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.

Create in me a clean heart

During my brief period as an LCMS Lutheran, I grew to love The Lutheran Hymnal (1941). Like Hymnal 1940, the hymnal was a brilliant integration of many streams of music that served faithful Christians for decades during the postwar era, until revisionists took ahold of the liturgy and “improved” it.

One thing to admire about TLH was the simplicity of the service music: there were no alternative variants, but a standard text and tune at every point in the service. For example, morning prayer (which our parish did semi-monthly) comprised pp. 5-14 of TLH.

On pp. 12-13 was a simple 17th century tune that followed the sermon, with the text “Create in me a clean heart”:

This morning, I was reminded of that tune when a parishioner read this passage from Psalm 51:

10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
11 Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.
12 Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

(I’ve shown the KJV text available in 1941, but this morning we used the ESV).

The tune is no longer part of the LCMS liturgy with the Lutheran Service Book (2006). However, as a sop to the blue-haired faithful, it is reprinted (with the same harmonization) as Hymn #956.

TLH didn’t offer credits for service music, but LSB helpfully notes

Text: Psalm 51:10-12
Tune: Johann Georg Winer, 1583-1651, adapt.: setting, The Lutheran Hymnal, 1941
Schaffe in Mir, Gott

Our gradual used this text, but a much more contemporary setting attributed to Keith Green. I was able to find a few versions on YouTube, but the official Keith Green version seems to be more plodding and schmalzy than what our praise band did. Still, if they had asked me, I’d request the Winer version.

I want my, I want my NIV!

Technology changes society — often in unexpected ways, and sometimes not in good ways.

In 1981, the music industry was changed forever. MTV premiered on cable channels, and all of a sudden consuming music wasn’t just listening, but watching. (As Dire Straits famously proclaimed: “I want my MTV.”) Major acts ended devoting up to half their production budget for video promotions — videos for which they don’t receive a penny.

Today, people are shifting to electronic books for their tablets. When visitors come to our house for the first time, I point out the bookshelves in my office (custom-built last year) and joke that my grandchildren will ask: “Grandpa, why did you need so many shelves to store books on your iPad?” Others may use online services, such as BibleGateway.com.

This brings me to the February decision (which I only recently noticed) made by the NIV copyright owners (and its allies) to discontinue availability of the 1984 NIV and only offer the 2011 edition. While I’m more of an RSV/ESV kinda guy, we did give our eldest a pocket 1984 NIV for confirmation and expected it would get decades of use.

The copyright owner is Biblica (née the International Bible Society), the translation was developed by the Committee on Bible Translation (CBT), while the publisher Zondervan has exclusive North American rights.

The 2011 translation is controversial mainly (but not entirely) because it substituted inclusive language for male nouns and pronouns. The language is a compromise between the original 1984 NIV and the (even more aggressively gender neutral) TNIV, but it appears it’s more like the latter than the former.

I found summaries of the controversy on Diane Montgomery’s blog and Michael Marlowe’s Bible Researcher site. In June 2011, the largest US Protestant body (the Southern Baptist Convention) disapproved the new NIV for its members and (unsuccessfully) for its LifeWay bookstore chain:

WHEREAS, Many Southern Baptist pastors and laypeople have trusted and used the 1984 New International Version (NIV) translation to the great benefit of the Kingdom; and

WHEREAS, Biblica and Zondervan Publishing House are publishing an updated version of the New International Version (NIV) which incorporates gender neutral methods of translation; and

WHEREAS, Southern Baptists repeatedly have affirmed our commitment to the full inspiration and authority of Scripture (2 Timothy 3:15-16) and, in 1997, urged every Bible publisher and translation group to resist “gender-neutral” translation of Scripture; and

WHEREAS, This translation alters the meaning of hundreds of verses, most significantly by erasing gender-specific details which appear in the original language; and

WHEREAS, Although it is possible for Bible scholars to disagree about translation methods or which English words best translate the original languages, the 2011 NIV has gone beyond acceptable translation standards; and

WHEREAS, Seventy-five percent of the inaccurate gender language found in the TNIV is retained in the 2011 NIV; and

WHEREAS, The Southern Baptist Convention has passed a similar resolution concerning the TNIV in 2002; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That the messengers of the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, June 14-15, 2011 express profound disappointment with Biblica and Zondervan Publishing House for this inaccurate translation of God’s inspired Scripture; and be it further

RESOLVED, That we encourage pastors to make their congregations aware of the translation errors found in the 2011 NIV; and be it further

RESOLVED, That we respectfully request that LifeWay not make this inaccurate translation available for sale in their bookstores; and be it finally

RESOLVED, That we cannot commend the 2011 NIV to Southern Baptists or the larger Christian community.

Don’t get me wrong. We live in a free country. Publishers should be allowed to distribute and preachers and laity are entitled to use whatever worship resources they desire.

What bothers me is the discontinuation of the previous edition. In January, blogger Zania, a Christian computer scientist from New Jersey, highlighted the problem:

The NIV 1984 Bible is all but gone. I don’t know if it’s a homicide or suicide. I don’t know if I should phrase that it started falling ill in 2010 and now died at the end of 2012. I don’t know if we intentionally or unintentionally let the enemy change an integral translation that fed the souls of many for 28 years. Its traces can still be seen on biblegateway.com and in popular mobile Bible applications such as Lifechurch.tv’s Youversion. You can also snag one from Christianbook.com’s NIV 1984 Closeout sale. But it’s all but gone from giant online retailers like Amazon.com and when I visited my local brick and mortar Christian book store last week they told me that NIV’s United States publisher, Zondervan, ordered them to turn in all 1984 versions in exchange for 2011 equivalents. As one of my beloved translations of the Protestant’s Bible I will miss it.

Worse, Bible Gateway — which a year ago offered the 1984 NIV, TNIV and 2011 NIV on its website — in February was forced by Biblica to discontinue offering the two older editions:

The NIV remains the most popular English contemporary translation, with more than 450 million copies distributed since it was first published in 1978. During the transition to the most recent edition of the NIV (first published in 2010), the older 1984 edition and the TNIV were made available for more than two years on Bible Gateway to make it easy for people to compare the upgrades in the text as they transitioned to the current edition. This transition period mirrors the earlier two-year transition from the 1978 version to the 1984 version. Now that this transition period is over, the NIV’s worldwide publisher, Biblica, has requested that we remove the older 1984 and TNIV editions from Bible Gateway, and we are complying with their wishes.

Since the latest edition of the NIV was published in December 2010, over 11 million copies have been distributed and it has been adopted by thousands of churches, ministries, authors and other publishers around the globe. We understand your disappointment that the 1984 edition of the NIV is no longer available, but we hope you’ll grow to appreciate the updated NIV, as many other Bible Gateway visitors have done.

The justification by Biblica comes across as self-important at best and arrogant at worse:

It is customary for Bible publishers to focus their efforts on the most current edition of their translation, and to make available only the best, most up-to-date work of their translators. This is the case with the updated NIV, as it is for most other major Bible translations. For example, seven different editions of The Message have been published since 1993, but the only one available today is the most recent, published in 2002. The same is true for the NASB (last updated in 1995), the NLT (last updated in 2007), and the ESV (last updated in 2011).

There is only one NIV, which was commissioned by a broad coalition of evangelicals in the 1960's. The original charter of the NIV called for rigorous, ongoing attention to both the source languages of Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic, as well as the target language of English as it is spoken today. The current, updated NIV represents the best available NIV translation, and is thus the edition Biblica is committed to continue publishing and has chosen to make available on websites.

Biblica can't remove the two paper copies of the 1984 NIV from our house, and I just ordered a third. However, they can (and did) remove the Internet copies on BibleGateway.com and other websites. And since there is no vendor that offers used e-books, the e-book NIV I could have bought 8 months ago is no longer available. Biblica has also forced Bible software publishers to drop the old NIV, which from my own experience means previous customers who paid for it will be unable to access it when they buy a new machine with a new OS that doesn’t run the old software.

(This seems to be trend specific to gender-inclusive translations, although a quick visit to Amazon suggests that the NRSV has not completely extinguished the RSV. Still, TEC is happy to sell Hymnal 1940 to us bitter clingers.)

This is also ironic given the trends of the Internet towards making all versions of historic worship resources available to scholars and laity. Today, the 1549, 1552, 1559 and 1662 CoE prayer books are available online, as are the 1789, 1892 and 1928 US prayer books. But then current bible translations are treated more like commercial products — complete with planned obsolescence — than worship resources.

To me, this seems very much like the New Coke debacle. (A history lesson for millennials: after introducing New Coke in 1985, Coca-Cola first offered Coca-Cola “Classic” in parallel and then soon abandoned New Coke). However, Biblica doesn’t have the visibility of Coca-Cola and thus it’s less likely to prompt a public rebellion; many unsuspecting Christians will wander into their local bookstore and buy the “new and improved” NIV without knowing the controversy.

For the objections to the NIV to have meaning, the market share formerly held by the NIV will have to be replaced by other translations. The KJV provided a common understanding of the Bible for 300 years or so, when it was replaced by 3 or 4 20th century translations (of which the NIV was the most popular in the US). Perhaps this mark the end of the unity of the NIV (at least among American evangelicals) for some 30 years. As Trevin Wax wrote on The Gospel Coalition:

I am at a loss as to why the NIV 2011 will force the original NIV out of commission. Why not keep both in circulation? Goodness, we can still read translations like the King James which are hundreds of years old.

It’s ironic that the NIV 2011 revision is scheduled to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the King James Version, the most popular and most influential English translation of all time. Unfortunately, the launch of this new revision will have the opposite effect of the KJV. The King James Version united Bible readers around a common text. I’m afraid the NIV 2011 will speed up the growing fragmentation of evangelicals in regards to Bible translations.

Unless Biblica admits their mistake, my grandchildren won’t be reading the Bible that our eldest uses. But fortunately they will have many other fine translations to choose from.

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.

Come, ye faithful

One of my favorite hymns for the Easter season is “Come, ye faithful, raise the strain”. It’s a perennial favorite for many congregations (and denominations) — featured in 318 hymnals (according to Hymnary.org). However, it never seems to quite make the cut for Easter Sunday — but could get used for an Easter Vigil, sunrise service, or other second service on Easter day.

Since this is the last Sunday of the Easter season, it seems an appropriate time to remark on this hymn. In particular, the Issues Etc. radio show (i.e. podcast) last month ran an hour-long hymn study on the hymn with Dr. Arthur Just of Concordia Seminary in Ft. Wayne, Indiana.

In addition to being familiar and well-liked, from an objective standpoint the hymn has two things going for it. One is the theological content of the text — largely based on Exodus 15 — which was  the subject of most of Prof. Just’s interview.

The other is the source. It’s one of two familiar Eastern hymns written by St. John of Damascus (died ca. 749). The other hymn is the beloved “The Day of Resurrection”, H40: 96, H82: 210. Both were translated from the Greek by John Mason Neale, and in fact, they are two of the 14 Easter season texts in Neale’s 1862 compilation Hymns of the Eastern Church (available free at CCEL and Google Books).

The hymn is intended for Low Sunday. The Historical Edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern, the Hymnal 1940 Companion, the ELCA Hymnal Companion to the Lutheran Book of Worship and Prof. Just all recommend it for Easter 2, Doubting Thomas Sunday. In Hymns of the Eastern Church, Neale himself lists this as one of four Odes from the Canon of morning prayer by St. John of Damascus intended for “St. Thomas’s Sunday.”

There is no agreement over the tune, which has changed repeatedly over the years. In the Church of England, Hymns Ancient & Modern (#133) uses a tune called “St. John Damascene”. The English Hymnal(#131) uses Ave Virgo Virginum, from the 16th century songbook by Johannes Leisentritt. This is also the combination published in Songs of Praise (#144), and the New English Hymnal (#106) many decades later.

However, this tune is not found in United States PECUSA hymnals. The hymn was not published in the 1872 Hymnal of the Protestant Episcopal Church. However, the 1892 The Church Hymnal (#110) and Hymnal 1916 (#170) include the hymn with four verses by Neale set to the 1872 tune St. Kevin by Sir Arthur Sullivan. The (Hutchins) 1896 revision of the 1892 hymnal also lists a second tune, Rex Regum.

In the 20th century, Hymnal 1940 (#94) lists two tunes: Gaudeamus Pariter  by Johann Horn (1544) with St. Kevin as the 2nd tune. In Hymnal 1982, these became #200 and #199 respectively, although (as H82 is wont to do), for the latter tune it drops all but the melody.

The latest LCMS hymnal, Lutheran Service Book (#487) uses Gaudeamus Pariter, as did the Issues Etc. interview segment.

The text was first published as an 1859 article on “Greek Hymnology” in  the journal The Christian Remembrancer (p. 304). The same four stanzas appear in his 1862 compilation:

Come, ye faithful, raise the strain

of triumphant gladness!God hath brought his Israelinto joy from sadness:loosed from Pharoah's bitter yokeJacob's sons and daughters,led them with unmoistened footthrough the Red Sea waters.

'Tis the spring of souls today:Christ hath burst his prison,and from three days' sleep in deathas a sun, hath risen;all the winter of our sins,long and dark, is flyingfrom His Light, to whom we givelaud and praise undying.

Now the Queen of Seasons, brightwith the day of splendor,with the royal feast of feasts,comes its joy to render;comes to glad Jerusalem,who with true affectionwelcomes in unwearied strains Jesus' resurrection.

Neither might the gates of death,nor the tomb's dark portal,nor the watchers, nor the sealhold Thee as a mortal:but today amidst the twelvethou didst stand, bestowingthat thy peace which evermorepasseth human knowing.

The are the same stanzas used consistently by ECUSA hymnals since 1896. Hymns Ancient & Modern uses a slightly different version of the 4th verse (“Alleluia now we cry”). Both The English Hymnal  and the New English Hymnal include only the original four. The Lutheran Service Book has five verses — with the final verse expanded into two — but no author is credited with the new translation.