What Makes a Hymn Lutheran ?

Gracia Grindal

 

 

The Debate

   That is a question that will continue to rage in our midst as long as there are Lutherans.  Is a hymn Lutheran because its writer grew up as a Lutheran?  Or is it Lutheran because it expresses Lutheran theology?  To think that only Lutherans can write Lutheran hymns is to confuse genetics with confession.  It is, sadly, easy today to be a genetic Lutheran these days and not have the slightest idea about Lutheran theology.  At the beginning of the last century, Lutherans, who numbered more than they do today, argued vigorously about what a Lutheran hymn was.  The debate was occasioned by the question one church leader, Paul Glasoe, posed specifically in the January 1, 1931 edition of the church paper, The Lutheran Herald:  “Are we singing our children out of the Lutheran church?”  Some feared that by insisting on singing only from the old German and Scandinavian hymns without any engagement with the American hymnbook, their children would leave for other more evangelical and American churches.  Some thought a Lutheran hymn could only be a hymn by a Lutheran, which narrowed the number of hymns available for a Lutheran hymnal.  What about those from the ecumenical church?  To their credit, others argued persuasively that it was the words that made a hymn Lutheran.  One church leader, a missionary to China, N. Astrup Larsen, settled it for good, by saying that any hymn that told of the unconditional love of Jesus Christ for us was Lutheran.  In other words, a hymn that preaches or assumes faith alone, grace alone, word alone, Christ alone, the cross alone is a Lutheran hymn.

 

 Contending for a Lutheran Understanding

   Previously, I wrote about how important it was that our Lutheran hymnal committees understood that the hymns they choose for inclusion in a hymnal did not contradict Lutheran theology (see I.C.M., Autumn 2004, p. 4).  I then criticized many contemporary hymns because they were more about what we were doing in the service than what God has done for us.  They are not Lutheran hymns because they do not preach or assume the Lutheran theological fundamentals.  To some the idea that a hymn has to fit theological norms can be repellent, as one hymn writer told me once when I complained about the theology of her hymns:  I want to be as ignorant of theology as I can, because all it does is bring division.  The truth, however, causes division, and there is much strife involved in defending the faith.

 

Lutheran Confessions & Hymns

   The Lutheran Confessions are clear on this.  Last time I quoted from Melancthon’s Apology to the Augsburg Confession in which he said,

 

“Ceremonies should be observed both so that people may learn the Scriptures and so that, admonished by the Word, they might experience faith and fear and finally even pray.  For these are the purposes of the ceremonies… We also use German hymns in order that the [common] people might have something to learn that will arouse their faith and fear,”  (“Apology of the Augsburg Confession,” [XXIV] “The Mass,” p. 258)¹.

 

I take this to mean hymns can do more than help us preach the gospel to our neighbors.  They can help us praise God and pray to him.  Some of our greatest and most popular hymns, by non-Lutheran do that, from “Praise to the Lord the Almighty, the King of Creation,” to “Great is thy Faithfulness,” to “Eagle’s Wings.”  Some others, often among our most favorite pray, like Luther’s “Lord, Keep me Steadfast in thy Word.”  Or the Anglican bishop Reginald Heber’s “Holy, Holy, Holy,” or Taize’s “Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  These kinds of hymns are classics that are perfectly acceptable in Lutheran services.  We are rich in these hymns from the entire ecumenical and global church and they are much beloved by people in our Lutheran churches as well as popular around the world.  We can accept them into the canon of Lutheran hymns because they preach the pure Gospel of Jesus, or teach it, or pray to him in the words of Scripture.

 

Lutherans & Ecumenical Hymns

   So, we as Lutherans, whose ecumenical strategy at its best rejoices in the unity we already have in Jesus Christ, can accept these hymns, as we have over the generations, with pleasure, into our hymnals.  When Lutherans came to America, and started preparing their first English hymnal, they, by necessity, opened their hymnbooks up to a wide variety of great English hymns because there were no serviceable English translations of German or Scandinavian hymns.  They took in many hymns by favor Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley, most of which Lutherans have sung ever since with joy.  After Catherine Winkworth in the mid-19^th century provided English speaking Lutherans with a treasury of German Lutheran texts in good English, Lutherans began publishing hymnals with many more Lutheran chorales in them.  The Norwegian Evangelical Church in America in 1912 produced a hymnal, The Lutheran Hymnary, which contained mostly classic Lutheran chorales that made very few gestures toward American hymnody, although it did include the classic Anglican hymns such as “Holy, Holy, Holy.”  The Hymnal (1925) by Swedish Augustana was very friendly to the American songbook, including Gospel hymns like “The Sweet Bye and Bye.”  That enriched us. 

 

Include or Cut?

   We should still continue including new hymns as well as old ones by our Christian brothers and sisters around the world, who can teach us how to preach, praise and pray to Christ alone.  We should not take them, however, just because they come from the global church.  Too many of the hymns in the Renewing Worship selection are chosen simply because they are from non-Western churches without much attention to their theology, like this one:

 

Refrain:

Let us Go Now to the Banquet

to the feast of the universe.

The table’s set and a place is waiting;

come, ev’ryone, with your gifts to share.

 

Verse #1

I will rise in the early morning;

the community’s waiting for me.

With a spring in my step I’m walking

with my friends and family.

 

Verse #2

God invites all the poor and hungry

to the banquet of justice and good

where the harvest will not be hoarded

so that no one will lack for food.

 

Verse #3

May we build such a place among us

where all people are equal in love. 

God has called us to work together

and to share everything we have.

 

         

 (“Let Us Go Now to the Banquet,”

   R178, in New Hymns and Songs

   from Renewing Worship)

There is nothing about the forgiveness of sins in this text, and it’s all about what we are doing or to do.

Just Give Me Jesus

   Not every hymn or spiritual song written today preaches the gospel.  Hymns which tell God what we are doing, and seem to imply that our works should do anything to win us favor with God should be banned, no matter where they come from, or how popular they are.  For my part, I want a hymn to “Give me Jesus,” as the old spiritual says.  That’s the main thing.

 

Gracia Grindal is Professor of Rhetoric at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN

and a member of the Board for WordAlone

 

 

ENDNOTE:

¹  The Book of Concord:  The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, edited by Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, Tr. Charles Arand, Eric Gritsch, Robert Kolb, William Russell, James Schaaf, Jane Strohl, Timothy J. Wengert (Fortress Press, 2000), p. 258.

 

WORDALONE HYMNAL PROJECT

Lutheran Hymnal For Church and Home

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