Little-known ancient Advent hymn: Come thou, redeemer of the earth

With Advent starting Sunday, Neale's hymn “Come, thou Redeemer of the earth” seems perfectly suited to the season. It is well known to English congregations, but not here in the U.S.

From Ambrose to the 20th Century via John Mason Neale

Neale’s translation of “Veni, Redemptor gentium” appears in Hymnal Noted. Then as now, the original Latin text is attributed to St. Ambrose (340-397). My copy of the (1909) hymnal companion to the New Edition (1904) of Hymns Ancient & Modern says that Augustine himself attests to the authorship by Ambrose, and the text has been used in the Mozarbic (Iberian), Ambrosian and Latin rites. It is based on Matthew 1:23 in the Christmas birth narrative.

The hymnal companion lists the first verse as

Veni, redemptor gentium;
ostende partum virginis;
miretur omne saeculum,
talis decet partus Deo.

The hymn was picked up in various English hymnals. Here is the version in 1906's The English Hymnal (hymn #14)

Come, thou Redeemer of the earth,
and manifest thy virgin-birth:
let every age adoring fall;
such birth befits the God of all.

Begotten of no human will,
But of the Spirit, thou art still
The Word of God, in flesh arrayed,
The promise fruit to man displayed,

The virgin womb that burden gained
With virgin honour all unstained;
The banners there of virtue glow;
God in his temple dwells below

From God the Father he proceeds,
to God the Father back he speeds,
His course he runs to death and hell,
Returning on God's throne to dwell.

O equal to thy Father, thou!
Gird on thy fleshly mantle now,
The weakness of our mortal state
With deathless might invigorate.

Thy cradle here shall glitter bright,
and darkness breathe a newer light,
Where endless faith shall shine serene,
And twilight never intervene.

All laud to God the Father be,
All praise, eternal Son, to thee:
All glory, as is ever meet,
To God the Holy Paraclete. Amen.

The 1986 New English Hymnal (#19) changes verse 2 to

Begotten of no human will,
but of the Spirit, thou art still
the Word of God, in flesh arrayed,
the Saviour, now to us displayed.

It also changes verse 7, as well as verse 8:

O Jesu, virgin-born, to thee
eternal praise and glory be,
whom with the Father we adore
and Holy Spirit, evermore. Amen.

Hymns A&M hews closer to Neale’s original, starting with “O come, Redeemer of the earth”.

I learned of the hymn while working on my next hymn research project. One of the people I met recommended Cantate Domino, a hymnal supplement (hymns #800-962) for traditional Episcopal parishes using Hymnal 1940. When I checked it out, #804 contains the Neale hymn.

Tune by Michael Praetorius

The two English hymnals list two tunes. One is the original tune from Hymnal Noted — listed as from the Salisbury Hymnal – which the A&M companion says is the tune used with the Sarum, York and Hereford hymns to this text. (As with all of Hymnal Noted, the tune was presumably adapted by its music editor, Thomas Helmore).

However, TEH and NEH list as an alternative Puer Nobis, the Michael Praetorius (1571-1621) tune that we already sing for Epiphany (“What star is this with beams so bright”) and Easter (“That Easter day with joy is bright”). 

All three hymnals use the 1901 harmonization by George Woodward (1848-1934); in Hymnal 1940, the harmony is listed (#47, #98) for accompaniment but the hymns are marked “unison” — i.e., few congregations have sung the parts. Hymnal 1940 lists a different harmonization (more like Praetorius’) for Hymn #158 (“O splendour of God’s glory bright”) while Hymnal 1982 (#124) lists a third harmonization attributed to Hymns Ancient & Modern, Revised Edition.

This Praetorius tune is found in the King’s College Cambridge recording on YouTube. The text skips verses 2 and 3, but follows the 1906 version except for the final verse (which is closer to but not exactly the same as the 1986 version). Unlike the Epiphany hymn, the tempo is almost dirge-like.

Inclusion in the Anglican Hymnal Supplement

My bishop doubts there will be demand for a 21st century Continuing Anglican hymnal, given the decline of books, traditional worship, and of course the 2017 publication of the REC hymnal. So instead he's encouraged me to think about what would go into a supplement to Hymnal 1940. (If H40 goes out of print, we might first have to assemble a public domain H40 based on Hymnal 1916 and other texts no longer in copyright).

Cantate Domino lists this for Advent, while the English list it for the 12 days of Christmas. An argument can be made for either one; for example, it was included in the 2016 Advent carols service by King’s College Cambridge. I would list it for Advent for two reasons. First, we need more good Advent hymns and don’t have enough time to sing all the Christmas hymns we have. Second, we already have a slightly different version of the tune (H40: 34) at Christmas, which would create even greater confusion.

For the text, I’m inclined to use the TEH text — improved through use over the 50 years after Neale’s original (but still out of copyright). With eight verses, at least some would need to be optional. Nowadays, there's an advantage to matching the recorded version, so I’d try to find the KCC text (and its copyright status).

The tune choice is much easier. In my research, I am realizing that beauty at the cost of complexity is still possible for choirs at medium or large sized Anglican (TEC, Continuing, ACNA…) churches. However, for hymns, a certain amount of realism is needed. I'm not sure that Helmore’s arrangement is worth the extra effort for the average choir or congregation, particularly when compared to this beautiful (and familiar) Praetorius tune.

Finally, I don't find the Woodward harmony particularly singable, and few Americans would know it already. So I would look at one of the other harmonizations, or even see about the original Praetorius version.

References

Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, Cantate Domino: Hymnal Supplement G-2264 (Chicago, GIA: 1979).

William H. Frere, ed., Hymns Ancient and Modern: Historical Edition, London: Wm. Clowes and Sons Ltd. 1909.

J. M. Neale and Thomas Helmore, Hymnal Noted: Parts I & II (London: Novello, 1851, 1856), available at https://books.google.com/books?id=2E3Dya5ON5oC

The English Hymnal, London: A. R. Mowbray, 1906. URL:  https://archive.org/details/theenglishhymnal00milfuoft

21st century hymnals come to Waco

For the past three years, as part of the Forward in Faith church planting task force, I’ve been working with Fr. Lee Nelson, SSC, the founding vicar (now rector) of Christ Church Waco in the ACNA Diocese of Ft. Worth.

The church has been growing by leaps and bounds, from two dozen to more than 200 today. On March 25 (Palm Sunday), CCW transitioned from a series of rented spaces to its own building, a 100-year-old downtown church that it purchased from a dwindling ELCA parish.

Today’s services will mark another milestone — CCW’s first ever with printed hymnals. The parishioners will be singing with the Book of Common Praise 2017. Last week, it took delivery of the hymnals, purchased from the publisher’s second print run. The Reformed Episcopal Church had reserved the first two print runs for REC parishes, but with the decision to go to a third printing, it released the remainder of the second print run for purchase by other churches.

CCW evaluated both Hymnal 1940 and Hymnal 1982, but instead chose the newer 2017 hymnal. It offered hymns missing from the 1940 hymnal, a few hymns newer than the 1982, but without the inclusive language of the 1982 hymnal.

Update: for this first service, the hymns from the hymnal included "Live divine" (Hyfrydol), "Take my life and let it be", "Rock of ages", and "It is well with my soul."

Below is the rector’s explanation of the importance of hymns and hymnals to the worship of an Anglo-Catholic parish. It seem very relevant to both this blog and the issues that readers are facing today.

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Why Sing Hymns?

NB: This Sunday, new hymnals will make their debut at Christ Church. Although we will still sing a good many songs not featured in this hymnal, we will use it every Sunday. Christ Church has been a parish which has upheld a wonderful culture of congregational hymn singing. Here, I explain why.

“From the spiritual hymns, however, proceeds much of value, much utility and sanctity, for the words purify the mind and the Holy Spirit descends swiftly upon the mind of the singer. For those who sing with understanding invoke the grace of the Spirit.”
John Chrysostom

Shortly after his conversion, C.S. Lewis refused to go to church on Sundays. Later, he realized that it was the “only way of flying your flag,” but still grumbled a bit, because to his literary mind, Christian hymnody was nothing more than “fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music.” As he continued on, he was broken of his conceit. It began to “peel away,” as he came to know ordinary people who would sing the hymns with devotion, people whose boots he wasn’t worthy to clean. It’s funny today to think that hymn-singing could ever be viewed as the activity of ordinary Christians, because the norm has become something of a performance - worship music performed by experts. Surely, something has been lost in this. Something which we should try to recover.

Hymnody as a Cure to Spiritual Pride

Lewis was quite right to say that Christian singing was a cure to his own conceit. In the initial phases of conversion, so much hinges on our objective experience of things. But, if we are to grow in Christian discipleship, we must take on a new vocabulary, one not our own. We must relocate that subjective experience within the living witness of the Church. To do so requires lending our voices to others, both in supporting their voices, but also in singing their words. When we sing the words of John Wesley, or Isaac Watts, or even the Getty’s, we say for a moment, we submit our own understanding to the wisdom of the whole communion of Saints.

We have to consciously work to blend our voices, keeping our own at bay. This requires a degree of humility and attention to the whole body of gathered believers.

Hymnody as Theological Exercise

Some people have mentioned to me through the years that singing hymns takes work - the engagement of the mind, the voice, and the body in worship. Modern worship choruses tend to be rather easy-going. They’re easy to sing. They don’t require much thought. And musically, they’re designed to be led by people with only a basic musical ability. Hymn singing done well, with four-part harmony and strong accompaniment, requires the ability to read music while simultaneously contemplating challenging theological themes. It takes practice!

If you can’t read music, perhaps follow the melody line - make note of the shapes of the notes and their intervals. Most hymn tunes are familiar, and singing hymns is a great way to learn to read music. If you have trouble staying on pitch, practice matching pitch with the radio or a keyboard (even a simple keyboard app will do). Maybe even take some monthly voice lessons! When I was in seminary, every student had to take church music and learn to sight read hymns. The professor of church music took great delight in finding the inner musician in people who thought they couldn’t carry a tune. And they, in turn, took great delight in finding that they could join in the Church’s worship in a way the didn’t think possible. It takes exercise and practice, but it shows us something even greater - that practice, habits, and exercise are the very things that are necessary to the spiritual life, in which we meet God, and in which we come to know His constant love.

Hymnody as a Sign of the Visible Church

It’s a sad fact, but it’s true, that Sunday mornings are just about the only time when ordinary people come together and sing. We know that Jesus sang with His disciples after breaking bread with them on the night before He was crucified. (Matt. 26:30) We know that Paul and Silas sang hymns while in prison and that Paul commended hymn singing to the churches (Ephesians 5:19). Hymns are a sign of a people who are at peace with each other, a people in whom the word of Christ dwells richly, overflowing with thanksgiving and praise. When people of various backgrounds, incomes, and educations sing together, it is an eschatological sign, not only of what will be, but of what God has done now, what has been realized among believers today.

Volume II of ACNA liturgy now online

On Wednesday, the ACNA website published the initial chapters of Volume II of its Texts for Common Prayer, available for free download at the ACNA website. These include services for Baptism, Confirmation and Renewal of the Baptismal Vows.

Like a software company, the ACNA is using version numbers and is now publishing a “Change Log” so the public can track the new liturgy versions as they are released.

Change Log
Volume I

• 11-16-13 Version 1.1 released. This release corrects typos found in the original.

• 10-17-13 Version 1.0 released.

Holy Eucharist

• 11-16-13 Version 1.1 released. This release corrects typos found in the original.

• 10-17-13 Version 1.0 released.

Morning and Evening Prayer

• 11-16-13 Version 1.1 released. This release corrects typos found in the original.

• 10-17-13 Version 1.0 released.

The Ordinal

• 11-16-13 Version 1.1 released. This release corrects typos found in the original.

• 10-17-13 Version 1.0 released.

Volume II

• 7-8-15 Version 1.0 released.

Baptism

• 7-8-15 Version 1.0 released.

Confirmation

• 7-8-15 Version 1.0 released.

Reaffirmation

• 7-8-15 Version 1.0 released.

I am guessing that (like the NIV) they won’t be making the old version available, but (hopefully) unlike the NIV the revisions won’t contain major theological changes.

The Liturgy and Common Worship Task Force presented a report at last month’s ACNA Provincial Council in Vancouver. (Since the retirement of Bp. Bill Thompson, the TF is chaired by Bp. Bob Duncan, former ACNA primate). The task force has five subcommittees:

1. Calendar, Collects and Lectionaries is developing a 3-year Sunday lectionary based on Common Lectionary (not RCL) as well as a daily office lectionary and a (reduced) list of saints days.
2. Episcopal Office is working on services for the consecration of church and for “celebration of new ministry.”
3. Psalter and Music is producing a new Psalter and an online resource “that would offer hymnody, praise songs, and traditional anthems related to the lectionary of every Sunday and season of the Christian year” as well as service music. It also states explicitly: “There is no plan to produce a hymnal.”
4. Offices of the Hours and Occasional Rites plans services for noontime and compline prayer services.
5. Pastoral Offices is working on marriage and baptism services.

The report also says it hopes to finish all “working texts” by 2017 so it can begin to incorporate feedback from the trial use (so keeps those cards and letters coming!)

Too much of a good thing

At a recent service, we sang “I bind unto myself this day,” (H40: 268) the traditional St. Patrick’s Day hymn. The Hymnal 1940 Companion helpfully notes:

[The hymn] is attributed by legend to St. Patrick [and] is first found in two eleventh century mss. ... Whether actually by St. Patrick or not, it has many element of a Druid incantation, superstitions of a sort which have long survived in Ireland and elsewhere.
...
The translation, or rather metrical paraphrase, was made by Cecil Frances Alexander for use on St. Patrick’s day in 1889. It was printed in leaflet form and sung throughout Ireland on that day. It first appeared in the [US] Hymnal in 1916.

The setting we use combines St. Patrick (or St. Patrick’s Breastplate) as the tune for most of the verses, and Deirdre for the penultimate verse — a combination created by Vaughan Williams for The English Hymnal (#212). H40 and H82 (#370) have the same seven verses, while the New English Hymnal (#359) moves verse 6 to a separate hymn (#278) with a different tune (Gartan).

I like this familiar hymn, but when we were singing the hymn, I must admit I got bored really quickly. Each verse (except #6) is long and slow, and there were six of them (plus the interlude). TEH would have been worse with nine verses.

Fortunately, both H40 and H82 indicate that verses 3, 4 and 5 — after the introduction of the melody and before the interlude — are optional. In most cases (outside Christmas or maybe Easter) I think five verses are enough, and in this case (IMHO) the music director should have omitted the extra verses. I’d especially take the cut in order to add other music (say a 2nd communion hymn) elsewhere in the service.

So with 3 or less verses, there is no need to mark optional verses, but otherwise — or with particularly long verses — they are merciful for both the singers and the congregation. I’ll keep that in mind if I ever serve on a hymnal committee.

Update: An unusual coincidence: this is the closing hymn of the first communion mass (Tuesday at noon) at next week’s International Catholic Congress of Anglicans. So nearly 300 of us will be singing all 7 verses.

What H40 can learn from H82

Today was lessons & carols, an excuse to sing Christmas carols a few days early during the season of Advent.

I'm currently attending (for better or worse) a Hymnal 1982 parish — which presumably describes 99+% of ECUSA/TEC and the ACNA. I’ve previously complained about the political correctness of the H82 hymns, which is why it’s not my favorite hymnal. However, the Hymnal does correct one deficiency of Hymnal 1940: missing Christmas carols.

1. Joy to the World

The original Hymnal 1940 had an unfamiliar tune for “Joy to the World,” but was missing the familiar Handel tune that we all sing. In 1981, this was finally corrected in Supplement II (i.e. the 3rd edition of H40) when the familiar carol was added as #775. Supplement II also adds replaces the older Sanctus with a Sanctus+Benedictus for all eight variants of the service music.

2. Gabriel’s Message

All editions of Hymnal 1940 are missing “The angel Gabriel” aka “Gabriel’s Message” (H82: 265). A 13th or 14th century Basque text was published in 1895, translated into Victorian English by Sabine Baring-Gould (author of “Onward Christian Soldiers”). Sting (the 80s pop star) made a jazzy CD recording and music video of this carol.

It's not in H40, in Songs of Praise (1925) or the SOP Enlarged Edition (1931). Two carols (#37, #102) with similar names are published by the authors of the latter (i.e. Vaughan Williams and Dearmer) in The Oxford Book of Carols (1928), but the Basque version is nowhere to be found. The New Oxford Book of Carols (1992) has it (#196) with the original Basque text and a more literal translation.

3. Of the Father’s Love Begotten

There was another hymn from this week’s H82 service that I couldn’t find in my copy of Hymnal 1940: “Of the father’s love begotten.” However, in researching this blog post, this omission seemed implausible given the familiar associations with my childhood (which is why I blogged about it back in 2008. )

The carol uses a 4th century text translated into English by John Mason Neale, and paired by Neale with an 11th (13th?) century tune in Hymns Ancient and Modern in the 1860s. As it turns out, this hymn (H82: 82; H40: 20) is in Hymnal 1940, just not in the index where I thought it would be. And the older hymnal has an extra verse (albeit one marked as optional in 1940).

Next Anglican hymnal: three verse minimum

One thing I don’t get about how hymnals present some hymns: why only two verses?

Take today’s communion hymn, “Take my life and let it be.” (H40: 408, H82: 707), written in 1874 by Frances Ridley Havergal, the daughter of English vicar and hymnologist William Henry Havergal. It was written as she prayed for the conversion of some of her friends, who were visiting her for five days.

It’s listed as only two verses in Hymnal 1982, which is prone to abbreviating hymns (in addition to tiny notes for singing). But Hymnal 1940 has the same fault — and in this case, seems to have instigated the problem (since it’s nowhere to be found in Hymnal 1916). Both have the familiar 1861 tune, Hollingside, by John Bacchus Dykes, first published in Hymns Ancient & Modern.

The English Hymnal (#582) has three verses, but an unfamiliar melody “from Plymouth Collection (U.S.A.) 1855.” It’s not in the previous (Hymns Ancient & Modern) or subsequent (New English Hymnal) CoE hymnals, suggesting that this British text has survived better in the US than in England.

The most recent LCMS hymnal, the Lutheran Service Book, has all 6 verses and two completely different tunes (Patmos is #783, Hendon is #784). The former, fittingly enough, was composed by W.H. Havergal. Apparently these six verses were also the ones used by CCM musician Chris Tomlin when in 2003 he re-popularized the song (to the tune Hendon).

In the ECUSA hymnals, it turns out that each verse combines two verses of Miss Havergal’s original. The tune is 77.77.77.77 instead of merely 77.77.

Thus, verses #1 and #2 of the original become the first verse of #408:

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 hands, and let them move at the impulse of thy love;
take my feet, and let them be swift and beautiful for thee.

Then the second ECUSA verse is a composite of the remaining four verses:

Take my voice, and let me sing always, only, for my King;
Take my intellect, and use every power as thou shalt choose.
Take my will and make it thine; it shall be no longer mine.
take my self, and I will be ever, only, all for thee.

Instead, in the new Anglican hymnal I would restore all the verses (as the Lutherans have) — in this case grouped in pairs to the Dykes tune:

Take my voice, and let me sing always, only, for my King;
take my lips, and let them be filled with messages from thee.
Take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold;
take my intellect, and use every power as thou shalt choose.

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.
Take my love; my Lord, I pour at thy feet its treasure store;
take my self, and I will be ever, only, all for thee.

This is the exact text from the 1906 CoE hymnal. Perhaps we could even re-export it back to Britain.

Happy Reformation Day!

As a child, I used to love the hymns of All Saints’ 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. [Correction] Thanks to the translation by F.H. Hedge, it appears in all the American and English hymnals, and so 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.

River Tiber no longer deep nor wide

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.

Hymnal free, harmony free

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.

Inclusive language

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

1. The original is unambiguously masculine.
2. The text is unambiguously masculine, but the point made could apply equally to both sexes
3. 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)
4. 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.

Who needs a hymnal?

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.

Bp. Iker on the future of Anglo-Catholicism

The last few decades have raised questions about the definition and future of Anglo-Catholic worship. On Friday, the man who effectively is the leading spokesman for American Anglo-Catholics, Bishop Jack Iker of the Diocese of Ft. Worth, gave a talk that paints a troubling portrait (at best). Bp. Iker was speaking at the Mere Anglicanism conference in Charleston, South Carolina.

Bp. Iker’s talk is posted at Virtuosity Online. He sets the stage by noting the history of the Anglican Communion:

For three centuries, the Anglican Church knew relative peace and concord through an arrangement known as the Elizabethan settlement or, as the more cynically minded might prefer to call it, the Elizabethan compromise. Dating from the time of Queen Elizabeth I, Anglicanism was marked by a common ordained ministry, common creeds, and a Book of Common Prayer that provided for a good amount of freedom in belief and practice, within those boundaries. High church and low church, anglo-catholics and evangelicals saw many things differently and worshipped in very different ways, but nonetheless they were members of the same church, a national church, under the ultimate governance of the monarch and the ultimate authority of the Holy Scriptures.

As the British empire grew and expanded around the world, so did the Church of England. As colonies were established in America, and Africa, and Asia, so were colonial churches established, each with a common spiritual and liturgical heritage. As one writer has observed, "The ingredients of colonial Anglicanism were the same everywhere: Crown, Parliament, episcopacy, Prayer Book, English law, English theology."

He then traces the history of the ad hoc and relatively weak governance mechanisms of the communion, contrasting those with alternatives (notably conciliarism) that have yet to be adopted.

The speech had three new points — all about women’s ordination — that I had not previously seen raised in the Continuing Anglican saga. First, as a then-PECUSA bishop attending Lambeth last summer, at three different times (including a plenary talk) Bp. Iker raised the issue of the declining tolerance of clergy opposed to women’s ordination, but his comments in these forums were censored from the official record of the conference. Second, while he praises Bishop Duncan and the Common Cause Partnership, he notes that the ordination of women is, in effect, the elephant in the room of the new North American province and will need to be addressed sooner rather than later.

Finally, he notes the gap between Anglican thought on the subject and the remainder of Christendom:

It must give due consideration to the reality that the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, which together comprise over 80% of the world's Christians, have already spoken on this issue [WO] and that unilateral actions on our part have already seriously damaged ecumenical relations for the future. Are we willing to submit to the mind of the whole church? Are we really committed to abiding by common consent as determined by general councils?

In my reading, Bp. Iker is saying that the future of Anglo-Catholics may not lie as a province in communion with Canterbury, but as Anglican Rite Catholics. On the one hand, this is an opportunity, to borrow and collaborate in developing sacred music with church musicians representing some 50? 70? million Catholics in the U.S. (plus millions more English-speaking Catholics in the rest of the world).

On the other hand, since Vatican II, Catholic worship in the US has drifted away from the traditional liturgy. The dominant supplier of Catholic church music in the US, Oregon Catholic Press, has the same goal of modernized worship through annual (or more frequent) release of liturgy books such as Today’s Missal.

For centuries, Protestants have borrowed hymns from each other and from Catholics as well. So the challenge may not be writing the hymns, but establishing a large enough, coherent audience for Anglo-Catholic worship that justifies compiling a new hymnal that emphasizes timeless liturgical worship, rather than trendy lyrics and music.

An end to Schism II?

Katharine Jefferts Schori and her sidekick David Beers seem to have won a knockout blow against Schism II churches with today’s unanimous ruling by the California Supreme Court against parishes seeking to keep their property after leaving the Diocese of Los Angeles.

Since the decision sends the case back to Superior Court, St. James Anglican hopes to win in trial court, but with the Appeals and Supreme courts against them, it’s definitely an uphill fight.

The California justices seemed quite uninterested in two seemingly strong arguments. First, local donors paid to build and support the churches, effectively saying “we don’t know what their intent was so we’ll ignore that fact.” Second, that the land is titled in the name of the local churches (a sleight of hand that was called out in a concurring opinion by Joyce Kennard).

The justices relied heavily upon the infamous Denis Canon (Canon I.7.4), but perhaps without considering evidence that the Canon might have never been passed into church law. As the Anglican Curmudgeon notes, they also ignored 400 years of common law that requires both parties to assent to a change in the terms of a deed.

If the California decision holds — and it will take years to say for sure — this is likely to strip real property from at least four Los Angeles and three San Diego parishes that have left since Schori was elected Presiding Bishop. It also puts the Diocese of San Joaquin into jeopardy, assuming that 815 is allowed standing (as it was here, and contrary to 1500+ years of the bishopric) to join litigation.

More importantly, the PB and her chancellor can now deter any future parishes from leaving PECUSA. (The success of Virginia parishes is unlikely to set a precedent that influences courts in other states). Instead, individuals will leave their parishes and the empty churches will be sold to raise money to support an increasingly top-heavy hierarchy.

To me, this ruling will stall the momentum of the Schism II (i.e. the Anglican Church in North America aka Common Cause) for a decade. The endowment gifts made by good loyal Christians will accrue to the benefit of the revisionists who now control PECUSA. And the CC faithful will be scrambling to find buildings to house and maintain their existing parishes rather than planting new ones.

I wonder whether this will instead strengthen the Schism I provinces and parishes, which while small and fractured, are stable and tend to own their property. Will PECUSA refugees join established parishes rather than try to build new sanctuaries?

What does this have to do with this blog? At some point, the Continuing Anglicans will need to create a new hymnal to replace Hymnal 1940 and Hymnal 1982, if for no other reason than to stop paying money to augment KJS’ retirement fund. (We may have to start with the New English Hymnal or Hymnal 1916, since copyright on these books has expired).

If the revision is controlled by Schism II, it will have the same compromises as the 1979 prayer book and Hymnal 1982, including “inclusive” language mangling of old favorites. The TEC-sponsored Hymnal 2020 could be so beyond the pale that even the Evangelicals will recoil in horror — limiting our revisionism to 1982 rather than 2020 — but that would be a small consolation.

If, however, the revision is controlled by Schism I — perhaps augmented by FiFNA defectors from PECUSA — we may have an update to the early 20th century hymnals without incorporating the Baby Boomer and feminist “modernizations” of the culture and theology.

Don’t get me wrong. I grieve for all the time, money and energy that the Schism II faithful will have to expend over the next 20 years to get back to where they were before 2003, and pray that they somehow gain a reasonable settlement (as was once proposed in Virginia) and are able to devote their energies to saving souls from modern-day heresies.

However, I would just as soon avoid importing the PECUSA liturgical controversies (between Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics) into efforts to create a New Anglican hymnal for US parishes. A more focused group of Anglo-Catholics would produce a more faithful compilation of traditional Anglican hymnody for use in the 21st century.

Next hymnal: Schism II without Schism I

Exactly a year ago, (following Peter Toon), I asked “A new US church - a decade away?” Looking at the progress of Common Cause Partners, I said “Five years seems like a best case.”

But exactly a week ago, the recent TEC and ACC defectors held a ceremony in Wheaton, Illinois to form a new Anglican province (hereafter NAP). AnglicanTV has a wide assortment of videos from the event.

While this is just a milestone en route to a full ecclesiastical authority — not to mention recognition in the broader Anglican Communion beyond the GAFCON bishops who visited Canterbury last week — it’s obvious that things are moving much more quickly than I predicted in December 2007. So if it takes a few years to become fully legal, then 2009 or 2010 (as I said in September) seems more likely.

However, this paragraph from David Virtue’s report caught my eye:

Asked about what Prayer Book would be used, [ACN Moderator Robert] Duncan said that that would be left to the various diocese and networks. There would no official Prayer Book, some will use the 1662 and others will use the 1979, he said.

This is troubling on two levels.

First, why continue to use the deeply flawed, revisionist PECUSA prayer book? As Peter Toon notes, it has so seriously broken the continuity with the original BCP that it should be called A Book of Alternative Services (1979). In fact, these alternative (Rite II) services that are exactly the services that the Evangelicals are using and why they adopted the 1979 prayer book.

Second, AMiA and Toon produced a 1662 prayer book with modern words. So if theology and words and beliefs matter, why continue to perpetuate the flawed theology of TEC née PECUSA?

But what really bothered me is what’s missing: the 1928 BCP. Yes, I know there are arguments about whether it is a faithful interpretation of 1549 or 1662, but those arguments are fewer than for the 1979 prayer book. More seriously, the earliest generation of Anglican rejectionists — who I term “Schism I” — formed around their rejection of the 1979 prayer book and its associated theology.

And back to the theme of this blog, what does this say for our next hymnal, one that does not enrich the TEC retirement fund? Alas, traditionalists are happy to continue using (and reinforcing the themes) of the TEC Hymnal 1982.

From a liturgical standpoint, I would think that the FiFNA (anti-WO) part of NAP should partner with Schism I parishes to create a traditionalist hymnal that is a worthy successor to Hymnal 1940, my favorite hymnal. If so, sign me up!

However, my fear is that NAP will make a watered-down, compromise hymnal in an attempt to maintain bureaucratic control and span the gulf that separates its Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical wings. This will bring us politically correct hymns that mangle doctrine, rather than building upon tradition and liturgy that reach out to us across the centuries.

A new US church - a decade away?

While the 1940 Hymnal is a great hymnal, at some point the various traditionalists will stop paying money to support the PECUSA pension fund and produce their own hymnal. This is an effort I'd like to help. I was wondering if that is going to happen any time soon, but (in a purely selfish sense) later would give me more time to get ready.

The most plausible basis for a new denomination is the Common Cause Partnership, a hodgepodge of current PECUSA members (AAC, ACN, FiFNA), recent defectors (AMiA, CANA), the first of the postwar defectors (APA), and the earliest of all defectors, the 19th century REC. While the APA (now merged with the REC) has a laudable record in opposition to the late Bp. James Pike, it has strained relations with the various Continuing Anglican churches formed in the wake of the 1977 Congress of St. Louis.

Even among CCP, there is considerable divergence of theology. Despite claimed adherence to formularies of the 1662 BCP, there are real questions as to whether constituent members are most devoted to 1662, 1928 or 1979 prayer books. Disagreements over ordination of women has been deferred but not forgotten.

Now Rev. Peter Toon (of the Prayer Book Society) has tried to estimate what it would take to turn this loose confederation into an Anglican province:

To create from the present fledgling Common Cause an autonomous and inter-dependent Province in North America of the Anglican Communion is a task that is enormously difficult and time-consuming. It cannot be done in less than 3 years, maybe in less than five or even ten.

Indeed, bearing in mind the entrepreneurial skills of some of the major players—especially in CANA and AMiA—and recalling the powerful centrifugal forces of American religion and culture, many rational persons would say that it is impossible, and that at best, what will occur is loose kind of federation of Anglican groups who meet irregularly to cooperate in various ways on matters of shared concerns.

Five years seems like a best case, given how far CCP has come (or not) in the three years since it was founded.

So it seems like I will have plenty of time to work on my studies, both the formal studies and independent reading on Anglican hymnody.