An evangelical against Christianity

I was talking with a church friend Thursday. At some point, when we were talking about culture vs. church, I mentioned how (back in 2010) I blogged about the most famous anti-Christian pop song of the late mid-20th century. We discussed how — given its anti-Christian bigotry — we couldn’t Imagine any Christian who listened to (or read) the lyrics would ever request or otherwise endorse it

After we got off the phone, I read that this same song was performed at the funeral of our 39th president, a man who had campaigned and been elected as a Southern Evangelical.

The song, of course, is “Imagine,” from the 1971 John Lennon album of the same name. It peaked at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. For those who didn’t read the earlier post, this is how John Lennon famously described his approach in a Rolling Stone interview at the time:

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

Or as freelancer Stereo Williams reflected in Billboard during the turbulent summer of 2020:

Why John Lennon’s Protest Perennial Became an Anthem For the Clueless

…It’s a song that was almost destined to turn into what it’s become today. In many ways, the track epitomizes the sanitizing of Lennon as a persona and public figure; controversial ideas couched in a likeable melody — and a more saccharine distillation of what was a very complex and contradictory oeuvre of topical music on a wide range of issues. 

This Week’s Funeral

Fast forward to this week. Like any (departed) president, James Earl Carter Jr. (1924-2024) had multiple funerals, include the most visible, his state funeral Thursday at the Washington National Cathedral, the cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. The diocesan bishop and Carter’s “personal pastor” led the prayers.

The full program is online. The hymns were

• Eternal Father, strong to save, aka the “Navy Hymn”
• Amazing Grace
• All hail the power of Jesus’ name

According to the program, the first two were performed by a choir, and the congregation was invited to sing the last hymn.

Just before the Lord’s Prayer was a song performed by Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood. The couple met in 1987 when both were married, and then toured and recorded songs together in the 1990s. She divorced in 1991, he divorced in 2001; they officially started dating in 2002 and married in 2005.

The program lists five verses of the song by Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono. The first two verses were

Imagine there’s no heaven

It’s easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us only sky 

Imagine all the people

Living for today...

Imagine there’s no countries

It isn’t hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for 

And no religion too 

Imagine all the people 

Living life in peace...

To my earlier criticism, with a courses from two seminaries and a master’s degree under my belt, I would add two thoughts about why this song would be anathema to any devout Christian.

First, the premise of the song is that human being are perfectible, and through hard work, we can make a perfect utopia in this life. There are all sorts of political science and sociological explanations why that will never happen (e.g., “power corrupts”), but as Christians we know than after the fall and in this world, there never has been and never will be more than one perfect human to ever walk the face of the earth.

Second, in Christian worship, this reveals a faulty eschatology, one that does not trust in God the Father (or Son or Holy Spirit), His divine revelation and promises as revealed to the human race. We know where and what perfection will look like — in the New Jerusalem revealed in Revelation — but don’t know when or exactly how it will come about. Instead, we are called to wait for God to deliver on His promises, in the time and manner of His plan.

Reaction

A few other people remarked on the incongruity of this choice, most notably those reported by the Christian Post. The best known of those mentioned is the famous Christian apologist, Catholic Bishop Robert Barron:

"Under the soaring vault of what I think is still a Christian church, they reverently intoned, 'Imagine there’s no heaven; it’s easy if you try' and 'imagine there’s no country; it isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too.' Vested ministers sat patiently while a hymn to atheistic humanism was sung."

"This was not only an insult to the memory of a devoutly believing Christian but also an indicator of the spinelessness of too much of established religion in our country," Barron added.

I admire Bp. Barron greatly, but presidential funerals are elaborately choreographed over years if not decades. This was no accident. This controversial song was variously reported as being one of Carter’s favorites by the Daily Mail and Fox News.

Like anyone else, President Carter had the right to pick his music — but Christian churches and pastors should draw the line. Alas, this church isn’t going to do so for an anti-Christian song, and (the reality is) probably no church (other than perhaps the decedent’s own pastor) is going to say no to a former president.

So why would Jimmy Carter do this? He was a smart man, an Annapolis grad, a former nuclear engineer. He taught Sunday school and knew his Bible, even if his Baptist beliefs moved markedly leftward after he left office.

The Nation, a famous (and historic) leftist weekly, both celebrated the choice and found earlier quotes explaining Carter’s reasons:

Carter spoke more than once about his enthusiasm for the song. He delighted in the fact that “Imagine” had become a truly international anthem. “[I]n many countries around the world—my wife and I have visited about 125 countries—you hear John Lennon’s song ‘Imagine’ used almost equally with national anthems,” the former president said in a 2006 NPR interview. “So John Lennon has had a major impact on some of the countries that are developing in the world.”

Asked by the Associated Press about his favorite Beatles song when he was attending the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival for the debut of Jonathan Demme’s documentary, Jimmy Carter Man From Plains, at the time of the premiere of Across the Universe, a film framed by the music of Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, Carter once again mentioned Lennon’s majestic solo song.

“My favorite is ‘Imagine.’ When I go to a strange country, Cuba and other places, in some of those nations, ‘Imagine’ has become [an unofficial] national anthem. If you go to Havana, for instance, you’ll see a statue of John Lennon,” he said, referencing the memorial in Havana’s Parque John Lennon. “When we go to a folk performance or a symphony concert or to modern American music, they always play ‘Imagine,’ and it’s one of my favorites just personally. If you listen to the lyrics closely, you’ll see that it’s against religion, it’s against national boundaries, it’s against nationalism, it’s against jingoism, but the impact it has on people is profound.”

There seems to be a contradiction between this view and Carter’s stated religious beliefs.

None of us know the judgement of our own souls, let alone someone else’s. But I would hope that most devout Christian clergy would reject this song in a Christian context, if for no other reason than for its potential for misleading both Christians and non Christians about our ultimate purpose and God’s promises to the world.

"My Way" as Highway to Hell?

Among the most theological of C.S. Lewis' books is The Great Divorce. Lewis uses the writer George MacDonald — who he considered “his master” — to explain how so many people end up in Hell.

The Great Divorce was the subject of one of four talks by Peter Kreeft last week at the Anglican Way Institute. Kreeft, a prolific author and Catholic philosophy professor at Boston College, noted that one passage of the book is more quoted than any other:

There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.”

Kreeft considered this an apt summary of a doctrine of free will and salvation — as (during Q&A) did Fr. Lawrence Bausch, the outgoing head of Forward in Faith North America. In the end, this is just another manifestation of Pride, the first of the Seven Deadly Sins formalized in the 6th century by Pope Gregory.

The Pastoral Dilemma of Funeral Hymns

Hearing this summary of The Great Divorce suggested a potential pastoral problem. Sure enough: when I looked up the latest funeral hymn survey by a U.K. chain of funeral homes, this is what I found:

Based on the data and insights of our Funeral Directors and Funeral Arrangers, who conduct up to 100,000 funerals a year, we can reveal that our 2019 chart winner is... ‘My Way’ by Frank Sinatra.

The Sinatra song was tops not only in the 2019 survey, but also in 2016 and 2012. (It was briefly dislodged by “Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life” in the 2014 survey).

The problem is that, as Kreeft summarized, “Every time we choose ‘my will be done’ instead of ‘thy will be done,’ we choose hell.” In case people missed his point, Kreeft termed the Sinatra favorite as “the song people sing going into hell”. (While “My Way” has been the overall leader for most of the past decade, “Highway to Hell” was #5 on the Rock chart in 2016).

It’s a little too late to convert the heart of the deceased once he/she is in a pine box. So discussing funeral hymns seems like a catechetical opportunity for pre-need planning — at least for those who still want a church ceremony.

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.

Ecumenical funeral music

Over the weekend, I went to the funeral of an old friend of my father’s. He was both younger than my dad (by 13 years) and died at an older age (81 vs. 90), so I went to represent my father’s gratitude to someone who’d been very good to him.

The title of the church didn’t make it obvious, but in the pews the hymnals were embossed “First Assembly of God” which made this the first time I’d ever attended an Assembly of God service. (The local AoG church had rented its space in the past to the ACNA, and I’ve seen AoG televangelists on TV, but never actually attended a worship service). The preaching and use of the Bible matched my expectations (and I mean that in positive way).

The hymnal (Sing His Praise,  Gospel Publishing House, 1991), was little used by those attendees (two of us pulled it out), as the church had long since converted to praise band and projection screens. The drums were at the center of the stage, behind a plexiglass shield, for the next day’s performance worship music.

There was no choir, only a pianist. Other than her prelude and postlude, the music consisted of

• “That Will be Glory,” solo by one of the pastors
• “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” instrumental trio
• “It is Well with my Soul” (#112, verses 1,3,4), sung by the congregation. It had the familiar harmony so in the refrain, I was able to do the men’s part in response to the upper (and unison) voices.
• “How Great Thou Art” (#9, verses 1,3,4), sung by the congregation but interrupted by the pastor to make a point prior to the final verse

The pianist knew what she was doing. The pastor seemed to think changes in tempo made his singing more dramatic, which worked for the solo but not when he was leading 150 voices in singing. This approach to singing the music is undoubtably a local practice that would have been familiar to the many parishioners in attendance; I found it unfamiliar if not slightly confusing. 

It made me think that if you have a service with a large number of visitors — given how rarely non-Christians attend baptisms nowadays, that would mean a wedding or funeral — it's not just the choice of hymns (including tunes and words) that will make a difference on congregational participation. It’s also the style of performance.

Finally, it reinforced my prior prejudices: if you are going to have Christians in the room who are used to singing hymns, three hymns is the minimum and four is better. Those in attendance sang with gusto, and I think would have welcomed more verses if not more hymns.

Planning a funeral

My father-in-law died suddenly a month ago, and last weekend was his memorial service. I ended up planning the service — as I had for my father back in 1995 — and learned a little more about funeral liturgy and service planning. In particular, 22 years ago I was one of the two decision makers while this time I was a consultant to my mother-in-law and her five adult children.

Both men had their services conducted by the longtime rector of Holy Trinity Anglican Parish in San Diego. While my dad’s service was held at the same site they’d had since 1921, the rector and 95% of his congregation walked away from the site ten years after losing their court case with ECUSA. Our service was held in the LCMS church they have called home since then.

Know the Decedent

I had asked my father-in-law for his hymn list in 2007, and reconfirmed in the summer of 2015. So we had four hymns that he wanted — Battle Hymn of the Republic, Faith of our Fathers, O God Our Help in Ages Past and Eternal Father.. To this, his widow added Amazing Grace. Both Faith of our Fathers and Amazing Grace were part of his sister’s 2006 memorial mass. I asked the rector to find a place in the service to sing all five hymns.

As at my father’s funeral, the multi-service version of the Navy Hymn (H40: 513) was a non-brainer for an Army vet. (WW II for my dad, Korea for my father-in-law). The only downside is that (to distinguish the two hymns), the hymnal begins “Almighty Father” rather than the more familiar “Eternal Father.”

My father-in-law had grown up in the most high church Episcopal parish in San Diego — now the cathedral — and was married at that church with an organ his parents helped fund. His boys had been in their chorister program (one overlapping with me), so we had an organist and I recruited a four-voice choir from among my friends. (It didn’t hurt that the bass is a member of the church choir, and all of the choir were Anglicans who’d worshipped at Holy Trinity).

Finally, I was told quite firmly that the service would begin on time. I guess this should not have been a surprise: my father-in-law was quite punctual, a source of tension during that phase when my wife and I were constantly late coming to family gatherings.

Know the Family

As at their aunt’s service, the children wanted a bagpiper. As at that service, we did it with Amazing Grace: in this case, the bagpiper played a stanza, and then we modulated into new key for five verses of organ, choir and congregation. (The bagpiper explained apologetically that he doesn’t get much choice of key on his instrument).

However, in preparing the order of service, I recommended that we end the service with Amazing Grace rather than begin it. If we started with the bagpipe, I feared there wouldn’t be a dry eye in the house — or at least in the family pews. It turns out those fears were misplaced. The loved ones are going to cry during the service, but that’s a normal and healthy thing, and it’s something to be encouraged (as long as they don’t happen to be doing a reading at the podium).

Know the Audience

Who will be in the congregation is more predictable if the departed is an active member of the congregation. But that was not the case.

Still, we more than 150 packed into the service, which my own pastor says is unusual for someone in his 80s. He was active in 3 clubs, and had about 20 members of his boating safety association present. From various parts of the liturgy — the creed, the responsive sentences — it was clear that many in the audience (his generation, not mine) were current or former active church members.

It appeared that not all the congregation were regular singers, and some hymns clearly were more popular than others. Both are a topic for another time.

Planning the Service

The first choice that had to be made was the liturgical rite. Holy Trinity is a longtime Anglo-Catholic parish that is switching from Rite I to the ACNA liturgy. However, all their funerals have been Rite I, so we used that. (My father in law worshipped the greatest portion of his life using the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, but Rite I from the 1979 prayer book is what he'd used most recently).

I did some comparisons of the texts later on. The 1928 and the 1979 Rite I are very different liturgies, even though the wording of some prayers are the same. Meanwhile, portions of the February 2017 ACNA liturgy are identical to Rite II, including the Apostle’s Creed and many of the prayers. (Rite I and II seem to have the same structure but different language).

We then had to decide whether to include the Mass; in the end we did not. We weren’t sure how many would take Communion: however, we had a big crowd and I think we would have had more participants than at my aunt’s service — probably a majority. Without including Communion, 3 of the 5 hymns were before/between/after the Gospel and homily.

As with most American funeral or memorial services, we used the Authorized Version of Psalm 23 (said responsively this month; sung at my father’s service). To include all five hymns, the second psalm of the 1979 prayer book was replaced with a sequence hymn. The final reading was from John 14, which begins with the “many mansions” passage and concludes with the great statement of faith: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

The family discussed who would do the three readings: OT, psalm, Epistle. As in a Sunday Rite I service, we elected to have a fourth lay reader (rather than the priest) read the intercessory prayers. Some of the likely nominees (e.g. people who did readings at our wedding) declined out of concern that they might break into tears.

For a service that primarily serves Anglican churchgoers, a simple leaflet (with pointers to the prayer book and hymnal) would have sufficed. We elected to go with a service booklet — full prayers, readings and hymn text — with nine 8.5" x 5.5" pages printed on letter paper (plus a cover and other material). Three of the hymns were in the hymnal, but I don’t know if any hymnals were opened by anyone other than the choir or me.

I found one gotcha on booklet preparation. If I had to do over again, I would have typed the hymn text straight from the hymnal (and proofread it three times) rather than copy and paste from Hymnary.org or Oremus.org. Those sites have the text from one particular hymnal, and that text is unlikely to exactly match that of H40 (or whatever the preferred hymnal is). If I were in the habit of running church services, I would make a database of the exact text of all the hymns from my hymnal, no matter how many hours that would take.

Final Thoughts

In my current lay ministry class, one of my classmates is a part-time volunteer wedding planner at our church. After this, my family joked I had a future as a funeral planner.

Planning a funeral — like a wedding or a baptism — is not something that we do often in our lives. Absent written instructions from the grave, it is also made more complex by having one (or more) family members trying to discern the decedent’s wishes so that they can be honored, while at the same time sensitive to those of the survivors.

To allow for out-of-town travel, we had four weeks to plan this memorial service, while another recent funeral (elsewhere in the family) was scheduled in nine days. From the standpoint of logistics (not bereavement), two weeks is a reasonable interval. Anything less than that requires an immediate meeting with all the relevant family members to understand their wishes (rather than waiting for the next weekend as we did). It might also require someone taking a day off of work to pull together a complete service in a day or two, rather than over a week or two. (I don’t know how much work it was to plan the reception because I merely showed up).

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I value tradition, order and doing things properly — as did my father-in-law. Even without that, it really helped to have a prayer book and rector who (with clear pastoral sensibilities) set clear limits on what was and was not acceptable. With all the planning and other activities of that day, it was tempting at times to forget the real purpose of the service, as captured by the penultimate prayer of the service:

Into thy hands, O merciful Savior, we commend thy servant B. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech thee, a sheep of thine own fold, a lamb of thine own flock, a sinner of thine own redeeming. Receive him into the arms of thy mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light. Amen.

Christian funerals in a secular society

As someone interested in Christian hymnody and liturgy, I have been taking notes as I go to weddings and (more often) funerals. Members of my parents’ generation have been dying through natural causes, while at the same time there are occasional (and tragic) funerals for family members who have died well before their time.

This Week’s Experience

Sunday I attended the funeral for my aunt (married to my mom’s brother for 60+ years). It was held at the TEC church where she was married more than 70 years ago, in the 1960s-era sanctuary where she worshipped for nearly 40 years. Unlike with my father, at age 95 my aunt has outlived her contemporaries (and her husband and sister) and so the service was about 20 family and friends from having lived in the same community for 90+ years (including some of her husband's former high school students).

The service was Rite II burial from the 1979 prayer book, with four readings (Isaiah 61:1-3; 1 John 3:1-2; John 5:24-27,6:37-40) from the RSV. There was no homily, but remembrances from the family and the rector who knew her for the last few years. The 68-year-old rector vowed his openness and inclusiveness but had the judgement to know that this was not the occasion to promote his modernized theology.

Compared to other funerals, two things stuck out. First, when we had communion only about a dozen people came up, including only five from the family. This was despite the priest’s pronouncement that anyone (not just any Christian) was welcome.

Secondly, almost no one sang the only hymn, at the recessional, despite being an Anglican favorite. In retrospect this should not have been surprising. I was the only practicing Anglican (CoE, TEC, ACNA, Continuing or otherwise) among the family that includes Catholic, nondenominational and a plurality (perhaps majority) of lapsed Christians. There were probably a few of my aunt’s parish friends singing behind us, but he organ drowned out the few of us that knew the hymn: “All things bright and beautiful" (H82: 405). I know why she would have loved it, just as my wife has listed it as a possibility for her own funeral.

However, if the funeral is for the living — not the dead — then picking something that is Anglican (but not ecumenical) for the recessional won’t (IMHO) provide the final closure for those present. That doesn’t mean that such a hymn can’t be used: as with Sunday morning, I like a three (or four) hymn service, so one of these could be placed somewhere earlier in the service (or supported by a choir).

Anglican Hymns for an Ecumenical Funeral

In the last few years, I have attended funerals at (another) cousin’s Lutheran church for her husband and later her son. The latter had two hymns from the Lutheran Book of Worship: “Amazing grace” (in H82 but not H40) and “How great thou art” (not in either one). The former hymn went well, but the latter proved difficult.

My father loved church music all his life and became increasingly devout at the end of his life. At his 1995 funeral, we had three pieces of music:

• “Jerusalem, my happy home” (H40: 535, Tune: Land of Rest)
• Psalm 23 (tune by Malotte) sung by a soloist
• “Eternal father, strong to save” aka the Navy hymn (H40: 513, Tune: Melita)

As a WW II Army veteran, we used the multi-service version (H40: 513) rather than the Navy original (H40: 512)l As a civilian, my service would drop the Navy hymn. I would prefer the Rutter Psalm 23 but (as in my father’s case) few churches have a soloist or choir who could perform it on short notice. That still leaves one or two hymns to be added.

My dad’s service — at his then-ECUSA (now ACNA) parish — brought family, some Christian friends, and many of his church friends. (He was 81, but his friends were a decade younger). Most of the congregation knew the hymns.

After my dad died, I talked with my wife and her parents. We came up with these hymns:

• “Eternal father” (H40:513) for my father-in-law, who was a Korean War Army vet
• “Faith of our Fathers” (H40: 393; H82: 558)
• “Mine eyes have seen the glory” (tune: John Brown’s Body, aka Battle Hymn of the Republic) — something all three of them wanted
• “O God our help in ages past” (H40: 289)
• “Onward Christian soliders” (H40: 557; H82: 562)

Meanwhile, my mother-in-law wants “On eagle’s wings” which clearly requires a soloist.

To this list, my wife added three Anglican favorites

• “For all the saints” (H40: 126.1; H82: 287)
• “All things bright and beautiful” (H40: 311; H82: 405)
• “I sing a song of the saints of God” (H40: 243; H82: 293)

The former is our favorite hymn for November 1, while the latter two were sung at our daughter’s baptism (along with “All hail the power of Jesus’ name”, H40: 355). Now I can see these hymns would be a problem unless there’s a large Anglican turnout.

To this I would add

• “Amazing Grace” (H82: 671), although this is a nonstandard 4-part harmonization
• “Rock of ages” (H40: 471.2; H82: 685)
• “How lovely is thy dwelling place” — an English version of the tune from Brahms’ German Requiem, that was used at the Ford and Thatcher funerals (although it clearly would require a soloist)

Finally, there is the question of where they go in the service. For the processional, I’d love to keep “Jerusalem, my happy home” but this 19th century American spiritual is not all that familiar. “For all the saints” is a great choice but (thanks to Vaughn Williams) even more Anglican. “O God our help in ages past" might be more ecumenical.

There is also the question of the recessional and dismissal. My dad’s funeral used “Faith of our fathers” which might work for my father in law. However, I would say that the two martial hymns (“Onward Christian soldiers”, “Mine eyes have seen the glory”) would work well, as would “I sing a song of the saints of God” with a very Anglican audience.

Funeral for a Catholic traditionalist

Like many American Christians, I was surprised and shocked by the Feb. 13 announcement of the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. We were traveling during the funeral, and so caught the rebroadcast on C-SPAN after we got home.

Some 3,000 attended the service at America’s largest Catholic church, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. In the funeral homily, the celebrant — his son Rev. Paul Scalia — described his father’s faith:

God blessed Dad with a deep Catholic faith: The conviction that Christ's presence and power continue in the world today through His body, the Church. He loved the clarity and coherence of the church's teachings. He treasured the church's ceremonies, especially the beauty of her ancient worship. He trusted the power of her sacraments as the means of salvation as Christ working within him for his salvation.

The homily included a mixture of theology and eulogy, consistent with a letter by Justice Scalia, as quoted by his son:

Even when the deceased was an admirable person, indeed, especially when the deceased was an admirable person, praise for his virtues can cause us to forget that we are praying for, and giving thanks for, God’s inexplicable mercy to a sinner.

According to Donald Cardinal Wuerl, the services were in keeping with the wishes of his widow and his family.  The program was posted at several locations, including the Corpus Christi Watershed blog. The readings were Wisdom 3:1-9, Psalm 23, Romans 5:5-11, and Matthew 11: 25-30 with the texts (not surprisingly) taken from the New American Standard.

Not all the music was listed in the program. According to one of the Catholic musicians at the Church Music Association of America, the musical pieces were:

• Hymn "O God Our Help in Ages Past"
• Collect is sung by Father Scalia
• Psalm 23:1-6: sung by the National Shrine choir
• Verse: sung by the National Shrine choir
• Offertory motet: Beati quorum via (Stanford)
• Preface dialogue: chanted
• Sanctus: XVIII (chanted, with organ)
• Memorial Acclamation: When... (chanted, with organ)
• Amen (chanted, with organ)
• Our Father (chanted sonorously by all present)
• Peace Dialogue (chanted)
• Agnus Dei - Victoria, Missa Quarti Toni National Shrine choir
• A treble schola chants the Communion verse "Lux Aeterna" according to the Graduale Romanum
• Communion Hymn: Jesus, My Lord, My God, My All (Faber)
• Communion motets: Franck's Panis Angelicus, Mozart's Ave Verum
• Post-communion dialogue: chanted
• In Paradisum: English, sung by the National Shrine choir
• Recessional: O God Beyond All Praising (Holst)

I must say that I only recognized the processional hymn, the first communion motet and the Holst tune for the recessional (but not its 1982 text). However, the chant for the Lord’s Prayer seemed to share a common origin with the “very ancient” Anglican chant for this prayer (H40: 722).

Communion was administered in one kind. The bulletin quoted a 1996 USCCB policy that discouraged non-Catholics from coming to communion — except for a few specific denominations (including Orthodox Christians) who were allowed but “urged to respect the discipline of their own Churches.”

Scalia was (not surprisingly) a liturgical traditionalist, with a preference for the Latin mass. However, the plainchant in the first part of the service (what we Anglicans call the liturgy of the word) seem to be taken from the modernized 21st century American Catholic liturgy — with the introit and other chants typical of a modern American RCC parish.

I was not the only one struck with the modernity of the service. Catholic organist and blogger Jeff Ostrowski wrote:

It’s difficult to understand why the Mass was Ordinary Form since Justice Scalia was known to attend the Extraordinary Form exclusively. Moreover, while the musical selections were (generally speaking) fine, they were nothing compared to Requiem settings by Victoria, Guerrero, Morales, and so forth. Perhaps the problem is me. I just find the traditional Requiem so powerful & consoling, anything else can’t help but fall short.

While many of us liturgists and church musicians have our preferences for our personal church services, it’s important to put it in perspective: there’s nothing in the choice of the form that would make one iota of difference in the disposition of our eternal soul. If the service was consistent with the family’s wishes — perhaps to make it more approachable to the nation’s 70 million Catholics — then their liturgical choices must be respected and honored.

Antonin Gregory Scalia (1936-2016): Requiescat in pace.

The Lord has promised good to me

Instead of going to work today, I went to a funeral. It was held at a Lutheran church — formerly ELCA, now LCMC. (For Anglicans, LCMC is a group of about 80 continuing Lutheran churches that would have joined LCMS except they want to ordain women.)

Although the Lutheran Book of Worship was in the pews, the order of service was printed in the bulletin:

• Greeting
• Amazing Grace (LBW #448): 3 verses
• Prayers
• Recollections of family and friends
• Scripture: Psalm 23, Revelation 21:1-6, John 14:1-6
• Homily
• Prayer
• The Lord’s Prayer
• How Great Thou Art (LBW #532): 2 verses

Initially, what I was curious about was the challenge of mounting an ecumenical funeral (memorial) service. I'm guessing less than 20% of the congregation were regular parishioners, and the overwhelming majority was under 30. Because the Lord’s Prayer was the King James version,  half the congregation (perhaps more) knew it well enough to recite it in unison.

Amazing Grace went well enough, although I was surprised how few people were singing. (It may be because many don’t normally sing.) We ended with the greatest hit of Carl Boberg (1859-1940), based loosely on his 1885 Swedish poem “O Store Gud” and a Swedish folk tune. The pianist played the tricky rhythm faithfully, but the congregation had trouble singing it without the music (or at least I did).

In the middle were the familiar passages of mourning and the promises of the New Covenant. Everyone knows Psalm 23, but I didn’t realize what was in Revelation 21:4:

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. [ESV]

And then for the first time, I heard John 14:2 in the context of John 14:6:

2 “In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
4 And you know the way to where I am going.”
5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

The pastor had an unenviable job, perhaps one of his hardest tasks of the year: explain the death of a 23-year-old man to his parents, his older brother, and a room full of (largely unbelieving) twenty-somethings. This means overcoming the classic “why does a loving God let good things happen to bad people” objection, only more so.

The pastor, the man’s mother and his friends recalled a sensitive, caring and troubled young man. The homily was based on John 10:10

[Jesus said to them] “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

The beginning of the passage seems to fit the man’s (ultimately unsuccessful) fight with his personal demons; the end, the pastor said, reminds us of the promise of eternal life made by Jesus himself.

Or, as the traditional Requiem prayer from the Latin mass

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat eis.

is translated by the Rite I burial service in the 1979 ECUSA prayer book:

Rest eternal grant to him, O Lord:
And let light perpetual shine upon him.

A funeral for a Baroness

Wednesday was the funeral for Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013), Britain’s second greatest prime minister of the 20th Century (after Churchill), who in her three consecutive terms transformed the British economy and society.

The service for Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven was held at St. Paul’s Cathedral, which lacks the official history of Westminster Abbey but makes up for it with architectural grandeur and scope (having been for centuries Britain’s tallest building). I couldn’t watch live, but it was covered by her old ally the Telegraph and her nemesis the Guardian (among others).

Since her death, I’ve been reading a wonderful biography by American Claire Berlinski, entitled There is No Alternative: Why Margaret Thatcher Matters. It credits her Methodist upbringing (and the influence of her father) for her great political success.

I don’t know much about English Methodists — other than the Wesley family and their hymns — but the order of service posted at the Telegraph and the St. Paul’s website seems very Church of England to me. The words to the hymns were very familiar to my ECUSA-raised upbringing (although the tunes were not).

The headline on the Telegraph service commentary termed it “a miraculous pairing of words and music.” As Christopher Howse wrote:

From the moment her coffin was met at St Clement Danes with the words, “We who are baptised in the death of Christ,” the topic was something universal: death. This was not divisive but, in the words of the Bishop of London, “the common destiny of all human beings”. It was, yesterday, as if the millions watching were following a stage tragedy. The difference was that this was a true story, and the tragic flaw of the heroine was not a moral failing but mortality itself.

The Church of England service emphasised two things: the reality of death, with no demurring, and the hope of resurrection. “The days of man are but grass,” read Prebendary Rose Hudson-Wilkin. “For as soon as the wind goeth over it, it is gone.” Left at that, it would be no more than Hadrian’s sad farewell to the soul: “Animula, vagula, blandula.” But it was not left at that. From deep, dim waters it strove upwards towards the light.

“Let not your heart be troubled,” the Prime Minister read from the Gospel of St John. “I go to prepare a place for you.” Those were words of Jesus, and, in the passage read, Thomas usefully responded, “Lord, we know not whither thou goest.” Nothing could rub in more sorely that we cannot see beyond the dark and narrow gates of death.

The text was from the Authorized Version (King James for us Yankees), including the Lord’s Prayer and a reading by her granddaughter of Ephesians 6: 10-18.

The opening sentences sung by the choir include these three (or at least two) very familiar passages, to a setting by William Croft:

I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.
John 11. 25, 26

I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another.
Job 19. 25-27

We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord.
1 Timothy 6. 7 and Job 1. 21

Other music included “How lovely is thy dwelling place,” an adaptation of Psalm 84 that’s one of my favorite songs from Brahms’s German Requiem.

The first congregation hymn was “He who would valiant be,” adapted by Dearmer and Vaughan Williams for The English Hymnal from text by John Bunyan (the great Puritan author) and an English folk tune. From The Cyberhymnal description, it seems an odd hymn to put in a CoE hymnal:

Words: John Bun­yan, Pil­grim’s Prog­ress, 1684; mo­di­fied by Per­cy Dear­mer in The Eng­lish Hym­nal (Lon­don: Ox­ford Un­i­ver­si­ty Press, 1906). Bun­yan wrote these words dur­ing his 12-year pri­son sent­ence for re­fus­ing to con­form to the of­fi­cial state church.

The “official state church” in this case was the 150-year-old CoE, which was too Anglo-Catholic for the Puritans and many others of the severe (or seriously) reformed faith. So this hymn in a 20th century Anglican hymnal celebrates defiance of the 17th century Anglican church.

Lady Thatcher’s funeral used the TEH version (#402) with the tune to Monks Gate, while H40 (#563) lists St. Dunstan’s and H82 (in a rare improvement) includes both tunes (#565 and #564 respectively), albeit without harmony for the former.

In a similar vein, the final congregation hymn was “Love Divine” by Charles Wesley. Raised on H40, the version to Hyfrydol (H40: #479) had very strong resonance with me, even before Mrs. Nine and I sang it at our wedding.

However, apparently that’s not the tune used by the CoE. TEH (#437) lists Moriah, while Songs of Praise, Enlarged Edition (#573) has the Welsh Moriah and the English Exile. Among CoE hymnals, only in the New English Hymnal (#408) do we see Blaenwern, the 1905 tune by William Rowlands used at Lady Thatcher’s funeral.

Other than the 1905 date, I haven’t found much about Blaenwern, perhaps because I only have a limited collection of books on English hymns. Ian Bradley lists five tunes, including three no longer used: the Purcell tune Westminster that Wesley favored, Love Divine by John Stainer (in the 1889 Hymns A&M and NEH), and Airedale by Charles Stanford. Bradley continues

Nowadays the hymn is generally sung to one of two equally majestic Welsh tunes: Hyfrydol by Rowland Huw Pritchard (1811-57), a loomtender’s assistant in the Weslh Flannel Manufacturing Company’s mills at Holywell; and Balenwern by William Penfro Rowlands (1860-1937).

One last note on Blaenwern: it’s the tune used with these lyrics at the wedding of the Queen’s grandson to Kate Middleton held two years earlier — and two miles away — at Westminster Abbey.

The service concluded with the Nunc Dimittis (in English) from Stanford’s Evening Service in G. Again, the words are very familiar but the tune is not; H40 has seven settings of the Nunc Dimittis, but none match the Stanford setting. By the end of the service, I would have would have heard many familiar texts, but (except for Brahms) not to the expected melodies.

Interestingly, the only overlap between Lady Thatcher’s service and the 2007 service for (Episcopalian) Gerald Ford is the Brahams — “How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place” (in English) from the German Requiem.

I won’t be having a state funeral, but perhaps my friends and family will host one at my local parish church many decades hence. I feel I can’t go wrong with these examples: the Brahms and “Love divine” would top my requests for my own funeral (assuming our local choir can handle it). My third request would be “The Lord is my Shepherd” (Psalm 23) from Rutter’s Requiem; we did the psalm for my dad’s funeral, but the choir at his church wasn’t up for the Rutter setting on such short notice. In general, I’m not a big Rutter fan, but this piece is the most haunting setting I’ve ever heard of this text.

Water from a stone

And the LORD said to Moses ... “Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” Exodus 17:6 [ESV]

When I was a kid, the phrase “you can’t get water from a stone” was the definition of impossibility. (Today, “blood from a turnip” seems more common). The metaphor was obviously informed by if not drawn from the story of Moses leading the Israelites in the desert, and finding water at Meribah.

This is the reference to water that was quoted by Augustus Toplady in his famous hymn:

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From thy wounded side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure;
Save from wrath and make me pure.

The linkage was explained to me in a wonderful article by Christopher Howse in Saturday’s Daily Telegraph (via Titus OneNine). Howse (or his editors) titled the article “Rock of Ages and the rebel pilgrims.” Howse explains how this hymn appears across a wide range of Christian hymnals:

Toplady was a thoroughgoing Calvinist. In an article for the Gospel Magazine he calculated that the number of sins committed during the average lifetime amounted to 2,522,880,000. Later stanzas of the hymn make it clear that neither the work of his hands nor his tears, even if they flowed for ever, could atone for sin - and with this opinion, his great doctrinal opponent John Wesley would have agreed, as far as it went, as would any Christian, from St Augustine to the Pope of Rome.

... what Toplady was referring to, as any of his Bible-reading congregation would have known, was the striking of the rock by Moses in the desert, when the people were grumbling that they were thirsty, "and the water came out abundantly".

More importantly, for Toplady's verses, the water flowing from the rock was a type or foreshadowing of the water that flowed, together with blood, from the side of Christ when he was pierced by a spear as he hung on the cross.

This is the hymn that Dr. John Julian (in Vol. 2 of his 1898 Dictionary of Hymnology) praised by saying

No other English hymn can be named which has laid so broad and firm a grasp upon the English-speaking world

The song has enduring popularity — even to the modern generation of praise music — having been recorded by (among others) soul singer Al Green, ex-gospel singer Amy Grant in a duet with husband Vince Gill, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

However, over the past centuries there have been considerable variations in the treatment of the words and music, even for the famous first stanza. The version listed above is #150 from the 1870 Hymns and Ancient and Modern, the oldest source I have, but still almost a hundred years after Toplady published his poem at the end of a March 1776 article in The Gospel Magazine, of which he was the editor — the same article that Howse references.

Since Toplady was an English Calvinist, perhaps a more relevant version would be #406 of 1900 The Church Hymnary, created by the Church of Scotland and other Presbyterian churches of the British Isles. It turns out that these words exactly match The English Hymnal (#477), the 1906 hymnal fondly remembered by two generations of English worshipers (and Prof. Osborne’s blog). This is also the version quoted by Howse.

In 1940, the editors of my favorite hymnal chose these words for hymn #471:

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy side, a healing flood,
Be of sin the double cure;
Cleanse me from its guilt and power.

which adopts the same closing phrase as TEH, but tries to make a better rhyme with “blood”. (In one of its rare redeeming choices, Hymnal 1982 restores the TEH wording.)

Across these same four editions — two English, one Scottish, one American — the last stanza has many small variations, but the meaning seems more similar (”mine eyelids close in death” vs. “mine eyes are closed in death.”)

Its lasting popularity has meant it has been set to at least six different hymn tunes:

• Petra aka Gethesemane aka Redhead No. 76 (1853). By Richard Redhead, the only tune listed in all four hymnals and apparently the most popular in British Isles.
• Toplady (1830). Listed as the final choice in the 1900 Scottish and 1940 Episcopal hymnals — and the only choice in Hymnal 1982 — this tune by the American Thomas Hastings is the one familiar to all of us on this side of the pond.
• Pascal (c. 1780) From the Katholisches Gesangbuch of Vienna, it’s listed as the 2nd tune in the companion to the 1927 (Presbyterian) The Church Hymnary.
• Pressburg (1714) The tune attributed to Freylinghausen is listed as the alternate tune in TEH.
• Rousseau’s Dream. After Petra and Toplady, the third tune mentioned by Dr. Ian Bradley in his wonderful Book of Hymns — apparently the tune popular during an 1875 British revival movement. As best I can tell, the same tune known as Greenville (1752) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
• Cuyler (1907) by John H. Brewer, listed as the third choice in the CyberHymnal. and apparently popular in its home parish in Brooklyn for nearly a century.

Some might consider the hymn too popular — to the point of being cliché. I recall a funeral (perhaps my uncle’s) where it was rejected for this reason. However, the CyberHymnal says it was sung at Gladstone’s funeral, while Julian says it gave great comfort to a dying Prince Albert (Victoria’s consort).

That’s good enough for me: I have it listed as the sequence hymn for my funeral (hopefully not any time soon). That’s where it was sung at the 2006 funeral of my wife’s aunt. My mom also wants it played at her funeral — one of the few cases where we agree about something involving Anglican worship.

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.