George Bush's Houston Funeral

If Wednesday’s state funeral was a quasi-government event and (consistent with other presidents) a nationally televised spectacle, it appears that today’s invitation-only service for President Bush in Houston was a cross between a traditional funeral service (at a 1500-seat Gothic-style church) and a country music concert.

The service at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church — the largest by membership of any in North America — was officiated by Rev. Dr. Russell Levenson, Jr. The rector of SMEC since 2007, Levenson also officiated the service for Barbara Bush held here on April 21, and gave the homily at President Bush's D.C. funeral yesterday.

The program is posted to the church website and summarized on the ATWNews site. Among other TV stations, the funeral was broadcast live on the website of Houston station CW69 (and also available on C-SPAN).

Funeral Music

While the D.C. funeral was Rite II, today’s Houston funeral was Rite I. Below is a summary of the music by the congregation and the St. Martin’s choir; as with other SMEC service booklets, the full hymns with harmony are included in the appendices. The worship music comprised

• Preludes
• Brass voluntary: “America the Beautiful”
• “O Beautiful for Spacious Skies” (H82: 719)
• Anthem: “This is my Country” (choir)
• Lessons: Psalm 23, 1 Cor 12:31-13:13, John 11:21-27
• Sequence Hymn: “Eternal Father, Strong to Save”: rather than the H40 or H82 version, this is the version from Baptist Hymnal 1991 (“Eternal father, strong to save, Whose arm doth bind the restless wave”)
• Anthem: “Battle Hymn of the Republic” (choir)
• Recession Hymn: “Onward, Christian Soldiers” (H82: 562), announced by Fr. Levenson to be one of the late president’s favorites
• Organ and Brass Voluntary: Widor “Toccata”

I’ve twice attended services at St. Martin’s and even under normal circumstances the choir is impressive as their voices echo through the resonant spaces of the poured-concrete Gothic structure. However, today’s augmented choir (which appeared to more than 50) must have offered an unmatched experience for those attending. I thought the choir’s talents were best demonstrated in the Battle Hymn, with an arrangement that separated the men and women’s choir and included an a capella verse.

While the front of the church was filled with VIPs, it appeared as though in the back rows of the parish were filled with parishioners who opened their 12-page booklets and sang the closing hymn. At least among those in the front rows, nobody crossed themselves during the Apostle’s Creed (in a normal service, my experience was 5-10%).

The Concert

During the middle of the service, there was a country-western music concert by some of the late president’s favorite entertainers. Having been on funeral standby for weeks, The Oak Ridge Boys sang three voices of “Amazing Grace”, as they had for the president’s 1989 inauguration and several other occasions. However, at ages 70,75,75,and 79 (rather than in their 40s), their singing was not what it used to be.

This was followed by Reba McEntire singing a version of the Lord’s Prayer. She paced across the stage chancel while singing.

My daughter and I were surprised to see the scattered applause after the first performance (including by Jeb Bush). The decision by some to applaud seemed to give permission for everyone (including former president Bush-43) to applaud the second performance. The later choir performances were also applauded.

Heading to the Burial

When the service was over, the casket was taken outside and loaded into the hearse while the family and a select group of St. Martin’s clergy participated in the final part of the service.

The military band played the customary flourishes and Hail to the Chief. Then it played Lobe den Herren, the tune for the Lutheran hymn “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation!” by Joachim Neander.

The former president was buried at his library at Texas A&M. When the service was ended, the casket was loaded into a hearse to take it to a special Union Pacific train traveling from Houston to College Station.

Remember our last Episcopalian president

Today was the first of two funerals for George H.W. Bush (1924-2018), the 41st president whose term of office ran from 1989-1993. He was the last surviving World War II veteran to serve as president or vice president.

The 26 page service booklet for the funeral was posted by the National Cathedral and is also available here. Their 3:26 video is on YouTube while C-SPAN has a 2:26 video as well. (When the casket is being carried into the cathedral, the US Coast Guard band plays “For all the saints” at 15 minutes into C-SPAN and 1:14 into the cathedral video.) The latter has some interesting preludes (by the head organist of a Dallas Episcopal church) but the military orchestra and chorus spent more than 40 minutes on pieces that (other than America the Beautiful at the very end) I didn’t recognize.

Funeral Hymns

The liturgy was “Burial II” from the 1979 prayer book. The psalm was omitted, while the Scripture readings (from the NRSV) were Isaiah 60:1-5,18-20 and Revelation 20:1-4,6-7,23-25 (read by granddaughters) and Matthew 5:14-16 (read by the cathedral dean). The homily was by Bush's rector, Rev. Russell Levenson, Jr., who officiated the April funeral service in Houston for Barbara Bush.

It’s difficult to characterize a three hour service, so let me list the hymns:

• "Praise my soul, the King of heaven,” 4 verses sung (in harmony) by the congregation, cathedral choir and Armed Forces Chorus
• After the first lesson, “The King of love my shepherd is,” 6 verses by cathedral choir
• Gospel hymn: “O god, our help in ages past,” 6 verses by military choir
• Lord’s Prayer: the two choirs and Irish tenor Ronan Tynan
• Before the commendation: “Eternal Father,” (the Navy version) 4 verses by the military choir for Mr. Bush (LTJG, USN, 1942-1945)
• After the dismissal: “For all the saints,” 8 verses (unison) by all

CCM pop star Michael W. Smith also did a solo (backed by both choirs) of one of his pieces (“Friends”).

The Bush family sat on one side and the former presidents on another. During “Praise my soul,” Pres. Clinton sang the most enthusiastically, Pres. Obama next, and Mrs. Clinton sang portions; the video suggested that neither of the Carters (ages 94, 91) and the Trumps attempted to sing, nor did Mrs. Obama. On the Bush side, almost all of the children and grandchildren seemed to be singing (and some of the in-laws).

Monday's Ceremony

As is normal for a former president, Bush’s casket lay in state at the Capitol Rotunda before the funeral. When watching the ceremony Monday afternoon for the arrival of the casket, I heard three hymns played by the military band:

• 4:28pm EST: The Navy hymn (while waiting for the casket to arrive)
• 4:50pm EST: after Hail to the chief, the band alternated between the hymns “Fairest, Lord Jesus” and “A mighty fortress is our God” as the casket was carried up the steps

Since the latter is Martin Luther’s most famous hymn, I tend to associate it with Lutherans but I keep running into other Protestants who admire its statement of the Christian doctrine.

Update (Friday Dec 7): Bush's Pastor Describes His Faith

There were two GetReligion stories on Thursday and Friday by (and a Issues Etc. interview with) former Episcopalian GR editor Terry Mattingly, who quoted two reports on the sermon by Rev. Levenson. The first story points to a report by the New York Times which said

“My hunch is heaven, as perfect as it must be, just got a bit kinder and gentler,” the Rev. Dr. Russell J. Levenson Jr., rector of St. Martin’s, said on Wednesday in his homily. Turning to the coffin, he said: “Mr. President, mission complete. Well done, good and faithful servant. Welcome to your eternal home, where ceiling and visibility are unlimited and life goes on forever.”

When the casket arrived at the Rotunda Monday, I heard Vice President Pence explain that “ceiling and visibility unlimited” was a favorite phrase of the former naval aviator.

The later story quotes a Religion News Service story that says about the late president what any Christian would hope could be said about them

The Rev. Russell Levenson Jr., rector of St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Houston, said the elder Bush made Levenson’s job as his pastor for almost a dozen years an easy one because of the late president’s concern more for others than for himself.

“Jesus Christ, for George Bush, was at the heart of his faith, but his was a deep faith, a generous faith, a simple faith in the best sense of the word,” said Levenson in his homily. “He knew and lived Jesus’ two greatest commandments: to love God and to love your neighbor.”

Legacies of the English State Church

This state funeral was unusual in that it was for an Episcopalian at the cathedral church of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. The National Cathedral also host state funerals for other Christians, as it did with the 2004 funeral for Ronald Reagan (a Presbyterian) — just as Westminster Abbey did a 2013 state funeral for Lady Thatcher (a Methodist).

Bush was the last living Episcopalian president, marking the end of a run of 11 Episcopalian presidents out of the first 41. Three were founding fathers, five were among the 13 presidents from 1841-1885, and Bush was the last of the three in 20th century (that included F.D. Roosevelt and Gerald Ford).

When will the next Episcopalian become president? One proxy is the U.S. senate.

As the DC saying goes, “every senator thinks they should be president” (although in the past century, only Harding, Kennedy and Obama were senators when elected president). In today’s senate, there are only four Episcopalians (all Democrats), outnumbered by Lutherans and Mormons (6), Jews (7), Methodists and Baptists (11), Presbyterians (16) and Catholics (24). According to Wikipedia (and we all know how true it is),  Catholics are 21% of the country and Baptists 15%. The senators most visibly preening for a presidential run in 2020 or 2024 seem to be Baptist or Catholic.

I don’t expect to see another Episcopalian president in the next 30 years, as their influence has fallen dramatically. Some of it is the dilution of the English influence on America with generations of immigration; some is the shift of the American aristocracy from inherited status and wealth to one based on education. Some of it reflects the declining membership of mainline Protestantism, and Christianity more generally.

After G.H.W. Bush, there don’t seem to be a lot of prominent Republican officials who are Episcopalian. His eldest son, George W. (aka “Bush 43”) was raised Episcopalian, fell away from the church and later became a Methodist; second son, former governor and 2016 presidential candidate Jeb Bush converted to Catholicism in 1995.

As for Anglicans, 2016 presidential candidate John Kasich (governor of Ohio from 2011-2019) was raised Catholic, previously Episcopalian, and most recently reported to be attending an ACNA church. However, he would have to be considered a longshot candidate for president unless (like Bush, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Truman, Coolidge) he was elected vice president first.

Services for a first lady

The funeral for former first lady Barbara Bush was held today at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Houston, followed by burial at George H.W. Bush’s presidential library at Texas A&M.

The church is part of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas. According to Wikipedia, “It is the largest Episcopal Church in North America with nearly 9,000 members.” (Since there are no “Episcopal” churches in Canada, we assume they mean churches in the Anglican Communion).

As with similar services, it was broadcast live by C-SPAN, and available for online playback.

The blog Ponder Anew has summarized the program for the Rite I service, and the booklet is available online at an Austin TV station. Below are musical highlights, including hymns from Hymnal 1982:

Prelude music

• “Nearer my God to thee”
• “My country, ’tis of thee”
• Hymn 390: “Praise to the Lord”; Tune: Lobe den Herren

During the service

• After the 1st Lesson: “In the Garden”
• Sequence Hymn 671: “Amazing Grace”; Tune: New Britain (V1-2 before, V3-4 afterwards)
• After the Homily: “The Holy City"
• Hymn 376: “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee”; Tune: Ode to Joy

Postlude

• “Solemn Procession” (Richard Strauss)

A few comments. On Amazing Grace, only Newton’s original four verses are used, not the later epilog (“When we’ve been there 10,000 years”). Except for Amazing Grace, this is not standard American funeral music — the two other tunes are ones that could be sung during ordinary time or any festal season.

Finally, this seems like an unusually brief amount of music for such a grand service in such a large church with a large choir. The opening hymn has a descant written in Hymnal 1982; however, the descant does not appear in the service booklets held by the congregation in the C-SPAN video, nor could I hear it. It is not an English descant, but I think any major English choir would have sung a descant: New English Hymnal has AB Smith’s while the Oxford Book of Descants has Oxley’s.

In fact, it’s almost an anti-Colonial service, opening with a 17th century German hymn. It is followed by the text from an English abolitionist that is far more popular at American funerals than English ones (where it is only #5). It concludes with Beethoven’s most famous tune with an American text, and a postlude by a German agnostic (if not atheist).

Update: On the Facebook group for church musicians, several noted that St. Martin’s has consistently been “low church.” While this term means different things to different people, it tends to mean more Protestant and less Catholic — i.e., consistent with not using English hymns or fancy descants.

This picture shows Barbara and George Bush with their kids at St. Martin’s.

Source: Barbara Bush’s funeral program.

The challenges and opportunities of post-Christian America

Despite the reputation of many Anglicans — especially Anglo-Catholics — of being inwardly focused (“sacristy rats”), the reality is that we need to be reaching out to reach new members, bring more people to (or back to) Christ, and fulfill the great commission of Matthew 28:18-20.

According to the headlines, the 2014 Pew “Religious Landscape Study” says Christianity is declining in America. But after listening to a May 13 interview with veteran religious journalist Terry Mattingly on Issues Etc. (especially the last half), I think the story is that the nominal Christians are no longer nominal and instead becoming vaguely spiritual or not religious at all. (Rod Dreher and Ed StetzerEd Stetzer have the same opinion).

On the one hand, this is a shame, because in my experience the raised-but-no-longer-Christian are the easiest to bring to church: they know of the faith, they often know it’s important, and they’ve just been (without knowing it) waiting for an point in their life when they realized that knowing and worshipping God is the most important thing we can do in this life. To some degree that’s my own journey. Still, Stetzer has advice on how to reach both audiences with the Christian message.

Mattingly's interview talks about his own (latest) denomination, the Eastern Orthodox, and how successful Orthodox parishes are those that can reach visitors who are “looking for a beautiful, stable, creedal version of the faith.” This seems like a goal ready-made for Anglo-Catholic Anglicans.

Finally, the headline version of survey results lists Episcopalian/Anglican as 1.2% of the country: 0.9% for TEC and 0.3% for the non-TEC Anglicans. By comparison, ELCA is 1.4%, and more evangelical Lutherans (such as LCMS and WELS) total 1.5%.

The age and education distribution seem similar (with TEC having more graduate degrees and the Anglicans having more college graduates overall). The one notable difference is that 5% of the TEC are shacking up (“living with a partner”) vs. 1% of the Anglicans. The proportion of never-married (unmarried + living together) is about the same — 20% for Anglicans and 21% for TEC — so our need to minister to those seeking to marry (and hopefully raise kids) in the church is more urgent than ever.

Episcopalians for H40

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.

The once unexamined Anglican life

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.

Four-part harmony

With GAFCON, Lambeth and St Bartholomew the Great, there may not be much harmony these days in the Anglican communion. However, satirist Garrison Keilor harkens back to earlier days when harmony was the hallmark of Episcopalians.† Here is the excerpt relevant to hymnody:

We make fun of Episcopalians for their blandness, their excessive calm, their fear of giving offense, their lack of speed and also for their secret fondness for macaroni and cheese. But nobody sings like them. If you were to ask an audience in Des Moines, a relatively Episcopalianless place, to sing along on the chorus of "Michael Row the Boat Ashore," they will look daggers at you as if you had asked them to strip to their underwear. But if you do this among Episcopalians, they'd smile and row that boat ashore and up on the beach! ....And down the road!

Many Episcopalians are bred from childhood to sing in four-part harmony, a talent that comes from sitting on the lap of someone singing alto or tenor or bass and hearing the harmonic intervals by putting your little head against that person's rib cage. It's natural for Episcopalians to sing in harmony. We are too modest to be soloists, too worldly to sing in unison. When you're singing in the key of C and you slide into the A7th and D7th chords, all two hundred of you, it's an emotionally fulfilling moment. By our joining in harmony, we somehow promise that we will not forsake each other.

I do believe this, people: Episcopalians, who love to sing in four-part harmony are the sort of people you could call up when you're in deep distress. If you are dying, they will comfort you. If you are lonely, they'll talk to you. And if you are hungry, they'll give you tuna salad!

Episcopalians believe in prayer, but would practically die if asked to pray out loud. Episcopalians like to sing, except when confronted with a new hymn or a hymn with more than four stanzas.

Ruth Gledhill (of The Times of London) reprints the essay this week in her blog, but a quick Google search suggests it dates back at least to March 2007. It might just be an urban legend: the essay is widely attributed to Keilor — who grew up among Lutherans though now is an Episcopalian — but is nowhere to be found on his official website.

The other problem with harmony in TEC is that it’s being driven out of the liturgy. Hymnal 1982 removes the SATB from many of the hymns, including about half of the mass settings and all but two verses of the Vaughan Williams harmonies for Sine Nomine. Meanwhile, for the non-hymnal parishes, the easy listening “contemporary” worship music doesn’t get reused enough for the congregation to learn the parts.

† Given that Keilor is a financial supporter of Barack Obama, Al Franken and MoveOn.org, it seems likely that he sides with the TEC in America’s current Episcopalian/Anglican split.

Happy Remembrance Day

Today was both Veterans Day and a Sunday, and thus the observance of this major national holiday fell on the actual day.

Most history buffs know that the holiday dates to the 1919 signing of the Treaty of Versailles, marking the end of the Great War. In the U.S., holiday was known as Armistice Day beginning in 1926, but was renamed Veterans Day in 1954.

In the U.K., it’s always been Remembrance Day, and poppies are worn to commemorate the horrible deaths of trench warfare in the fields of Flanders. I first heard the term back in 1976, in a passing reference made by Alastair Ian Stewart in his offbeat love song, "Sand in Your Shoes." (Most boomers only remember the title track, “Year of the Cat”).

I did not know until this morning that Remembrance Day is also the official name in Canada, but Canadian comic strip artist Lynn Johnston this morning published a poignant tribute to one of the main characters, 86-year-old WW II vet Jim Richards, father of the cartoonist’s alter ego (Elly Patterson).
In observance of the date, the closing hymn today was Hymn 512 in the 1940 Hymnal. (The Navy hymn without the Army/Air Force references of Hymn 513). It was a bittersweet choice — the hymn is a favorite of mine, but for some reason opening the page to the hymn brought a tear, because of the reminder of my father (a World War II vet at whose funeral we sang Hymn 513). I lost it twice briefly while singing the hymn, although it appears nobody noticed.

However, after the service the choice became a bittersweet one for the entire congregation, as our rector announced he was resigning in the next month to become a Navy chaplain. I admire him greatly for making this difficult choice, and respect him (like all other military personnel) for making the sacrifice most of us are unwilling to make. But we now are left hoping to find a strong spiritual and pastoral leader, which is not a situation any parish wants to be in.

Patriotic hymnals

From even the eight posts to date, it’s clear that I react to a small number of bloggers who write about hymns in liturgy. Actually, there are two: Catherine Osborne, an associate professor (“reader”) in philosophy and member of the Church of England, and Josh Osbun, a seminarian in the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. Yes, I find what they say interesting, but it’s also that not many people (outside of The Hymn Society) think about these issues much. All this a long-winded introduction as to why these two blogs are listed on the right and why they will keep coming up in this blog.

On Memorial Day, seminarian Osbun wrote to complain about the hymn “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” in his otherwise favorite Lutheran Service Book. In addition to specific objections to this hymn, he added a general attack on the idea of patriotic hymns:

First of all, days such as Memorial Day, Labor Day, Veterans’ Day, Independence Day, and Thanksgiving have no place in the church. They are national holidays, not church holidays. And so hymns like this one also have no place in the church. They are national hymns that talk about a generic god, not the Triune God we confess …

On MemorialDay, the 4th and (often) Veteran’s Day, for the past decade my church garb has been an improvised flag-like combination shown here (which is subtle enough that most people don’t notice). I’m not a theologian, but let me see if I can argue for the inclusion of some subset of patriotic hymns in a Christian hymnal.

First off, I went to the pastor of our local LCMS church last Sunday, who has about 15 years of experience on the seminarian. I didn’t ask for permission to quote him by name, so I’ll just call him Pastor Bob. When I raised the Osbun objections, he responded in three parts:

1. Yes, the sermon and the focus of the service should be Christocentric and tied to the readings, in this case Luke 9:62.
2. Since Christians should thank God for their blessings, “We live in America and America is a blessing to us,” therefore it is appropriate to be grateful to God for our country.
3. When a floating holiday (like the 4th) lands on a Sunday, he normally includes some sort of patriotic hymn (not applicable this year).

At Episcopal parishes that I’ve attended with a large contingent of active duty and retired military, the priests are far less shy about offering prayers for God and country; in some cases, the clergy themselves are retired, reserve or even active duty military. So there is a body of opinion among many clergy that certain national celebrations are appropriate in a church.

Let me first take the Church of England (as an exemplar of other state churches). In the COE, the queen is “the Supreme Governor of the Church of England” so it seems like celebration of the regent is appropriate. The English Hymnal (1906) features 10 “national” hymns (#557-566), including #560:

God save our gracious King,
Long live our noble King,
God save the King!
Send him victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us;
God save the King!

I couldn’t find this hymn in either my 1869 or 1916 copy of Hymns Ancient & Modern, but in the COE Songs of Praised, Enlarged Edition (1931) I did find 10 “national” hymns (#316-325), including #318, National Anthem. (I don’t own a copy of the 1986 The New English Hymnal.)

Switching to this side of the pond, the 1940 PECUSA hymnal has the colonists’ version of this hymn (“God bless our native land”) as one (#146) of eight “National Days” hymns (#141-148). The 1982 hymnal seems to be siding more with Mr. Osbun (not necessarily a positive sign), cutting “National Songs” down to five, and relegating them to the very end of the book (#716-720) — beginning with “God bless our native land” and ending with “O, say can you see.”

As for the LCMS, I don’t have the 2006 LSB, but do have The Lutheran Hymnal (1941) and Lutheran Worship (1982), exact analogs to their PECUSA equivalents (except for the LSB, a neotraditionalist hymnal that will never have an analog in PECUSA/TEC). The ’41 has 10 hymns for “The Nation” (#575-584) which (same trend) are cut to six (#497-502) in the ’82: both have the Americanized English anthem but neither has the Francis Scott Key composition, so clearly less national-istic than the PECUSA equivalents.

Setting tradition aside, I want to come back to two other reasons I think a subset of important national hymns belong in hymnals. One is the same reason that Christmas carols with the J**** word and the G** word belong in hymnals — because today, if they’re not in the hymnal, kids won’t learn them anywhere else. I mean, public school teachers gladly teach the first verse of “My country, ’tis of thee” because it’s less bombastic than F.S. Key’s lyrics, but (unlike the 1950s) how many public school kids get to sing the fourth verse of the familiar anthem by seminarian Samuel Francis Smith:

Our fathers’ God, to thee,
author of liberty,
to thee we sing;
long may our land be bright
with freedom's holy light;
protect us by thy might,
great God, our King.

The Episcopalians had this hymn and kept it, while the German-American Lutherans never did.

On a somewhat related note, the 1861 Hymns Ancient and Modern first brought us “Eternal father, strong to save” to the tune of Melita which the Episcopalians have in both the 1940 (in the original and multi-service variant) and the 1982 hymnal (multi-service only). Although written by an English choirmaster for a civilian emigrant, it has become associated with military service, especially the US Navy and Royal Navy.

The hymn is often played at the funerals of military veterans, particularly Episcopalians. In January of this year, President Gerald Ford got the Armed Forces Chorus to sing the hymn; at my father’s funeral, it was just the congregation. Hearing this hymn in the context of a funeral sets exactly the right tone — awe at the omnipotence of our mighty God whose hands we entrust with our entire lives, combined with praise and supplication:

Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who biddest the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!
…
O Trinity of love and power!
Our family brethren shield in danger’s hour;
From rock and tempest, fire and foe,
Protect us wheresoever we them wheresoe’er they go;
Thus evermore shall rise to Thee
Glad hymns of praise from land and sea.

It doesn’t have to be in the hymnal to be used in a funeral, but it certainly has earned a place in Christian worship.

Update July 8: I had not noticed that I’d copied the politically correct stanzas from President Ford’s service and the 1982 Hymnal, rather than the earlier version of the 1940 Hymnal.

Enforcing consistency in worship

Once upon a time, picking an Episcopal church was easy. The sermons and people varied, but the theology and the liturgy were pretty similar. In the 20th century, everyone used the same hymnal for the 40 years and the same prayer book for 50 years.

Of course, during the 1960s, consistency of theology and liturgy in ECUSA began to fracture. On the former, we now have what CANN calls the ongoing “Carnival of the Anglican Crisis.”

On the liturgy, we now have two official rites within the 1979 BCP, to the degree that people follow the BCP. Although there’s nominally only one official hymnal, we also have Lift Every Voice & Sing II (1993), Wonder, Love & Praise (1997), and Voices Found (2003). The reality is that some Episcopal parishes do guitar masses, and some do bells & smells.

Of course, such variation is a broader issue within the contemporary Christian church. In the LCMS (the moderately conservative US denomination), pastor-blogger Paul McCain exhorts his colleagues for a little consistency:

To suggest that the better way for the church to order herself is for there to be the greatest amount of liturgical uniformity as possible strikes some ears as a call for a slavish formalism, some even go so far as to use the word “legalistic” whenver this comes up. … It seems that some in the Lutheran Church have dismissed discussion of the dangers of liturgical diversity and the blessings of the great possible liturgical uniformity. Why? Sadly, in an era that has witnessed a trend toward doing whatever is right in the eyes of an individual pastor, or congregation, the blessings of liturgical uniformity are being woefully neglected. We have lost our understanding of the blessing and advantage of striving to have as common a liturgical practice as possible.Preaching

The thought that a pastor would, from Sunday to Sunday, reinvent the church’s worship service was an alien thought to the Lutheran Confessors, and hence the Lutheran Confessions. …

Some might assume that my remarks are directed only toward those who have chosen to embrace “contemporary worship” or “blended worship” with its Sunday-to-Sunday “newness.” But that would be a mistake. I would also direct these remarks to those who choose to “do their own thing” in a more traditionally liturgical direction: that is, those who choose to embellish and otherwise change the church’s received liturgies in a direction that they regard as “better” or “more faithful” or “more liturgical.”

I saw Pastor McCain’s comments when they were posted 10 days ago. Then last night, I was reading a few chapters from a book I bought almost 10 years ago at the Georgetown U. bookstore, Documents of the Christian Church (2nd ed.). In the section on “The Reformation in England,” the book included excerpts from Elizabeth’s Act of Uniformity (1559), mandating the use of the 1552 Book of Common Prayer (which was soon replaced by the 1559 BCP). Legalese being what it is, the text is hard to follow, but here’s a flavor:

And that if any manner of parson, vicar, or other whatsoever minister, that ought or should sing or say common prayer mentioned in the said book, or minister the sacraments, from and after the feast of the nativity of St. John Baptist next coming, refuse to use the said common prayers, or to minister the sacraments in such cathedral or parish church, or other places as he should use to minister the same, in such order and form as they be mentioned and set forth in the said book, or shall wilfully or obstinately standing in the same, use any other rite, ceremony, order, form, or manner of celebrating of the Lord's Supper, openly or privily, or Matins, Evensong, administration of the sacraments, or other open prayers, than is mentioned and set forth in the said book … or shall preach, declare, or speak anything in the derogation or depraving of the said book, or anything therein contained, or of any part thereof, and shall be thereof lawfully convicted, … shall lose and forfeit to the queen's highness, her heirs and successors, for his first offence, the profit of all his spiritual benefices or promotions coming or arising in one whole year next after his conviction; and also that the person so convicted shall for the same offence suffer imprisonment by the space of six months …

Of course, Elizabeth I was dealing with the aftermath of the English Reformation (begun by Henry VIII and reversed by Mary I), and had yet to deal with the pluralism of Protestant worship that produced Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists and Quakers.

The Episcopal church (or even the global Anglican Communion) is too weak to enforce even a fraction of what Elizabeth achieved. But it seems difficult to raise children in “Episcopal” (or “Anglican”) worship if the next time you move (or switch parishes within the same community), you get a completely different style of worship.