fr. Daniel Martins notes the role that Hymnal 1940 played in his selecting ECUSA:

I became an Episcopalian in the early 1970s, and a semi-mystical experience with the Hymnal 1940 in a piano practice room at Westmont College played a big role in setting me on that path. I was so moved that I thought to myself, “Where have these hymns been all my life? If there’s a church that actually sings them, I need to be in it.” And so I am.

The first hymn he highlights is Hymn 451, which begins “Lord, forever at thy side Let my place and portion be; Strip me of the robe of pride, Clothe me with humility.”

In a subsequent posting, he talks about Hymn #438 (“Jesus, gentlest Savior, God of might and power”) by Anglican Catholic lyricist F.W. Faber. As it turns out, he has many posting on Hymnal 1940 across the years of his blog. It appears as though he’s a learned man of Anglo-Catholic tastes. The comments on his H40 postings seem to come from a mix of TEC and post-TEC Anglicans.

As it turns out, Fr. Martins is actually Bishop-elect Martins, 11th Bishop of Springfield — assuming he gets the necessary consents. Apparently having worked in San Joaquin has convinced some TEC leftists that he’s a closet schismatic, even thought the liberal faction of his new diocese takes him at his word that he won’t try (nor could he) take the diocese out of TEC.

There are certainly others like Fr. Martins. A few of my friends have stayed in the TEC; they haven’t changed what they believe, but don’t (as I do) think it’s a problem that the PB and the majority of the HOD and HOB key elements of the traditional faith. Or their institutional loyalty (or aversion to schism) outweighs any doctrinal differences with the majority faction.

I wonder if there will be a bridge for liturgy between Schism I, II and TEC near-traditionalists. The obvious stumbling block is gender-neutered language, supported by the high church faction of TEC and many in ACNA and adamantly opposed by the BCP28 Schism I. Still, I could see sharing hymns between us — although by definition, a BCP28 traditionalist isn’t going to be composing a lot of new hymns.

It may be that those of us who are theologically doctrinaire Anglo-Catholics will cooperate with those we left behind in TEC in South Carolina and a few other dioceses. Or perhaps when (if) Hymnal 1940 goes out of print, it will be up to a Schism I group to keep it alive forever as the politically incorrect language becomes anathema to TEC, even if it can make a buck from it.

Sing to the Lord a new psalm

2010-11-21T11:16:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, choirs would chant the psalms every Sunday morning. (We could always tell whether or not choir practice was rushed by whether the choir agreed on when to leave the common tone for the closing pattern of each verse.)

I don’t know how many churches currently do so, but there is now a project by a Texas-based Catholic nonprofit to compile various settings for Psalms for each of the three years of the RCL. (28 Prayer Book parishes need not apply.) The material is made available free via a Creative Commons license.

The content is at ChabanelPsalms.org, while the project is described at the website of Corpus Christi Watershed and also a posting at the First Thing Evangel blog. The project explains its project in Jan 2010 a commentary published in Homiletic & Pastoral Review.

I haven’t had a chance to go over the settings with the piano, but my impression is that they are mainly (or) entirely newer settings since the website highlights their contemporary composers. Four are in honor of historic Catholic leaders — including Thomas Aquinas — but no provenance is given with the settings.

Perhaps more interesting are the resources on Gregorian Chant, including a historical essay on accompanying the chant by resident composer Jeff Ostrowski and free copies of Nova Organi Harmonia (a 1940s compilation and harmonization of Gregorian Chant).

Overall, there is a wealth of material at the Chabanel/CC Watershed websites which certainly bear further investigation.

Name that Sanctus!

2010-11-10T18:49:00.000-08:00

Last week, the organist wanted to pick a new Sanctus and so did a run through with interested members of the congregation. I knew most of them and so sang them (from memory — not sight-reading) so the others could get an idea.

The constraint was that it should be Rite I and from Hymnal 1982. We’d been singing the Proulx (S125) but people noticed that the Rite II words didn’t match the rest of the Rite I service (including what we say for the Sanctus if there’s a substitute organist.)

For our church efforts and this blog, I decided to do a Sanctus inventory, spending a few hours flipping through the back of H40 (both the 1943 and 1981 editions), the front of H82 and various other sources.

As is the custom in most American Anglican (or TEC) parishes nowadays, we use the combined Sanctus/Benedictus (“Blessed is He”) rather than ending on “O Lord Most High” as was the norm 40-70 years ago, when I was growing up and when Hymnal 1940 was produced. In fact, it wasn’t until the Supplement II edition of H40 (1981) that my favorite hymnal got the longer version of the Sanctus.

I’ve been accused of being biased against H82 (I’d rather think of it as it as a fair assessment of its strengths/weaknesses) but the reality that a) even more than for hymn melodies, service music chants are a matter of personal taste and b) both hymnals have included some dubious choices, where you say “why did they do that?”

In fact, it appears that one of the main reasons for a new hymnal nowadays is for the hymnal editors to put their friends’ (or personal favorite) hymns into the book and perhaps generate some royalties. There is evidence of this not just in H82 but also for H40 and the Lutheran Service Book.

To be fair, Hymnal 1982 has a disadvantage that to my knowledge no previous hymnal ever faced: the church couldn’t decide on a common liturgy, so there are separate settings for each of the two variant rites. (In a stroke of remarkable bad timing, the 2006 LSB went with the unfortunate “Also with you” just before the CCT and RCC (partly) corrected this error by switching to “And with your spirit.”)

The upshot:

The original H40 has seven settings of the Sanctus: four complete communion services (Merbecke, Willan, Oldroyd and the Douglas/medieval plainsong settings) as well as three additional settings of the Sanctus alone. The Supplement I (1961) adds four more complete settings: Sowerby, Bodine, Waters, Shaw. Overall, this means 11 settings of the Sanctus, plus (after 1981) a Sanctus/Benedictus version of the 8 primary communion services.
H82 offers five Rite I settings (S113-S117). It reprints (with tinkering) the three most widely used (and IMHO best) settings (Merbecke, Willan, Douglas) for Rite I, supplemented by two others: one from the C.W. Douglas Missa de Angelis and one that James McGregor claims to have adapted from a 16th century mass by Hans Leo Haßler.
In H82, these five Rite I settings are joined by (count ’em) 11 Rite II settings (S121-S131). (Does this perhaps hint where the hymnal committee’s priorites lay?) Among them are late 20th century settings by McGregor, Proulx, Martens and Hurd — names that show up repeatedly in the S-section of the book.

In our singoff at church, the Willan was very familiar and was briefly the favorite. This was the one I sang every week as a boy soprano in the pro-cathedral choir. Despite my medievalist biases, I think it has earned popularity far beyond mere familiarity. Willan is North America’s greatest Anglican composer and (after Vaughan Williams) probably the most important 20th century composer of Anglican church music. The one gripe (again legitimate) is that it requires a wide range that would be easier for the choir than the congregation.

One that was also familiar was the Merbecke from The Book of Common Praier Noted (1550), the first English language setting of the mass. Unlike the 1662 prayer book — or the 1928 where it was optional — the first Anglican Sanctus included the Benedictus, matching the words of the original 1549 BCP:

Holy, holy, holy, Lorde God of Hostes: heaven (& earth) are full of thy glory: Osanna, in the highest. Blessed is he that commeth in the name of the Lorde: Glory to thee, O lorde in the highest.

The Merbecke is a great choice, but our rector veto’d it as too somber for all but the penitential season, which he defines as including Lent but excluding Advent.

So we probably would have gone with the Willan until a new parishioner chimed in “What about the Schubert?” I had to admit she had a point. During my Lutheran days, I’d previously sung the English translation of the Sanctus with the setting from his 1827 Deutsche Messe (D.872). Unlike most service music (notable exception: the Scottish Gloria), it has a beautiful and singable harmony — of great personal concern now that I’m decades removed from my boy soprano days.

As with a lot of other Romantic era compositions, the piece a tendency to be sappy but I think our organist will avoid that. Listening German and English versions available on YouTube, the two are quite different. The German original is very slow (literally Sehr langsam, 3/4 with 50 bpm) which wouldn’t be sappy but would probably be too slow for weekly worship use.

The other problem for us is that Schubert is published by H82 (S130) as part of the 11 Rite II majority rather than the 5 Rite I minority. The H82 words are the Rite II favorite:

Holy, holy, holy Lord
God of power and might
Heaven and earth are full of your glory
Hosanna in the highest, Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord
Hosanna in the highest, Hosanna in the highest.

Taking the German

Heilig, heilig, heilig, heilig ist der Herr!
Heilig, heilig, heilig, heilig ist nur Er!
Er, der nie begonnen,
Er, der immer war;
Ewig ist und waltet, sein wird immer dar
Allmacht, Wunder, Liebe, Alles rings umher!

from Yahoo and other sources it appears that a more accurate translation would be:

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord!
Holy, holy, holy is He alone!
He, who always was
Is eternal and reigns, and will be forever.
Eternal, and prevails, will be accessible is
Omnipotent, miraculous, love all around!

So no “Power and Might.” But then the Luther text used by Schubert is not the same as the English translation of the Latin.

The words and music were adapted by Richard Proulx, who is described by his Facebook group as follows:

Richard Proulx (1937-2010) was a widely published composer of more than 300 works, including congregational music in every form, sacred and secular choral works, song cycles, two operas, and instrumental and organ music. He served as a consultant for such denominational church hymnals as The Hymnal 1982 (Episcopal Church), New Yale Hymnal, the Methodist Hymnal, Worship II & III, (Roman Catholic Church), and has contributions in the Mennonite Hymnal and the Presbyterian Hymnal. Proulx was a member of The Standing Commission on Church Music of the Episcopal Church and was a founding member of The Conference of Roman Catholic Cathedral Musicians.

On the one hand, Proulx had a front row seat to get his music into H82. On the other hand, he seems to be solely responsible for taking the Sehr Langsam Sanctus in German and adapting it for congregational singing in English. Another hymnal lists it as 1985 — the same copyright date as on p. 930 of H82 — while an entire arrangement of the mass by Proulx was published in 1989.

So we have a piece out of copyright for more than a century, with a new arrangement that includes a non-literal translation. It appears there is only one version of this arrangement that uses the Rite II rather than the original BCP words. (Too bad the question didn’t come up before he died in February, or we could have emailed him.)

The Rite II words, derived from the ICEL texts, are now considered obsolete by the Catholic church. Instead, consistent with the other liturgy changes, English speaking Catholics will soon revert to Cranmer’s original 1549 words stripped of the thees and thous:

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts.
Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes
in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.

I’ll be curious to see if the AMiA, ACNA and of course TEC will adopt the more accurate text, and thus bring along the service music with it. One distinct advantage is that the Rite I/II then become a syllable-for-syllable equivalent and thus could use identical settings.

If he were alive, we know that Proulx — as the former organist of the Catholic cathedral in Chicago — would have updated his Sanctus for the Vatican-approved text. One eulogy called him “one of the last great composers within the Catholic milieu who came of age in a time before commercial-style pop music came to dominant American parishes” while another called him “the leading champion of traditional Catholic church music post–Vatican II.” He sounds almost like a 20th century John Mason Neale.

Ephemeral Orthodox worship

2010-11-06T20:59:00.000-07:00

As an Anglo-Catholic, when I thought of Catholic worship I thought of Latin, profound reverence, bells & smells. These guys (and they’re all guys) still hold to tradition with a capital T as part of a strong central authority and a continuous line back almost 2,000 years.

Alas, I found out that since Vatican II, American Catholics are almost as likely to have a sappy praise band as the average liberal Protestant denomination, and only slightly less likely than the average nondenom evangelical church. In fact, when flipping channels in my car radio to EWTN last month, I heard the same sappy CCM praise hymn that I recognized from my rare (but sometimes unavoidable) visits to Evangelical Rite II Anglican services. Yes, Pope Benedict hopes to restore some sanity to the RCC, but I think even his goals are modest.

Well, I thought, at least there’s the Orthodox. Ever since defecting from Anglicanism to swim the Bosphorus, JLeebcd has been signing the praises (sometimes literally) of his new denomination — while attacking the contradictions of his former denomination with the vengeance of a true convert. To listen to Mr. Leebcd, the Orthodox faith was Paradise Found, the one True Church preserving the historic traditional liturgy.

One of the links he’s been sending me has been to Ancient Faith Radio — chief propaganda ministry for the Antiochian Orthodox Church, sort of an online-only version of EWTN (or Issues Etc.). Perhaps the most prominent discussion of hymns and liturgy at the site are the podcasts of Father John Finley in a series called “Singing the Triumphal Hymn.” I checked out a few podcasts before realizing that the AOC is also afflicted with the CCM disease.

The autobiographical series traces the journey of Fr. Finley from his childhood and college upbringing as an Oklahoma Baptist to the AOC by way of the Antiochian Evangelical Orthodox Mission. His podcast biography says that he is “with the Missions and Evangelism Department of the Antiochian Archdiocese,” but doesn’t say what authority or role he wields.

In particular, I learned the most about Fr. Finley (if not the AOC) from his initial podcast in November 2008 entitled “Music to My Ears,” apparently reading from a 2003 article he wrote for Again Magazine, a defunct publication from Concillar Press.

After talking about his various praise compositions — first for evangelicals and then for the AEOM and AOC — about four minutes before the end Fr. Finley explicitly stated his thesis demanding contemporary hymns tied to the contemporary culture:

Whenever the subject of changing or modifying or developing the music is discussed, it seems that someone will always say. “We’re Orthodox, we don't change.”

Then I can certainly understand this statement when spoken in reference to the canon of the Holy Scriptures, the creeds, the doctrines of the faith, the structure of the services, and so on. But when we consider church art, this attitude relegates the artist — whether a musician or an icongrapher or an architect — to the role of scribe.

He argued it was essential for the church to encourage artists to continually develop new forms of expressing devotion through these arts:

The only alternative is to stagnate in the preservation of what might be called “museum quality music,” reducing the church's artistic relevance in society to that of a curator.

This candid egocentrism is appalling on so many level: the urgency of continually messing with the liturgy — as witnessed by the many faithful — is driven by the need for self-expression by a handful of self-nominated (or politically connected) artists.

I certainly agree with one part — the stuff that’s survived for centuries is “museum quality” and the stuff from the last 20 years is not. Fr. Finley sang some of his music and the most charitable thing that could be said is that it’s good for American Orthodox praise music. Unlike Sister Toolan’s greatest hit, I don’t think these 20th century contributions will survive (except in archives) into the 22nd century.

It’s ironic that the AOC (like JLeebcd) proclaim their message as one of “Ancient Faith,” while the American Orthodox church suffers from the same desire to chase the contemporary culture as their Roman brethren. To quote my comments on contemporary Catholic worship 19 months ago on this blog:

But, overall, the hymn choices seemed to alternate between lounge singer and bad campfire music. So not timeless (as in the centuries of Catholic heritage), not chosen from the best of the past 50 years of modern Christian music, and not even the sort of professionally composed CCM that might be heard on a praise music radio station.

(I was inspired to reuse this earlier passage by the praise of Vicar Josh Osbun.)

To respond to Fr. Finley (Baptist to Orthodox) and Mr. Leebcd (Episcopalian to Orthodox), I pull out my trump card — religion writer Terry Mattingly — who is Baptist-to-Episcopalian-to-Orthodox (AOC). He has frequently criticized the efforts by Christians to chase the culture, first with his book Pop Goes Religion and then with various appearances on the Issues Etc. (Lutheran) radio show. Like me, he strongly favors timeless hymns rather than the transient and contemporary ephemera of modern praise music.

Let me close with two quotes from his Issues Etc. interviews:

How many of us will be singing songs that our parents and grandparents sang? (March 19, 2006)

So is there anyone in the church older than Boomer rock? Are there any ties that bind this congregation to the church of the ages? It would seem not. (Nov. 11, 2007)

Happy Reformation Day!

2010-10-31T12:01:00.000-07:00

As a child, I used to love the hymns of All Saints’s Day. So imagine my surprise during my first fall at our local LCMS parish, when I found that taking priority over All Saints’ Day every year was Reformation Day, commemorating Oct. 31, 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the Wittenberg church door.

Oddly, the Lutheran Service Book (the 2006 LCMS hymnal) lists only four hymns for the occasion. Not surprisingly, one is Martin Luther’s greatest hit, Ein Feste Burg, presented in both the 1941 (The Lutheran Hymnal) metric familiar to LCMS German-Americans and a rhythm that sounds more normal to my ex-ECUSA ears. Thanks to the translation F.H. Hedge, it appears in all the American and English hymnals and American Christians (if there are any left) will be singing Luther’s 1529 hymn on its sexcentennial if not its septcentennial or millennial anniversary.

Two others in the LSB list I’d never heard of: “God’s Word is our great heritage” and “O little flock, fear not the foe.” (The latter is a Winkworth translation of a lyric by Johann Altenburg).

The fourth was a Winkworth translation of a Luther hymn, in this case the 1541 “Er halt uns, Herr, bei dein em Wort.” The CyberHymnal reports the three verses as:

Lord, keep us steadfast in Thy Word;
Curb those who fain by craft and sword
Would wrest the kingdom from Thy Son
And set at naught all He hath done.

Lord Jesus Christ, Thy pow’r make known,
For Thou art Lord of lords alone;
Defend Thy Christendom that we
May evermore sing praise to Thee.

O Comforter of priceless worth,
Send peace and unity on earth.
Support us in our final strife
And lead us out of death to life.

As far as I can tell, it’s not in either of H40 or H82. Oremus.org says it appears in the 1977 and 1999 editions of the Australian Anglican hymnal, but nowhere else among the many Anglican hymnals that it indexes.

The Lutheran Hymnal (1941) has 12 hymns rather than 4 for Reformation, including the three aforementioned Winkworth translation of German hymns. But what really caught my eye was another Winkworth translation — listed as “O Lord, Our Father, shall we be confounded” (#269) but originally written by Winkworth as “Ah! Lord our God, let them not be confounded.”

The original words were written by Johann Heermann in 1630. No matter what the words, the bonus for this hymn is the use of the 1640 tune Herzliebster Jesu by Johann Crüger. Singing Crüger is one of the things I miss most from my Lutheran period.

The CyberHymnal reports the TLH words for the five verses:

O Lord, our Father, shall we be confounded
Who, though by trials and woes surrounded,
On Thee alone for help are still relying,
To Thee are crying?

Lord, put to shame Thy foes who breathe defiance
And vainly make their might their sole reliance;
In mercy turn to us, the poor and stricken,
Our hope to quicken.

Be Thou our Helper and our strong Defender;
Speak to our foes and cause them to surrender.
Yea, long before their plans have been completed,
They are defeated.

’Tis vain to trust in man; for Thou, Lord, only
Art the Defense and Comfort of the lonely.
With Thee to lead, the battle shall be glorious
And we victorious.

Thou art our Hero, all our foes subduing;
Save Thou Thy little flock they are pursuing.
We seek Thy help; for Jesus’ sake be near us.
Great Helper, hear us!

I could not find the hymn reported in Oremus using Google or its Catherine Winkworth index, suggesting that it may not be used by Anglicans anywhere. It’s too bad — not just because of the doctrinal content, but because the Crüger tune should be easy for most congregations to sing.

So if I’m asked to contribute to the New Anglican Hymnal, this timeless hymn is going to join Ein Feste Burg as part of the canon of borrowed Lutheran hymns.

One was a solider and one was a priest…

2010-10-29T15:55:00.000-07:00

As a child, my favorite hymn of the fall season was the quintessential All Saints hymn, “For all the saints.” However, a close second was the other All Saints hymn “I sing a song of the saints of God,” which has a particular resonance with children ages 4-100.

The only hymnal I knew was Hymnal 1940, which lists a total of seven All Saints hymns (two with alternate tunes). In addition to these seven hymns (#126-130), H40 also recommends a list of 12 “also the following hymns.” In the latter list is “I sing a song of the saints of God” (H40 #243), which is officially listed among the “Hymns for Children”. In H82 (#293), it’s listed under multiple Holy Days (both saints’ days and All Saints).

As a child, I was captivated by the words that Lesbia Locket Scott (1898-1986) wrote in the 1920s. Decades later, the end of the 2nd stanza remains committed to heart:

And one was a soldier, and one was a priest,
and one was slain by a fierce wild beast;
and there's not any reason, no, not the least,
why I shouldn't be one too.

In fact, it was such a vivid part of my childhood that this was one of the three hymns we (successfully) requested from H40 for the baptism of our first child.

The tune, Grand Isle, was written by John Henry Hopkins (1891-1945) to match Mrs. Scott’s words in 1940, so that the poem could become a hymn for Hymnal 1940. It’s a very easy tune to sing, and is particularly catchy in building up to the conclusion of each of the three stanzas.

Apparently I’m not the only one who found it catchy. In the COE, it’s mentioned by a calendar of the Diocese of Ely. The song has been blogged by Episcopalians like the Redhead Editor, and the God’s Friends newsletter. ECUSA has even turned it into a children’s book, to add to the profits of the Church Pension Fund.

However, I don’t want that to detract from the effectiveness of this song for children’s ministry. I don’t think Mrs. Scott (or Mr. Hopkins) could have anticipated what The Episcopal Church would become in the 21st century.

For All the Saints

2010-10-27T12:00:00.000-07:00

As a child, my second favorite floating church holiday (after Christmas) was All Saints’ Day. Today, I might put Ash Wednesday ahead of that, but not Epiphany. Good Friday and Ascension, alas, aren’t much of day for hymn singing.

Hymnal 1940 had such wonderful hymns for the occasion that the Sunday closest to Nov. 1 was definitely the high point of low season. But when we were church shopping decades later, there was one particular hymn from our childhood that my wife would ask me to check to see if it was being sung — to determine which parish we would attend for the Sunday closest to Nov. 1. This is the same hymn that Dr. Ian Bradley introduces calls “a magnificent processional song of triumph rejoicing in the communion of saints” in his 2006 Book of Hymns.

That hymn is “For all the saints,” #126 (1st tune) in Hymnal 1940. H40 offers eight of the 11 verses of William W. How’s 19th century text. These are the same eight verses found in in The English Hymnal, which offers three different tunes: Sine Nomine, Sarum, and Luccombe. On this side of the pond, the PECUSA Hymnal 1916 only had the second tune (H16 #295), but the editors of Hymnal 1940 decided to carry both Sine Nomine and Sarum.

Like most Anglican households, the only tune we sing for these words is Sine Nomine written by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1906 for TEH in his role as TEH music editor. Indeed, this is the only tune that was carried forward to New English Hymnal (#197) and Hymnal 1982 (#287).

I’ve previously called this Ralph Vaughan Williams’ greatest hit (at least for church music), and justifiable so. Searching my bookcase, the eight verses and RVW tune are also found in three LCMS hymnals, The Lutheran Hymnal (#463) Lutheran Worship (#191) and Lutheran Service Book (#677). The same words and tune are also in The Presbyterian Hymnal (1990, H #526) and even the 1975 Baptist Hymnal (#144).

But when TEH came out in 1906 the tune was new so the hymnal helpfully explains: “Suitable or use in procession.” Alas, processionals seem to have fallen out of favor, or RVW would be known to many Anglicans as the author of two great church marching tunes — the other being that Easter/Ascension/Pentecost favorite, Salve Festa Dies.

Bradley helpfully notes how How’s words were originally sung to another tune (called For All the Saints) written for it in 1869 by Joseph Barnby. This is apparently the same tune called Sarum in the 1906, 1916 and 1940 hymnals. Bradley concludes that the RVH tune “is now almost universally used.”

In the original version, the TEH music editor arranged the eight verses into 3 unison, 3 harmony and then 2 unison. H40, H82, LW and NEH, are faithful to this arrangement, while the LSB would certainly allow it but is typeset in a way that does not make the unison verses obvious.

Correction, Oct. 30: As it likes to do, Hymnal 1982 drops the accompanying parts from the pew edition (presumably to sell the accompaniment edition, available for 4x as much.) However, the vocal parts are available for verses 5 and 6, as in the other editions. (Thanks to Raving Revisionist” for pointing out my error in the original version of this posting.)

The editors of H82 also resisted the temptation to bowdlerize the lyrics. Even if H82 is not my favorite hymnal, the missing accompaniment is my only complaint for the RVW classic.

Doctrine matters

2010-10-24T08:49:00.000-07:00

Recently I had a new visitor to my blog, Pastor “Amberg,”† who suggested additional hymns for my list of recommended Advent hymns. Like fellow LCMS clergyman Josh Osbun, Pastor Amberg has his own blog. (Vicar Osbun, alas, has suspended blogging after the birth of his stillborn son.)

Pastor Amberg’s blog, Lutheran Hymn Revival, quotes Ambrose and Fortunatus (among others) in the sidebar: this is my kind of Lutheran, so I subscribed immediately.

Browsing recent posts to the blog, I was drawn to one entitled “Purity of Doctrine”. Some relevant excerpts:

The praise of the Bible is always talking about what God has done for poor sinners and when the psalmist does speak of his reaction to God, it is always for a didactic reason (e.g., Psalm 139:14,ff)

The praise of pop Christian culture rarely mentions the forgiveness of sins and often speaks of our (insert incredible adjective) reaction to how (insert awesome adjective) God is. The author of "In Christ Alone", the best contemporary song I've heard, makes similar remarks in an interview.
…
And so I don't think we should be perfectly fine with Lutheran churches looking for worship songs from sects that deny that Christ wants to give the forgiveness of sins in His Supper and in Baptism, the very foundation for the Christian life. This is not a matter of music. This is a matter of identity. The pure Word of God defines who we are. Wouldn't it be unwise at the very least and sinful at the worst to throw out rashly hundreds of years of time-tested music and words for the sake of satisfying the capricious musical cravings of a spoiled- (I pray not completely) rotten, entertainment-driven generation? If I were to ask my 3 year-old what he wants to eat, he would choose chocolate cake every day. This generation would choose over-emotionalized sweets. But who has the real love to refuse them these sweets and give them the nourishment they need? And we wonder why they never grow. …

Elsewhere in his blog, Amberg has criticism of the doctrine of specific Anglican or Methodist hymns.I don’t know that I’d share all his criticisms of these hymns, but I completely agree with his view on the importance of hymn doctrine and the general vacuousness of most CCM or other praise music.

This is also another reason why hymnals are important: a hymnal codifies a church’s doctrine and minimizes deviations from doctrine. It doesn’t matter whether the hymnal is photocopied, oversewn or a PDF: what matters is that it has been vetted the same as any other part of the liturgy. As Anglicans, we don’t allow just anything to be read as scripture or prayer, so of course the hymn selection should be put to the same test.

† Elsewhere the blog implies that the pastor‘s real name is Mark Preus

Non-non-traditional liturgy

2010-10-19T14:58:00.000-07:00

Today after lunch, three Christians got into a discussion at work over traditional and non-traditional liturgy. I know one of the Christians — an East Coast ECUSA type who remains in TEC — because we used to work in the same office. The other one is the son of an Ethiopian Orthodox priest, who I met at a Bible study at work.

The Episcopalian is renting a room to the Ethiopian immigrant, and though I should meet him because we have “similar” views on liturgy. When pressed, he said that we both reject non-traditional liturgy — which is certainly true.

But then we found it was hard to define what “traditional”, “non-traditional” and “not non-traditional” worship are. Is it the words? Is it the music? Is it the theology? (“Mother God” etc.)

My companions seem to think that traditional worship and traditional theology were strongly related. I would disagree: go to almost any TEC cathedral and you’ll find the High Church Progressives (as I termed them three years ago), who want all the pomp and circumstance of traditional worship but reserve the right to modernize the theology to their heart’s content.

I suppose at some level the “traditional” is easiest to define: Orthodox or Catholic worship — possibly in an incomprehensible language — conducted by the priest according to a set form, using words and music that are unchanged for centuries. Post-Reformation, even the Anglo-Catholics switched to the vernacular as did the RCC post-Vatican II. This is pretty rare in the US today, except perhaps for a few Greek-American (Ukrainian-American etc.) kids who don’t understand the language at their Greek Orthodox Church,

So what about “traditional” is traditional?

A set liturgy — ruling out most Evangelical-leaning Christians and most of the Reformed denominations.
Traditional liturgy — among Anglicans, separating those who use the Book of Common Prayer from Rite II and the rest of what Peter Toon called the alternative service book.
Traditional language — KJV or RSV or ESV, not the gender-neutrered NRSV or TNIV.
Old hymns — ruling out all but some traditionalist Continuing Anglicans and LCMS types.
Any hymns at all — ruling out the praise bands and CCM sanctuaries.
Old technology — wooden seats, no electronic organs or amplification, no PowerPoint sermons or videorecordings — probably would cover many Church of Christ parishes.
Old theology — the Virgin birth, the bodily death and resurrection, the Trinity, creeds, truth of the Bible and things like that. (Let’s leave out for now theological differences between Orthodox, Catholic, Lutherans, Calvinists and others.)

As my 2007 posting meant to suggest, it’s certainly possible to find old theology with a rejection of old-style liturgy. The AMiA is filled with them. I’ve visited various ACNA parishes that firmly rejected both TEC heresies, but before they left TEC also shunned the thees, thous and Bach — places like Grace Anglican Church of Carlsbad (formerly St. Anne’s Oceanside). St. James Anglican Newport Beach and St. James San Jose (formerly St. Edward’s).

No church organized by mortal man can or will be perfect. If I had to choose, I guess I’d say #7 (old theology) is paramount, followed by #4 (old hymns.) Certainly I’ve felt at home at any hymnal-based LCMS parish I’ve visited, and I’d probably be fine at many PCA or EPC churches (even if the Presence is more Real to me than my fellow parishioners).

But is this the problem with American cafeteria-style Protestantism, with complete unbundling of worship, doctrine and hierarchy? I’d love to recover the liturgical consistency of my childhood PECUSA, but even a Schism I unification is unlikely to resolve these problems.

New is not improved

2010-10-16T14:07:00.000-07:00

The Evangel blog has a brief post about a new translation of the Bible called the Common English Bible. Blogger David Koyzis asks:

After so many decades, is the runaway proliferation of bible translations in English still about making the Word of God more comprehensible to ordinary people? Or is it by now about niche marketing?

It also has a good user discussion of Bible translation proliferation, the style of this new translation (something like the New Living Translation), and even the need for better Spanish language materials. (Discussions like that are what popular blogs get. Sigh.)

There’s no doubt that the Christian publishing houses push TNIVs and NRSVs and NKJVs to make a buck. While I personally use the ESV as a slightly improved (and non-politically correct) update of the RSV, I’d have been quite happy to stick with my Oxford RSV for another 50 years. I also despair that the NIV we gave our daughter for confirmation may be intentionally rendered “obsolete” (or at least out of fashion) by the time she graduates from high school.

Some of this translation fragmentation is an inherent problem of the everyone-decides-for-themselves attitude brought by the Reformation. As Koyzis observes in the comments to his posting

I rather think that the proliferation of bible translations is part of the same mindset that produces such huge numbers of denominations in North America. There is a longstanding tendency to begin everything anew when we’re dissatisfied with the old. But wouldn’t it be better to refine the old and avoid wasting so much time and effort starting from scratch?

This seems to be an an affliction the Catholics also picked up after Vatican II.

Alas, there is a similar sort of planned obsolescence for hymnals. Is it to make a buck? Clearly this is a problem with the LCMS and their Concordia Publishing House empire, which will want to sell another hymnal in 2025 or 2030 to supplant the Lutheran Service Book (2006).

Is this continual updating because of an undue fixation on the (con)temporary, the transient, the worldly culture? Is it the ahisotricity that seems to afflict every generation? Or is it our consumption-driven culture’s fixation on new! New! NEW!

For myself, the important goal for an Anglican hymnal is to provide the timeless hymns that connect us to nearly 2000 years of Christian worship. I see little that needs to be improved on Hymnal 1940. Yes, a few hymns are missing, but in this day of the Internet and laser printers, such omissions can easily be supplemented. The most objectionable part of the hymnal is that proceeds from its sales to go support KJS’ fading empire.

A few of the Schism I “provinces” seem to get this: if the CoE can use the BCP 1662 for three centuries, why can’t we use a single prayer book and hymnal for a century or even longer? Or, as happened with H40, add a few supplemental hymns in later editions (e.g. Joy to the World, Hymn #775 in the later editions of H40.)

Alas, I fear that most of the ACNA seems to prefer Hymnal 1982, despite its manifest failings, and will either continue to promote it or eventually supplant it with something even more “new” (even if not “improved.”) The decision of the LCMS with the LSB to improve their hymnal by reverting to more traditional hymnody seems to be a rare exception. (The LCMS is also unusual in having elected a new leader who vows to turn back the tide of theological modernism.)

Thanks to Google Books, musicologists and other highly motivated layman now have full access to all the great 19th century hymnals, including Hymns Ancient & Modern and Medieval Hymns and Sequences. That might get it into the hand of the music director, but it doesn’t get it into the pews (except perhaps for those parishes that either print or videoproject the hymns for each week’s worship materials.)

The once unexamined Anglican life

2010-10-10T07:01:00.000-07:00

Growing up in a religiously mixed household, I spent the first half of my childhood as a Presbyterian, the second half as a High Church Episcopalian. Obviously the latter stuck, since today I’m an Anglo-Catholic (although I could just as easily see myself as a member of a LCMS or PCA parish with a strong liturgy.)

The 60s had not yet done its full damage to ECUSA or the other mainline Protestant churches. In retrospect, it was at the end of an era, a period of blissful ignorance for American Christians. I had never heard of the late Bishop Pike while Jack Spong was still an obscure nominally Christian parish priest in North Carolina or Virginia.

Thanks to the splintering of TEC and the larger counter-revolt against unbiblical Christianity, I am far more knowledgeable about doctrine and the reasons for picking a church than I was when my parents were picking churches with nice music in close driving distance. As a preface to observations about where we Anglo-Catholics are today and what we claim to believe, I want to summarize a few memories of what ECUSA was like before battles over Women’s Ordination and the 1979 prayer book changed the church forever,

At our weekly service didn’t do bells and smells, but after attending some more “liberal” ECUSA parishes I knew we were a very high church ECUSA parish. Robes, liturgical colors, reverence, genuflecting, great organ music and three choirs (boys’, girls’, adult) and lots of acolytes were the norm. My parents made reference to “High Church” vs. “Low Church” Episcopalians, but I didn’t realize that was a 200+ year old term from the Church of England.

I knew we had a 40-year-old prayer book, but not about Hooker, the 1549 BCP, the 1662 BCP or the Oxford Movement. I knew we had a 30-year-old hymnal, but not about the 1916 or 1892 predecessors — let alone The English Hymnal, Hymns Ancient & Modern or Medieval Hymns and Sequences.

I knew we were Protestant, and compared to other Protestants we were fairly big on formal liturgy and ritual. (I didn’t realize how big the differences were until as an adult I attended a Fundamentalist church with no prayer book, no formal liturgy, no instruments, but really long sermons.) I assumed Catholics had fancy music and lots of bowing, not realizing that post-Vatican II that most US parishes were drifting towards pop music services.

I didn’t understand the crucial theological differences among Protestants, particularly between the Reformed tradition of Calvin, Knox or Zwingli — who rejected almost any Catholic liturgy or theology — and those Protestants who like Luther who had sought to reform Catholic excesses while holding to Apostolic tradition. But then I was relatively naïve about prejudice: growing up ost-JFK, I was actually in my 20s before I first saw any examples of anti-Catholic Protestant zeal.

Over the last decade, I’ve lost my innocence as one-by-one all the traditionalists have been driven from the Episcopal Church in California. I now know that being an Anglo-Catholic is a minority of those who claim the Anglican tradition in North America, and from my European travels it appears that’s almost as true in England as well.

But the most important thing I didn’t know then — but know now — is that historically differences of Anglican liturgical style were associated with far more important theological differences.

The 19th century forebears of Anglo-Catholicism — the priests and scholars of the Oxford Movement — were fighting a two-front war in the Church of England. On one front were those “liberals” who, like today, sought to minimize the importance of doctrinal inerrancy. The other front was against the Evangelicals, an unresolved tension from the first decade of the church in Tudor England.

Why does Anglo-Catholicism matter? As John Henry Newman wrote in 1834 (during his Anglo-Catholic days) in Tract #38 of the Tracts for the Times:

The glory of the English Church is, that it has taken the VIA MEDIA, as it has been called. It lies between the (so called) Reformers and the Romanists.

and in Tract #41:

I would do what our reformers in the sixteenth century did: they did not touch the existing documents of doctrine [Note 7]—there was no occasion—they kept the creeds as they were; but they added protests against the corruptions of faith, worship, and discipline, which had grown up round them.

In short, Anglo-Catholics believe in the historic catholic (small c) church. We are divided from Rome in much the same way the Orthodox divided from Rome — with differences over specific doctrine (and of course certain ecclesiastical authority), but not over the importance of the ancient church that culminated with our three creeds. (One of the key doctrinal issues with the Orthodox is of course over the exact wording of those creeds.)

As far as I can tell, there are very few Protestants who place continuity with theological tradition (at least from the first six centuries) on par with Scripture. (Perhaps a few American Lutherans feel this way, but certainly not those in the national churches of Europe.) Thus, the Anglo-Catholics hold a crucial niche in Christian theology, as well as offering a possible avenue for reunification of the Church catholic — as witnessed by Orthodox ecumenicism that has abandoned TEC for the ACNA.

Dying for faith

2010-10-03T23:12:00.000-07:00

In order to understand and articulate my Anglo-Catholic beliefs, I’ve been reading many books about the Church of England. I quickly focused my reading on two formative periods: the creation of an independent church under the Tudors (1534-1603) and the Anglo-Catholic movement of the 19th century.

Of all this reading, none of the books — nor any other book of English history — moved me as much as The Sisters Who Would Be Queen, about the disputed succession after the death of Edward VI (1537-1553) that put Lady Jane Grey on the throne for nine days before her capture and eventual execution. While the modern interpretation was that this was a bold power play between rival Tudor factions, it also reflected the first major struggle over how (or if) the Church of England would continue after Henry’s death.

Like any schoolboy, I knew that Henry VIII had three children who succeeded him, one of them Catholic. I also knew that Elizabeth I died without issue, and somehow the throne was inherited by James I (and thus the House of Stewart). I’d never heard of Jane Grey, or her younger sisters Katherine and Mary, let alone their claim to the throne of England or Jane’s brief time on the throne. (Apparently Jane was elevated as a heroine to Victorian England, as testimony to her staunch evangelical beliefs.)

Spoiler alert: I highly recommend the book, but the drama was magnified by not knowing how it would turn out. So if you have time, read the book, not the rest of this article.

Jane (1537-1554), Katherine (1540-1568) and Mary (1545-1578) were great-granddaughters of King Henry VII. Their maternal grandmother, the first Mary Tudor, was the younger sister of Henry VIII, and briefly married to King Louis XII until his death in 1515. From her second marriage to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, she had four children: two sons who died in childhood, and two daughters. The eldest daughter, Frances Brandon Grey (1517-1559) had three daughters: Jane, Katherine and Mary.

Frances was thus niece to Henry VIII, of extremely high status within the House of Tudor during his lifetime, and is buried in Westminster Abbey. Although she was buried with royal honors, both her eldest daughter and her husband were eventually executed by her cousin Mary (aka Bloody Mary).

Both author Leanda de Lisle and other writers pay the highest tribute to Lady Jane, her evangelical passion and her intellect. Tutored alongside her cousins (once removed) Elizabeth and Edward, various accounts suggest that she was the most capable and serious student tutored at Henry’s royal palaces.

Certainly many of the machinations by Jane, Mary and Elizabeth were about power and control of the throne. The only clear successor to Henry was his only son Edward, and his death left an ambiguous line of succession (and eventually the end of the House of Tudor).

As all three Tudor women learned, there are limits to the authority of a queen (or prince or princess) during an era when English kings still led their troops into battle. At the age of 16, Jane Grey held the throne for nine days in 1553, in between the death of Edward and her capture by troops loyal to Mary. Despite their difference in religion, the half sisters Mary and Elizabeth agreed not to contest their respective claims to the throne, allying them against the Grey sisters and their subordinate claims.

But there is more than just raw power politics in Lay Jane’s life and death. With Henry’s death in 1547, Edward became sovereign of the church his father had created at a time when Continental intrigues (and Mary) sought to return the allegiance of CoE (and England itself) to the Pope. Instead, Edward’s reign brought the CoE its first two prayer books (in 1549 and 1552) under the leadership of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1532-1553 who was also executed by Mary.

De Lisle makes clear that the only way that Jane came to the throne (even temporarily) was because she shared the evangelical faith of Edward VI and his vision for the Church of England. The terms of Edward’s will passing the throne to Jane and her male heirs — bypassing Mary — was based on the Protestant zeal she shared with Edward.

De Lisle also argues that Jane would have been a highly knowledgeable and passionate leader of evangelical reform in Britain. Under royal tutors, Jane had learned to read the Old Testament in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek. Educated as a potential royal consort, she closely followed the theological debates that raged across Europe and divided Christian from Christian during the 16th Century.

Instead, Jane was seized and imprisoned by Mary indefinitely in the Tower of London. When forces loyal to her mounted an unsuccessful revolt, she was beheaded along with other plotters. She was offered clemency if she converted to Catholicism, but she refused.

As she waited condemned, she wrote a series of devotional prayers and letters to family. De Lisle offered brief excerpts of this prayer written during her final days in the Tower:

O Lord, thou God and Father of my life, hear me, poor and desolate woman, which flieth unto thee only, in all troubles and miseries. Thou, O Lord, art the only defender and deliverer of those that put their trust in thee: and therefore I, being defiled with sin, encumbered with affliction, unquieted with troubles, wrapped in cares, overwhelmed with miseries, vexed with temptations, and grievously tormented with the long imprisonment of this vile mass of clay, my sinful body, do come unto thee, O merciful Saviour, craving thy mercy and help, without the which so little hope of deliverance is left, that I may utterly despair of any liberty. …

It was thy right hand, that delivered the people of Israel out of the hands of Pharaoh, which for the space of four hundred years did oppress them, and keep them in bondage. Let it therefore, likewise, seem good to thy fatherly goodness, to deliver me, sorrowful wretch, (for whom thy Son Christ shed his precious blood on the cross,) out of this miserable captivity and bondage, wherein I am now. …

Only, in the mean time, arm me, I beseech thee, with thy armour, that I may stand fast, my loins being girded about with verity, having on the breastplate of righteousness, and shod with the shoes prepared by the gospel of peace: above all things taking to me the shield of faith, wherewith I may be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked; and taking the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is thy most holy word: praying always with all manner of prayer and supplication, that I may refer myself wholly to thy will, abiding thy pleasure, and comforting myself in those troubles that it shall please thee to send me; seeing such troubles be profitable for me, and seeing I am assuredly persuaded that it cannot be but well, all that thou doest. Hear me, O merciful Father! for his sake, whom thou wouldest should be a sacrifice for my sins: to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost, be all honour and glory. Amen.

Instead of such a pious leader — who married and would likely have brought forth heirs — Jane and Mary were succeeded by Elizabeth I, who compromised between the Reformed and Catholic to maintain her power on the throne — including a 1559 revision of the BCP that attempted to split the difference between the two factions. (Anglicans bear the consequences of this Elizabeth “fudge” some 450 years later.)

At several times in the book I found myself crying for the sisters Grey. Perhaps it’s because the book — and the extant record — provides such a vivid account of their lives, unlike the numerous Christian martyrs of the first millennium. Perhaps it’s because the royally born Jane had multiple options to avoid execution but she stood by her beliefs to her death, in a way that seems incomprehensible to modern sensibilities.

I don’t know if the Anglican church (or England itself) would have been better off with the evangelical zeal of Queen Jane instead of compromising of Queen Elizabeth. I think we would have had a clearer statement of faith, and perhaps a more meaningful role of English regents as Supreme Head of the Church of England.

Less schism in Schism I?

2010-09-24T23:48:00.000-07:00

John Henry Newman aside, I’ve always had profound reservations about the RCC and the proposed Ordinariate that was pursued by The Anglican Communion, one of the major Schism I Continuing Anglican groups and one of the few with a significant presence outside the US.

Thursday David Virtue posted a pastoral letter from Rt. Rev. Daren Williams, one of the bishops of the Anglican Church in America (the US affiliate of TAC). His major points as I read them:

In 3 of the 4 ACA dioceses, the bulk of the laity today do not want to exercise the option offered by the Ordinariate and become Catholic.
Even discussing this option has created great confusion and turbulence in the ACA, with three parishes in his diocese defecting to other Continuing Anglican groups.
Rather than Swim the Tiber, the ACA should be working to repair the historic and regrettable schisms among Continuing Anglicans, staring by entering into communion with the Anglican Province of America.

To the last point, Bp. Williams wrote:

It is my conclusion that before we can enter into significant communal relationships with larger bodies of Catholic Christendom, we need to make another effort to unite with those near to us who share the same goals in Anglicanism.

Amen! This is remarkable sanity for a Schism I bishop, given that a major problem for 1928 BCP groups has been the proliferation of purple shirts — with a widespread suspicion that egos and powers have more to do with this fragmentation than any significant theological issues.

Perhaps the most surprisingly honest passage in the letter:

Anglicans in the ACA are comparatively small in number and we often struggle to make ends meet.

Bp. Williams seems to be much more honest than the Schism I “bishops” and “primates”. Together, all the Schism I parishes probably have less than 50,000 members across all the “denominations” or “provinces” — less than a single large TEC diocese.

Personally, I think we have been long overdue for a reunification of the Schism I, 1928 Prayer Book Anglo-Catholics that began with the 1977 Congress of St. Louis and the 1978 Denver ordinations. Whether or not we bridge the gap to ACNA/Schism II — or win more allies jumping from the TEC ship — fixing this historical accident is one move that is possible today, if the clerical hierarchy will let us.

As one of the commenters on the Virtue Online site put it:

The retirements of some of the old Continuum bishops seems to be leading to this opportunity to come back together. The personalities that used to get in the way seem to replaced by younger more reasonable men, without the baggage of old grudges. My prayers are with them.

Let’s pray for this sane path forwards for Continuing Anglicans everywhere.

Our precarious Anglo-Catholic heritage

2010-09-12T22:54:00.000-07:00

As Protestants, we high church Anglicans live in a very fortunate time in history. Much of our rich liturgy would have been unavailable (or confined to library books) a few centuries ago.

In America, we owe a lot to the hard work of C.W. Douglas, and all the plainchant that he provided for Hymnal 1940. But most of all, Anglo-Catholics benefit from the Oxford Movement of 1833-1841, the basis of our modern Anglo-Catholicism.

The movement brought an awareness of many medieval traditions and principles that had been long-forgotten by the English Protestants. Among other things, it inspired and enabled the success of John Mason Neale with Medieval Hymns and Sequences and the many medieval or ancient hymns in our modern hymnal.

Last week, I learned a lot about the Oxford Movement from a series of podcasts about the life of John Henry Newman (1801-1890). With John Keble, Newman was the key leader of the Oxford movement and the most active of the Tractarians.

Newman has been both an inspiration and cautionary tale for Anglo-Catholics for the next 150 years. On one hand, the former vicar of Oxford's University Church was one of the intellectual leaders that created Anglo-Catholicism.

On the other hand, Newman's efforts to reconnect with his historic roots led him in 1845 to join the Roman Catholic church, creating a national scandal. In the final tract of the Tractarians, Tract #90, Newman showed how the 39 Articles — nominally the loosely controlling statement of Anglican doctrine — could be stretched to subsume Catholic doctrine.

Pope Benedict’s visit to England this week will beatify Newman, the next to last step en route to sainthood.

The podcasts are from the series “Cardinal Newman at 2000,” broadcast a decade ago in anticipation of the Newman bicentennial. The podcasts at the EWTN website appear to be from TV interviews with Catholic experts at that time.

While I learned a lot from the interviews, it was difficult to sit through some of the later portions of each show, as the Catholic host and guests talked about the onetime leader of the Anglo-Catholic movement as their late cardinal and future saint.

On EWTN, in the New Advent Encyclopedia and elsewhere, the Catholic view is that Newman has done what every doctrinally sound Protestant should do: abandon his or her church and become Roman Catholic. We have an echo of that today in the decision by some Anglican clergy (especially those in TAC) who now want to become Catholic priests via the personal ordinariate.

What about Newman’s contribution to Anglo-Catholicism? The podcasts captured some of the efforts by Newman and others to offer Anglo-Catholicism as the Via Media, a middle way between Reformed and Catholic. However, this movement and theology have been rejected by ECUSA and (it appears) the CoE as well.

So is the Via Media an inherently unstable and infeasible effort to capture the best (and reject the worst excesses) of both the Reformed and Catholic traditions? Do we Anglo-Catholics have a future, or are we just a minor eddy in the river of Christian history?

Discipleship in perspective

2010-09-05T22:14:00.000-07:00

This has been a depressing summer here in California for us Continuing Anglicans, and not just because of the abnormally cool summer. At least one parish has given up its court fight (to save its sanctuary) rather than spend more money on lawyers, and another conservative parish has been wracked by artificial controversy intended to tear the parish from its roots.

At times I find that following the Schism II news — whether from friends or via websites — drains all my energies from thinking about other church activities, whether it be researching hymns, reading the Bible, inspirational books, or anything else that I might productively do.

And then there was this morning’s (RCL) Gospel reading, which reads in part:

[Jesus said] “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’”

Tied to this reading, the sermon recounted the autobiography of Lucette, a French girl who was raised by atheists Communists who hated the church with passion: when she committed her life to Christ, her father struck her and her parents disowned her. The memoir, A Memory for Wonders, talks about how Veronica Namoyo Le Goulard became a Clare nun in Algeria and eventually founded two monasteries in North Africa.

The moral of the story: no price is too high to pay for our Christian beliefs.

It would be easy to be cynical about the messenger: the speaker was a somewhat conservative Episcopal priest who either sees nothing wrong with the current direction of TEC or is unwilling to sacrifice his appointment or his pension or his status to join the Continuing Anglicans.

But then that’s the real point. Who benefits by cynicism over clerical hypocrisy, petty infighting among lay leaders, gossiping, court fights, misrepresentation of one’s true theological beliefs? It’s not the faithful, the seekers or Christ’s Church: it’s those that seek to destroy the Church, which is the work of the Devil himself.

Let’s put things into perspective. Yes, we have lost a few buildings, plaques, organs and books. Yes, we have to meet in industrial parks, do church-in-a-box, or sublet from sympathetic established churches.

But we are not going to lose our lives if we follow Christ, or even (except in unusual cases) our livelihoods. This is not Afghanistan, China, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Sudan or any of the dozens of other countries where Christians are openly persecuted.

It’s past time to move past being anti-revisionist, anti-heretic, anti-apostasy. The people who have walked away from TEC and their buildings had the right idea: spend the time and money on saving souls — particularly inculcating the faith in the next generation — just as we were told to do almost 2000 years ago.

So yes, we do need to understand our mistakes — whether theological, personal or tactical. As cultural Catholic George Santayana said a century ago, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” But our own salvation, and that of the generations to come, depends on how we use that learning to be better disciples of Christ.

Adding to The Foundation

2010-08-22T20:05:00.000-07:00

Second of two parts.

In listening to the wonderful broadcast commentary on “The Church’s One Foundation” by Dr. Arthur Just, I came up with a few observations of my own that went beyond those of the Issues Etc. radio show. It’s an important hymn — and I spent several hours listening to the show, doing my research, and writing the first posting — so I thought I’d share those observations.

Of the hymnals published since the Rev. Samuel John Stone penned the words in 1866, I found it in all 10 hymnals where I looked:

Church of England: Hymns Ancient & Modern (#320), The English Hymnal (#489), New English Hymnal (#484)
PECUSA: Hymnal 1872 (#202), Hymnal 1916 (#484), Hymnal 1940 (#396), Hymnal 1982 (#525)
LCMS, home church to Dr. Just and Issues Etc.: The Lutheran Hymnal (#473), Lutheran Worship (#289), Lutheran Service Book (#644)

With the exception of NEH, all use the tune Aurelia by S.S. Wesley. Just to be difficult, the compilers of NEH provide Somestown (by 20th century composer “A.T. Batts”) and suggest Aurelia as an alternate.

Text

The version we have as Anglicans is that of Hymn #320 in Hymns Ancient and Modern: both the later CoE and the PECUSA hymnals use the words selected by ~~William Henry Monk~~ Henry Baker for that seminal hymnal. I don’t have the original 1861 edition, but an 1870 New York edition lists the hymn. (Update Sept. 5: A review of various 1860s editions of A&M on Google Books — and Baker’s biography in the 1892 Dictionary of Hymnology — suggests that the hymn was not present in the 1861 original, but was added in Baker’s 1868 Appendix to A&M.)

However, Dr. Just notes that Rev. Stone’s hymn was part of a series of 12 hymns on the Apostle’s Creed. Sure enough, the original seven verses can be found as Article IX of Stone’s original book:

The Church's one foundation
  Is Jesus Christ her Lord,
She is His new creation
  By water and the Word:
From Heaven He came and sought her
  To be His holy Bride,
With His Own Blood He bought her
  And for her life He died.

She is from every nation,
  Yet one o'er all the earth,
Her charter of salvation
  One Lord, one Faith, one Birth,
One Holy Name she blesses,
  Partakes one Holy Food,
And to one Hope she presses
  With every grace endued.

The Church shall never perish!
  Her dear Lord to defend,
To guide, sustain, and cherish,
  Is with her to the end:
Though there be those who hate her,
  And false sons in her pale,
Against or foe or traitor
  She ever shall prevail.

Though with a scornful wonder
  Men see her sore opprest,
By schisms rent asunder
  By heresies distrest:
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
  Their cry goes up " How long?"
And soon the night of weeping
  Shall be the morn of song!

'Mid toil and tribulation
  And tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation
Of peace for evermore;
Till with the vision glorious
  Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great Church victorious
   Shall be the Church at rest!

Yet she on earth hath union
  With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
  With those whose rest is won,
With all her sons and daughters
  Who, by the Master's Hand
Led through the deathly waters,
  Repose in Eden-land.

O happy ones and holy!
  Lord, give us grace that we
Like them, the meek and lowly,
  On high may dwell with Thee:
There, past the border mountains,
  Where in sweet vales the
Bride With Thee by living fountains
  For ever shall abide! Amen.

Veteran Anglican hymn-singers will immediately note two differences from their familiar hymn: the Anglican version is missing two verses, and the words are slightly different. From a comment made by Dr. Just, I discovered that The Lutheran Hymnal uses a different selection of verses:

CoE, ECUSA	TLH	Stone	Stanza
1	1	1	The Church’s one foundation
2	2	2	She is from every nation (becomes “Elect from every nation”)
-	3	3	The Church shall never perish!
3†	4	4	Though with a scornful wonder
4	5	5	’Mid toil and tribulation
5	-	6	Yet she on earth hath union
-	-	7	O happy ones and holy!

(†Lutheran Worship uses the same verses as the Anglicans, except that it drops the middle verse; I don’t know what the Lutheran Service Book says because I don’t have it front of me.)

In Hymns A&M, there is a slight change to the first phrase of the second verse. I can certainly understand that the “she” would be confusing, and so “Elect from every nation” seems better. The third verse is not sung (outside those LCMS parishes using TLH.)

The most dramatic change is that the final verse from Hymns Ancient & Modern — as also used by the subsequent English and American hymnals — is a composite of Stone’s final two verses:

Yet she on earth hath union
  With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
  With those whose rest is won,
O happy ones and holy!
  Lord, give us grace that we
Like them, the meek and lowly,
  On high may dwell with Thee:

I rather like the Baker-ism, but then that’s not surprising since I’ve been singing it for decades and never knew of the original text.

Performances

I only know of four CD performances of the hymn, and I have three of them:

I have two copies of a performance by Kings College (Cambridge), from their CDs Abide with Me: 50 Favourite Hymns and Be Still My Soul. I cannot recommend the former enough: the title says it all. The latter CD has 23 hymns, a smaller but still a valuable collection.

I also have it performed by the Wells Cathedral choir on Jerusalem the Golden, volume 2 of their indispensable five-volume set on “The English Hymn.” This seems to be what Issues Etc. used.

Cathedral Choral society has it among 26 hymns in Hymns Through the Centuries, with many fine hymns but (alas) a few modern ones.

Reference

S.J. Stone, Lyra Fidelium: Twelve hymns on the twelve articles of the Apostles’ Creed, Oxford: Parker & Co, 1866, pp. 38-43.

After 150 years, the perfect hymn for our time?

2010-08-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

First of two parts.

Tuesday’s (Aug. 10) webcast of Issues Etc. examines the 1866 hymn “The Church’s One Foundation,” by Samuel J. Stone (1839-1900), with the 1864 tune Aurelia by Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876). It is really Issues Etc. — and an oral discussion of any hymn text — at its best. But then, this hymn deserves such a discussion, as it captures both timeless truths and the perils of the modern culture that threaten the church today.

Both of the participants in this discussion were LCMS pastors with special ties to the hymn. Host Todd Wilken chose it for his wedding 23 years ago because “The picture of human marriage is only a reflection — a beautiful reflection — of Christ and his bride.”

His guest, Dr. Arthur A. Just, Jr. of Concordia Seminary Ft. Worth, noted it was sung at his ordination 30 years ago. He flatly declared: “I sometimes call it the perfect hymn, because it does everything a hymn should do.” Later on, he added:

He obviously was a great theologian: Nobody could write a hymn like this without being a great theologian. And clearly — at least for this hymn — an incredible poet. I don’t know that there is any greater poetry in all the hymnody that we sing than this [first] stanza…

At one point, Dr. Just said that he could spend an hour discussing just one verse, and near the end he said the hymn’s “depths and its riches are almost beyond description.” (In fact, the hymn is so important that I’m going to offer my own thoughts in a future posting.)

He noted that the hymn is a product of the times of the Rev. Stone, an Anglican clergyman who served a working class East End church. (Wikipedia helpfully notes that the Oxford-educated Stone was a curate in Hackney when he wrote these words.)

Dr. Just’s remarks tie the work of Stone to a problem that is distressingly familiar to Anglicans today:

There was a theological controversy in the church of England in the 1860s. It was a controversy in which liberalism was threatening to destroy many of the cardinal doctrines of the Anglican Church. …

It was really for the humble folk of his parish: He wrote this hymn to reaffirm the central articles of the faith and to combat the skeptical liberal scholarship that was overcoming the church at that time.

Below are my annotated excerpts from the conversation, which was accompanied by the Wells Cathedral performance (on a CD I bought during my last visit to Wells.) The hymn text sung by the choir is the version published in The English Hymnal.

1. “The Church’s one foundation”: The centrality of Christ’s atoning sacrifice

A New Testament scholar, Dr. Just explained about how the theology of this verse ties to the entire New Testament. While as a Pauline scholar he saw “new creation” as being from Paul’s letters to the Corinthians and the Galatians, it also draws on Ephesians, the Gospels, and Revelations. In addition, the core idea of the verse ties back to the Old Testament:

The entire Old tTestament looked towards the blood of the Messiah. ... As it says in Hebrews, there is no forgiveness without the shedding of blood. ...

The idea of the Messiah shedding his blood for the sins of the people and dying for them — that is the heart of the Old Testament faith.

And so it shouldn’t surprise us that a pastor like Samuel Stone would see the that the way in which the new creation of the church by water and word comes about is by the coming of the bridgegroom to His bride and giving up His life for her. That's Ephesians language, that’s the langauge of Paul.

The idea of placing oneself in a position to sacrifice oneself for someonse else — “Greater love has no man than this than a man would give up his life for his friends” [as] Jesus says in John — that was just embedded in the Israelite mentality.

2. “Elect from every nation”: the unity of Christians in his church

This verse alludes to Ephesians 4:4-6:

There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

As Dr. Just notes, this was a miracle of the church at the time of Ephesus, unifying all races, ages, male and female. He alludes to Galatians 3:26-28:

for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

3. …“By schisms rent asunder, by heresies distrest”

As Dr. Just noted in his introduction, Rev. Stone was upset by liberal heresies that both divided the church and took it away from the truth — just as Jesus was upset by the Pharisees.

He saw this verse as a call to Christians for patience and faith in the church, despite its failings due to the sinfulness of its members and the challenges of ongoing heresies:

If you love the church, and you love her Lord and you love its unity and you love its cofnfesion and its long confession that has left to martyrdom over those years, [then] it hurts deeply to see it rent asunder by those that are pushing it to be more relevant, to be something that it so not.

Dr. Just continued (after the second break):

He was living in a time when there [were] attacks on the church and they were fighting back, and it made them better. It made them better -- not even better apologists for the faith -- but deeper in their understanding and their living out the faith.

4. “Mid toil and tribulation”: awaiting the perfection of the end times

Stone, troubled by the heresies and tumult mentioned in the previous verse, offers a vision of a happier future. Or as Dr. Just said, “This is as beautiful a description of heaven and the end times as any in the church.”

5. “Yet she on earth hath union with God, the Three in one”

This verse promises “mystic sweet communion with those whose rest is won.” This phrase resonated with Dr. Just, author of Heaven on Earth: The Gifts of Christ in the Divine Service.

Meanwhile, the phrase “we like them, the meek and lowly, on high may dwell with thee” calls to mind the Beatitudes, which apparently were important to Rev. Stone. (Given his posting, it is easy to see how.)

The hymn begins and ends with a prayer for God’s grace.

Conclusion

In the final segment, Rev. Wilken played the entire Wells Cathedral performance from beginning to end, as he often does in a hymn study. Then Dr. Just read his closing thoughts. Here are some excerpts:

One of the things that this hymn really does remind us of is that we do live in a world that attacks the church, and that the church is under stress, under duress and needs to be loved like we love Jesus. Even in its darkest moments, we have to remember that the church is His body and what we get when we come to church is Him.…

These broken people who come for the gifts, they come because they know — even if they are not able to articulate it — there is something beyond themselves. There is this mystic sweet communion. They come for peace and they come for rest. They come to hear the glorious truths that the scriptures proclaim and they come to receive those gifts.

I wish that were broadcast on a Sunday morning: with an inspiration like that, why would anyone ever skip church?

PostScript: In Praise of Issues Etc.

During one of the commercial breaks, the show announcer encouraged listeners to listen online:

Listen at the gym, in your kitchen, in your garden, on your iPod, your computer, or in your car. The technology may be new but the truth never changes.

Listening to this episode on my computer Saturday night reminded me of why I find Issues Etc. a priceless resource. This is Issues Etc. at its best: I recommend the entire 55 minute discussion (with ads) to all my readers, and have added it to my permanent collection of Issues Etc. hymn podcasts.

Dr. Just is obviously very educated, articulate and thoughtful scholar, with two degrees with Yale and Ph.D. from the University of Durham. He is the author of the semi-official LCMS two volume commentary on Luke, published by Concordia. I will make it a point to listen to his other visits to Issues Etc.

There is only one thing I don’t get: this is #4 on the Top 5 hymns as voted by the show’s listeners, and I never even heard of the other four. The LCMS and its Midwest base are German-American Lutherans, so how about some Bach, or even ol’ St. Martin himself?

St. James deserves better

2010-07-25T23:52:00.000-07:00

Today is the feast of St. James the Greater, perhaps the most important of the apostles after Peter, the rock of the church. As it so happened, I attended two Anglican services today — one that observed the feast day and one that ignored it.

Both the 1928 BCP and the 1979 prayer book honor James on this date with his own readings, following the 1789 American BCP which in turn uses the readings from the English 1662 BCP. The Gospel is the familiar reading (Matthew 20:20-28) about James' mom trying to install her two sons in a privileged position at Jesus' left and right hand.

Meanwhile, the Epistle is Acts 11:27-12:3, about his martyrdom at the hands of Herod in 44 A.D. My history isn't very good, but it appears James the Greater was the 2nd documented Christian martyr, after Stephen — consistent with church chronologies I found at FreeRepublic and CTLibrary. James is also interesting because of how he is called by Jesus (along with Peter, Andrew and John) from his work fishing along the Sea of Galilee.

However, James seems to be sorely underrepresented in the 1940 Hymnal. He is used as a symbol of the martyrs and apostles, and for this feast the choirmaster is encouraged to schedule one or more of these hymns. The best of these is perhaps Hymn #136: “Let us now our voices raise.” It uses a 9th century text by the greatest Greek hymnographer, as translated by John Mason Neale. The melody is a 13th century tune, first published in the 16th century. But the Hymnal 1940 Companion says the hymn is (for the Orthodox tradition) a hymn for the martyrdom of St. Timothy (May 3). Hymnal 1982 (#237) uses the same words but a 16th century German tune.

Hymnal 1982 offers another option, with a general purpose roll-your-own hymn for the saints (#231 and #232 differ only in the tune). Peter, Paul, James, Matthew, Luke and both Marys are represented by relevant verses.

However, further down in H82, hymn #276 ("For thy blest saints") by Cecil Frances Alexander starts with a general tribute to all martyrs, and then lays out what little we know of John: leaving his father Zebedee, witnessing the Annunciation, and being slain by Herod. The blog Conjubilant with Song lists the hymn as “For all thy saints, a noble throng,” with a different tune.

This is not one of Mrs. Alexander's best known hymns, which include "He is risen, he is risen," "Once in royal David's city," and "All things bright and beautiful." Still, for a hymn written in 1875 by an English bishop’s wife, it’s surprising not to find it as one of the 13 Alexander lyrics in The English Hymnal (1906), nor in Songs of Praise (1933) or New English Hymnal (1986).

Is the hymn obscure because we don’t make a big deal about James (or most of the saints)? Is it because the major hymnals list two other hymns with a similar opening line: "For all the saints" (with the magnificent Ralph Vaughan Williams tune) and "For thy dear saints" by Richard Mant?

I don’t know the reason, but it seems like an apostle — and a major one at that — might have expected better treatment by posterity.

The importance of hymn doctrine

2010-07-23T10:45:00.000-07:00

The SandyAnglicans Twitter feed reposted a tweet praising Anglican hymns — which brought me to the blog of Toby Brown, a theologically traditionalist member of the Presbyterian Church USA.

Sure enough, Brown lists The English Hymnal of 1906 as one of the two greatest (English language) hymnals of all time. The other was the 1835 Southern Harmony, a compilation of 18th and 19th century hymns that was the most used hymnal of the US South for the remainder of the century.

However, what really interesting (and instructive) was Brown’s quoting of an AP article about how the Southern Baptists appointed a committee of theologians to review the doctrinal content of the 650 hymns being included in the 2008 Baptist Hymnal.

To quote Brown quoting the AP story

Each song's suitability is based on these questions:
Does the hymn speak biblically of God?
Is it God-honoring?
Does the hymn present a biblical view of man?
Does the song help us to cover the depth and breadth of our theology?
Does the hymn call us to true discipleship, service, repentance, witness, missions and devotion?
Does the hymn speak biblically of salvation?
Does it engage the whole person - allowing a person to express his deepest feelings?
Does the hymn emphasize that Christ is the Christian's Lord, Master and King? (the idea of total submission)
Does the hymn present an Americanized/Westernized gospel? (civil religion)
Is there a balance with corporate and individual response in worship? (immanence and transcendence)
Does the hymn speak biblically about the church, the body of Christ?

I am not sure that would be my exact list, but most ask the key questions that need to be asked for any Christian hymnal. Let’s hope the next North American Anglican hymnal goes through a similar process.

God and Country

2010-07-04T21:09:00.000-07:00

One year out of seven, Independence Day falls on a Sunday. At this morning’s service, the rector at the church we visited chose three patriotic hymns from Hymnal 1982:

718: God of our fathers, whose almighty hand (H40: 143)
716: Gold bless our native land (H40: 146)
579: Almighty father, strong to save, a politically correct, Navy/Army/Air Force version of Eternal Father” (H40: #513 and #512 respectively)

I know the idea of mixing God and Country is controversial in church (not just in civil society), but the two were handled well across the entire service.

The readings were also for 4th of July (rather than Proper 9). The sermon tied to the Epistle (Hebrews 11:8-16), particularly the final four verses:

13. These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

He used this to make a point similar to the Lutheran (or at least LCMS) idea of “two kingdoms” — the need to exist both in the man-made civil society and God’s heavenly kingdom. In fact, using the analogy of a foreign embassy, he argued that churches are like embassies of God’s kingdom: when you step into a church, you are on God’s territory, not an earthly one.

Of the hymns, the second verse of the opening hymn (“God of our fathers”) perhaps tied best to the sermon theme:

Thy love divine hath led us in the past,
in this free land by thee our lot is cast;
be thou our ruler, guardian, guide, and stay,
thy word our law, thy paths our chosen way.

The service and sermon were both uplifting and a little depressing. Fifty years from now, it’s hard to see how hymns combining God and Country will ever be sung, due to an unholy conspiracy of rock band contemporary liturgy and militant secularists.

Perhaps the linkage of God and Country in song peaked — with the Protestant Revival — in the 19th Century. But it seems as though it was a constant theme throughout the first 350 years of American settlement, a celebration of our God-given liberties that is fading from the collective memory. The hymns (as with all hymns) provided a way to celebrate, reaffirm and reinforce such a message — hymns that will be gradually pared from the TEC hymnals and ignored by the hymnal-free contemporary worship.

Great Three in One Hymn

2010-05-30T18:16:00.000-07:00

For most Americans, today is the middle of a three-day weekend that marks the unofficial beginning of summer. For some Americans — and even some church services — it is the 143rd Memorial Day, first observed at Arlington National Cemetery in 1868, but since 1971 observed as a Monday holiday.

But for Anglicans (and perhaps other liturgical Protestants), it is Trinity Sunday, the last major feast before Ordinary Time, which occupies nearly half the year. In the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, the Sundays of Ordinary Time (sort of a permanent “low” Sunday) were designated as the “1st Sunday after Trinity” etc., but it seems with the 1979 prayer book and others following the RCL the formulation has shifted to use “propers” to work back from Advent 1.

I must admit that my theology of the Trinity is weaker than a lot of other core doctrines, if for no other reason that it’s only indirectly covered in the Bible. In the King James version, the phrase “Holy Ghost” is mentioned 89 times (all in the New Testament), but the word “Trinity” cannot be found in anywhere.

As a boy, my understanding of the Holy Trinity came from two main sources. One source was all the times that we said “Father, Son and Holy Ghost,” whether in the Doxology (“Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost”) or the creeds. In those days, we celebrated Morning Prayer we said the Apostles Creed (said to date to 2nd century Rome), while those Sundays with communion had the Nicene Creed (definitively dated to 325/381 A.D.) All of these list the three members of the Trinity, but again don’t use the “T” word.

Instead, my childhood definition of the Trinity came every Trinity Sunday with one of the most majestic entrance hymns of the entire year, Hymn #266:

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessèd Trinity!

I think it was fair to say that this stanza was the source and extent of my knowledge of the Trinity up until my confirmation. The tradition continues to the next generation, as it was one of the first (non-Christmas) hymns learned by my eldest, and we both sang it with gusto this morning.

The words were written by an English vicar, Reginald Heber, who later died while serving as Bishop of Calcutta. As with so many other great English language hymns, it owes its current form to the 1861 Hymns Ancient & Modern, with the tune Nicae written by John Dykes for this purpose.

The perfect match of both are called out by the Hymnal 1940 Companion, which reports that Heber’s words have been reproduced unaltered in the American hymnal since the 1874 edition. The companion also notes

Testimony to the genius of Dykes is that the fact that not a note of either tune or harmony has since been altered.

Hymnal 1982 (#362) reproduces all four verses with one modification to verse 3. The original “Though the eye of sinful man” has become “though the sinful human eye,” one of the least objectionable of the many PC alterations in this hymnal.

Two other thoughts on the hymn. Doesn’t it seem odd that a hymn about the Trinity has four verses? One of my rare agreements with H82 is that if you have to drop a verse, the 2nd is the most expendable, because the third verse (“Only Thou art holy; there is none beside Thee”) also seems like a central part of imparting the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.

Also, unlike many other hymns, the final verse is as powerful as the first. Although the message is almost identical to the opening verse, were I to skip the final verse — due to a choir recessional, ushering duties, or a clueless music director — the hymn and Trinity Sunday itself would seem incomplete:

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty
All Thy works shall praise Thy Name, in earth, and sky, and sea;
Holy, holy, holy; merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessèd Trinity!

Although the hymn is relatively recent by Christian standards, I think both the message and the perfect integration of the music (as noted by Hymnal 1940 Companion suggests this is one of our timeless hymns. Hopefully it will remain a well-known congregation hymn for generations to come, and not just enjoyed at a few English cathedrals with well-trained choir schools

Dear Holy Ghost: Take My Life

2010-05-23T19:17:00.000-07:00

For Pentecost Sunday, this morning’s Epistle featured the obligatory passage from Acts about the first Pentecost and the birth day of the church. The lectionary selected Old Testament and Gospel readings that foreshadow Penetecost, including that portion of Acts that cites Joel 2:28-31.

But what to sing on Whitsunday? There’s always Salve Festa Dies, but if not that, then Oremus has a list of Pentecost hymns (even if the hotlinks are broken.) What about the old-fashioned way of finding hymns? There are a number of hymns that make explicit reference to the Holy Ghost (or the Holy Spirit as our “contemporary” church refers to him). Some of these are overtly trinitarian in their outlook, so I’ll defer those to another Sunday.

As with other central themes of the Christian faith, for the Holy Ghost there are ancient (or at least medieval) texts that provide continuity across the millenia. One example is “Come Holy Ghost, Creator blest” (Hymnal 1940: 218). Taken from a 9th? 10th? century text, it was translated in the mid-19th century by Edward Caswall, an Anglo-Catholic CoE clergyman who followed John Newman to the Roman church.

Another, more personal favorite is “Come, Holy Ghost, with God the Son.” (H40: 160), with the original Latin attributed to St. Ambrose and as translated by J.M. Neale. Hymnal 1982 (#20) sets it to Wareham and a harmonization from Hymns Ancient & Modern, but (alas) bowdlerizes the words to become "Now Holy Spirit, ever one."

However, today’s sermon focused less on the historical truth of the Eleven in the upper room, nor on the glossolaly that mistakenly brought us Pentacostalism. Instead, the priest emphasized the importance of letting the Holy Ghost do its work in our daily lives, or — in the contemporary jargon — “being open to the power of the Spirit.”

This core message — surrending one’s will to that of God, working through the power of the Holy Spirit — reminded me of a hymn. I couldn't remember the song title during the service, but looked it up on the Internet when I got home:

Take my life, and let it be
consecrated, Lord, to thee;
take my moments and my days,
let them flow in ceaseless praise.
…

Take my will and make it thine;
it shall be no longer mine.
take my heart, it is thine own;
it shall be thy royal throne.

The hymn (H40: #408; H82: #707) was written by Frances Havergal (1836-1879), youngest daughter of an Anglican cleric and compsoer. Quoting from her autobiography, the Hymnal 1940 Companion recounts how the couplets came to Havergal in December 1973 in response to prayer.

The CyberHymnal lists eight different melodies. H40/H82 use Hollingside (by John Dykes) but The English Hymnal (#582) has Ives while Songs of Praise, Enlarged Edition (#257) has Benevento. Oremus also lists 12 couplets -- which The CyberHymnal groups into three verses. Americans only get 8/12 (2/3) of these, but the Brits get all 12.

As devotionals go, this one is both easy to sing and powerful in its message. If I were the music director — and our rector had his act together enough to plan his sermon theme a week ahead — I would have scheduled this as the offertory hymn, right after the sermon. It also seems like it would be effective for children’s ministry.

Save us from the time of trial

2010-04-09T12:00:00.000-07:00

Apparently the Virginia Theological Seminary — a center-left seminary in the increasingly liberal TEC — is having a seminar series celebrating 30 years since the creation of the 1979 not-quite-a-Book-of-Common-Prayer. This week, one of the speakers was Prof Ruth Meyers of the Church Divinity School of the Pacific.

I don’t know Prof. Meyers, but here in California CSDP is known by Anglicans the Berkeley seminary that vies with its counterparts in NY and at Harvard to harbor the most extreme revisionist theologians in the TEC, if not American Protestantism. Prof. Meyers also heads the TEC’s Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music. (Does that mean she’s blessing same sex marriage rites?)

As quoted by the Living Church, Prof. Meyers laments the ending of a brief period of English translations shared by Protestant and Catholic churches during the ascendance of the Revised Common Lectionary:

But the liturgical and ecumenical unity underpinning common texts — which flourished in the 20th century — is now losing strength, Meyers said. She cited two primary sources of weakening liturgical unity: widespread ethnic divergence in worship styles around the world, and the Vatican’s moving toward a more literal translation of the original Latin in its new Roman Missal, which is nearing completion.

The story talks about how the RCL banished the male pronoun and promoted dynamic equivalence for translation from the original Latin:

Dynamic equivalence meant that translators working with the ancient Latin texts were to use language familiar to the people. The new English translation of the Roman Missal, she said, uses the concept of “formal equivalence,” a more literal, authentic translation that places high value on the ancient Latin.

The report doesn’t seem to be inaccurate, but it shows the problems of a one-sided, single-source story. (Reporters who attend a public talk or event without doing background research are prone to these problems.)

The story doesn’t really explain the Catholic side of why they are moving away from the inaccuracies of the dynamic translations, such as “And also with you.” The new more authentic translations may be anathema to the TEC, but should be well received by Schism I, perhaps by Schism II and also other conservative Protestants — say those who favor the ESV over the political correctness of the NRSV or the dynamic translation of the NIV.

Like modern-day politicians, Prof. Meyers seems to think that change is inherently good:

Meyers said that the 1979 Book of Common Prayer offers different options for some familiar prayers, such as the Lord’s Prayer. But, she said, “The Lord’s Prayer has been the most resistant to change.”

People develop a “deep familiar attachment to old forms of prayer,” she said, and nowhere is this better illustrated than in the Lord’s Prayer. Thus, she said, some worshipers will always want to say the familiar “And lead us not into temptation” rather than the newer “Save us from the time of trial.”

I, for one, think the Lord’s Prayer being “resistant to change” is a really good thing: newer is not always better.

I am not tempted by this new liturgy. Instead, I pray for the Continuing Anglicans (particularly ACNA) to follow the lead of the RCC (and that of the late Peter Toon) to save us from the trial of theologically dubious translations.

Celebrating our Risen Lord

2010-04-04T11:16:00.000-07:00

There are a wealth of wonderful Easter hymns to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord. How to choose from them all? Based on fond childhood memories and dozens of Easters since, here is a highly personal list, with subjective difficulty rankings:

“Hail thee, Festival day.” (H40: #86; H82: #175). Very difficult. The mandatory Easter processional that combined the 6th century Foratunatus poem with the stirring Ralph Vaughan Williams tune.
“Jesus Christ is risen today.” (H40: #85; H82: #207). Easy. The 14th century hymn, with a 1708 English translation and melody.
“He is risen, he is risen!” (H40: #90; H82: #180). Easy. Evocative of #85, but a 19th century lyric set to the 17th century Joachim Neander tune.
“At the Lamb’s high feast we sing.” (H40: #89; H82: #174). Moderate. A 17th century Latin hymn and melody with a J.S. Bach harmonization, as translated in the 19th century.
“The strife is o’er, the battle done.” (H40: #91; H82: #208). Moderate-Difficult. Another 17th century Latin hymn — but one with a more martial feeling — set to aptly named tune Victory by Palestrina, harmonized by W.H. Monk (musical editor of Hymns Ancient & Modern.)
“That Easter Day with joy was bright.” (H40: #98; H82: #193). Easy. The Hymnal 1940 translation of a 5th century Latin poem, set to the Puer Nobis, a Praetorius tune better known at Epiphany.
“The day of resurrection!” (H40: #96, 1st; H82: #210) Moderate. A 8th century poem by John of Damascus, translated by John Mason Neale, set to a German Catholic hymntune and harmonized by W.H. Monk.
“Come, ye faithful, raise the strain.” (H40: #94, 2nd; H82: #199). Easy. A second J.M. Neale translation of John of Damascus, set to a stirring march by Sir Arthur Sullivan.
“Welcome happy morning!” (H40: #87; H82: #179). Moderate. Another Fortunatus poem, with another Arthur Sullivan tune.

Which of these would I chose if I were music director? Looking at the (1 year) liturgical index in Hymnal 1940 — and adapting the two Communion and the morning prayer recommendations — suggests the following

Opening: “Hail thee, Festival day.”
Sequence: “He is risen, he is risen!”
General: “At the lamb’s high feast we sing.”
Closing: “Jesus Christ is risen today.”

For communion, H40 suggests #207 (“Come, risen Lord, and deign to be our guest”) or #210 (“Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness”). These are both fine hymns, but for the C&E communicants — if I didn’t use the Messiah or another choral piece — I’d select the sublime communion hymn sung with the four part Bach harmonization: “Come with us, O blessed Jesus” (#211).

While “The day of resurrection!” makes a great Easter recessional, H40 oddly recommends it as the recessional for Communion (or morning prayer) on Low Sunday, Easter I. (Oddly, because “the day” was a week earlier.) H40 also recommends “Welcome happy morning!” as the entrance hymn.

As at Christmas, I guess we sing about our feast day many weeks later, because there is an embarrassment of hymnal riches to be sung throughout the entire season, not just on the principal feast day.

Palm Sunday and Passiontide

2010-03-28T11:13:00.000-07:00

Today is Palm Sunday, remembering Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. But as long as I can remember — and as recorded in the 1940 Hymnal — it has also been Passiontide, summarizing the entire duration of Holy Week (or at least the trial and crucifixion of our Lord.)

This morning I worshipped at a Hymnal 1940 parish. Two of the three hymns were Palm Sunday standards:

“All Glory, Laud & Honor” (H40: #62), the standard Palm Sunday processional for every ECUSA, Schism I and Schism II parish I’ve attended for the past many decades.
“Ride on, Ride on in Majesty” (H40: #64, 1st): the other hymn in our hymnal that focuses on Jesus’ entry and path to the cross
“O Sacred Head, Sore Wounded”(H40: #75): clearly more of a Good Friday hymn.

The first two are (to me) mandatory Palm Sunday hymns. Update: I’m glad to see that LCMS pastor Rick Stuckwisch lists these two hymns as his recommended processional and recessional hymn for today.

I have mixed feelings about scheduling crucifixion hymns on Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday is by itself one of the most important stories of the New Testament — really the denouement of Christ’s early ministry. To me this is Our Lord’s coming out party, in which his followers both proclaim his kingship (not an earthly one, as it turns out) and also he arrives in glory at the historic capital of God’s chosen people of the first covenant, to create a new convenant.

Good Friday to me is a separate service, with separate liturgy. But realisticially, a fraction of Christians attend on Good Friday while Palm Sunday often attracts C&E Christians (who often step it up during Advent and Lent). There is also the question of whether music is really appropatite during Good Friday: most Anglo-Catholic clergy I know have treated it as a very solemn, quiet service.

Certainly, if Palm Sunday is doing dual duty for Good Friday, there are plenty of great hymns that commemorate Christ’s crucifixion. Instead of Hymn #75, I would choose “Ah, Holy Jesus,” (H40: #71, 1st) that great Lutheran hymn with the tune Hierzliebster Jesu by Johann Crueger. (I would love to hear the 2nd tune, Sarum plainsong Mode IV, but no one seems to use it).

But there are no shortage of choices in our hymnal. “Drop, Drop Slow Tears,” (H40: #69) the 17th century hymn with music by Orlando Gibbons is both timeless and also relatively easy to sing. And for a Good Friday service, it would be impossible to beat “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord,” one of the few pieces of American folk music in Hymnal 1940 (#80).

If you’re not doing Good Friday hymns on Palm Sunday, how would you fill out the liturgy? This morning’s church used “Lift High the Cross,” which to me seems like a happy Good Friday hymn. Asked for advice by a music director, I think I came up with a better choice.

For Luke 19:28-40 — given by this year’s lectionary for Schism II/TEC churches (Year C of RCL) — a hymn website suggested a hymn I would not have thought of: “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” (H40: 355):

All hail the power of Jesus' name! Let angels prostrate fall;
Bring forth the royal diadem, and crown him Lord of All!
Bring forth the royal diadem, and crown him Lord of All!

Perhaps this is more of a Christ the King Sunday hymn, but if you want a familiar (easily sung) hymn for the recessional that captures the theme of Christ’s triumphal entry, IMHO it’s hard to beat. As Oremus notes, it’s also present in all the major US and English hymnals, another testimony to its staying power. Finally, to me it’s one of those great hymns — in music, lyrics and theology — that is always worth singing, no matter what the excuse.

Update: On the March 29 episode of Issues Etc., Pastors Todd Wilken and Will Weedon spent an hour discussing the imagery of “Ride on, Ride on in Majesty” and the broader significance of Palm Sunday. On March 30, the two discuss the observance of Holy Week, including that combination of Passion Sunday and Palm Sunday is a postwar change in the liturgy.

Legal nonsense in California

2010-03-27T23:55:00.000-07:00

For those who didn’t know it already, Anglican Curmudgeon has the best coverage of the California (and other US) lawsuits of TEC vs. continuing Anglicans.

Last week, the California appellate court ruled 2-1 that a decision against St. James (Newport Beach) did, in fact, settle the substantive questions. Counselor Haley explains why (as the dissenting justice noted) this is legally unprecedented.

In a later post, Counselor Haley offers 10 questions for St. James to pose in its (anticipated) appeal to the California Supreme Court.

I couldn’t say it any better — so read both posts.

Teach our children well

2010-02-28T21:17:00.000-08:00

My wife and I are learning from friends and family as they prepare their children for college. At our parish, the eldest member of the youth group is a high school senior and now waiting to hear back from a variety of Ivy League and comparable schools in the Northeast and California.

This prompted me to think: what will happen to our Anglican youth when they go off to college? As a parent, I’ve been thinking about Sunday School and youth group. Even before we were parents, we thought about what will happen to our children as teens, facing peer pressure, teen rebellion, hormones, etc. Since then, our church search has considered both aspects of Christian formation for ages of 0-18 — more recently, supplanting other concerns like music or liturgy.

However, my college thinking has been strictly about academic issues (college prep, AP, SAT, etc.) and not spiritual ones. This oversight seems particularly odd, given that I personally fell away from church in college — attending once in 4 years of college — and did not return until years later as an adult. Even worse, today’s mainline Protestant campus ministries focus on social justice and conforming to the culture, rather than traditional liturgy and doctrine.

So at church this morning, talking about college with our youth group member and a visiting diocesan dignitary, I realized that keeping even the most devout Anglican youth in the faith might be a serious obstacle. Anglican churches (Schism I or Schism II) seem to be in suburbia, which is good for educated professionals (with or without kids) but not for 18-year-olds going to college in a city or small college town.

Start with Harvard, the oldest American college (1636) which was led by Purtian ministers throughout the 17th century. Harvard Divinity School has turned out many Episcopal clergy over the decades, but (as noted in The Search for God at Harvard) Christian belief now seems to be but a distant memory among many of the faculty.

According to the ACNA parish locator page, it has a parish about 3 miles from Harvard in Medford, but the mass transit option would take 55 minutes one way. The church in Waltham is 5 miles and 45 minutes away.

There is no official Schism I website for all the fragmented alphabet soup options, but (at least until ACNA was formed) the best site was ShelterInTheStorm.org. Among the Massachusetts parishes, it lists one church in Boston and 3 in the 021xx zip code (near-in suburbs). Easiest to reach is the ACC parish meeting in the Boston YMCA chapel and the Malden parish is 40 minutes by subway (the best option in Boston). SitS also shows an AMiA (ACNA) parish 45 minutes away on the subway, and an Anglican Use Roman Catholic parish a single bus away (45 minutes) in Brookline.

At Stanford (which once sold T-shirts “Harvard is the Stanford of the East”), the options are slightly better. Saint Ann Chapel — the former Stanford Newman Center for Catholic ministry that is now an Anglo-Catholic parish owned by the Schism I APCK — is only 2 miles away, an easy bike ride and reasonable walk. If you have a car — like most Californians — ACNA lists St. Luke’s Chapel in the Hills as an easy 5 mile drive. The APCK also has a parish walking distance to UC Berkeley (its seminary).

In the LA area, the options aren’t quite as good. Yes, at students at UC Irvine are near St. James, Newport Beach — lead defendant among the California cases within the TEC vs. Continuing Anglicans property fight. But there’s nothing (either in SitS or ACNA) on the West Side of Los Angeles, near UCLA. There are many parishes in driving distance — such as the historic Hollywood Anglo-Catholic parish Saint Mary of the Angels — but as in Boston, the mass transit options aren’t very attractive.

The same applies for youth attending other elite colleges, like UCSD or the Claremont Colleges (Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Pomona, etc.) The answer is going to be driving — in the case of Claremont, 25 miles to Riverside.

The Church of England, Episcopal Church of the United States, and now the various Continuing Anglican groups have been part of America’s intellectual elite since the country was first founded. While academia has become very secular and progressive — far more hostile to traditional Christian faith than 50 or 100 years ago — in my experience, the Continuing Anglicans are every bit as educated and thoughtful as the ECUSA parish leaders I knew as a kid.

Therefore, I suspect most of us will expect our kids to go to college, often to elite schools in culturally hostile locations in the “blue” states. We Continuing Anglicans in suburbia need to think about how sending our children away to college will support (or potentially undermine) their faith.

To me, the conclusion is pretty clear: if we want to keep our children as they become young adults, we need more parishes near college campuses (and eventually campus ministries). Since the Schism I churches seem to be in maintenance mode, let’s hope that the ACNA’s plan to plant 1000 parishes will include dozens if not hundreds of parishes aimed at the college demographic. Who knows, maybe we can pick up (or keep) a few college professors while we’re at it.

Transitory modern liturgy

2010-01-24T22:11:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid, a common gift given by your godparents/relatives for baptism, confirmation or perhaps birthday or Christmas was a Bible; for us Episcopalians, it might also include the Book of Common Prayer. So when I went shopping for such a gift this month, I was struck by an unfamiliar dilemma, brought on by transitory nature of our modern liturgy, as well as the fragmentation of US Anglican worship.

For example, in my childhood, our Bible readings came from the Authorized Version (KJV), which had been the gold standard for 300+ years of Anglican worship. Yes, the 1950s-era Revised Standard Version was out — an updated version of the 1901 American Standard Version — but I don’t ever recall reading it or hearing it in the pews.

But in the past two decades, the ESV has been rendered obsolete by two separate updates to the RSV: the politically correct NRSV (1990) and the traditionalist update, ESV (2001). Even in centuries-old King James was updated in 1982 with the NKJV.

Of course, some of our modern proliferation — and dilemma — is due to the profit motives of Bible publishers seeking to crank out new translations in hopes of generating new sales. (Just walk into your local Christian bookstore to see them peddle a 4th, 5th or 10th Bible to the existing faithful.) Thomas Nelson owns the NKJV, Crossways owns the ESV, and Zondervan own rights to the mother lode of all modern translations, the 1978 NIV. (Let’s ignore the TNIV).

So with all this proliferation of Bible translations in the past few decades, it seems reasonable to expect there will be even more the in the decades to come. If you gave any of these Bibles to a child today, would they still be in use 20 years from now?

The prayer book problem is similar and different. What’s similar is the proliferation of choices and the more rapid turnover of changes. What’s different is that being a Continuing Anglican is so much more confusing than my childhood experience as an Episcopalian, as evidenced by our liturgy. When I grew up, the 1928 BCP was in use for more than 30 years. (The Brits had been using the 1662 BCP for 300+ years).

Today, the Schism I churches still use the 1928 BCP, but most of the Schism II (e.g. ACNA) parishes use the 1979 prayer book — in both cases, published by a church entity that they no longer wish to associate with. (Let’s ignore that the TEC will likely produce an even more politically correct prayer book in the coming decade, with same-sex “marriage” rites, etc. etc.) The AMiA asked Dr. Peter Toon to make a contemporary language version of the 1662 BCP, but I’ve never been to a church that uses it, and it seems like a merely interim measure.

Then there is problem I never could have imagined: what denomination will the child be attending 20 years from now? Plausibly, it could be an ACNA parish, a Schism I parish or even across the Tiber. So there’s no prayer book that’s an even remotely plausible choice.

Well, what about a hymnal? After all, today I still love and use my first hymnal, which I received as a gift for being a good choirboy. Any kid who loves our traditional hymns could sing the same hymns for decades.

The British used the same The English Hymnal from 1906-1986 — more than two generations with the same tunes. The Americans got one generation out of Hymnal 1940, although its predecessor (Hymnal 1916) lasted less than half as long.

On the one hand, I think the chances of a new Anglican hymnal (at least among traditionalists) are remote, due to the fragmented nature of the Schism I and II parishes. On the other hand, that same fragmentation means that Continuing Anglicans today use both Hymnal 1940 and Hymnal 1982. So I can’t imagine any choice holding up here.

So, between the modern conceit of updating the liturgy, the egos and greed of those promoting “new and improved [sic],” and the fragmentation of the Anglican faith, what was once a simple choice for parents and godparents has become an impossible one.

What did I do? I bought an NIV Bible. It’s the second only to the KJV in current ownership (if not sales), and seems to be a common denominator for Bible studies. Although not a literal translation, it has the added benefit of being more easy to read than most translations, thus making a good choice for a first Bible and for someone not yet in high school.

A 21st century Lutheran canon of Epiphany

2010-01-14T17:41:00.000-08:00

On his blog Thinking Out Loud, pastor Rick Stuckwisch lists the LCMS hymns for the Advent, Christmas and Epiphany seasons from the Lutheran Service Book (2006).

Since I haven’t written about the canon of Epiphany, the list by Rev. Dr. Stuckwisch got me thinking. Many of these would be familiar to the Anglican singers — and to readers of this blog.

Some — like “Wake, awake, for night is flying” (Hymnal 1940 #3) and Break forth, O beauteous heav’nly light” (H40 #25) I would consider to be an Advent hymn or a Christmas hymn, but since they are both originally German, I’ll assume the LCMS (founded and populated by German-Americans) knows what they’re doing.

Others are recognizable from the Epiphany section of Hymnal 1940, including “As with gladness men of old” (H40 #52) by William Chatterton Dix and “Songs of thankfulness and praise” (H40 #53), which both have English words and German music.

Sadly, his list (and perhaps the LSB) seems to omit two of the prettiest Epiphany carols. One is the Prudentius poem “O sola magnarum urbium”, i.e. “Earth has many a noble city” (H40 #48). The other is “What star is this, with beams so bright” (H40 #47), with the tune Puer Nobis by Praetorius. While I don’t own a copy of the LSB — and there is no Lutheran equivalent of Oreumus — neither hymn is in my copy of The Lutheran Hymnal (1941), the LCMS counterpart to Hymnal 1940.

So while there are many important overlaps between Anglican and Lutheran worship — and of course between Anglicans and Catholics — we still have important divergences.

Oldest Christian B-side

2010-01-10T07:52:00.000-08:00

Back when I was growing up, teenagers still bought their new music on 45 rpm disks. The artist (or record company) would pull some sort of hot song from the new album and put it on the front of the 45, and then fill the back (the “B-side”) with something else that was unlikely to be a hit. (Occasionally, they underestimated the potential of the B-side and the buyer got two good songs for the price of one.)

Normally when Christian musicians think of the Christian poet Aurelius Clemens Prudentius (348-c. 413), we think of his incomparable Christmas song, Corde natus, or, as translated by J.M. Neale:

Of the Father’s Love begotten
Ere the worlds began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega,
He the Source, the Ending He,
Of the things that are, that have been,
And that future years shall see,
Evermore and evermore!

But during Epiphany, we get a second Prudentius hymn:

O sola magnarum urbium
Maoior Bethlem, cui contigit
Ducem salutis caelitus
Incorporatum gignere

Today, we don’t sing it in the Latin, but as “Earth has many a noble city,” hymn #48 in Hymnal 1940 (or #127 for those who use Hymnal 1982). [Conjubilant with Song also blogs on this hymn during this Epiphany season.]

The text was translated by Edward Caswall. As with “Of the father’s love,” both Hymnals use the version from Hymns Ancient & Modern (1861). Somehow the 1982 crew resisted the temptation to bowdlerize the text (perhaps because the M-word was absent.)

Of course, this is not really a B-side. Ignoring the lack of 120V AC and phonographs in the 5th century, the tune for both hymns is an anachronism — in this case, the ever-popular Stuttgart (1715) attributed to C.F. Witt. (Although Stuttgart is better known for the Advent favorite “Come thou long expected Jesus,” it was actually introduced to Anglicans with this hymn in Hymns Ancient & Modern.)

Still, it’s a fun mental exercise to think of how Prudentius gave us the words to these two timeless hymns, and how a 5th century entrepreneur might have packaged them for the faithful to enjoy together.

San Diego scorched earth victory

2010-01-07T00:01:00.000-08:00

David Virtue reports this week that Bishop James Mathes (TEC-San Diego) announced plans to take back St. Anne’s in Oceanside, after winning an important procedural round in November.

“Winning” the St. Anne’s property is but the latest milestone in Mathes’ scorched earth campaign against traditionalists, who — reading the writing on the wall — fled en masse beginning in 2005, even before PB Katharine Jefferts Schori and her attack dog/chancellor began their national campaign against conservative parishes.

I will leave aside the legal merits of the TEC claim to the departing parishes since Anglican Curmudgeon has been doing the best job of covering the law. However, outside the TEC, other denominations have been negotiating rather than litigating such disputes, and none has a (morally if not legally dubious) policy of favoring de-consecrating churches rather than selling them to “competing” jurisdictions (e.g. Schism I or Schism II parishes).

Despite the same national policy across the TEC, San Diego had the greatest proportion of parishes fleeing the diocese of any in California: nine of the 49 parishes in the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego had many or most of their parishioners flee with the rector to set up a new parish. Six of the nine parishes are in San Diego’s North County, the most affluent and educated suburbs of the San Diego metropolitan region.

At most of the parishes (Christ the King Alpine, All Saints’ Vista, Grace San Marcos, St. Timothy’s Peñasquitos, Holy Cross Carlsbad, St. Paul’s Yuma), those leaving the TEC left without fighting for the property. (At Holy Cross, thanks to the duplicity of the bishop selling their land without consulting them, the mission had no property to fight for.)

Three of their parishes fought for their property: St. John’s Fallbrook, St. Anne’s Oceanside and Holy Trinity Ocean Beach. After winning the first round, St. John’s lost a key appellate decision in 2008 and decided to vacate the property last March when the California Supreme Court refused to hear the case. The Anglican faithful at St. John’s surrendered the property to the much smaller group of TEC loyalists, and held the first services of the new Christ Church Fallbrook on Palm Sunday 2009.

This week’s letters by Mathes claimed victory over St. Anne’s Anglican, which this Sunday is beginning worship as Grace Anglican Church with two services at a borrowed sanctuary in Carlsbad.

Still continuing its fight is Holy Trinity, which believes it can still win its case on appeal — particularly if the US Supreme Court intervenes to reconcile conflicting state rulings. Holy Trinity has been anticipating a legal fight for years, and one of its longest serving members is the retired City Attorney of San Diego (who was for years was among 4 lay delegates in the diocese at General Convention, voting against the stupid idea du jour.) It is not clear what the EDSD would do if it won the Holy Trinity property, since it has no use for it (it is smaller than the nearby ultra-liberal All Souls) and is not allowed by KJS to sell it back to its current users.

Not leaving TEC is St. Michael’s-by-the-Sea, the onetime flagship of Anglo-Catholic traditionalism in San Diego and one of the five biggest parishes in the diocese. Established in 1894, the parish has an irreplaceable coastal property that I imagine has weighed heavily on the decision of clergy and laity to stay put in the diocese. (Given the city of Carlsbad has long resented this tax-exempt usage in a prime tourist location, I’m sure the EDSD would sell it in a heartbeat to ameliorate its own serious financial troubles.)

Today, TEC’s loss forms the backbone of the 18 congregations of the ACNA Diocese of Western Anglicans. Last Sunday, ACNA-affiliated forces opened Holy Spirit Anglican, a new congregation near San Diego State, not quite halfway between the existing Western Anglican parishes in Alpine and Ocean Beach.

I’ve attended several of these parishes in their original locations but none in their new locations. The one I’m most keen to visit is Anglican Church of the Resurrection in San Marcos, which has the most active youth choir of any Anglican church in San Diego (if not California). Last year, the choristers were among 15 choirs participating in a choir festival sponsored by the “San Diego Choristers Guild.” (I imagine readers in other cities wish they had a similar organization).

Legal troubles (and lack of permanent facilities aside), next to the Diocese of San Joaquin (which left TEC lock, stock and barrel), San Diego seems to be the most vibrant bastion of traditional Anglicanism in all of California, if not the Western United States. Let us hope these parishes can work with their new Western Anglican bishop (based in Long Beach) to build the infrastructure for communicating the faith, preserving the liturgy and (at least among the Rite I parishes) continuing a tradition of Anglo-Catholic hymnody.

Update: A.S. Haley of the Anglican Curmudgeon notes that for the first months of 2009, TEC has slashed mission spending by $1.4 million, while litigation expenses are $1.8 million over budget. In earlier postings, he raises questions about the TEC’s “hierarchical” claims to church property, the central question in lawsuits against the Anglican dioceses in Ft. Worth and San Joaquin, and reports that St. Luke’s (La Crescenta) has appealed to the US Supreme Court, asking for an application of neutral principles of property law (as in South Carolina) to the current property disputes.

Traditional non-sense

2010-01-03T23:29:00.000-08:00

Regular readers know how a major focus of this blog is preserving traditional hymns. I love the old hymns, and am particularly suspicious of changes in hymn doctrine that have occurred in the 30-40 years.

Tradition is even formally part of our theology, at least for Anglicans who argue that our theology is based on a “three legged stool” (scripture, tradition & reason) or “four legged stool” (scripture, tradition, reason & experience) attributed to Richard Hooker. (A minor problem with such formalizations is that they are a 19th or 20th century fabrication because Hooker never said that.)

Certainly tradition is certainly an important (if not more important) consideration for our Catholic and Orthodox brethren. At the same time, one of the major arguments for Luther and the other Protestant reformers was that Tradition had improperly subordinated the plain text of Scripture.

During the 12 days of Christmas, I’ve found two good examples where older, popular, long-established hymns do not make sense when laid against what we know from Scripture. As it turns out, on Sunday I sang both of the hymns in church — one twice at two different churches. (Providentially, these are the same two hymns that I selected on Christmas Day to blog about later on.)

Exhibit A is Epiphany’s greatest hit and certainly one of my childhood favorites: “We three kings of Orient are.” The antiphonal arrangement of Hymnal 1940 (#51) as opposed to more prosaic presentation of Hymnal 1982 (#128). The carol was written by John Henry Hopkins, Jr. in 1857 and published in his 1863 book of carols. (The 1872 edition is on Google books).

Various modern sources (correctly) note the dissonance between Hopkins and the story of the Wise Men given by Matthew 2. We know they brought three gifts, but there’s no direct Biblical evidence that they were three, let alone kings. In general, today’s theologians might be comfortable with “Wise Men” or even “Three Wise Men,” but the “kings” are a fanciful concoction. (In addition to scripture and tradition, we also have external astronomical evidence that suggests of a “star” that appeared over Bethlehem appeared around 2 B.C.)

So what should we do with the hymn that has misled (if not indoctrinated) generations of Americans into assuming that the visitors from the East were kings? It’s a fun song, but what if it’s unbiblical? Should a rector schedule this hymn knowing the error? Does it even belong in the hymnal? Or is it up to the PC police to bowdlerize the text for the next edition of the hymnal?

Exhibit B is the poem (ca. 1872) by Christina Georgina Rossetti: “In the bleak midwinter.” Certainly the major attraction of the hymn is that English composer Gustav Holst composed a tune for the poem for The English Hymnal (1906). While the details have more ambiguity, the condensed argument against the hymn is that “bleak” is a description of 19th century English winters, not 1st century winters in Palestine.

Bethlehem is only 6 miles from Jerusalem, and Wikipedia says both are at an elevation of 2500’: it seems reasonable to assume a nearly identical climate. Anecdotally, snow does fall in Jerusalem — occasionally dumping several inches on the city. However, such heavy snow is not frequent, according to a scientific study of the mid-20th century, and in recent times, the snow quickly turns to slush or melts off.

Of course, today’s TV-era climate is neither Rosetti’s 19th century or that of Mary and Joseph. In terms of long-term climate, we know that in the middle of the “Little Ice Age,” 1600 A.D. was more than 2°F colder than the 4000-year average, while 2-4 B.C. and 2009 are right near the average.

Even if there was an occasional snowfall 2000+ years ago in the ancient capital of Judah, the image conveyed by Rosetti implies a much deeper and more durable cold:

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Based on my travels, “water like a stone” seems like a place with daytime highs below 32°F for several days. Nowadays, the median winter high in Jerusalem is in the 60s, even if the lows are in the 40s. While random variation would be outside this range, it seems highly unlikely that the Bethlehem high today (or during any similar climatic period) would be below freezing for any significant period.

Here, this is just an error of fact rather than doctrine. (As far as I know, no denomination has a doctrinal position about mean winter snowfall or low temperature in Bethlehem.) But is this also a case where a rector (or hymnal editor) should nix a hymn due to errors?

The rest of both hymns are less problematic: who can argue with a description of gold, frankincense and myrrh? If the suspect verses were buried later on, they could be dropped — but in both cases, these are the opening, most familiar, title verses.

I don’t have an answer to either case because I am personally torn: they have been such a part of my worship life for so long. Still, if a theologian, musicologist or cleric identifies a gap between lyric and doctrine (or lyric and fact), it seems dishonest not to advise the congregation of this. And if the song is flawed, how can you keep it and use it? I don’t want to lose either one, but on the other hand I don’t see how to keep them, either.

Will Christmas and Christianity soon be forgotten?

2010-01-02T14:45:00.000-08:00

From the Daily Mail, Dec. 30, decrying the secular attack on Christianity in England and Europe:

How long before small boys here ask: A church? What’s that, Grandad?
By PETER HITCHENS

I had hoped to have a sort of Christmas truce this week, but the controversy just keeps on raging, drowning out the choirs and bells.

And one of the problems is Christmas itself. How much longer will it exist in the form we know today?

I fear it won’t be much longer. Many of its traditions are visibly dying. Teachers complain that children don’t know the carols any more, because their parents don’t know them either.

At a couple of packed services during Advent (a season many haven’t heard of), I’ve noticed that large numbers of adults stand with their lips not moving during the singing of these simple, easily mastered songs.

Perhaps they’re humming, or struck dumb with awe, but it looks to me as if they are just completely unfamiliar with words or music and don’t know what to do.
…
The link between people and Christianity, many centuries old, has now been broken.

A small boy was walking with his grandparent past a church in a small town in Brandenburg. ‘What’s that strange building? What’s it for?’ he asked.
…
Watch out for increasing attacks on Christian State schools, on official or public celebration of Christian festivals. The word ‘Christmas’ is already slipping out of use in police forces and local authorities.

If you don’t protest, these will succeed. By the time the BBC relegates Carols From King’s to a special minority channel, replacing it with a football match or a ‘special Holiday edition of Strictly Come Dancing’, we will be so used to this sort of thing that we will barely notice it. And then Christmas will be gone

Shopping for a Christmas descant

2009-12-25T11:38:00.000-08:00

“The First Nowell,” as various sources helpfully note, was first published in 1823, although the words are believed to date to 1600 or even the 13th century. The melody first appeared with these words in 1833, but is also thought to date from centuries earlier. The arrangement we all know is that of Sir John Stainer published in 1871.

The term Nowell is Old English for the French Noël (which means birth, i.e. the birth of Christ). It's a greeting used for the Christmas feast, as recounted in the Franklin’s Tale (ca. 1395), one of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. (Some call the carol “The First Noël,” but I agree with those who say that if you’re going to say “Noël” then you should say “Le premier Noël.”)

My challenge this Christmas season was to find a descant for our choir to sing with “The First Nowell.” More precisely, I was looking for a descant for one (or two) of our younger sopranos to sing — each with beautiful voices but not a lot of experience singing descants. (As I recall from my choirboy days, one of the joys of being a soprano is that you almost always get to sing the melody.)

Finding the right descant proved a lot harder than it looked -- both in terms of what is free on the Internet and also in terms of the lack of consensus. This despite (or perhaps) because this is a very popular carol for descants. As one website snipes:

"The First Noel" is one of the most popular of all Christmas carols, known well to schoolchildren and to choral music arrangers who try to outdo each other in maximizing the registral sweep of the refrain by piling on lines of descant harmony.

First, I checked my hymnals (Anglican and otherwise) to see which ones had it:

Had it: Hymnal 1940, Hymnal 1982, Songs of Praise Enlarged Edition (1931), New English Hymnal (1986). I also found it in the 1975 Baptist Hymnal of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Didn’t have it: The English Hymnal (1906) — perhaps why it was in Songs of Praise. It’s also missing from The Lutheran Hymnal (1941) and Lutheran Worship (1982): it is because the German-American LCMS types didn’t share a common culture with pre-Reformation England, or was it some other reason?

Then I went in search of descants. Using Google, Wikipedia and other sources, I found at least 5 descants (some just a descant, some involving complete re-harmonization). I don’t have date of composition, but the chronological order of birth for the descant composers is

Healy Willan, 1880-1968, Anglo-Canadian, arguably the most famous 20th century Anglican choral composer after Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Evelyn Sharpe, (ca. 1895-???), who is best known for the "The Bird with the Yellow Bill" and "The hum of the bees".
(Sir) David Willcocks, 1919-, English.
(Sir) Philip Ledger, 1937-, English.
Paul Halley, 1952- , Anglo-American choirmaster of St. John's (PECUSA) cathedral in NYC from 1977-1989.

1. Willan

The Willan was the easiest to find — Hymnal 1982 has the Willan descant for the refrain only. Although I saw one reference suggesting it was first published in 1926, I couldn’t find the original or any evidence of a descant for the full carol.

2. Sharpe

I had even more trouble finding music for the other descants. My best luck was with Evelyn Sharpe — a task made more difficult due to considerable confusion between Sharpe and two contemporaries named Evelyn Sharp (one an English librettist, one a World War II pilot.) Miss Sharpe’s descant was published in 1944 as #27 in Cramer’s Descant Series. (What a wonderful idea that a publisher published a series of scores to capture descants.) However, as far as I can tell, it’s not held in the Library of Congress, and so I couldn’t figure out a way for an American to get a copy. This the one descant that I never heard.

3. Willcocks

I found a ECUSA church in Lexington, Kentucky that used a Willcocks harmonization for its 2007 Festival of Lessons and Carols — both for The First Nowell and three other Christmas carols. The Willcocks arrangement of the entire carol is on YouTube in a 2008 performance by the King’s College Cambridge. The descant is a little hard to hear over the blaring organ, but it’s quite pretty; however, it might require a professional choir (like those from the English choir schools) to pull it off.

4. Ledger

I found the Ledger harmonization in my CD collection. My favorite Christmas collection is an all-start English choirboy compilation entitled “Christmas Carols From Wells & Salisbury.” However, my reaction to the Ledger harmony was almost the same as that to Rococo architecture — too ornate and dated.

5. Halley

The final version I found was that by the (now-American) Paul Halley. Given when it was composed, I was wary at best, and one of the YouTube performances made it clear that this was not the descant for me or our choir.

6th Descant

If you listen to contemporary (pop-ish) performances of “The First Nowell,” there is another descant they are using that’s none of the above. Listening to one of my CDs, I plinked this transcription out at the keyboard:
This is certainly the descant I’ve heard many times before. It’s always possible that this is the Sharpe descant I never found.

Upon further investigation, the descant line in the first phrase is just transposing up the tenor part written by Stainer — making it the oldest of the descants. Kenny Rogers also sang this line on a 1990 CD among my collection of 35 Christmas CDs.

I don’t know where the last two descant measures came from, but it has a voice leading worthy of 16th century counterpoint and ends on the root of the D major chord.

In short, this descant is very easy to sing and thus the one we ended up using. Certainly I’d use it again, unless there was some particular reason we wanted to use the Willan (which was almost as easy to sing, but not quite as dramatic.)

What Isaac Watts says to "us"

2009-12-20T02:00:00.000-08:00

Two years ago, I complained how Hymnal 1982 mangled the 2nd verse of everyone’s favorite Isaac Watts Christmas hymn to elide the dreaded “M” word:

Joy to the world! the Savior reigns;
let men their us our songs employ,
while fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
repeat the sounding joy,
repeat the sounding joy,
repeat, repeat the sounding joy.

A quick Google search suggests that this particular hymnodic vandalism has not only spread throughout mainstream Protestant denominations, but also the American Catholic Church via the modern liturgy of Today’s Missal.

It was the topic of a blog posting Saturday at evangel, the wonderful ecumenical blog (hosted by the Catholic First Things) for right-thinking Christians everywhere. Biola University prof Fred Sanders first notes what my wife, I and everyone else born before 1965 knows deep down: for centuries the word “men” was used to refer to “human beings.” (Don’t get me started on the abominable non-word “humankind.”)

Sanders notes that in teaching on the original text (Psalm 98), Watts wanted to distinguish between the animate human beings and the inanimate remainder of God’s creation. We sing to the Lord because that’s why we were created: to praise God. Watts wants to make sure we’re clear that it’s the people (and not fields, floods, rocks, hills or plains) that are employing songs — rather than “all the earth” of the psalm.

I wish Sanders’ arguments would be enough to win over the inclusive language crowd in the ACNA and other groups, but I’d bet he’s just preaching (or at least drawing) to the choir. Unfortunately, being right nowadays isn’t enough.

Centuries of Christmas hits

2009-12-14T23:44:00.000-08:00

A new list of the most popular Christmas carols has been posted by Hymnary.org. It is based on the Dictionary of North American Hymnary, an index of 4876 hymnals published in North American from 1640-1978. The list is supplemented by “about 40” hymnals published since then.

Here are the first 25 of the 29. The #1 entry was mentioned in about a third of the hymnals, and the first seven were mentioned by at least 10%:

Joy to the world!
Hark! the herald angels sing
Brightest and best of the sons of the morning
When shepherds watched their flocks by night
It came upon the midnight clear
O little town of Bethlehem
Angels from the realms of glory
Silent night, holy night
O come, all ye faithful
As with gladness men of old
Come, thou long-expected Jesus
Away in a manger
O come, O come Emmanuel
Thou dist leave thy throne
Calm on the listening ear of night
The first Noel the angel did say
We three kings of Orient are
All my heart this night rejoices
There's a song in the air
Wake, awake, for night is flying
Angels we have heard on high
Good Christian men, rejoice
Shepherds, rejoice! lift up your eyes
What child is this who, laid to rest
From heaven above to earth I come

The list seems a little odd, but my guess is that the sheer number of pre-1900 hymnals skews the results away from modern tastes (not necessarily a bad thing.)

Last year Leland Ross used a similar exercise (with a smaller and more recent list of hymnals) to select his list of 16 favorite Christmas hymns. The differences might say something about the shifting of tastes, although a chronological sort on the DNAH results would do this more consistently.

From the DNAH list, two hymns Ross didn’t have were “Brightest and best of the sons of the morning” and “As with gladness men of old.” Meanwhile, his list ranked “What child is this” and “Good Christian men, rejoice” much higher than the multi-century version.

One Christmas hymn Ross mentioned that was completely absent from the DNAH list: “Go tell it on the mountain,” first published as a “Negro spiritual” in 1907 — although the refrain predates its publication. Personally, I think adding this hymn (#99) is one of the few improvements in Hymnal 1982 — as opposed to “Good Christian friends, rejoice” (ouch) or its mangling of “Hark, the herald angels sing.”

Setting the canon of Advent

2009-11-29T21:45:00.000-08:00

Ever since last year’s posting quoting Leland Ross on the canonical Christmas Carols, I’ve been wanting to make a similar list for Advent hymn. I’ve been investigating this off and on all fall. What I present here is too little and a little later than I would have liked, but it is all I’ve got time to summarize thus far.

I consulted two seminal hymnals (The English Hymnal from 1906 and Hymnal 1940) and one modernist hymnal (Hymnal 1982). The latter was because I was giving advice to someone who uses that hymnal, not because my opinion of it has changed, but it does provide a proxy for what hymns were in common use in PECUSA in the late 1970s. I wish I could have also consulted Hymns Ancient & Modern (1861) — as well as some of my Lutheran hymnals — but ran out of time.

Exactly seven Advent hymns show up in all three hymnals with the same tune. Two of these hymns I’ve previously written about:

“Creator of the stars of night,” tune: Conditor alme Siderum. TEH: 1, H40: 6 Tune 1; H82: 60
“Hark the glad sound! the Savior comes,” tune: Bristol. TEH: 6T1; H40: 7; H82: 71
“Hark, a thrilling voice is sounding,” tune: Merton. TEH: 5; H40: 9; H82: 59.
“Lo, he comes with clouds descending,” tune: Helmsley. TEH: 7; H40: 5T2; H82: 57. The Americans also have St. Thomas (H40: 5T1; H82: 58), which seems equally good but is somewhat easier to sing.
“O come, O come Emmanuel,” tune: Veni Emmanuel. TEH: 8; H40: 2; H82: 56.
“On Jordan's bank the Baptist's cry,” tune: Winchester New. TEH: 9; H40: 10; H82: 76.
“Wake, awake, for night is flying,” tune: Sleepers, Wake. TEH: 12; H40: 3; H82: 61,62. (Note: This is the subject of a 11/23/2009 podcast at Issues Etc.)

A close runner up is

“Thy kingdom come! On bended knee” appears in all three hymnals but not with the same tune. H40 (#391) and H82 (#615) use St. Flavian while TEH (and its 1986 successor the New English Hymnal) list Irish; the TEH (#504) alternately recommends St. Stephen. This is indexed as a general hymn, but listed by both TEH and H40 as a hymn “also” used for Advent.

Of those that showed up in two hymnals, my personal list of honorable mentions:

“Come, thou long-expected Jesus,” tune: Stuttgart, justifiably the first hymn in my favorite hymnal (H40: 1; H82: 66). I find the words by Charles Wesley to be perfect for signaling the beginning of Advent.
“The King shall come when morning dawns,” tune: St. Stephen, H40: 11; H82: 73.
“Christ whose glory fills the skies,” tune: Ratisbon, H40: 153; H82: 7. (H82 inflicts a new tune Christ Whose Glory as hymn #36). This is another H40 “also” Advent hymn, also with words by Wesley.

Four other hymns were found in two of the three hymnals — “O Word, that goest forth on high” (H40, H82), “The world is very evil” (TEH, H40), “Thy kingdom come, O God” (TEH, H40) and “Watchman, tell us of the night” (H40, H82) — but don’t seem to fit into the same category as the first 11. Only the first one (“O Word”) is listed in the Advent section, while the others are recommended alternates in the TEH and/or H40. (H82 doesn’t directly list alternates — I suspect they are in one of the hymnal companions.)

Finally, a 12th hymn is not listed as “Advent” but is recommended by H40 for Advent III and matches the H82 (Year C) reading for Advent II.

“Love divine, all loves excelling,” tune: Hyfrydol, H40: 479T1; H82: 657. TEH and NEH print Charles Wesley’s words with other tunes, but I can’t imagine why anyone would ever sing anything but Rowland Prichard’s greatest hit.

The latter might seem like a stretch, but the phrases “Joy of heaven to earth come down” and “Come, almighty to deliver” do suggest a fit to the Advent theme. I’ll use any excuse to sing Hyfrydol, particularly if I can sing harmony.

Today at church we did two of the holy dozen: “Lo, he comes with clouds descending” and “Come thou long-expected Jesus.” I’m hoping that we’ll sing most of the remainder before Advent is over.

San Diego wrent asunder

2009-11-15T23:11:00.000-08:00

The latest court ruling has come in for two San Diego Anglican parishes, and — as with the recent run of news — the news was not good: both St. Anne’s (Oceanside) and Holy Trinity (Ocean Beach) have lost their cases at the Superior Court level. (Rev. Joe Rees, the new rector of St. Anne’s, issued a statement Friday, but I’ve seen no comment from Holy Trinity).

The San Diego paper has thus far ignored the story, but the Oceanside paper published a story Saturday. Former Anglican jleecbd has sympathy for the plight of these nearby parishes, but predicts — as consumers of the Anglican Fudge — they are merely deferring equally serious doctrinal issues down the road.

Bishop Mathes gloated by suggesting that the current occupants of the disputed buildings “come home,” knowing full well they won’t. He also claims to plan to rebuild the Oceanside parish as TEC outpost. However, there is no announced plan (nor any plausible plan) for reusing Holy Trinity, which — only 1.6 driving miles from All Souls (Point Loma) — has made a niche over the past 40 years by being traditional in contrast to all things trendy and progressive at All Souls.

I recall when Mathes was narrowly elected in November 2004 over Bishop Anthony Burton, the traditionalist candidate. Mathes was sold as a “moderate” but immediately began governing from the hard left. (Sound familiar, anyone). The shift from Bp. Hughes (a true moderate) to Mathes brought one of the most rapid exoduses of parishes from any TEC diocese over the past decade.

If you look at the Diocese of Western Anglicans (ACNA) congregations, six of the 22 parishes are from San Diego County — far out of proportion to the 3 million San Diegan’s share of the population of Southern California (19+ million) and Arizona (6.5 million). Not listed is St. Anne’s — I’m told that its former rector (Tony Baron) was not interested in joining ACNA, but the new rector was more open to the possibility.

Of these 7 San Diego Anglican parishes, five had already lost their buildings. No word on whether the two remaining parishes will be able to remain through Christmas in the buildings that loyal Christians paid to build and support over the past decades.

Meanwhile, the lead defendant in California — St. James Newport Beach — is continuing its case in Orange County Superior Court, despite losing a recent appeal to the US Supreme Court. (Perhaps they hope the court will recognize the legal absurdity of the TEC claim to be a hierarchical church.) No word on whether Holy Trinity (whose former warden was City Attorney of San Diego) plans to also appeal, but from Rev. Rees’ statement, it sounds like St. Anne’s plans to concede.

I’ve worshipped at three of the seven parishes, and so I know none of these decisions were ones made lightly. Instead, like parishes elsewhere in California, most (if not all) must work on building a new parish utilizing temporary facilities.

It’s possible that St. Anne’s has a favorable property alternative only a mile down the road. In 1994, fed up with the direction ECUSA was heading, St. Anne’s rector (Rev. Gary Heniser) quit the ECUSA to form Church of the Advent, a new parish of the Charismatic Episcopal Church. A few years ago, they acquired space at the old (but serviceable) Methodist church in Oceanside when that church moved across I-5 to bigger facilities. The CEC is more charismatic than Episcopal — not counted as “Anglican” by “San Diego Anglicans” — but the long ties between Father Heniser and his former flock might facilitate some sort of cooperation.

As a believer, even if all the remaining court cases go badly, I expect to see the successful rebirth of the Anglican faith in San Diego, Orange County, LA, the Central Valley and even pockets of the Bay Area. I fell sorry, however, for those in their 70s or 80s, whose last memories on this earth will be of the bitter court fights, dislocation, uncertainty and despair. Perhaps they will place their hopes in their children and grandchildren, who merely face challenges of money — not the risk of death or imprisonment in the early Christian church, or modern day China or Sudan.

Something scary: Reform!

2009-10-31T00:01:00.000-07:00

As a parent and a suburbanite — as well as someone who occasionally watches TV — today is defined as Halloween. A few of us (maybe more Anglicans than other Prods) will remember the Celtic link. As the TEC rationalization for a Halloween-specific liturgy helpfully explains:

The term “Halloween”, is shortened from “All-hallow-even”, as it is the eveningbefore All Hallows' Day. Halloween originated with the Celtic tribes who lived in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Brittany. For the Celts this Festival marked the endof summer - the coming of winter. For Celts it is a time when the bridge that separates the world of the living and the world of the dead becomes firmer,allowing spirits and ghosts and ghouls to cross over. These spirits or departedsouls are honored and asked to grant luck and prosperity

However, as someone who briefly walked on the German side, today is also the 492nd anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the door of the church in Wittenburg. The Lutheran church (or at least the LCMS churches I’ve attended) make a big deal about this every year — it is their day, and that makes sense since it marks the beginning of their branch of Christianity and (John Calvin notwithstanding) the Reformation. I’m still hoping to make it to Wittenburg in 2017 for the festivities but perhaps that’s a forlorn hope.

The more I learned about Luther — the theses, his small and large catechism — the more I liked. On the big issues (sin, salvation, communion) I didn’t see anything in Lutheran doctrine that would prevent me from being an Anglican. And often I find it comforting to read Lutheran doctrine, precisely because the Lutherans actually have doctrine rather than those squishy 39 Articles that encompass a wide range of (sometimes conflicting) Anglican beliefs.

With the Vatican’s recent invitation to disaffected Anglicans, 2009 seems like a particularly interesting time for Anglicans (and Protestants) more generally to think about Luther and the Reformation. Martin Luther didn’t set out to create a new church but to reform the existing one. Similarly, many Anglo-Catholics long more for a Catholic church without its faults rather than dream of a perfected CoE.

Another interesting recent development is that the Catholic intellectual journal First Things has started a blog called evangel for evangelicals to help promote dialog among American Christians. (LCMS pastor/blogger Rev. Paul McCain has been spotted making comments there). The news peg of Reformation Day has extended the ongoing conversation of what divides and unites Christians across the Tiber. For example, Hunter Baker (whose parents were Catholic and Church of Christ) on Friday summarized his dilemma as follows:

The division of the church scandalizes me, especially in the world we live in. Part of the reason we lost as much as we did in American culture is because the Protestants worried more about “Romanism” than they did about secularism.

I wish I could see the Reformation’s end in sight, in a way that would somehow satisfy us all.

This was not the only evangel posting about Reformation Day. Blogger Jared Wilson notes that if the Catholics are excessively ceremonial, when it comes to (Calvinist) Protestants:

we are Keystone Kops over here. We are the Million Stooges, the overflowing clown car.

I think one reason the Reformation was so brilliant, so powerful, so swift in its spread, and still such an anchor—honestly: Luther and Calvin and Zwingli, et.al., but especially Luther, make me feel sane—for many of us today is because as it was taking shape and rescuing hearts, there was no Protestant Church yet to discredit it.

I’d like to think that’s the one thing that liturgical Protestants (esp. Anglo-Catholics) do well. We are a serious bunch, focusing on preserving the faith through the generations, without either infallible pontiffs or all-too-fallible televangelists. (Of course, the bells and smells and other rituals often take the place of actual belief — but hey, nobody’s perfect.)

On a happier note, “Byzantine Calvinist” blogger David Koyzis posted a YouTube video of Luther’s famous doctrinal hymn: Ein' Feste Burg ist Unser Gott, noting its derivation from Psalm 46, a psalm that provided comfort to Luther during his long fight to reform the Church. (Like the LCMS types, Koyzis favors the original syncopated rhythm rather than the even rhythm most of us know.)

Even if the latest efforts at church reunification bear fruit, there will be many more Reformation Days in which Protestants and Catholics worship separately the same God who gave us the same Scriptures.

If nothing else, I think we should rejoice that the splintering of the church brought us all those great stanzas from the Protestants hymnodists: Luther, Watts, Wesley — with translations by Winkworth — as well as tunes from Bach, Haydn, Vaughan Williams, S.S. Wesley and so many others. I still love my medieval Catholic plainsong (as translated by J.M. Neale), but our Sunday worship would be impoverished if we lost all the music that has been written in the past 450+ years by Protestant apologists.

River Tiber no longer deep nor wide

2009-10-20T08:21:00.000-07:00

Today’s announcement that the Roman Catholic church is welcoming Anglicans into the fold is far more sweeping than had been rumored over the past few years. (Yes, as a reader pointed out in response to Sunday’s posting, many of the Schism I types have long longed for reunification with Rome.)

The best coverage so far is in the Telegraph (sorry Ruth) which points out that the plan creates a church within a church that is broader and deeper than previous accommodations to Eastern- and Anglican-rite Catholics. The Guardian notes that (as long expected) the 500,000-member Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) is first in line, and the TAC primate makes it clear they will immediately start working on building institutions of cooperation and unity. (Time to print more Tiber River Swim Club t-shirts).

The British press (including the Telegraph and Times) make it clear that Archbishop Williams was gobsmacked by the announcement. (It’s such a great term — and perfect here — so I’m surprised they didn’t use it). Meanwhile, the US press is doing its typical terrible ahistoric job of covering the ongoing fissures in Anglicanism, as pointed out by former Episcopalian (now Orthodox) religion writer Terry Mattingly in GetReligion.

I don’t pretend to understand all the theological and ecclesiastical implications of the announcement, nor to be able to predict how popular the option will be with Anglican clergy or laity. The British press makes it clear that this will have a major impact in the UK and its 25 million nominal Anglicans; if only 10% jump to Rome, that’s more than the 2 million remaining in the TEC.

In the US, there is the lingering problem here of a corrupt RCC hierarchy tolerating and then covering up all those priests who were buggering little boys. (It was also a problem in Canada and Ireland). The worst news is out, but the scandal is not quite over.

Here in the US, I’m guessing that Schism I Anglo-Catholics will leap at the opportunity, but the Schism II evangelicals will prefer to keep their own ACNA hierarchy and their ordained women; today Abp. Duncan made it clear he’s not ready to sign up. I believe the fragile confederation that is ACNA will be put to the test, as individuals, parishes and even dioceses (Ft. Worth? San Joaquin?) are tempted to follow the Anglican Church in America (the US branch of TAC) and swim the Tiber.

Update 4pm: Abp. Duncan and Williams share a common interest in keeping the Continuing Anglicans with the CoE/AC rather than have even more join the Tiber River Swim Team. My initial reaction was that if Abp. Williams (and the other instruments of communion) are going to recognize ACNA and bring them into the Anglican Communion fold, he should do it sooner rather than later. Bp. Martyn Minns of CANA essentially said the same thing this afternoon.

So without knowing who and when and how many parishes, priests and parishioners, it’s impossible to predict what this will do to Anglican worship. The Telegraph notes that in the UK, some Anglicans may prefer the new translation of the Roman rite while Catholics could choose Anglo-Catholicism over the mod liturgy that passes for the RCC nowadays.

The one prediction I feel comfortable making: the English-speaking Anglican Catholics (Catholic Anglicans?) will need to develop a liturgy shared around the world, whether based on 1662 BCP or some other instrument. Once the dust settles — and a significant number of ex-Anglicans are aboard — I’d expect the first order of business would be a new prayer book, of course under the doctrinal supervision of the Vatican and presumably in cooperation with the ICEL.

It is a leap of faith to say that this international cooperation would also extend to finding a replacement for The English Hymnal and Hymnal 1940. However, I think this suggests that the chances for a New Anglican Hymnal in North America are becoming close to nil. Perhaps the Schism I, II Anglo-Catholics will adopt the Catholic-Anglican hymnal when/if it becomes available, but that is clearly more than a decade off.

The journey away

2009-10-11T22:11:00.000-07:00

My radio presets include a Protestant station (Family Radio) and Catholic station (EWTN). Flipping to EWTN on consecutive Mondays, I heard the weekly show “The Journey Home” (5pm PT, 8pm ET). The website lists the future schedule, while the EWTN RSS feed (podcasts) has links to MP3 files of past programs.

The theme of the show is that those (mostly Protestants) who convert to Catholicism are “coming home.” Like all inter-Christian evangelism, this is a theologically touchy topic, but I thought the (obviously Catholic) host handled the subject with dignity and respect.

That said, it was depressing that the two programs I heard were Anglicans (both with an Anglo-Catholic bent) who gave up on ECUSA/TEC and chose Rome over one of the Continuing Anglican groups. They (perhaps in keeping with the overall show theme) are highly intelligent, educated and articulate converts to Rome.

The September 28 show was an interview with Mary Moorman, who did her PhD dissertation at Southern Methodist U on the sale of indulgences — an improbable choice for a proto-Catholic if there ever was one. Apparently now she’s a prominent speaker in the Anglican Use movement of the US Catholic church.

Last week’s (Oct. 5) show was an interview with Dr. Scott Carson, a philosophy professor at Ohio University. Depressingly, when Carson was doing his PhD at UNC Chapel Hill, his parish priest was Bob Duncan — the same Bob Duncan who’s now the primate of ACNA. Carson thought Rev. Duncan was a great preacher, but that wasn’t enough to keep him in the Anglican faith.

Tomorrow’s (Oct. 12) show is said to be “Fr. Trevor Nicholls, Former Anglican Minister [sic].” (Side note: by denying the priesthood of Anglican clergy, the webmaster seems to minimize the decades of Anglo-Catholic dialog over recognition of Anglican orders.) Ordained a Catholic priest in 1990 by Cardinal O’Connor, Rev. Nicholls is one of the few Catholic priests with grandchildren.

This reminds me of how torn my wife and I have been facing the lousy choices presented by TEC’s recent theological decay. Of all the couple friends we have had since we were married, nearly all came from the ECUSA parish where we spent nearly 10 years of our earliest married days. Of the friends we made,

One family is Roman
Another is Greek Orthodox
Another is at a nondenominational Bible church
Another (the most “liberal”) moved away and is at a TEC parish
A few remain at our former ECUSA parish, which is becoming less orthodox and more “moderate”

The first rector has retired and his replacement is still there. Of the assistants who moved on, one is Antiochian Orthodox, one is a Catholic layman, one is a TAC priest who (with the rest of TAC) may become Anglican Use Catholic, one went to Ft. Worth (and I hope on to ACNA), and one is no longer in the ministry.

I think we’re the only ones among this group trying to stay Anglican by hanging on to the thin thread of Continuing Anglicanism — the rest would rather switch than fight. Will we give up Anglicanism too?

More generally, after 400+ years is this the beginning of the end of the historic Anglican faith in North America? And what does it say for the Anglo-Catholic faith elsewhere in the world — Australia, New Zealand and even England? The Anglican expression of the Christian faith may continue in the Global South, but much/most of this has an Evangelical rather than Anglo-Catholic orientation.

Hymnal free, harmony free

2009-10-04T15:59:00.000-07:00

For today’s recessional, our small congregation gave a hearty rendition of Sir Arthur Sullivan’s greatest hit. No, not HMS Pinafore — but Onward Christian Soldiers. The tune (St. Gertrude) has a great oompa bass line, of the sort you’d expect from someone who’s composed for a tuba in a brass band. Yes, Sir Arthur’s harmonization is very 19th century, but it’s a lot of fun and quite singable — Hymn 557 in my favorite hymnal.

This reminded me of my experience last month, singing one of my favorite tunes: Hyfrydol, the Rowland Prichard tune that appears twice in Hymnal 1940. The first time was with my favorite words: Charles Wesley’s “Love Divine, All Love’s Excelling” — the pre-communion hymn from our wedding, when I had a photocopy of the hymn (#479) in my coat to sing the harmony and all the words. The next Sunday was with W.C. Dix’s “Alleluia, Sing to Jesus” (#347), a very good hymn but without the personal significance for me of Wesley’s wedding words.

But there’s a rub. The first time we sang Hyfrydol, it was at a hymnal-free church where the words are projected on the screen rather than bound in a book in the pews. (This parish is normally a rock-band CCM church, but does Rite I hymns at the early service to humor the small pocket of traditionalists). The second time (with the second-choice lyric) was with good ol’ Hymnal 1940, harmony edition.

As I remarked two months ago, there is a sense among many of the contemporary worship crowd in Schism II that hymnals are passé. These folks would argue “let TEC keep Church Publishing Inc.” because we won’t be needing a printed hymnal anyway. (The Schism I crowd seems committed to Hymnal 1940 for at least another generation).

The problem is, hymnal-free is also harmony-free. Without printed music, learning the tune is a bit of a challenge for newcomers (e.g. from another Christian denomination or for kids), while singing harmony is impossible for all but the most accomplished musicians (most of whom are sitting in the choir loft). Although I’d sung the Hyfrydol harmony many times, it was too complex without having the music or having a chance to practice beforehand.

From my hymnal shopping, it’s clear that printed hymnals with music (let alone harmony) are a comparatively recent phenomenon. Many of the CoE parishioners who died and left behind The English Hymnal or Hymns Ancient & Modern often as not left behind a book with just the words. Still today, a lot of TEC (or Continuing Anglican) churches have melody-only hymnals for some or all of those in the pews.

My guess — and it’s only a guess — is that the four-part hymnals in the home date back to when the middle class could afford a piano in the home. In 1909, the most expensive item in the Sears Roebuck mail-order catalog was a $138 piano, making home music available to most farm families across Midwest and Plains states. Today, a 61- or 88-key electronic keyboard is available for $100 from Costco or big box electronics stores — equivalent to $4 in 1909 dollars.

Thanks to Bach and his successors, four-party harmony has been part of Christian worship for 300 years, and part of pew-singing for at least one third of that period. Let’s hope that technology is used to preserve this important musical and liturgical element, rather than to remove it.

Communicating, preserving and celebrating the faith

2009-09-27T13:12:00.000-07:00

Today’s RCL (Year B) epistle (and the subject of part of the sermon) was James 5:13-20. It touched me, because it bears directly on the purpose of Anglican music — and this blog.

The first verse of the passage by St. James is quite clear:

Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.

This really crystalized my thinking about the essential question: why do hymns matter? It’s a question I’ve been trying to answer since I started this blog — I intuitively knew that hymns play a crucial role in worship, but I couldn’t articulate why.

Today, I think I have a clear answer. As with other elements of corporate (shared) liturgy, hymns serve three purposes:

To communicate the faith. Before Gutenberg, Christians didn’t have personal Bibles and learned the faith from liturgy. Even today, children (and perhaps casual Christians) learn their earliest and perhaps most lasting theological lessons from hymn lyrics (a crucial reason why the words matter.)
To preserve the faith. Regular readers know of my devotion to timeless hymns and the continuity they provide to the faith across the millennia. Our oldest hymnal dates from the 6th century, with written music perhaps 500 years later. Such continuity is part of conveying an eternal in our eternal Father.
To celebrate the faith. Ever since I can remember, the part I most enjoy about Sunday — what gets me out of bed and out of the house (usually) on time — is singing the hymns. I go not to listen to a performance, but to be part of the corporate worship.

Borrowing from the Hebrews, clearly hymnody dates back to the church’s beginning. St. Paul wrote to the church at Colossus:

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Or, as I sang in college from Mendelssohn’s 2nd Symphony (“Lobgesang” or Hymn of Praise):

All that hath life and breath, sing to the Lord.

Which brings this back to the purpose of this blog. The sermon was (in part) about the final sentence of the passage from St. James:

My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

I now believe that this blog (and the research it represents) will be my own personal ministry as a Christian, perhaps for my remaining days. I didn’t start this blog to win points on Judgement Day (if that’s even possible), but to share what I learn as part of my own search for deeper understanding.

I’ve been terribly gratified by the the observations and feedback from readers over the past 30 months, and hope that this dialog will continue.

Finding Hope

2009-09-25T08:42:00.000-07:00

Recently I was looking for books on hymns at Amazon.com, hoping to find some of books suggested by The Hymn Society of America available cheaper from a used bookseller. (Sorry, HSA — if I have to pay new prices I’ll buy it from you, but money is tight right now.)

Browsing for these books produced some interesting ads from Christian booksellers and other peddlers of hymn books. The most interesting find was an online database from Hope Publishing (est. 1892), entitled “Hope Hymnody Online”.

Hope is pretty clear about what they’re doing and why. To enter the site, it says

In order to use the Hope Publishing Company online hymnody website you must reside in the United States or Canada. Hope Publishing Company owns or administers the contents in these territories. You may download one copy of any selection for your own personal use. To make any further copies you must get permission from Hope Publishing Company or belong to and report the copying activity to CCLI, LicenSing or OneLicense.net By selecting "I Agree" you are verifying that you reside in the U.S. or Canada and will only legally use the contents accessible on the site.

To download a PDF, it similarly says:

You have selected to download a copy of the hymn. You have permission to print one copy for your personal use. To make any further copies (for your church congregation, church bulletin, an overhead slide or computerized projection,etc...) you must get permission from Hope Publishing Company or belong to and report the copying activity to CCLI, LicenSing or OneLicense.net

In other words, they want you to sample their content and then recommend it for your church to sing (which will generate revenues).

What’s in the database is not all that exciting: hymn texts, their authors and the names of possible tunes to use with them. No authoring dates (they are obscured by a 20th century copyright date), no history, no music. It’s also skewed towards their post-1960 collection, although it does list older Christmas hymns. (PDFs seem available only for the recent ones).

One contemporary composer that I recognized was Carl P. Daw, Jr., an Episcopal priest who served on the Hymnal 1982 committee and has a number of hymns there. (He’s also currently executive director of the Hymn Society.)

The choice of search options are pretty interesting, however: title, tune name, author, composer, meter. There is a list of themes such as Advent, Christmas, Easter, Lord’s Supper and a few dozen more.

What seemed unique was the option to search (even in this limited pool) by scriptural reference. For example, a search for John 14:6 matches 30 hymns, including this one by Christopher Idle

God the I AM who does not change
brings mercies ever new;
no time nor space exceeds the range
of One whose grace this world finds strange-
yet we have found it true.

So Jesus Christ, from yesterday
through all todays the same,
the same for evermore, the Way,
the Truth by whom alone we pray,
the Life, the sovereign Name:
…

While the content (the product) is little too contemporary for my taste, it certainly will be of use to others. It also offers a model of how traditional Christian hymnody could be presented by a university or non-profit research group.

Still love those Germans

2009-09-22T07:23:00.000-07:00

In one of my earliest posts, I wrote about the contribution of German composer to Christian liturgy, in addition to that of Martin Luther and his “Mighty Fortress” hymn.

In his blog “Thinking out loud,” LCMS pastor Rick Stuckwisch lists his favorite 120 German hymns, most of which have been published in the most recent LCMS hymnal, the Lutheran Service Book. The most common names are Martin Luther and his successor Paul Gerhardt. I was surprised that Philipp Nicolai only appears twice, and by listing the author and not composer, Stuckwisch does not directly identify the contributions of the great Johann Crüger.

To me, 120 German hymns seems excessive — but then 120 COE hymns would not. Clearly some of them are ones that I forgot were of German origin, notably “Break Forth, O Beauteous Heavenly Light,” written by Johann Rist and composed by Johann Schop. What I do recall is the Bach harmonization of Schop’s tune, printed as a Christmas hymn in Hymnal 1940 (#25) and even Hymnal 1982 (#91).

Walter Dennis and his Canon lose a big one

2009-09-18T20:59:00.000-07:00

The Rt. Rev. Walter Dennis and his ”Dennis Canon“ have been on a roll recently, winning major court cases in California and most states outside Virginia. There was an increasingly presumption that the Canon was valid, despite the obvious legal holes.

On Friday, the highest court in South Carolina issues a ruling resoundingly rejecting the Dennis Canon. As always for the Schism II property fight, Anglican Curmudgeon has the authoritative coverage.

There is no guarantee this will become an influential precedent. All Saints, Pawleys Island had an unusually strong title to their property. Also, the California Supreme Court is notorious for ignoring precedent and going its own way, as when it invented a right to gay marriage.

Still, conflicting state rulings are the textbook reason for the US Supreme Court to take up the Dennis Canon. This could be the best hope for the California parishes facing permanent loss of their properties.

Liturgy and architecture

2009-09-15T19:21:00.000-07:00

Titus 19 referenced an article from Lawrence, Kansas about Trinity Episcopal Church, a TEC parish that is going back to the future to attract Kansas U students:

When the church decided to add a new service in fall 2006, instead of looking forward, it looked back.

Way back. As in the fourth century.

The result is a unique celebration of Christianity referred to as the Solemn High Mass. A mystical meeting of old traditions in a setting where blue jeans and T-shirts are appropriate, the Sunday night service features incense, music and what the church, 1011 Vt., refers to as all of the “major propers” including the Kyrie Eleison, the Gloria in Excelsis, the Credo, the Sanctus and Benedictus and the Agnus Dei, which are chanted.

Performed only during the Kansas University school year, the service, which began its 2009-2010 season last Sunday evening, has snagged a crowd young and old, Episcopalian and not, says the Rev. Paul McLain, the church’s curate.

The “4th century” argument seems hyperbolic. It’s hard to tell, but this sounds like no Opus Dei or Tridentine Mass. I’m pretty sure there was no 4th century Christian worship in North America, so the 21st century English will be a bit of an anachronism.

I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, as preserving the traditional liturgy for the new generation is an important goal. However, this would have been considered normal liturgy at a high church (“bells and smells”) PECUSA parish, so the oddity isn’t all that odd — other than my comparison to the liturgical drift of the past few decades.

No word on whether the parish also plans to preserve traditional theology; the Bishop of Western Kansas is considered a TEC moderate, e.g. on the Windsor Report. However, Trinity is in the Diocese of Kansas, whose bishop is listed as a Gene Robinson supporter. Stand Firm in Faith counts him as a KJS apologist.

Still, perhaps the most interesting paragraph was only indirectly related to liturgy:

Solemn High Mass was introduced to Trinity in 2006 by its former rector, the Rev. Jonathon Jensen. Before leaving in June for his current post at the Trinity Cathedral in Little Rock, Ark., Jensen described his thoughts behind the addition of the old-style service this way: “… Lots of churches in Lawrence do contemporary worship, and that’s wonderful, but this is a 150-year-old downtown church that looks like an old English church and we have a fantastic organ and a wonderful chorale tradition, and we know what we can do best. And it’s not contemporary. It’s that (old style). And, so, we wanted to have this distinct offering.”

I’ve always wondered about the link of liturgy and architecture, but this raises more questions than it answers.

For example, do you need an old sanctuary (or old-looking sanctuary) to do traditional worship? (Or to attract parishioners looking for traditional worship?) Similarly, is it inappropriate to have a rock band in the such a building? Trinity seems to have a standard Rite II service on Sunday mornings, but the website doesn’t say what kind of music it has.

Update: Rev. Elizabeth E. Evans of the TEC and GetReligion seems to be similarly skeptical of the claimed “ancient” nature of the Trinity Episcopal worship service.

Inclusive language

2009-09-12T23:56:00.000-07:00

One of the objectionable problems of modern PECUSA (and later TEC) liturgy is the rush to gender inclusive language. For example, the RSV was retired in favor of the NRSV, mainly to change a lot of “men” to “people” (and of course to sell new books). Fortunately, the ESV has the translation corrections to the RSV without the political correctness of the NRSV.

On Sept. 2, the Issues Etc. gang hosted an interview with Vern Poythress of Westminster Seminary-Philadelphia on gender inclusivity in the next translation of the NIV. The MP3 file and more information are available at the Issues Etc. archives. Dr. Poythress is co-author of a book on the gender controversy in the previous update of the NIV.

Dr. Poythress does a great job of spelling out the four possibilities for mapping Greek (or other) original text onto the English

The original is unambiguously masculine.
The text is unambiguously masculine, but the point made could apply equally to both sexes
The text is masculine, but ambiguously so (for example, if “brothers” normally means males but could also be used for a mixture of males and females)
The original does not have a gender indication, and thus would most accurately be translated as gender neutral

Despite the obvious sympathies of Dr. Poythress (and host Pastor Todd Wilken) against gender inclusivity, this seems to be a fair discussion of the issues involved — except for those that want all or none of the four cases translated with inclusive language.

Of course, the issues for hymns are even more daunting, because the meter means that the writer lacks the option of using “brothers and sisters.” Hymnal 1982 certainly mangled most of the high-profile Christmas carols, and showed even less restraint in cramming gender inclusivity into less-known hymns.

This is going to be a huge issue for when (or if) North American Anglicans produce a new hymnal, since the evangelical wing of ACNA (let alone their female clergy) are much more sympathetic to gender inclusivity than the three FiFNA diocese or any of Schism I.

Works without faith

2009-09-06T14:49:00.000-07:00

A famous but controversial passage of the Epistle of James concludes:

"Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness"—and he was called a friend of God.

You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?

For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. (John 2:23a-26)

From what I heard this weekend, a childhood friend of mine found the opposite case — works and words without faith — while attending a large Episcopal congregation a few years ago.

It was an odd coincidence: she was never an Episcopalian before (or since), but for few years ago attended the large, upscale parish that I had attended as a kid. She and her husband were drawn to the intellectualism of these high church Episcopalians —the people, the seminars, and of course the high church liturgy with great music. This is a parish that is very high church; for decades, it had the most formal and consistent classical music ministry of any ECUSA church within 50 miles, including a children’s choir patterned after the CoE model.

However, my friend — a onetime Billy Graham volunteer who was always more Christian than any denomination — discovered a jarring reality. The senior priest (no “pastor” at St. Apostasy) didn’t believe most of the key tenets of the New Testament or the creeds: no virgin birth, no miracles, and agnostic on the bodily resurrection. (“Something big” happened to embolden the Apostles, but that’s all he’d admit).

When asked why he recited the words every Sunday if he didn’t believe them, the priest said it was part of the tradition of the church and he wanted to uphold that. (Sounds his stool was missing one leg).

Of course, this puzzles me. Where did this Christless Christianity come from? What kind of “Christian” seminary turns out priests who don’t believe in what has been accepted Christian faith since 325 A.D.? Even if James is right — “faith without works is dead” — certainly he (not to mention centuries of subsequent theologians) would admit that works without faith were never even alive.

Instead of faith, the focus of St. Apostasy is on good works, as part of the Episcopal 2.0 vision of church as an über-social services agency — an emphasis on social justice over evangelism. The website proclaims its outreach and mission, with 11 highlighted community ministries (including LGBT and “Peace and Justice”).

None of the ministries include making converts or spreading the good news. Indeed, this is very European: like the great state cathedrals of Germany and Sweden, more like museums with music than a church. Some say the CoE is only a few years behind. (By comparison, the Catholic cathedral in Köln seemed more authentic in its worship.)

I’m no theologian, but it seems like what distinguishes the Christian faith from Judaism and other Abrahamic religions is two things: belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, and the exclusive faith claims that Jesus made (e.g. John 14:6, Luke 20:41-44).

Much as we want to preserve traditional worship, we Anglo-Catholics should not make the mistake of seeking common cause with the High Church Progressives like those of St. Apostasy. We have more in common with other Bible-believing liturgical Christians, whether Lutherans (LCMC, LCMS, WELS), (Confessing) Methodists, Catholics and even the rock band Schism II Anglicans.

While the form of worship makes it difficult to make a hymnal with the CCM crowd, the substance — transmission of the one true catholic apostolic faith — will make it impossible to find common ground with those High Church non-Christians that seem to control many TEC parishes.

Perhaps we will need to have a hymnal that spans the various liturgical denominations. Overseas Americans often find themselves worshiping in any English-language Christian church (or at least any English-language Protestant church), so those who travel (or live) abroad are already familiar with some degree of ecumenical liturgy.

Schism I, II inventory

2009-08-26T23:20:00.000-07:00

Today David Virtue posted an inventory of US Anglican groups:

TEC
Schism II, i.e. ACNA: AMIA, CANA, Uganda, Kenya, FiFNA, ARDF
Schism I: ACC, APA, APCK, TAC, UECNA, EMC and 52 smaller groups

He also lists the ACC, ACiC and ANiC in Canada.

He has estimated populations (by # of parishes or clergy) for some groupings (AMIA, CANA) and not others (REC, all of Schism I).

According to the 2007 TEC Census (the “red book”), the TEC had about 7,000 parishes, 2.1 million baptized members and average Sunday attendance of 728,000 in 2007. (Some report ASA of 768,000, but that includes non-US dioceses, which is comparing apples and oranges.) Of those, 4 dioceses (with 189 parishes, 49,000 baptized members and ASA of 19,000) left TEC for ACNA — but not all of the parishes in those dioceses left. Of course, other parishes have been leaving TEC before and since — that’s where the AMiA, Uganda and Kenya parishes have come from (whether they left as a congregation or merely as individuals).

ACNA overall claims 100,000 members and an ASA of 69,000. So I’m guessing that the AMiA and the REC actually account for more ACNA parishioners than do the ACNA Four (the 4 TEC refugee dioceses).

Virtue doesn’t provide Schism I figures, but (better than nothing) here’s what Wikipedia lists — presumably from the corresponding websites — for US members of the 6 largest Schism I groups:

ACC (Anglican Catholic Church): 135 parishes, 10,000 members
APA (Anglican Province of America): 69 parishes, 6,000 members
APCK (Anglican Province of Christ the King): 45 parishes and 8,000 members
The US arm of TAC, which is ACA (Anglican Church in America): 100 parishes, 5,200 members
UECNA (United Episcopal Church of North America): 18 parishes
EMC (Episcopal Missionary Church): 50 parishes

So by this, I’m guessing that these big six are about 415 parishes and 35,000 members. Figure the other 52 groupings as 100 parishes, that would give us slightly more than 500 Schism I parishes and about 42,000 members. The ACNA Four had a Sunday participation rate of about 42%, suggesting an ASA of about 18,000 people.

Add these numbers up that gives this estimate of US Anglicans† in pews on an average Sunday:

TEC (less ACNA Four): 709,000 (89%)
Schism II: 69,000 (9%)
Schism I: 18,000 (2%)
Total: 796,000

Will any of those remaining in TEC eventually leave? Those remaining span the gamut from traditionalists left in the Southeastern US, to social justice progressives who don’t actually believe in the literal truth of the Nicene Creed but find TEC a convenient vehicle for their causes; clearly the latter are more representative of the TEC clergy.

I’d like to think that if the Dennis Canon didn’t exist, the Schism II exodus would increase by 50% or more. But this is just a thought experiment unless some court eventually finds the Canon invalid — since the whole point of the Canon is to avoid a repeat of the Schism I exodus.

Still, will there be bridges for ongoing dialog and cooperation between Schism I, II and fellow travelers stranded behind enemy lines (e.g. to create my new hymnal)? The AAC and FiFNA were supposed to be this, but they now seem to be branches of ACNA. The Anglo-Catholic SSC certainly spans all three, but it seems more of a religious order than a group involved in the various political or jurisdictional disputes of the day.

† Yes I know that Schism I is not in the Anglican Communion and TEC may get kicked out. For now let’s call them all Anglican, since they all claim to be Anglican in some way shape or form.

Parallel Lutheran decline

2009-08-23T13:25:00.000-07:00

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is the largest Lutheran body in the US with about 4.7 million members. Last week the ELCA had its own gay clergy vote to parallel that of the TEC. (Of course, the ELCA and TEC are in communion with each other).

German-born Lutheran theologian Uwe Siemon-Netto lamented the decision in his own recent commentary:

East Germany called itself German Democratic Republic, or GDR, for 40 years. Germans used to quip that this acronym stood for a threefold lie. The GDR was neither German, nor Democratic, nor a Republic. One wonders whether a similar analogy could not be made for the ELCA now that its national assembly of this denomination supposedly committed to the "Sola Scriptura" principle stressing the authority of Scripture.

Is it still "evangelical"? Surely not. Is it still "Lutheran"? No way. Is it in fact still "Church" in the original sense of this word deriving from the Greek vocable "Kyriake" (belonging to the Lord)? That depends on which Lord are we talking about - God or a wimp who does not care whether His word is mocked? The Greek word for church is "ekklesia," meaning "called out." In the light of the ELCA's new sexuality decision we must ponder the identity of the Spirit the largest Lutheran church body in the United States seems to follow these days.

To state it bluntly, there is nothing Lutheran about what has happened in Minneapolis.

I won’t say that misery loves company, but the situation of the remaining Lutheran faithful parallels that of American Anglicans watching the abandonment of the faith by their former Episcopalian colleagues.

Singing the praises of Issues Etc.

2009-08-21T10:13:00.000-07:00

As noted in earlier postings, I’m been a big fan of Issues Etc. It’s played a tremendous role in acquainting me with Lutheran theology and also the efforts of traditionalist Christians to push back against a secular culture.

The LCMS radio show hosted by Todd Wilken has done shows on specific hymns and more broadly on the role of music in liturgy in 2008 and 2007.

However, in catching up on some broadcasts earlier this year, I want to call attention to two shows on famous German Lutheran church musicians

July 28, 2009: J.S. Bach, interview with Rev. Paul McCain (a LCMS blogger, pastor and publishing exec)
May 15, 2009, Georg Friedrich Händel — specifically the most famous English-language religious oratorio of all time — discussed by Dr. Joseph Herl of Concordia University Nebraska

Time does not permit me to summarize the two shows, but I commend them to those interested in religious music — available either via the links above, the archive webpage or iTunes podcasts.

Schism II, III: Can't we all get along?

2009-08-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

The president of the American Anglican Council has called for Schism II and Schism III Anglicans to get along:

My hope and prayer is that those orthodox Anglicans within TEC and those orthodox Anglicans who have departed to the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) will be able to work charitably together for the good of the global communion. The orthodoxy of the entire Anglican Communion is now at stake. TEC is pressing its false gospel overseas, and trying to keep the Archbishop of Canterbury in a state of paralysis. It is time for all the orthodox Anglicans in North America, Canadians and Americans together, to work with the orthodox Anglicans represented by the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA) Primates' Council, and with Dr. Williams if he is willing, to build a stronger, more cohesive, orthodox Anglican Communion …

The few orthodox leaders remaining in the TEC are making calls similar to those who recently left. However, it seems as though those remaining in TEC have limited options without running afoul of the TEC hierarchy and its strictures. That which is optional will be made mandatory, a new prayer book will come out that’s even worse than the 1979 version.

And what about Schism I? Or was the AAC, formed in 1996, too wedded to the 1979 prayer book to consider the 1928 BCP crowd?

Questioning the unquestioned

2009-08-15T08:36:00.000-07:00

Conflict within TEC is tearing the church apart, giving it negative publicity, anguish for many members on both sides, and enriching lawyers at the expense of ministry. My friends in the LCMS are 5-15 years behind on the same paths, except that instead of “815” they have “LCMS Inc.” and without the Dennis Canon, they won’t waste money on the lawyers.

The controversy has also been tremendously emotionally draining for me and many other Anglicans who find themselves searching for Schism I parishes, escaping with Schism II parishes, sitting in fence-sitting parishes, or trapped behind enemy lines.

However, this controversy has brought retrospection and self-examination for all of us. I (and many other Anglicans) have spent much of the past decade examining and articulating our faith and the reasons that we believe what we believe.

This calls to mind the famous quote by Socrates: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” In addition to its philosophical, educational and personal growth implications, it also provides a rationale for Christian apologetics.

This epiphany was prompted by reading a couple of postings recently by Schism II ex-Episcopalians. The Schism I folks all went through this 30 years ago, but at the time most of us were not paying attention (perhaps because our local priest or bishop was still doctrinally sound).

One is last month’s open letter by the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, archbishop of ACNA. An excerpt:

The North American poet, Robert Frost, once wrote: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the road less traveled by. That has made all the difference.” For Anglican Christians, for the Instruments of Unity (Communion), for interdependent Provinces, for ordinary believers, there is a choice to be made. The choice is between two religions, two roads, two cities, two sets of conflicting values and behaviors. In Deuteronomy, chapter 30, Moses sets the choice as between blessing and curse, life and death. For contemporary Anglicanism the present choice is this stark.

Another example comes from G.W. Barry, a former St. Edwards (San Jose) parishioner, posting on the Bay Area ACNA discussion forums:

The New Testament letters Paul wrote to Timothy have been the most helpful to me throughout this process. I urge you to pick up your bible and prayerfully read his relatively short but challenging message. The values we model matter – they matter to our children, and they matter to the community at large. Timothy is warned about false teachers and urged to uphold his faith in Christ.

Paul also discusses the qualifications of a church leader and he lists specific criteria. There is also a rather sobering admonition regarding those who would “quibble over the meaning of words,” (I Tim 6:4) and those who “spend their time arguing and talking foolishness.” (I Tim 1:6) It is not mine to interpret it for you in light of this controversy, but I have God’s promise that He will use those inspired words just as Paul told Timothy He would: “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives.” 2 Tim 3:16.

“For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to right teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers to tell them whatever they want to hear” 2 Tim. 4:3

She concludes:

I have been reminded that we are not to judge, rather, we are to love one another as Christ loves us. At the risk of quibbling over the meaning of words, context is important here. There are two meanings for the word “judge”, one is to condemn someone for a behavior, and the other is to “discern” or to make a choice between options. I believe we are called to judge in the sense that we need to discern what it means to remain faithful and choose to stand firm in our faith, and what is essentially false teaching. For me, that meant letting go of a church that is drifting into territory I discern to be forbidden.

Did people write (or read) letters like this before they had to make difficult choices? Having to define your faith — in order to shop for a doctrinally sound parish — is far more time consuming than just spending a hour a week in the nearest PECUSA franchise, as most of us did 15 years ago.

It might even force a few Anglicans to (gasp!) actually read their Bibles. A cradle CoE friend of mine is very active in Bible Study Fellowship. For at least two years, he has (gently) been nudging me to join a BSF class. This year, it may actually work.

Anglo vs. Roman

2009-08-07T22:06:00.000-07:00

Updated 5pm Aug. 10 based on two comments from reader Nicholas below.

Since the Oxford movement, many Anglicans have been so enthusiastic about Catholic-style liturgy — to the point that many of Anglo-Catholics claim (post-Vatican II) to be more Catholic than the Roman Catholics.

A few Anglo-Catholics even want to be Catholic. Over more than a year, the Traditional Anglican Communion (and their US affiliate the Anglican Church in America) has been exploring how it might get into communion with Rome and the Pope (who I guess they would then call the Holy Father). Rumor has it that the plan has some support in Rome, and the TAC’s archbishop still hopes to achieve such a result. (My impression is that the ultimate result would be to become another Anglican-rite Catholic church, but the Vatican seems to have said nothing official yet).

I’ve always wondered, however, what doctrinal issues lurked under the surface — not the obvious authority ones, but ones about our conception of God and man’s relationship to him. Clearly there must be some doctrinal questions that enter into borrowing between various Christian denominations and groups, unless the lyrics are such pablum as to encompass everything from Opus Dei to the Unitarian Universalists. (When I took a Hymnal 1940 hymn (#55) to sing at my local LCMS church during a midweek Lenten service, the rightfully pastor insisted on seeing the hymn first.)

I was reminded of this when driving down the road listening to EWTN (aka the “Global Catholic Radio Network”). On the show, the host made reference to a line from the Easter Vigil (which Wikipedia helpfully describes thus: “In the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion, the Easter Vigil is the most important Mass of the liturgical year…”).

I didn’t have a pen, but one key phrase stuck in my mind that allowed me to look up the passage using Google®:

What good would life have been to us,
had Christ not come as our Redeemer?
…
O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam,
which gained for us so great a Redeemer!

Now I understand the broad point, but the happiness and necessity of The Fall — which my reader Nicholas points out is “Felix Culpa” in the Latin — seemed alien to any Protestant teaching I’d ever seen. I checked a few sources:

Reformed. Because Anglicans “both Catholic and Reformed,” I started with the Westminster Confession. Not surprisingly for Calvinists, The Fall was pre-ordained, while Adam, Eve and their descendants are “dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body.”
Lutheran. The Small and Large Catechism mention sin in terms of repentance, forgiveness and redemption of sins, but I didn’t see any discussion of Original Sin in any form. I don’t have the 55 volumes of the printed Luther’s Works (from ELC/LCMS) in printed form, or the searchable CD-ROM. (Now on sale!)
Anglican. Looking at the 39 Articles, Article X has Free Will and XI has Sola Fide, Article IX is the most directly relevant:

Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam, (as the Pelagians do vainly talk;) but it is the fault and corruption of the Nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit; and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth God's wrath and damnation.

Given that, I can’t see any Protestant singing “O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!” I’d appreciate pointers to any hymn (from any source) that incorporates this theology, particularly if it’s an official hymn in any Protestant hymnal.

As reader Nicholas points out in the comments below, the theology of “Felix Culpa” is very similar to that of the 15th century English carol Adam Lay Ybounden — although that would clearly be pre-Reformation, pre-Anglican.

Who needs a hymnal?

2009-08-02T11:00:00.000-07:00

In this blog, I have been ruminating on the next American Anglican hymnal, what will be in it, and which Continuing Anglican groups will contribute to it — or if there will even be enough Anglicans to make a hymnal. This blog is my homework to get ready for that revision, although I’ll probably need to go to Kaplan (or whatever the Anglican music equivalent is) once the revision plans are announced.

However, one thing I haven’t asked is: do we need a new hymnal? No, I’m not asking if Hymnal 1940 needs updating — it certainly needs some improvements, and we want to stop bailing TEC out of its fiscal overstretch.

Perhaps more germane is the rising number of non-hymnal evangelical parishes out there, who probably wouldn’t buy a hymnal even if it were produced — let alone share a hymnal with us Anglo-Catholics. Even if they had a list of hymns they liked, the fashion is to rotate through new workship music so that little or nothing is older than the preschoolers. (The Catholic church seems to have caught this fad in printing a new Today’s Missal every few months.)

But that comes back to the basic points of why the Anglican (and Lutheran and Catholic and Methodist and Baptist and Adventist and …) denominations have long had their own hymnals. For now, I want to limit myself to pew hymnals, rather than service books (such as 12th century missals) intended only for choir or clergy.

I can think of three reasons why a hymnal exists:

To distribute the words and music in a cost-effective fashion. In worship, this is being displaced by PowerPoint projectors and at home by TheCyberHymnal and other Internet sites.
To make sure we’re all singing the same thing — to provide a common culture and shared worship across different parishes of a denomination. This has been my fundamental argument for timeless hymns against those pursuing the fad-of-the-day, whether musical fads embraced by CMM worship leaders or social-political fads pursued by the cultural revisionists.
As a way of validating a common doctrine shared by the church theologians and other leaders. If any parish priest or music director can pick any variant of any hymn off the web (or out of a book) and sing it, then how do the bishops and other church leaders know that the music is being used to reinforce the one true catholic and apostolic faith rather than promote heresies and other false doctrine?

This last point is the subject of a posting Saturday on Brothers of John the Steadfast, a blog representing those LCMS clergy and laity who will be forced (ala ACNA but without the lawyers) leave the LCMS in the next decade and form their own synod.

Guest blogger Holger Sonntag quoted Martin Luther hymself as he wrote the introduction to three Lutheran hymnals, explaining the theological role of the hymnal in Christian worship. What I found amusing (or troubling) is that a tendency towards faddish hymnal revision is nearly 500 years old:

Now there are some who have given a good account of themselves and augmented the hymns so that they by far surpass me and are my masters indeed. But others have added little of worth. And since I realize that there is going to be no end to this haphazard and arbitrary revision which goes on from day to day, and that even our first hymns are more and more mutilated with each reprinting, I fear that this booklet will ultimately fare no better than good books everywhere, namely, to be corrupted and adulterated by blunderheads until the good in it will be lost and only the bad remain.

So where is the Rt. Rev. N.T. Wright decrying the New Anguish Hymnal? I realize he is busy with other Anglican matters (and writing and selling books, ala C.S. Lewis) but isn’t this a matter of some import? In fact, most clergy seem to think music selection should be left to the musicians, although I have found a few that will devote the time due its central role in reinforcing the theology of any given worship service.

Extraterrestrial liturgy

2009-07-27T22:24:00.001-07:00

Both Beliefnet and the Times of London cover the under-reported event of the first Holy Communion on the moon, conducted July 20, 1969 by Buzz Aldrin prior to his historic moonwalk.

Aldrin wrote about this in the October 1970 Guideposts magazine (which was later printed in the July 1989 issue). The story was also recounted by Eric Metaxas (in his 2005 book) and his blog

I opened the little plastic packages which contained the bread and the wine. I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the wine slowly curled and gracefully came up the side of the cup. Then I read the Scripture, ‘I am the vine, you are the branches. Whosoever abides in me will bring forth much fruit.’

Aldrin’s notes for the brief service were auctioned in 2007 for nearly $180,000.

Blogger Bosco Peters in NZ observes that Aldrin was one of the most educated of the early astronauts, with an MIT Ph.D. — and of course a committed Christian. Peters would like to claim Aldrin as an Anglican, but in fact Aldrin was an elder in a Presbyterian parish in suburban Houson.

It is encouraging that parish (and one other) still commemorate this historic communion. Somehow I'm less comforted by the 2003 ECUSA resolution asking that it be marked as a “lesser feast” in Episcopal liturgy, sharing July 20 with “Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer, Sojourner Truth, & Harriet Ross Tubman-Liberators and Prophets.”

Schism I, II offer Shelter in the Storm

2009-07-19T14:53:00.000-07:00

Today I ended up worshipping at two different Anglican churches (one 28 BCP, one ACNA), and at both the week’s shenanigans at General Contention 2009 came up. At the Schism II parish, the rector (formerly of TEC) despaired at how far the TEC had fallen in three years, from pretending to adhere to the Windsor Report (with B033 in 2006) to kicking it in the teeth (D025, C056).

The GC 2009 may help grow both Schism I and Schism II parishes. In his sermon, the rector emphasized the importance of reaching out to those Episcopalians finally having second thoughts about remaining in the TEC. At both the Schism I and Schism II parishes today, parishioners mentioned they know Episcopalians who are waiting for one last nudge to leave.

My friend at the Schism I parish mentioned that one of her friends had never head of ShelterInTheStorm.org, the wonderful website that lists a range of alternatives for Episcopalians who want to escape the ECUSA problems. Based on information supplied by volunteers, Kay Lewis now has 1500 parishes in her list, including (by my count) 96 parishes in California.

I found it an invaluable resource when my family decided we weren’t going to become Lutherans after all, and had to find an Anglican parish among the sea of heresy in this blue Left Coast state. I’ve also contributed suggestions to the website based on those travels and what I know from friends.

There are clearly major doctrinal differences between Schism I (ACA, ACC, APCK, HCCAR), Schism II (ACNA) and pre-Schism (mostly AAC, ACN, or FiFNA) parishes. But the first two (and to a limited degree, the third group as well) are offering Shelter in the Storm for Christians who’d like their Sunday mornings defined by what they are rather than having to define what they are not.

California court cases still alive

2009-07-15T22:04:00.000-07:00

A.S. Haley of the Anglican Curmudgeon has been doing the best job of following the property fights involving former ECUSA/TEC parishes, using his legal knowledge to explain in plain, logical English what each ruling means. He has special pages on the Diocese of San Joaquin and the Los Angeles parishes (although not the San Diego ones); as best I can tell, the only 21st century Bay Area defectors walked away from their property.

Today he notes a key development in the St. James (Newport Beach) case that shows that the case is very much alive, despite a January California Supreme Court ruling that brought inaccurate press coverage and bloggers who jumped to conclusions. St. James is the key case, setting precedent for at least seven parishes. In February, the California court corrected their misleading ruling, giving hope to some of the impacted parishes.

The July 13 trial court ruling keeps St. James very much alive it, and with it the hopes of a few thousand Continuing Anglicans (plus a few more that might consider leaving if the price were not so high.)

Kyrie eleison

2009-07-13T23:55:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, we were back at our home parish again for Trinity V. As with our first visit to this parish, the liturgy and music captured what was best about the high church Episcopal worship of our childhood — enough to make us forget about the foolishness being promulgated this week by the TEC as it prepares to leave the Anglican Communion to form its own new religion.

It was our first Sunday back since before Pentecost — six weeks gone due to travels, a confirmation, college graduation and a youth sporting event. Apparently the choir was off for Trinity IV (4th of July weekend), so everyone was in good spirits to have the great liturgical music back.

I certainly enjoyed singing the harmony on the closing hymn, #564 (Lyons, as arranged by J. Michael Haydn). With gusto (too much gusto for my wife) I belted out the closing phrase in the closing stanza, sung with ritardando for emphasis: “[The soul that to Jesus has fled for repose] … I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.” However, despite this rousing finish, this was not the most moving aspect of the familiar (yet long-separated) 1928 BCP liturgy.

Actually, the highlight was the plainchant (service music). Our music director likes to rotate the plainchant based on the season. In the Sundays after Trinity — what our rector calls “normal time” — we are using the oldest plainchant in the hymnal, the Latin chant that predates the Reformation and the creation of the Church of England and the vernacular mass (with the 1549 BCP) in the 16th century.

As far as I can tell — and I need further study — Hymnal 1940 may be the first Episcopal (or perhaps Anglican) hymnal to include a choice of service music: I could not find it in my three English hymnals — Hymns Ancient & Modern (1861), The English Hymnal (1906) or Songs of Praise Enlarged Edition (1931) — nor in the PECUSA Hymnal 1916.

According to Hymnal 1940 (and the Hymnal 1940 Companion), our hymnal has four settings of the chant for Holy Communion:

by John Merbecke, hymns #701-707, arranged and published in 1549-1550 in Booke of Common Praier Noted;
by Healey Willan, #708-713, composed in 1928 by the Canadian composer and choirmaster;
by George Oldroyd, #714-718, written by the Yorkshireman in 1938; and
by the anonymous "Fourth Communion Service", hymns #719-724, attributed to a variety of ancient or medieval sources.

I’ve never (ever) heard the Oldroyd used in 40+ years of PECUSA/Anglican attendance. I grew up with the Willan, perhaps because the choir director of our high church PECUSA parish wanted to emphasize how hip he was. While the Willan is among the best 20th century music in Hymnal 1940 (or 1982), in my opinion it’s still third to the two settings used by Anglicans for more than 400 years.

The historic Merbecke setting is worth a posting in and of itself. Today I want to concentrate on the anonymous medieval setting we used Sunday, based on the earlier (pre-BCP, pre-COE, pre-Reformation) Latin settings of the Catholic church:

Kyrie
Credo
Sanctus
Pater Noster
Agnus Dei

(On Sunday, we did not sing #724, the 15th century Sarum Rite Gloria. At our Schism I parish — like a LCMS and a TEC parish where I used to attend — the preferred Gloria the “Old Scottish Chant,” hymn #739; the Hymnal Companion calls it a setting that has been popular in America since its publication in 1809.)

Let me quote from the Hymnal Companion and its explanation of the “Fourth Communion Service”:

719
The Kyrie, which attains, both in mastery of music form and in beauty of conception, the highest level of perfection reached by mediaeval melodic music, is a 12th century development of a setting at least 100 years older in its original form.

720 Credo
This is the ancient and all but universal melody of the Creed…
…
722 Pater Noster
This traditional music of the Lord's Prayer is uneqionatinably part of our oldest musical inheritance. … It is almost identical with a Hebrew cantillation of Zechariah 2:10 … Thus it may very well be a musical tradition from the primitive Judaeo-Christian communities.

723 Agnus Dei
This setting is a 13th century version of an earlier tenth century melody.

Certainly the Credo and Pater Noster — which appear to be the most commonly used tunes at American Anglo-Catholic parishes — have a unique place in the modern American hymnal. They are shared across time and place — with other centuries, other Christian denominations, a common and timeless bond in our fragmented, schismatic and sinful world.

When I returned to PECUSA (not yet TEC) as a young man, I found the corporate worship of these two chants (plus the spoken Confession) to be the most moving part of the Communion service. These three places are still the points which often pull me back out of my reverie, to remember the whole point of our Sunday worship.

However, I have to agree with the committee that authored the Hymnal 1940 and its Companion. As a plainsong chant, among all the available communion services the Kyrie reflects “the highest level of perfection,” crafted by some unknown composer(s) some 900 years ago during the High Middle Ages.

The Kyrie is even more moving when sung (as written) antiphonally, as is the Agnus Dei. We have a small choir, but at some point I would like to persuade our music director to attempt it, as this simple gesture (reflecting the intentions of some long-lost church musician) increases the impact of this timeless melody.

Update: C.W.S. correctly notes the role of H40 editor Charles Winfred Douglas in reviving plainsong in the hymnal. In fact, this 4th setting in H40 is credited by Hymnal 1982 to Douglas himself, as composing or at least adapting it in his 1915 composition Missa Marialis.

Bedford is no St. Louis

2009-06-25T22:52:00.000-07:00

Today, the Anglican Church in North America concluded their 4-day “Inaugural Assembly” to ratify their canons and enthrone their new archbishop. Somewhere in there was a lot of time for celebration and a pep rally, as the men and women in Bedford, Texas — many of them veterans of property fights against a vindictive bishop and/or PB — celebrate their unity and institutional success.

I haven’t and can’t follow it all. The official party line can be found at www.acnaassembly.org; for a more neutral view, see the list of postings by Kendall Harmon or browse for live reports and commentary at BabyBlue or VirtueOnline.

Certainly the event has been well-organized and orchestrated, a PR triumph. Supporters and critics note that ACNA has managed to get national visibility and recognition for the idea that this newborn group is the Anglican alternative to TEC. (I think they have also created some good news for battered N.A. Anglicans.) It was a masterstroke to get Rick Warren (no matter what his theology) the same year he preached for the Presidential Inaugural. Attracting Metropolitan Jonah was more substantive, particularly since he promised ecumenical ties with ACNA and cut his province's ties with TEC at the same time.

I have some friends who participated in Bedford, and many others who have eagerly joined ACNA, whether as part of Western Anglicans or its fledgling Bay Area counterpart. People I have known for years have nothing but the greatest respect for the three Anglo-Catholic bishops — Ackerman, Iker and Schofield — who led their dioceses to (or through) their departure from TEC to help form ACNA, and who are now standing alongside Abp. Duncan.

I also see ACNA as the only possibility for a near-term theologically traditional update to the BCP or Hymnal 1940, to replace the 1979 alternative service book and Hymnal 1982.

Despite this good news, I have a sense of foreboding, bothered by what my coworker used to call a “spidey sense.” There are a few small indications that ACNA 40 years from now will be no more devout than TEC in 1995. Call it a hunch, but on a hunch I recognized John Chane for what he is long before he was appointed First Apostate of the National Cathedral.

Exhibit A was the nature of the centralized authority in the canons of ACNA.

Exhibit B is women’s ordination. Although personally I’m an agnostic on women’s ordination (perhaps a subject of another posting), I am troubled by Rt. Rev. Duncan’s attitudes on the subject. After Anglo-Catholics have claimed that women’s ordination will not be imposed upon traditionalists, this seems dubious in light of the December 2008 press conference (on YouTube) by the then archbishop-apparent:

Reporter: Bishop, what does scripture say about women priests?

Bp. Duncan: Scripture is unclear - that is to say, scripture gives women roles of leadership throughout the old and new testaments. Often women emerge as leaders over Israel and in the church....

It's also the case that women had an apostolic function in much of the new testament story. After all, it is women who first tell of the resurrection of Jesus.

Whereas some issues are quite clear in Scripture, other have a complexity. Or, as one lay person said to me … “It’s a Technicolor® picture; it’s not black & white.”

This is troubling on many levels. Being a Christian witness is not the same as being a preacher or priest. Despite what Bp. Duncan said, many clergy see it as black & white, and it’s hard to see how this issue will be resolved properly with the primate’s thumb on the scale. Worse yet, this “nuanced” view of Scripture is consistent with the sort of TEC revisionism that got us into this mess.

Finally, among the dozens of Continuing Anglican blogger postings this week about the convention, the open letter to Bp. Duncan from Bp. Millsaps of the tiny Episcopal Missionary Church caught my eye. I recommend the entire posting (and the comments), but here is a relevant excerpt:

How can those who think, as I do, that only men can be presbyters (the very word means old men) process with priests who are female? You yourself have left no doubt as to where you stand, as you have ordained more and more women, even in recent months.

Then there is the problem of multi-married male clergy. The ranks of the new body are filled with them. The late Dr. Peter Toon wrote time and time again about this issue. There are tragic situations where abandonment of married men and contested divorces have taken place, but could there be as many as seems the case with clergy members of the bodies coming together as the "ACNA"?

Has the ACNA in formation taken a stand on Abortion? I know individuals have done so, but is there a public stand?

Perhaps you have read the Affirmation of St. Louis. The Episcopal Missionary Church did not come into being until 1992, but has affirmed the Affirmation and asked our friends in the Reformed Episcopal Church to do so only to be told there were things in it which they could not affirm.

This posting really brought my concerns into focus. If Dan Quayle was no Jack Kennedy, then Bedford is no Congress of St. Louis.

The 1977 gathering and its Affirmation were about sharply defining doctrine, with continuity both back to the origins of the Church of England, and setting a precedent for decades if not centuries to come. This week’s gathering was about fuzzing theological differences between Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics, while reassuring both parties that the ACNA is no TEC.

It’s possible that more truth, clarity and courage will be forthcoming, but right now I don’t have reason to be optimistic. If he wants to connect to those American Christians who believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church, Metropolitan Jonah still has a few dozen Schism I bishops yet to meet. Perhaps it’s time for the Congress of St. Louis/Schism I crowd to convene their own media event. If the Metropolitan isn’t available, they could invite Cardinal Kasper.

I still haven't found what I'm looking for

2009-06-16T17:42:00.000-07:00

As an Anglo-Catholic with a strong desire for traditional liturgy and theology, living in one of the bluest of blue states at a time when traditionalists have almost entirely left ECUSA, it’s hard to find an appropriate Anglican parish of the sort that was quite common in the 1960s or 1970s.

It somewhat reminds me of a familiar (and moving) song by Christian singer Paul David Hewson:

I have climbed the highest mountains
I have run through the fields
...
I have run, I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
...
But I still haven't found
What I'm looking for.
But I still haven't found
What I'm looking for.

Although this song is oriented towards a seeker mentality, it does hint at a deeper spirtual longing faced by almost anyone at some point in their life.

Still, it’s not a song I would think to play on a Sunday morning in a church sanctuary. But then, I’m not a liturgical innovator commissioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury:

The ideas for alternative-style worship are part of an initiative launched by Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to appeal to the younger generation.

They are set out in a new book compiled by the Church's Fresh Expressions programme, which aims to boost church attendance with more relevant and exciting services. However, traditionalists have criticised the unorthodox services as "pointless" and "shallow", and have warned that experimenting with Church tradition would do more harm than good.
...

Among the alternative services explored in the book, which is co-edited by the Rt Rev Steven Croft, the new Bishop of Sheffield, are so-called "U2charists", services in which the congregation receives communion but sings the songs of the Irish rock band U2 instead of traditional hymns.

The services, which include such songs as "Mysterious Ways", "One", and "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", have been pioneered at St Swithin's church in Lincoln.

Thanks to the Telegraph to find a clergyman to provide an appropriate rebuttal:

However, the Rev David Houlding, prebendary at St Paul's Cathedral, bemoaned the Church's attempt to widen its appeal.

"All this is tosh. It's just a passing fad, irrelevant, shallow and pointless," he said.

"There's no depth to it and it's embarrassing because it'll make people think that we're eccentric and silly."

It sounds like the Diocese of London has a sound and wizened prebendary (senior canon), even if its famed Christopher Wren-designed cathedral has recently acquired a theologically loose canon.