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Letters

Ethereal Outlook

Methinks the theologians do protest too loudly (CT Institute, “Heaven and Hell,” May 27). Their certainty about heaven and hell seems plausible only when one assumes, as does Blamires, that “the supreme joy of heaven is the vision of God himself.” This ethereal outlook neglects to take into account the true glory of God, which has to be his people. For me, the wonder of heaven is that we will be taught the art of living in love with all of God’s children. Now that will be heavenly!

Aline Talsma

Kalamazoo, Mich.

Leon Morris [“The Dreadful Harvest”] dismisses without discussion the most reasonable view of the fate of the wicked. The vast majority of references speak of annihilation as the eternal punishment—death, second death, destroy, perish, corruption, etc. A few poetic passages would indicate otherwise, if doctrine should be established by figures of speech. The heresy that God tortures forever those who didn’t know any better is a stumbling block to believers and unbelievers alike.

Howard M. Mesick

Hardy, Del.

The articles were biblically anchored and beautifully written, except for one serious flaw in Leon Morris’s comments on the problem of those who have never heard the gospel, implying that some will possibly be saved apart from hearing the gospel. The example he uses seems to indicate the opposite of what he is trying to say. When God illumined the heart of Cornelius, he sent for Peter. To imply that election works to save apart from the gospel makes the Great Commission meaningless. The grace of election rides on the rails of the gospel and is the magnet by which God chooses some out of the mass of fallen humanity and “draws” them to his Son.

Jack McDaniel

Plainwell, Mich.

I remember as a small boy a minister who began his sermon with a rhetorical, “Where … is … heaven?” To everyone’s surprise, a sweet voice in the congregation volunteered, “Wherever Jesus is.” That memory has served to erase all of my questions about whether heaven is interesting or exciting, whether it is indeed a blessed hope.

Vernon M. Lewis, Ph.D.

Austin, Minn.

No harsh review

Those who have never dealt personally with Norman Geisler may have felt the review of his The Battle for the Resurrection [“Evangelical Fratricide, “Books, May 27] was harsh. Those of us who have dealt personally with Geisler know it was dead-on.

As a former publisher of his, I once erred in an argument with Geisler over finances. I mistakenly identified a fee we paid him as an advance against royalties. When it was pointed out to me, I wrote him, “I concede the error.…” That was wholly unacceptable to Geisler. He wrote back demanding that I use the words, “I was wrong.”

As this was just one in a long series of such missives, I gladly wrote back, “Not only will I admit that I was wrong in this instance, but I will also admit that I was wrong to publish you in the first place and wrong to think about publishing you again.” And I haven’t.

Name withheld by request

John Stackhouse, Jr.’s review is right on the money! It seems as though Geisler jumps from one issue to another in his agenda for doctrinal purity. The problem with this infighting is that it continues to promote a theological ghettoization where each group is battling for its own turf or for all the turf. Doctrinal purity is something we should strive for; but what has Harris published that is so unorthodox?

This recent “battle for the resurrection” is further proof that the new evangelical scholarly agenda that began in the 1940s has never gotten beyond the polemical in-house issues of their fundamentalist predecessors. What a shame!

David L. Russell

Farmington Hills, Mich.

Thank you for focusing on the battle for the Resurrection. Let us hope now that the broader evangelical public will read the relevant books and search the Scriptures on this crucial doctrinal issue. The church can ill afford to allow further doctrinal erosion on another fundamental of the faith.

Norman L. Geisler

Liberty University Lynchburg, Va.

More “sword” than “shalom”

With regard to Charles Colson’s “Peaceniks and Prophecy Mongers” [May 27], peace marches and placards and “Give Peace a Chance” slogans appear wimpy, but they just might be a Christian way of calling a broken, sinful world to debate and arbitrate. War is clearly the world’s way of resolving conflict. It is not only the result of sinful, broken humankind; war itself is sin.

Charles Colson is a persuasive and brilliant writer, but I see more “sword” than “shalom” in his writing.

Harvey Petersen

Bellingham, Wash.

What the doctor ordered

Lyn Cryderman’s editorial [“Weeping Over Baghdad,” Apr. 29] was right on. It was all that I had hoped for—and more; historic, and written with the clarity of a New York Times editorial. In spite of the letters that will come, please hold your ground. Your courage in bringing up the Israel status as a factor in this dilemma was just what the doctor ordered.

Gunnar Hoglund

Mountain View, Calif.

I am still in shock over the editorial on Israelis and Palestinians. Thankfully, the views of CT do not represent the views of Christianity today. Become conveniently critical of Israel, Cryderman suggests, and Arabs will soften to the gospel. How simple!

Christians who are supportive of Israel, despite the anti-Israel propaganda, lies, and prejudice that often even stem from Christian sources, are such precisely because of the demands of a just God who is “pulling the big strings of history.” And, yes, that has political consequences. Moreover, even the most supportive of American Christians are, in fact, regularly critical of Israel when warranted, and continue to wield substantial influence.

Please, brothers, you can’t be both Machiavellian and Christian. Take your pick.

Karin E. Andersen

Encino, Calif.

Cryderman’s thoughts express the problem better than I imagined anyone could. We have a gospel that must also go to the Arab world, and we must show them we serve a God of justice to all mankind: His justice must appear as sound to the Arab Gentile as it does to the Jew and Christian.

Dick White

Alva, Okla.

I’m for Arab evangelism, but Jesus’ focus was “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 10:16). The gospel is “to the Jew first” (Rom. 1:16).

Jan Markell

Maple Grove, Minn.

Lovelock’s Gaia theory

I read with interest the article on neopaganism, “Drawing Down the Moon,” by Dave Bass [April 29]. As a writer and researcher for the Spiritual Counterfeits Project, I have witnessed firsthand the rapidly growing influence of pagan religions and goddess worship, particularly in the form of Gaia worship. However, Bass’s reference to Lovelock’s Gaia Hypothesis as “strictly materialist” is not quite accurate. Lovelock’s Gaia theory is steeped in mystical and spiritual concepts and ideas.

Stuart Chevre

Berkeley, Calif.

Like oil and water

The article “We Believe” by Andrew Walker in the April 29 issue presents an important topic—unity among “God’s family.” However, Walker’s highly simplistic solution has totally missed the foundation upon which unity must be anchored. He includes among “God’s family,” to name three, Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and evangelicalism. These three go together like oil and water! According to Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, one becomes a member of God’s family by faith and works. Evangelicalism believes that one becomes a member of God’s family by God’s grace through faith alone and that works are the evidence and the natural result of God’s transforming grace in a person’s life. How can Walker include Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy in God’s family when their belief system contradicts the sure apostolic record?

Stephen J. Celich, Jr.

Wexford, Pa.

After the Gulf War it occurred to me that the church—like the Iraqi army—routinely shoots its own troops, then eagerly surrenders to the enemy. Walker’s article highlights this fact, and seems also to say that heresy consists of a violence committed against the “core of Christian orthodoxy.”

A fellow traveler on that “great viaduct,” who deviates from my views on relatively peripheral concerns such as eschatology, ecclesiology, politics, or even (heaven help us) women’s roles, is not a “heretic,” not my enemy, and therefore not someone I ought to shoot.

Rebecca Groothuis

Eugene, Oreg.

Destroying America’s soul

Philip Yancey’s searching and thoughtful column “How We Became the ‘Great Satan’ ” [April 29] reminded me of the conversation between Malcolm Muggeridge and Graham Greene. As he told it, “Graham Greene talked a lot about how Russian domination would be less terrible than American. [Muggeridge] mentioned the church, and he said Russians only destroy its body, whereas Americans destroy its soul.” As George MacDonald wrote, “A beast does not know that he is a beast, and the nearer a man gets to being a beast the less he knows of it.”

Ian S. Munday

Victoria, B.C., Canada

LAPD brutality

I take strong exception to certain comments by Los Angeles assistant police chief Robert Vernon [News, April 29]. He plants his feet on a blind submission to government, then makes his exception: when the government orders a direction opposed to what God specifically has told us to do. He is in the right direction here, but fails to understand Calvin and Augustine along this path—or, in fact, Paul. My objection to his reasoning begins when he excuses the brutal treatment of Operation Rescue activists by the L.A. police—which produced no national outcry—for their crime of violating some law of, I assume, trespass, then lying about their names.

It was with such reasoning that Germans produced Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in the 1930s.

Vernon is troubled about the beating of the hapless black beaten by his police. I hope he will examine himself with regard to the brutality encouraged by his police on the people who obeyed the Lord by trying to save innocent life. Or is that not specifically commanded by the Lord?

C. R. Stegall

Jacksonville, Fla.

Vernon misrepresented Operation Rescue. First, rescuers do not resist arrest. They become passively limp. Second, rescuers do not “lie” by occasionally identifying themselves as “Baby Doe.” Authorities usually understand this gesture as part of the rescuers’ identification with nameless slaughtered children. Furthermore, the amount of force employed by L.A. police to remove passive protestors far exceeds the amount necessary.

It is heartbreaking that evangelical prolifers like Vernon and his pastor take a public stand against their brothers and sisters in the rescue movement. The least they can do is get their facts right.

Pastor Ken Langley

Island Baptist Church

Beach Haven, N.J.

Why didn’t Vernon go to the Word of God first, instead of to his church elders? Vernon evidently forgot his belief that when laws are wrong, “we ought to obey God rather than men.”

Mrs. Edith Manchester

Santa Cruz, Calif.

The call came about the time we were sitting down to supper, when most telemarketers stalk their prey. “Knowing your interest in religious matters, Mr. Cuss,” said the pleasant voice on the other end, “we knew you would want to know about our new service, the Personal Church Shopper.”

You’ve heard of a “personal shopper,” the latest convenience for harried yuppies: someone to do your shopping so you don’t have to waste your own time standing in lines or listening to rude salespeople.

“Just think, Mr. Cuss, no more traipsing from church to church to find the right congregation for you. No more grappling with tough theological questions raised by your pastor. The personal church shopper will find a perfect fit: a church where your views mesh exactly with everyone else’s.

“Here’s how it works. Our representative in your area, Toni Nouveau, will meet with you to assess your theological moorings, along with temperament, lifestyle, and the car you drive. Then she will provide you with a handy, personalized colorwheel guide to the churches in your area, detailing the differences between, say, true-blue Southern Baptists and shades-of-gray American Baptists.

“For a nominal extra fee, Ms. Nouveau will tidy up those threadbare notions that are still hanging in your personal-beliefs closet. Still clinging to that dusty old dispensationalism? That bell-bottomed social gospel? Ms. Nouveau will coach you on how to use the word dysfunctional correctly and outfit you with the Bible on computer.”

I must confess, I was almost ready to set an appointment. (My caller told me if I changed my mind I could dial back later—1–800-FIND GOD.) But I decided to stick with my old wardrobe for now. It’s the one Paul tailored for the Colossians, when he advised them to “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.”

EUTYCHUS

The New Therapeutic Invasion

Every few years, psychologists come up with a new way to solve everyone’s problems, and Christians find a way to turn the latest psychotherapeutic trend into a ministry. Client-centered therapy, Transactional Analysis, and Freud had their day.

Those systems brought some insights, but none lived up to the promises their advocates made. Now the church is faced with the “recovery movement” and its various “12-Step” or “Anonymous” programs. In one key aspect, the recovery movement is unlike the earlier therapeutic invasions of the church. It is lay-oriented, a free-market triumph that has ridden into the church, not on a sedan chair of professional promises, but on the shoulders of many satisfied “customers,” who share stories of deliverance from alcohol, drugs, eating disorders, and sexual compulsions.

The recovery movement has its critics. Given its history, that is to be expected. In our cover story (see p. 14), Tim Stafford recounts how the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous developed from Christian sources, and how they were secularized to appeal to a broad spectrum of problem drinkers. The Christian group that provided A.A. with its insights was also questionable. For example, that group gave new converts William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience—a book that, Tim says, “guts the content of religion, emphasizing that helpful, life-changing religious experiences come in all sorts of packages.” The group thought James’s book scientifically validated religion. But its pragmatism and subjective approach laid the foundation for the utter secularization of their gospel principles.

As the 12 Steps come back into the church, they are recovering their gospel context. The prodigal has returned. Let the fatted calf beware.

DAVID NEFF, Managing Editor

History

The Golden Age of Hymns: A Gallery of the Hymn Writers’ Hall of Fame

Vinita Hampton Wright

The poets who put words in our mouths.

Christian History July 1, 1991

Isaac Watts (1674–1748)

The homely scholar who moved congregational singing into a new era

Ye monsters of the bubbling deep
Your Master’s praises spout;
Up from the sands ye docclings peep,
and wag your tails about.

Such was the state of psalm singing in churches when Isaac Watts was young. He complained about the quality of the songs, and his father challenged him to write something better. The following week Isaac—about age 20—presented his first hymn to the church and received an enthusiastic response. The career of the “Father of English Hymnody” had begun.  At Isaac’s birth in 1674, his father was in prison for his Nonconformist sympathies (that is, he would not embrace the established Church of England). Young Isaac showed genius, studying Latin, French, Greek, and Hebrew by age 13. Several wealthy townspeople offered to pay for his university education, which would, however, lead him into Anglican ministry. Isaac refused and at 16 went to London to study at a leading Nonconformist academy. Upon graduation, he spent six years as a private tutor. In 1702 he became pastor of an influential Independent church in London, which he served for the rest of his life.  Described as slight, pale, and somewhat homely, Watts suffered rejection from a Miss Elizabeth Singer. One source says that “though she loved the jewel, she could not admire the casket [case] which contained it.” Serious illness in 1712 brought Watts to the home of Sir Thomas Abney, and there he remained for life, tutoring the children and pastoring his nearby church when he was physically able. Poor health caused him to abandon the ministry for about four years, but he pastored for fifty and was admired as a teacher.  In 1707 Watts published a collection of 210 hymns, entitled Hymns and Spiritual Songs, one of the first English hymnals. Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament came in 1719. Watts considered that the psalms “ought to be translated in such a manner as we have reason to believe David would have composed them if he had lived in our day.”  He thus composed freer translations that emphasized the gospel. “Joy to the World,” “O God, Our Help in Ages Past,” “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” and “I Sing the Almighty Power of God” are just a few of his 600 hymns. Watts wrote “Jesus Shall Reign,” the first “missionary” hymn, decades before the modern missionary movement. He actually moved church singing into a new era.  Watts was a scholar of wide reputation. He wrote nearly thirty theological treatises; essays on psychology, astronomy, and philosophy; three volumes of sermons; the first children’s hymnal; and a textbook on logic that was used at Harvard, Yale, Oxford, and Cambridge. For his work, the University of Aberdeen conferred the Doctor of Divinity degree upon him.  After battling illness for his last thirty years, Watts died in 1748. A monument was erected in Westminster Abbey. Samuel Johnson observed: “Few men have left behind such purity of character or such monuments of laborious piety.”

John Newton (1725–1807)

A “wretch” who found “Amazing Grace!”

John Newton was nurtured by a devoted Christian mother who dreamed that her only son would become a preacher. But she died when John was a child, and he followed his sea-captain father to a sailor’s life. John didn’t care for the discipline of the Royal Navy: he deserted ship, was flogged, and eventually was discharged.

He then headed for regions where he could “sin freely,” and ended up on the western coast of Africa, working for a slave trader who mistreated him. Newton’s life during that period bore the appearance of a modern Prodigal Son’s: “a wretched looking man toiling in a plantation of lemon trees in the Island of Plaintains … clothes had become rags, no shelter and begging for unhealthy roots to allay his hunger.” After more than a year of such treatment, he managed to escape from the island, in 1747.

The following year his ship was battered by a severe storm. Newton had read The Imitation of Christ,, and during the life-threatening voyage he became a Christian.

Ironically, Newton then served as captain of a slave ship for six years. He gradually came to abhor slavery and later crusaded against it.

Newton became greatly influenced by George Whitefield and the Wesleys. He married his long-time sweetheart and began studying for the ministry and preaching in whatever vacant building he could procure. Known as the “old converted sea captain,” he attracted large audiences. He was ordained within the Anglican Church, and in 1764 he took a curacy in Olney.

Newton felt dissatisfied with the hymns of the traditional psalter. He began writing his own, many autobiographical in nature, including “Amazing Grace!.”

He also befriended poet William Cowper, and they collaborated to produce Olney Hymns, which became the standard hymnal of evangelical Anglican churches. The hymnal, which includes Newton’s hymns “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken” and “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds,” was reprinted in England and America for the next century.

In his old age, it was suggested that Newton retire because of bad health and failing memory. He replied, “My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: That I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great Savior!”

William Cowper (1731–1800)

Despite recurring mental illness, he wrote hymns on God’s providence.

William Cowper’s poetic achievements are remarkable in light of the fact that mental illness plagued him all his life.

The son of the chaplain to King George II, William worked as a lawyer for several years. At age 32, he was nominated to a position that required a public examination. He grew fearful of that and tried to commit suicide three times—and nearly succeeded. During his stay of eighteen months in the asylum at St. Albans, however, Cowper was converted while reading Romans.

After his release, Cowper resided in Huntingdon with the family of a Reverend Unwin. Upon Unwin’s death, John Newton came to comfort the family, and he convinced Mrs. Unwin, her children, and Cowper to move to Olney where he lived.

The period at Olney was a time of healing and spiritual growth for Cowper. Newton urged Cowper to serve Olney’s poor, probably in an effort to take Cowper’s mind off his depressions, poor health, paranoia, and fears of damnation. He also convinced Cowper to write hymns for the parish’s prayer meetings. The result was Olney Hymns (1779), which contained 348 hymns—68 by Cowper, who suffered a relapse and was unable to finish his work.

Three of his best-known works are “There Is a Fountain,” “Safely through Another Week,” and “O for a Closer Walk with God.” His famous hymn “God Moves in a Mysterious Way” was written about the time of another bout of mental illness, during which Cowper again attempted suicide. Despite this, John Newton said of him, “I can hardly form an idea of a closer walk with God than he uniformly maintained.”

Cowper did not begin his literary career until age 50. His translations of Homer and poems such as “John Gilpin” placed him at the forefront of English poets, and it is the literary Cowper now listed in reference books.

But perhaps Cowper’s most meaningful works were the hymns written during fits of despair. It is said that on his deathbed he stated, “I am not shut out of heaven after all.”

Anne Steele (Theodosia) (1716–1779)

The disabled woman who became “by far the most gifted Baptist hymn writer” of her day

Anne Steele was the eldest daughter of William Steele, Baptist pastor at Broughton, England. Anne was baptized into her father’s church at 14 and early demonstrated a gift for writing.

But many misfortunes beset young Anne’s life. Her mother died. As a teenager, a fall from a horse rendered her permanently invalid. Just hours before their wedding ceremony, her fiance drowned in the river where he was bathing. This final painful incident probably gave rise to one of her best-known hymns, “Father: Whate’er of Earthly Bliss.” Steele, who spent most of her days in the quiet seclusion of her father’s house, has been described as “cultured, pious, and beautiful.” Her father’s diary noted on a November day in 1757, when she was 41, that “Nanny sent part of her composition to London, to be printed. I entreat a gracious God, who enabled, and stirred her up to such a work … to make it useful, and keep her humble.” Perhaps it was this emphasis on humility that compelled “Nanny” to write under a pen name, “Theodosia.” The proceeds of all her works were donated to charity.

Anne Steele never married, and her already feeble health was aggravated by the shock of her father’s death in 1769. Despite her many trials, Steele wrote 144 hymns and 34 psalm versions. She published Poems on Subjects Chiefly Devotional in two volumes in 1760, and a third was produced after her death. Her hymns received wide acceptance, and her poems were reprinted in America. More than a century after her death, it was written that she “stands at the head” of Baptist hymn writers.

James Montgomery (1771–1854)

Often in jail, this activist wrote “Angels from the Realms of Glory.”

In 1818, the inhabitants of the Georgian Isles in the South Seas turned from their worship of idols to the Christian faith. The London Missionary Society thought it appropriate that special hymns be written in honor of this milestone. “Hark! The Song of Jubilee” was one of those hymns, authored by James Montgomery.

This controversial newspaper editor had long championed foreign missions and Bible distribution. His passion had personal roots; James’s parents had given their lives for the gospel in the West Indies.

James had once studied to be a missionary, attending a Moravian seminary in London. He found poetry, however, more absorbing than his studies.

Not long after the sudden death of both parents on the mission field, James left school and began to cultivate his literary gifts. At age 23 he was appointed editor of the weekly Sheffield Register in London, a position he would hold for thirty-one years.

Montgomery became an activist for numerous causes, particularly the abolition of slavery. His radical views earned him fines and imprisonment on at least two occasions. In 1797 he published a collection of poems written behind bars, Prison Amusements.

Eventually his philanthropic and literary achievements were recognized; he was invited to lecture at the Royal Institution and received an annual pension from the British government.

Montgomery is best remembered for more than 400 hymns, most of them written in the early 1770s when he was serving as a pastor in Liverpool. A few came later, such as “Angels from the Realms of Glory,” which first appeared as a poem in his newspaper on Christmas Eve of 1816. He published his collection as Montgomery’s Original Hymns.

Many hymnologists give him a place after Watts and Wesley, and a substantial number of his works are still in use, particularly in Baptist hymnals.

Vinita Hampton Wright is Editorial Assistant for Harold Shaw Publishers. She has written previously for Christian History.

Copyright © 1991 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

History

Three Hymnals That Shaped Today’s Worship

William J. Reynolds

The hymnbooks of John Wesley, John Newton, and John Rippon endured for generations.

The eighteenth century has been called the “century of divine songs.”

Isaac Watts wrote hymns and metrical versions of the psalms for his London congregation. During the week as his sermon took shape, he wrote a hymn to provide a congregational response to his message. Watts’s Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1707), and his Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament (1719), marked a growing acceptance of singing. They also set the stage for hymn writers who would follow.

Hymn singing was slowly accepted among the Dissenting churches—Congregational, Baptist, Quaker, and some Presbyterian. In some churches there was much opposition to the singing of hymns, and controversies arose that sometimes split congregations asunder.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Church of England allowed only the singing of metrical psalms. It used Tate and Brady’s New Version of the Psalms of David (1696), or Sternhold and Hopkins’s Whole Book of Psalms (1562). This hardy “Old Version” was still being used when Queen Victoria was a girl. Not until 1820 was the singing of hymns approved in the Church of England.

Three hymnals climaxed the move toward congregational hymn singing in the eighteenth century.

John Wesley’s 1780 Hymnal

A primer in theology, published when he was 77

The greatest contribution to eighteenth-century Christian song was made by the Wesley brothers. John was the methodical leader, administrator, and editor of the Wesleyan movement; Charles, the gifted poet. Charles wrote the hymns, and John compiled the collections, frequently editing and altering his brother’s hymns.

Beginning in 1738, the Wesleys published fifty-six collections of hymns (not including tune books) over a period of fifty-three years. At least thirty-six of these collections involved only original Wesley hymns.

The most significant Wesley hymnal was A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists. It was designed solely for members of the societies John had formed throughout England, Scotland, and Wales. The hymnbook was intended to be both a primer in theology and a guide for public worship and private devotion.

People who had joined Wesley’s societies were endeavoring to live Christian lives and were striving for perfection. This is evident in the hymns: well over half relate to the believer’s life and faith—“rejoicing, fighting, praying, watching, working, suffering, groaning for full redemption, and interceding for the world.”

For the 1780 Collection, John Wesley compiled 525 hymns: those he deemed the best hymns of Charles; a number of his own hymns; and several from other sources, including Isaac Watts. There are twenty-one translations (nineteen from German, and one each from Spanish and French) assumed to be by John Wesley himself.

Many hymns from the 1780 hymnal survive today: “A Charge to Keep I Have,” “And Can It Be, That I Should Gain,” “Christ, Whose Glory Fills the Skies,” “Come, Ye That Love the Lord,” “I’ll Praise My Maker While I’ve Breath,” “Jesus, Thy Boundless Love to Me,” “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling,” and “Soldiers of Christ, Arise.”

John Newton’s 1779 Hymnal

Produced by two friends in a small church

In 1764, after his ordination in the Church of England, John Newton, the ex-slave trader, was sent to the village of Olney. He conducted Anglican services in the parish church and began a weekday service for children in which he taught Bible lessons and led the singing of hymns.

Three years after Newton arrived, poet William Cowper moved to Olney. Cowper became a lay helper in the small congregation, and Newton found a kindred soul, his intellectual equal. Cowper was skilled in poetic writing but experienced periods of deep depression.

In 1769, Newton began a Thursday evening prayer service. For almost every week’s service, he wrote a hymn to be sung to a familiar tune.

Newton challenged Cowper also to write hymns for these meetings. This Cowper did until he had a serious illness in 1773. Newton later combined 280 of his own hymns with 68 of Cowper’s in Olney Hymns.

The hymns were simply arranged in three sections:

Book I, hymns on select texts of scripture;

Book II, hymns on occasional subjects;

Book III, hymns on the progress and changes of the spiritual life.

Among the well-known hymns in Olney Hymns are “Amazing Grace!” “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken,” “God Moves in a Mysterious Way,” “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds,” “O for a Closer Walk with God,” and “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood.”

Although compiled for his own use in Olney, Newton’s hymnal became more widely known. In 1809, Reginald Heber, parish vicar at Hodnet, Shropshire, wrote to a friend: “My [church’s] psalm-singing continues bad. Can you tell me where I can purchase Olney Hymns? Any novelty is likely to become a favorite and draw more people to join in the singing.”

John Rippon’s 1787 Hymnal

It sold 300,000 copies in just 40 years

By the last half of the eighteenth century, Baptists’ opposition to hymn singing had greatly declined. Then some of the finest Baptist hymn writers emerged: Anne Steele, Benjamin Beddome, Samuel Stennett, and others.

The increased interest in hymn singing encouraged John Rippon to publish A Selection of Hymns from the Best Authors, Intended to be an Appendix to Dr. Watts’s Psalms and Hymns, containing 588 hymns. Rippon (1751–1836) was pastor of the Baptist church at Carter Lane, London, for sixty-three years. An influential minister, he published many sermons and served as editor and publisher of the Baptist Annual Register.

Rippon continued Watts’s practice of employing the last hymn as an application of the sermon. Since Watts’s hymns did not cover all sermon themes, Rippon enlarged the repertoire.

The Selection was designed for Baptists, and 187 (32 percent) of the hymns were by Baptist writers. However, Rippon was aware of the potential market among other Dissenters, and so he included hymns by non-Baptist writers such as John Cennick (8 hymns), Philip Doddridge (101), Thomas Gibbons (25), John Newton (19), Augustus Toplady (9), Isaac Watts (39), and Charles and John Wesley (24).

Rippon omitted some hymns’ stanzas, rearranged others, changed pronouns from singular to plural, and altered awkward expressions and weak rhymes. His four-stanza version of Edward Perronet’s “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” (including Rippon’s original fourth stanza) has become the accepted one in England and America.

In the preface to the twenty-seventh edition (in 1828), Rippon claimed that more than 200,000 copies had been circulated in England and 100,000 copies in the United States. Louis F. Benson, in The English Hymn, states that “Rippon’s judgment and taste, his command of originals, and his editorial discretion, were such to insure lasting success.”

William J. Reynolds is professor of Church Music at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, and author of Songs of Glory (Zondervan, 1990).

Copyright © 1991 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

History

America’s Hesitation Over Hymns

David W. Music

Why did colonial churches resist the first British musical invasion?

In this series

In England in 1707, Isaac Watts published his classic collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs.

In the New England colonies in 1707, no church organ had yet been installed. The first singing-instruction book would not be written for fourteen more years. And Hymns and Spiritual Songs would not be reprinted until about 1720.

While the new hymns were being written and sung throughout England, many American churches and ministers opposed them. Not until well after the middle of the eighteenth century did English hymns achieve a significant place in American worship.

Why? Here is the story of hymns’ rocky introduction to American churches.

Hymns “Of Human Composure”?

In early colonial America, congregational singing consisted almost exclusively of metrical psalms. In this, as in most other matters, the colonies followed the lead of the Mother Country.

The two psalters most widely used were the Bay Psalm Book (1640) and Sternhold and Hopkins’s Whole Book of Psalms (the “Old Version,” 1562). The Bay Psalm Book had been compiled by a group of New England divines and was employed in nearly every Puritan church of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Outside the Puritan sphere, congregations relied mostly upon the Old Version, the most popular English psalm book of the time. In some Nonconformist churches there may have been no singing at all, due to objections to “conjoined” singing of believers and unbelievers.

“Hymns of human composure” were not entirely absent, however. In his Ratio Disciplinae Fratrum (1726), Cotton Mather observed that “private Companies & Families” among the Puritans would sometimes sing “devout Hymns they find for their Edification.” Mather himself wrote a number of hymns and published a collection of them in 1697. However, Mather and other American ministers generally opposed the use of hymns in the worship service, preferring to rely instead on the inspired words of Scripture in metrical form. Hymns, when used at all, were employed primarily in private devotional exercises.

Little Public Demand

Despite Mather’s preference for metrical psalmody, he made the earliest significant efforts to introduce English hymns to America. He and Isaac Watts corresponded regularly. The New England minister began publishing small groups of hymns by his colleague as early as 1712. In 1715, twenty-two texts selected from Watts’s Hymns and Spiritual Songs appeared in Boston under the title Honey Out of the Rock. This volume was likely prepared by Mather for devotional and small-group use.

Watts’s complete Hymns and Spiritual Songs went through a Boston reprint about 1720 to 1723. Benjamin Franklin issued an edition of the Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament from his Philadelphia press in 1729.

On another front, John and Charles Wesley arrived as missionaries to Georgia in 1735. Their period of service in the colonies was short-lived, but Charles wrote at least one hymn during this time (1736), and John published A Collection of Psalms and Hymns (Charleston, 1737) selected from Watts and other English authors.

Unfortunately, there was little public demand for such works. Two years after publishing Watts’s psalms, Franklin complained that he still had unsold copies of the book on his shelves. The first American edition of Hymns and Spiritual Songs also met a cool reception, and a second reprint was not immediately forthcoming. Charles Wesley’s hymn had to wait fifty-five years for its first American printing, and John’s hymnal was quickly forgotten.

The Bay Psalm Book was the first book printed in North America for English-speaking colonists. It presented literal translations of Old Testament psalms in rhymed meter and was used in nearly every Puritan congregation in Massachusetts. In the 1700s, many churches fought over whether to allow new “human-inspired” hymns into their worship—or stick to the divinely inspired words in psalters.

The Great Awakening

The key event in introducing English hymnody into American churches occurred in 1738: the stirring British pulpiteer George Whitefield made his first preaching tour of the American colonies. Whitefield championed Watts’s hymns, which were better suited than the metrical psalms to his fervid style of preaching.

The effects of Whitefield’s visits and his use of Watts were felt almost immediately. In the next five years, at least six reprints of Watts’s hymnic works appeared from American presses.

A few pioneering congregations also began to admit Watts into the meeting house. In 1742, Jonathan Edwards reported that his Northampton congregation had taken up Watts’s hymns “and sang nothing else, and neglected the Psalms wholly.” Edwards approved of Watts’s hymns, but he persuaded the congregation to continue singing the psalms as well.

Watts was not the only English hymnist to benefit from George Whitefield’s popularity in America. When Whitefield again toured the colonies from 1739–1741, he brought with him a copy of the Wesleys’ Hymns and Sacred Poems (London, 1739); this was reprinted in Philadelphia in 1740. Two hymnals by seventeenth-century English authors, Richard Davis and John Mason, also received American editions during this period. Thus, the successful introduction of English hymnody into American churches was largely a result of the Great Awakening.

The Ascendancy of Watts

Few churches immediately introduced Watts into the service, but there was growing dissatisfaction with the Bay Psalm Book and Old Version. During the course of the next twenty years many churches began turning to Nahum Tate and Nicholas Brady’s more recent New Version of the Psalms (London, 1696). But by that time the days of metrical psalmody were numbered.

During the 1760s and 1770s the number of American reprints of Watts increased dramatically. One church after another began giving up the “psalms only” and adopting “Watts entire,” sometimes supplemented by a collection of hymns from other authors.

This innovation was not always accomplished quickly or without difficulty. For example, after making a trial of Tate and Brady, the Puritan parish church of Spencer, Massachusetts, voted in 1761 to return to the Bay Psalm Book. Eight years later, the church voted to try Tate and Brady but instead continued to sing from the Bay Psalm Book, this time in combination with Watts. In October 1769, the congregation finally adopted Watts, which displaced both the Bay Psalm Book and Tate and Brady.

This pattern was followed with local variations throughout the remainder of the century. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, Watts’s works had become so widespread they enjoyed much the same position in American churches that the metrical psalms had held a century before.

Americanizing the Hymnal

American reprints of English hymnals gradually increased in number during the second half of the eighteenth century. There must have been some demand for them. Undoubtedly, however, these books were used primarily as supplements to Watts or as material for individual worship.

Of special significance was the 1766 publication at Newport, Rhode Island, of a collection for American Baptists, Hymns and Spiritual Songs (the “Newport Collections”). This was one of the earliest hymnals printed in America that was not simply a reprint of an English volume by one author. It was a new collection drawing on the hymns of several different writers. Many of the hymns were by Watts, but there were also hymns from other English writers, as well as some anonymous hymns that—judging from their grammar—were probably of American folk origin.

Singing Schools

Singing schools originated early in the eighteenth century in response to ministerial calls for improvement in the psalm singing of New England churches. Most of the music used in singing schools was sacred in nature. Singing schools were often held in church buildings, but the schools frequently had no direct connection to the church.

The first American singing-school tunebooks were published in 1721; these contained only psalm tunes. Beginning in the 1760s, the repertory of the tunebooks was gradually enlarged to include more complex fuging tunes and anthems for trained singers, in addition to psalm and hymn tunes that would be appropriate for congregational use. Since these books were used in music instruction, rather than in worship services, the compiler or composer had greater liberty in the choice of texts. The new English hymns served as important text sources.

Thus, such a well-known Charles Wesley hymn as “Rejoice, the Lord Is King” made its first American appearance in a Philadelphia tunebook, James Lyon’s Urania (1761). Three years later, Josiah Flagg’s A Collection of the Best Psalm Tunes (Boston, 1764) included Wesley’s “Soldiers of Christ, Arise” and “Ye Servants of God, Your Master Proclaim,” neither of which had been previously printed in the colonies.

The most famous of the eighteenth-century American composer/compilers was William Billings. His first tunebook, The New-England Psalm-Singer (Boston, 1770), was the earliest to contain only music by an American composer. Billings published six major collections, containing over 250 original psalm and hymn tunes. Significantly, not one of these tunes used a text from the Bay Psalm Book. Watts accounted for sixty-five texts, more than any other single source. Billings also set to music English hymns by Charles Wesley and others.

The role of tunebooks in promoting English hymnody in America should not be underestimated. Through such volumes many Americans first encountered hymns that were to become part of the standard repertory. Exposure to these words in the singing school undoubtedly led some people to seriously consider using hymns in the worship service.

Subpar American Hymns

The texts of Watts, the Wesleys, Newton, and others provided fine examples of hymnic forms. But no American writer arose during the eighteenth century who could rival even the second-rank English hymnists.

One of the best early American authors was Samuel Davies (1723–61), a Presbyterian minister and champion of Watts. Some of Davies’s hymns were published in England, and a few saw limited use. However, as Louis F. Benson observed in The English Hymn, these efforts showed the “form and manner” of Watts without the “original inspiration.”

Not until well into the nineteenth century did America develop hymnists who could adequately follow the lead of the great eighteenth-century English authors.

Some of the most distinctive early American contributions to hymnody were adaptations of Watts’s psalms and hymns. Important arrangements of Watts published by Americans included collections by Joel Barlow (1785), Timothy Dwight (1801), James Winchell (1818), and Samuel Worcester (1819). These typically provided versifications of psalms which—for one reason or another—Watts had omitted in the original publications. They also altered his references to Great Britain and the English king, and sometimes replaced his versions with new translations. From the viewpoint of modern congregational singing, the most significant reworking of Watts was by Dwight, who included his own version of Psalm 137, “I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord.”

Why Americans Moved Slowly

The explosion of English hymnody in the eighteenth century was relatively slow to make its impact on American churches. Why? Reasons may be summarized as follows:

1. Metrical psalmody generally retained a grip on American congregations longer than it did in England.

2. When Americans gave up metrical psalmody, they often substituted for it a different kind of monopoly (the hymns and psalm paraphrases of Isaac Watts), leaving little room for worthy hymns by other authors.

3. A number of significant eighteenth-century English works did not receive their first American printing until relatively late in the century.

4. The Revolutionary War caused a hiatus in imports from the Mother Country (not to mention anti-English attitudes).

5. Separation from the Mother Country by a large ocean meant a natural cultural lag.

Nevertheless, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, American church song was much more vigorous than it had been one hundred years before. The singing-school movement had provided a more musical basis for the singing, and the English hymn texts expressed Christian faith more appropriately than had the metrical psalms.

Eighteenth-century English hymns made a considerable impact on the American church. They broke the monopoly of metrical psalmody, provided a well-rounded repertory for Americans to sing, and offered a superior model to which future American writers could look for guidance.

Dr. David W. Music is Associate Professor of Church Music at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas, and editor of The Hymn, the quarterly journal of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada.

Copyright © 1991 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

History

The Hymn Born in a Synagogue

James D. Smith III

How a Hebrew text and synagogue melody became a well-known Christian hymn.

The roots of early Christian worship grew in the soil of the first-century Jewish synagogue service. In Scripture and psalm, in sermon and prayer, the gathered community celebrated what God had done—and anticipated God’s mighty acts yet to come. In light of this, the well-known hymn “The God of Abraham Praise” offers a glimpse of history.

Thomas Olivers (1725–1799), the hymn’s author, was born in Wales and orphaned at age 4. Apprenticed early to a shoemaker, he grew to adulthood a wild, rootless man.

In his mid-twenties, however, Olivers was converted through the preaching of George Whitefield. Soon after, he became an evangelist with John Wesley. Olivers spent more than twenty years—end 100,000 miles—as an itinerant preacher. Later, he became co-editor of Wesley’s Arminian Magazine.

In the Great Synagogue

Tradition tells us that on a Friday evening in 1770, Olivers attended Sabbath worship at the Great Synagogue, Duke’s Place, London. There, as the “Yigdal” (traditional Hebrew doxology) was sung by cantor Meyer Lyon (d. 1796), Olivers was so moved that he approached the operatic vocalist personally. In the mid-eighteenth century, cantors had begun to use musical notations, especially for new and popular compositions, and Lyon graciously provided Olivers with his tune (Leoni).

The Methodist preacher then adapted the text of the Jewish doxology (which was based on the Thirteen Articles of Faith stated by famous Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides in the twelfth century). The opening word, yigdal (Hebrew for “may He be magnified”), inspired Olivers’s free rendering. The resulting work, “A Hymn to the God of Abraham,” was printed in leaflets and found instant approval in the churches.

A 12-Stanza Hymn

Here are four representative stanzas from the twelve originally composed by Olivers:

The God of Abrah’m praise,
Who reigns enthroned above;
Ancient of everlasting days,
And God of Love:
Jehovah Great I Am!
By earth and heav’n confest;
I bow and bless the sacred Name,
For ever bless’d.

There dwells the Lord our King,
The Lord our Righteousness
(Triumphant o’er the world and sin),
The Prince of Peace;

On Sion’s sacred height,
His Kingdom still maintains;
And glorious with his saints in light,
For ever reigns.

The God who reigns on high,
The great archangels sing,
And “Holy, holy, holy,” cry,
Almighty King!
“Who Was, and Is, the same;
“And evermore shall be;
Jehovah—Father—Great I Am!
“We worship Thee.”

The whole triumphant host,
Give thanks to God on high;
Hail, Father, Son, and Holy-Ghost,
They ever cry;
Hail, Abrah’m’s God—and mine!
(I join the heav’nly lays,)
All Might and Majesty are Thine
And endless Praise.

Two in Harmony

Later years brought trials to the two men. Olivers, in 1789, was dismissed from the press by Wesley, and he retired in London. Lyon had to resign after singing in Handel’s “Messiah”; later he became reader in the Kingston, Jamaica, synagogue.

Jewish-Christian relations over the centuries have been often problematic, sometimes tragic. But today the singing of “Yigdal” in the synagogue, and “The God of Abraham Praise” in the churches, invites the memory of two who were in harmony as they sought to praise the Lord of All.

Dr. James D. Smith III is Senior Pastor of Clairemont Emmanuel Baptist Church and Adjunct Professor of Church History at Bethel Seminary-West, both in San Diego. He is a member of the advisory board of Christian History.

Copyright © 1991 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

History

The Golden Age of Hymns: Recommended Resources

Questions for Today

1. What is your favorite hymn from “The Golden Age of Hymns”? (See the Contents for some still-popular candidates.) What makes this hymn important to you?

2. In what ways is today’s outpouring of “praise music” like the proliferation of hymns 250 years ago? In what ways is it different? (For background, read “The Hymn Explosion”.)

3. Psalms and early hymns were often “lined out,” with every line said by a leader before it was sung by the congregation. (See “The Hymn Explosion” for a fuller explanation.) This often created a disjointed feeling to worship. What musical practices in today’s churches do you think detract from worship? Why?

4. What objections to contemporary Christian music have you heard? How do these reasons compare to the objections to hymns two centuries ago? (See “Irrational Music Sung by a Mob of Extremists”.)

5. Some early hymns incorporated phrases from secular poetry or were set to bar-room tunes. In what ways does music written by Christians today “borrow” from the broader culture? What are the advantages and disadvantages of this approach?

6. Do you think today’s praise choruses will still be sung 250 years from now—in the year 2241? Why?

Recommended Resources

For readers who want to study further, here are key resources selected by Dr. Paul Westermeyer, professor of Church Music at Luther Northwestern Theological Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota.

• Louis F. Benson, The English Hymn: Its Development and Use in Christian Worship (Richmond: John Knox, 1962, reprinted from 1915 edition). Though a bit tedious and dated, this volume still provides valuable detail. Chapters II through VII survey the eighteenth century, from Baxter through Watts, Wesley, and the evangelicals.

• Henry Escott, Isaac Watts: Hymnographer (London: Independent Press, 1962). A responsible, somewhat stuffy treatment of Watts and his context.

• Harry Eskew and Hugh T. McElrath, Sing with Understanding (Nashville: Broadman, 1980). Includes a thumbnail sketch of Watts, Wesley, and the Evangelical Revival.

• Alfred Burton Haas, “Charles Wesley,” The Papers of the Hymn Society of America, XXII (Springfield: The Hymn Society of America, 1957). A sketch of Charles Wesley’s life and work.* [* For information, write The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, P. O. Box 30854, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX 76129 ]

• The Hymn 39:4 (October, 1988). A special issue of the quarterly journal of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada. Five articles are devoted to Wesleyan hymnody and its music.* [* For information, write The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, P. O. Box 30854, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX 76129 ]

• John Henry Johansen, “The Olney Hymns,” The Papers of the Hymn Society of America, XX (Springfield: The Hymn Society of America, 1956). An overview of John Newton, William Cowper, and their hymnbook, the source of “Amazing Grace!” and “God Moves in a Mysterious Way.”* [* For information, write The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, P. O. Box 30854, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX 76129 ]

• John Julian, A Dictionary of Hymnology (Dover, 1957; republication of the revised edition of 1907). Many entries and several articles from this monumental publication of a century ago still are useful. See especially “Methodist Hymnody,” “Watts, Isaac,” and “The Wesley Family.”

• Robin A. Leaver, “British Hymnody from the Sixteenth through the Eighteenth Centuries,” in The Church Hymnal Companion, Raymond F. Glover, ed. (New York: Church Hymnal Corp., 1990). A valuable new study.

• Bernard Lord Manning, The Hymns of Watts and Wesley: Five Informal Papers (London: Epworth, 1942). Dated, but very perceptive and well-written.

• J. E. Rattenbury, The Eucharistic Hymns of John and Charles Wesley (London: Epworth, 1948). A standard.

• William J. Reynolds and Milburn Price, A Survey of Christian Hymnody (Carol Stream, IL: Hope Publishing, 1987). For a quick overview, see Chapter 4: “English Hymnody, I.”

• Eric Routley, Christian Hymns: An Introduction to Their Story (Princeton, NJ: Prestige Publications, n.d.). These cassette tapes sketch the history of Christian hymnody in Routley’s animated and opinionated way. Cassette 4 covers Watts and Wesley.

• John Wesley, A Collection of Hymns for the Use of People Called Methodists (London: J. Paramore, 1780). The book Wesley said he was “for many years … importuned to publish.” It can be found in The Works of John Wesley, volume 7, eds. Franz Hildebrandt, Oliver Beckerlegge, and James Dale (Oxford: Clarendon, 1983).

• John Wesley, A Collection of Psalms and Hymns (Charles-Town: Lewis Timothy, 1737; facsimile reprint, Nashville: Parthenon, 1990). The first hymnal by John Wesley, the first (as opposed to a psalm book) printed in America, and the first published for the Church of England. For reflections about this pocket-sized book, see Carlton R. Young, “John Wesley’s Charlestown Collection of Psalms and Hymns,” The Hymn 41:4 (October, 1990).* [* For information, write The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, P. O. Box 30854, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX 76129 ]

Copyright © 1991 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine. Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

History

The Golden Age of Hymns: Christian History Timeline

Paul Westermeyer

The Golden Age of Hymns

1702 Isaac Watts, “the liberator of the English hymn,” becomes Minister of Mark Lane Church in London

1703 John Wesley, Methodist leader and hymn translator/compiler, is born

1704 Johann A. Freylinghausen (son-in-law of August Francke) publishes hymnal for pietists

1705 Horae Lyricae, first published collection of Watts’s verse

1707 Isaac Watts’s landmark Hymns and Spiritual Songs; Charles Wesley, writer of thousands of hymns, born; as is Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, who founds a branch of Calvinistic Methodists and publishes more than 10 hymn collections

1709 Thomas Ken’s “Doxology” takes current form

c. 1710 New “piano e forte” instrument gains interest

1712 Cotton Mather publishes hymns by Watts in the colonies; Freylinghausen’s second hymnal

1715 Watts’s children’s hymnal, Divine Songs for Children

1717 William Williams, the “Isaac Watts of Wales,” is born; he writes more than 800 Welsh and 100 English hymns, among them “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah”

1719 Isaac Watts’s The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament

1721 First tunebooks for American singing schools

1722 Conflicts over “Regular ” singing (not lined-out) in some colonial churches; Count Zinzendorf founds refuge for the Moravians; his nearly 2,000 hymns and piety stir John Wesley, who translates one hymn as “Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness”

1729 Charles Wesley founds Holy Club at Oxford that gives rise to Methodism; Benjamin Franklin reprints Watts’s Psalms of David; Philip Doddridge, author of 400-plus hymns such as “Hark, the Glad Sound!” opens seminary

1734 John Cennick converted; an assistant to George Whitefield, he writes “Children of the Heavenly King”

1735 John and Charles Wesley sail to Georgia

1737 John Wesley prepares the Charlestown Collection of Psalms and Hymns—his first hymnal, the first published in North America, and the first of Church of England

1738 May 21, Charles Wesley’s conversion; May 24, John Wesley’s conversion; first American preaching tour of George Whitefield, who spreads Watts’s hymns

1739 Publication of the Wesleys’ Hymns and Sacred Poems

1742 Jonathan Edwards uses Watts’s hymns in his congregation; Wesleys’ Collection of Tunes As Used at the Foundry

1744 First Methodist general conference

1748 John Newton, author of “Amazing Grace!;” converted; Isaac Watts dies;

1749 Beginning of Calvinist-Arminian controversy between Whitefield and Wesley; Charles Wesley marries and publishes two-volume Hymns and Sacred Poems; papal encyclical points to dangers of instruments and theatricality

1753 George Whitefield publishes hymnal

1756 Charles Wesley’s last nationwide preaching tour

1760s Conflicts in colonial churches: Watts’s hymns vs. Psalms

1760 Martin Madan publishes hymnal; two volumes of Anne Steele’s Poems on Subjects Chiefly Devotional

1761 James Lyon’s Urania, important American tunebook

1764 John Newton takes parish in Olney

1766 Newport Collection, early American hymnal using several English authors

1769 Gerhard Tersteegen, German Reformed hymn writer, dies; John Wesley translated his hymns

1770s James Montgomery, author of “Angels from the Realms of Glory,” writing hymns

1770 George Whitefield dies; William Billings’sNew-England Psalm-Singer, first all-American tunebook

1771 Last edition of Freylinghausen’s hymnbook; Wesley sends Francis Asbury to America

1776 Augustus Montague Toplady publishes hymnal including his “Rock of Ages”

1779 Anglican minister John Newton and poet William Cowper publish Olney Hymns, featuring “Amazing Grace;” and “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken”

1780 John Wesley’s Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists

1783 Reginald Heber born, who later writes “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty!”

1784 John Wesley outlines Sunday worship service for American Methodists

1787 John Rippon’s Baptist hymnal

1788 Charles Wesley dies

1790s African-American “spiritual” developing

1791 John Wesley, William Williams, and Countess of Huntingdon die

1797 Timothy Dwight revises Watts’s Psalms and Hymns

1799 Richard Allen ordained Bishop of AME church; 2 years later produces 1st black hymnal for it

Church and World Events

1701 Yale founded

1702 Anne Queen of England (to 1714)

1703 Delaware founded

1704 John Locke dies

1705 Philip Jacob Spener, leader of German pietism, dies;

1706 First American presbytery

1707 Bach’s first work

1711 Alexander Pope’s Essay on Criticism;Henry Melchior Muehlenberg, the “patriarch of American Lutheranism,” born

1714 Fahrenheit’s thermometer

1715 “Sun King” Louis XIV dies

1718 William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, dies; “Blackbeard” the pirate dies

1719 Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe

1720 Theodore J. Frelinghuysen’s preaching in New Jersey helps spark Great Awakening

1723 J. S. Bach becomes cantor at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig

1724 Christianity banned in China

1725 Bering Straits discovered

1726 Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels

1727 George II King of England (to 1760); Isaac Newton dies

1728 William Law’s A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life

1732 George Washington born; first edition of Poor Richard’s Almanack

1733 Oglethorpe founds Savannah, Georgia

1740–41 The Great Awakening peaks

1741 American Presbyterians split into “Old Lights” and “New Lights” (to 1758); Jonathan Edwards’s “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”

1742 First performance of Handel’s Messiah; Jews expelled from Russia

1746 Princeton founded

1747 First German Reformed synod in America

1748 First Lutheran synod in America

1749 Fielding’s Tom Jones

1751 Diderot’s French Encyclopedia

1752 Franklin invents lightning conductor

1756 Mozart born

1759 Voltaire’s Candide; Handel dies

1760 George III King of England (to 1820)

1763 Treaty of Paris ends Seven-Years’ War

1766 Mason-Dixon Line

1767 Composer G. P. Telemann dies

1769 Junipero Serra founds San Diego; James Watt patents steam engine

1770 Beethoven born; “Boston Massacre”; James Hargreaves patents spinning jenny

1773 Boston Tea Party; Jesuits suppressed; Unitarian denomination forms; Jesuits suppressed

1775 American Revolution begins (to 1783)

1776 Declaration of Independence; Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of Roman Empire; Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations; Paine’s Common Sense

1781 British surrender at Yorktown; Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason

1783 U.S. independence

1787 Constitutional Convention

1789 French Revolution; First U.S. Congress

1790 John Carroll first U.S. Catholic bishop

1790’s Height of slave trade

1791 Mozart dies; U.S. Bill of Rights; Goethe directs Weimar Court theater

1792 Birth of Charles G. Finney; William Carey founds Baptist Missionary Society

1798 Coleridge and Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads heralds Romantic Age

Dr. Paul Westermeyer is Professor of Church Music at Luther Northwestern Theological Seminary in St. Paul and author of The Church Musician (Harper & Row, 1988)

Copyright © 1991 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

History

Down and Out From Beverly Hills

Paul Myers

One man’s encounter with a Gideon Bible

Throughout their history, the Gideons have received letters from people who found and read a Gideon-placed Bible. Here is one such letter from mid-century. The writer went on to become “First Mate Bob” on the long-time religious radio show “Haven of Rest.”

One winter morning in San Diego, after I had wandered many miles along the waterfront, in a daze, I turned my steps wearily toward my hotel room. I had been drinking heavily for weeks.

My mind was tortured by the thoughts of the wife and four children whom I had deserted. Just yesterday, it seemed, I had been a radio executive, in charge of two radio stations in Los Angeles—KFVD and KFAC. The home in which we lived, Beverly Hills, the cars, the servants—the things money and social position can provide for a man and his family—were just a memory. I had dragged my family down with me until they were living in a little hovel, and then, I had deserted them.

I had suffered a complete nervous breakdown and, worst of all, I had completely lost my voice. For a year and a half, I had not been able to speak one word aloud, each effort to talk was just a whisper. The future held no promise.

I opened the door of my hotel room and flung myself into a chair in utter despair. My gaze fell upon a (Gideon) Bible on the floor. In a distracted sort of way, I picked it up and started to read. Old familiar words I had learned as a child, words of life, quick and powerful, leaped out of those pages and found their way into my heart.

I fell to my knees, and spread the Bible upon the chair, and made a vow that I would not leave that hotel room, if I died of starvation, until there came into my soul a knowledge that my sins had been forgiven, until I knew that I passed from death unto life. With a surge of joy, I realized that God’s promises were even for men like me.

In that hotel room, I found Calvary’s Cross; there I laid my burden down; there, the old man died, and a new one was born. From that place I walked in newness of life, a new creature in Christ Jesus, praise His Name!

God straightened things out between my wife and me, and today she and I and our four children are back together again. The “peace that passeth all understanding” has loosed the taut nerves and muscles which had prevented normal speech, and God gave me back my voice.

Small wonder that there is in my heart a feeling of undying gratitude to the Gideons who have felt the burden to place Bibles in hotel rooms.

Copyright © 1991 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine. Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

History

Irrational Music Sung By a Mob of Extremists?

Madeleine Forell Marshall

Why the Church of England disliked hymns

The Church of England did not officially approve the singing of hymns in worship until 1820. For nearly one hundred years, Dissenters and Methodists had been singing hymns. Why was the Church of England so slow to recognize the power and usefulness of “hymns of original composition” ?

Would-Be Revolutionaries

We easily forget that hymns were written and sung by men and women who lived their lives and practiced their faith on the margins of conventional English Christianity. Anglicans resented, even hated, Dissenters [those who separated from the established Church of England] and Methodists. Thus, hymn singing, which Dissenters and Methodists practiced, came to stand for all that was wrong with non-orthodox faith.

Isaac Watts was a Dissenter, a Calvinist who believed in congregational autonomy or “Independence.” While Watts was a loyal British subject, he and fellow Dissenters accepted many of the principles that had led to the Civil War in England. Anglicans had not forgotten the killing of Charles I and the establishment of the Puritan Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell.

During the Restoration Period (1660–1700) Calvinist Dissenters were widely regarded as would-be revolutionaries, eager to upset the peace and return England to its Puritan past. Dissenters were, accordingly, heavily persecuted, subject to fines and imprisonment. They were excluded from public employment and the university. In Absalom and Achitophel (1681), John Dryden describes the Dissenters as rabble-rousing demagogues, determined to destroy the monarchy. Thus, when the Dissenters sang hymns, those hymns were often associated with Christian extremism and even revolutionary politics.

Brawlers and Brayers

John and Charles Wesley, however, were upstanding university M.A.’s, ordained ministers of the Church of England. Charles even discouraged his brother from any move that might lead to a break between Methodism and the established church. Aristocratic friends and supporters within the church made Methodism seem acceptable.

Yet the Evangelical Revival associated with the Wesleys seems to have raised two kinds of fears. Both reflected on congregational hymnody.

Fear of the mob: The first fear was of the vast mass of unwashed, uneducated common people. The Wesleyan congregation seemed a mob. Any mob was volatile, prone to riot, threatening life and property and the precious social order.

Fear of “enthusiasm”: Anglicans disliked irrational religion. Private inspiration bred individualism and heterodoxy. The Wesleyan journals, indeed, reflect the array of sectarian possibilities that “revived” communities fell prey to—Moravian, Calvinist, Quietist, and “prophetic.” The hymns themselves, as they center in profound conversion, expressing intense emotion, are “enthusiastick.”

In A Fine Picture of Enthusiasm (1740), John Scot described early Revival hymnody as irrational: “The Hymns they sing, i.e. all I have seen or heard of, are not rational Compositions, nor do they accord with the first Principles of all Religion, but like their Prayers, dwell upon a Word, or are immediate addresses to the Son of God, as the supreme Object of Worship. And do represent him as much more friendly and compassionate to the human World than God the Father ever was—so that their Singing is calculated to engage the Passions by nothing more than Words, and the Melody of the Sound, or Voice; but if you would sing with the Understanding, you must have other sorts of Compositions both for Psalmody and Prayer, than what the Foundery or the Tabernacle [Methodist meeting halls] do afford you.”

When he defended hymns in 1757, John Wesley addressed this fear of unreason, claiming of his people that “When it is seasonable to sing praise to GOD they do it with the spirit and with the understanding also … in psalms and hymns which are both sense and poetry.”

Entering the Mainstream

Hymns were eventually accepted into Church of England worship. Indeed, the future lay with hymns and the political developments that nurtured them. Through Watts’s agency, Dissenting educational theory was institutionalized at Harvard and Yale. In both America and in England, the frightful mob led eventually to democratic government. Christian “enthusiasm,” dissociated from political revolution, lost its terror and entered the mainstream, where it remains to this day.

Dr. Madeleine Forell Marshall is on the faculty of the University of San Diego and of California State University at San Marcos. She has taught literature at the University of Puerto Rico, the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, and St. Olaf College. She is co-author, with Janet Todd, of English Congregational Hymns in the Eighteenth Century (Kentucky, 1982).

Copyright © 1991 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

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