A paper read to the Annual General Meeting of the Hull & District Theological Society, 10 May 2006 by the Revd Dr Ian Bradley (Reader in Practical Theology, University of St Andrews)
Summary by David Bagchi
It is from hymns that churchgoers mostly derive their theology. Non-churchgoers find musicals and music from films a source of meaning in life, judging by the popularity of songs such as ‘My Heart Will Go On’ from Titanic. Two events recently have focussed attention of the place of hymns in national life.
The first is the BBC’s poll of the nation’s favourite hymns, which has revealed much about the nation’s spirituality. In order they are, first, ‘How Great Thou Art’, in which the words and tune combine to create a sense above all of awe; second, ‘The Day Thou Gavest’, with traditional sentiments set off by Sir Arthur Sullivan’s waltz-time tune; third, ‘Dear Lord and Father of Mankind’, with its penitential words set to the tune Repton; and fourth, ‘Love Divine, All Loves Excelling’ (set to Blaenwern), with its dense, perfectionist theology. It is clear from the poll that tunes are as important as words. It is evident that the sense of a hymn’s words can be changed significantly depending on the tune used: one need think only of ‘O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing’, or ‘Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken’.
The second is the publication of the Church of Scotland’s new hymnbook. It is arranged in theological order rather than following the liturgical year, and it is specifically designed to enable ministers and worship leaders to think theologically (although there are also indices of themes and biblical passages).
Two hymnological centenaries fall this year. The first is that of The English Hymnal, a deliberate attempt to promote a particular sort of theology through hymns. For the general editor, Percy Dearmer, the collection was an opportunity to reflect a concern with the social gospel. For the musical editor, Ralph Vaughan Williams, it was an opportunity to replace the Church’s repertoire of mawkish, four-part Victorian tunes with older English folk-tunes (though ironically this did not prevent him from inventing ‘traditional’ tunes of his own, such as Sine Nomine for ‘For All the Saints’.
The second centenary is that of the death of George Matheson (1842-1906), the blind Scots Presbyterian. He had been brought back to the faith through reading the works of Hegel, and his hymns reflect strongly a theology of sacrifice: his ‘O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go’, sung to the tune St Margaret (no. 13 in the BBC poll, and rising), is a case in point, with such verses as ‘O joy that seekest me through pain’, and ‘I give thee back the life I owe’. He believed however that individuality remains after death, and such sentiments as ‘I lay in dust life’s glory dead / And from the ground there blossoms red / Life that shall endless be’ reflect the influence of the theologians F.D. Maurice and F.W Robertson. In his words he always attempted to appeal to the intellect as well as to the emotions, as he does in ‘Make me a captive, Lord, and then I shall be free’, sung to the tune Leominster. He was eirenical towards other faiths and affirmed their validity as ways to God, though he saw Christianity as the summation of all these approaches. This is demonstrated in his hymn ‘Gather us in’, with its lines: ‘Each sees one colour of Thy rainbow light … and calls it heaven / Thou art the fullness of our partial sight.’ (Perhaps it is no coincidence that this hymn never achieved much popularity in Scotland.) He believed that there was too much doctrine in hymns, but not enough exhortation to serve others: if Christ has given himself to humankind, so should we.
The hymns of other writers that particularly appealed to Matheson included ‘Lead , Kindly Light’, ‘We give Thee What We Owe’, and ‘Courage, Brother, Do Not Slumber: Trust in God and Do the Right’. This universalist hymn, redolent of muscular Christianity, was written by Norman McCleod (and set to a Sullivan tune). It was written for the working men of Glasgow, following a public meeting protesting in favour of allowing the movement of trams and the opening of museums and parks on Sundays, to allow the working class to benefit from culture and the arts.
DVNB
