Hymns and Hymnody: Historical and Theological Introductions, Volume 3

From the English West to the Global South

Mark A. Lamport, Benjamin K. Forrest, Vernon M. Whaley, Mark A. Lamport, Benjamin K. Forrest

• Editorial: Cascade Books
• Año: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781532651304
• Categoría: Theology & Religion
• Categoría: Christian Rituals & Practice

Hymns and the music the church sings in worship are tangible means of expressing worship. And while worship is one of, if not the central functions of the church along with mission, service, education, justice, and compassion, and occupies a prime focus of our churches, a renewed sense of awareness to our theological presuppositions and cultural cues must be maintained to ensure a proper focus in worship. Hymns and Hymnody: Historical and Theological Introductions is a sixty-chapter, three-volume introductory textbook describing the most influential hymnists, liturgists, and musical movements of the church. This academically grounded resource evaluates both the historical and theological perspectives of the major hymnists and composers who have impacted the church over the course of twenty centuries. Volume 1 explores the early church and concludes with the Renaissance era hymnists. Volume 2 begins with the Reformation and extends to the eighteenth-century hymnists and liturgists. Volume 3 engages nineteenth century hymnists to the contemporary movements of the twenty-first century.Each chapter contains these five elements: historical background, theological perspectives communicated in their hymns/compositions, contribution to liturgy and worship, notable hymns, and bibliography. The mission of Hymns and Hymnody is (1) to provide biographical data on influential hymn writers for students and interested laypeople, and (2) to provide a theological analysis of what these composers have communicated in the theology of their hymns. We believe it is vital for those involved in leading the worship of the church to recognize that what they communicate is in fact theology. This latter aspect, we contend, is missing--yet important--in accessible formats for the current literature.

Chapter 1

Oxford’s Tractarian Movement

Jeremy Dibble

Historical Background

In the centuries after the Reformation, the Church of England lost sight of its hymnody and while dissenters and nonconformists, particularly the Wesleyans and Methodists, began to develop a vibrant tradition of hymn-singing in their own churches during the eighteenth century, Anglicanism remained aloof in its attitude toward the potential of the hymn within the liturgy as an agency of religious proselytization and as a potent cultural catalyst. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the Anglican Episcopacy, keen to steer a centrist path to placate many of its middle- and upper-class worshipers (who were weary of doctrinal debate), endeavored to shape a practical, rational form of religion, free of extremes, a stance. This earned them the soubriquet “Latitudinarians,” while provincial parishes, impressed by the zeal and optimism of the Methodists, were largely evangelical (or low church) in their approach to liturgy and the authority of the Bible. It was a different story, however, in England’s ancient universities. Here, in an environment that was still semi-monastical, where clerics dominated academic life, there was much opposition to what was perceived as a secularization of the established church and the state, a vexed relationship at the best of times, particularly in areas such as church lands and other forms of financial income. The Church of England opposed many of the Whig reforms in parliament and was equally opposed to theological liberalism. What is more, opposition had also been fueled by other reforms such as the Catholic Emancipation Bill of 1829 and the 1832 Reform Act, and there were whiffs of change in the air regarding the very academic and social structures of the ancient universities, the rights of dissenters and even ecclesiastical reforms to the rights of employment clergymen had enjoyed for centuries.

Oxford University became a focal point for this opposition. John Keble’s famous “National Apostasy” sermon of July 14, 1833, is often regarded as the beginning of so-called Tractarianism, more commonly known today as the Oxford movement. As Keble declared:

The point really to be considered is, whether, according to the coolest estimate, the fashionable liberality of this generation be not ascribable, in a great measure, to the same temper which led the Jews voluntarily to set about degrading themselves to a level with the idolatrous Gentiles? And, if it be true anywhere, that such enactments are forced on the Legislature by public opinion, is Apostasy too hard a word to describe the temper of that nation?1

In consequence, several prominent Anglican clerics in Oxford—John Henry Newman, Richard Hurrell Froude, Edward Bouverie Pusey, Robert Wilberforce, Hugh James Rose, John Keble, and William Palmer—began to publish a series of tracts, ninety in total, from which the movement drew its name and in which practice doctrine and theology within the Church of England were closely examined. The first twenty tracts were published in 1833; an additional thirty followed in 1834, and the remaining forty were published over the next seven years until 1841, many of the latter being concerned with matters of doctrinal content and practice. The tract form of publication, which was inexpensive, made it eminently accessible to clergy, laity, and scholars alike and it meant that these writings were widely read and understood. Indeed, the publication of the first group of tracts proved so influential that a signed declaration by seven thousand clergymen was sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury expressing “deep attachment to the apostolic doctrine and liturgy and polity of the Church of England.”2 The laity also had their own petition and Keble led a deputation to Lambeth Palace on behalf of the poor.3

The role of the tracts proved important for several reasons: first, they articulated a new sense of authority and order for the Church of England; second, they explored a new awareness of mystery within the liturgy; and third, there was a rediscovery of the significance of the Eucharist and its frequent participation as part of a recognition of the church’s inherent sacramental richness and a desire to revive old Catholic practices and rites such as the “Real Presence” and confession. Adherence to Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer was also emphasized, but Newman also argued in his famous Tract 90, Remarks on Certain Passages in the Thirty-Nine Articles, that while the Prayer Book “was acknowledged on all hands to be of Catholic origin, our Articles also, the offspring of an uncatholic age, are, through God’s providence, to say the least, not uncatholic, and may be subscribed by those who aim at being catholic in heart and doctrine.”4 This caused some consternation among the evangelical wing of the church, which was suspicious of what they perceived as the Oxford movement’s propinquity to Romanism; but for many, this thinking was consistent with a new means of defining a via media between the Protestant Reformation and Romanists. While Oxford concerned itself with matters of theology, doctrine, liturgy, and the sacraments, Cambridge’s sympathies to reform—through the Cambridge Camden Society and later the ecclesiologists—were reflected much more by the Romantic source from which the entire church revival flowed. This could be observed in translations of texts by the early fathers John Mason Neale and Benjamin Webb, in neo-gothic church architecture (which extended well beyond any medieval sentimentalism or nostalgia), the decoration of churches, stain glass, frescoes, and music, and in particular the rediscovery of plainsong and polyphony. Indeed, plainsong became an important focus for the ecclesiological movement who wanted to revive chanting both for the choir and congregation as a part of common liturgical practice. This was certainly the hope of Thomas Helmore, choirmaster and vice principal of St. Mark’s College, Chelsea. Having shown considerable interest in the new editions of John Merbeck’s sixteenth-century Booke of Common Praier Noted and William Dyce’s ornate Book of Common Prayer with Plain Song (both issued in 1844), he looked to publish his own editions of A Manual of Plain Song (1850) and, more significantly, The Hymnal Noted (1854), which used many of Neale’s translations. Although Helmore’s work was highly significant as part of the nineteenth-century plainsong revival, in truth, this aspect of hymnody in general never gained any real traction. Nevertheless, the Oxford movement’s attraction to hymnody, while sluggish to begin with, grew to be immensely enthusiastic, and by the 1850s, there was a new momentum alive in English hymnody that ignited a major renaissance of creativity, both in words and music, and formed a tradition that still occupies a major place in the hymn-book literature of the Anglican communion.

In its zeal for reform, the Oxford movement had definite ideas about the role and presence of choirs. There was a dislike of the old “west gallery” tradition where organist and choir were placed in a gallery at the end of the church behind a curtain. The choir was too distant (and also prone to bad behavior), so the recommendation was to bring the choir, properly robed in cassocks and surplices, into the chancel; similarly, the preferred placing of the organ was also in the chancel if space was available on both the north and south sides. In making the choir a more central focus of worship, there were other factors in the new “order” that affected their deportment. Prayers in the vestry, formal processions to and from the choirstalls, and formal investiture of choristers all formed part of a new reverence, added to which the entire purpose of music was newly conceived to serve the liturgy. In this way, music for Matins, Evensong, and especially Choral Eucharist, assumed a more important role for it was not only harnessed to enhance the orders of service as laid out in the Book of Common Prayer, but also more specifically for the church’s year from Sunday to Sunday and for major and minor feast days.

During the first thirty years of the nineteenth century, hymnody within Anglicanism had itself experienced some important changes. Until the end of the eighteenth century, the Anglican hierarchy had strictly controlled the singing of hymns in church both in what could be sung and when. Metrical psalms still proved to be the staple diet of most churches and cathedrals and little had changed in terms of their textual and musical scope since the Old Version published by Sternhold and Hopkins in 1562 (which borrowed heavily from the Genevan psalter), or its expansion by Thomas Ravenscroft in 1621, and the New Version first published Tate and Brady in 1696. The authority of the Church of England over hymn-singing remained inflexible during the eighteenth century; however, by 1830, it had weakened considerably as parishes began to take ownership of local tunes, words, and hymn-books. This is particularly evident in the work of Thomas Cotterill whose Selection of Psalms and Hymns for Public and Private Use (1810) proved popular and ran to many editions.

What is more, the Church of England began to covet the success and enthusiasm that the Methodists and other nonconformists were demonstrating with their fondness for hymn-singing and realized that the same thing would be a powerful agency for their own congregational mission. This was realized by various important episcopal figures such as Bishop Reginald Heber whose Hymns Written and Adapted to the Weekly Church Service of the Year epitomized the growing concern for Anglican hymnody to reflect the church calendar. As a poet himself, influenced by the great swell of English Romantic poetry of the time by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Heber judiciously produced hymns for specific Sundays and Holy Days in the church year, relating the sensibility of his words and language to readings from the Epistles and Gospels. What is more, these hymns could be sung at places within the service (notably that of the Nicene Creed and the sermon) and not purely at the beginning or end, that is “outside” the liturgy, or at the poi...