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Lutheran Hymnals in America

Gracia Grindal

Hymnals for Immigrants

The first Lutherans in this country, those who would regard the Muhlenberg tradition as their own, what became the United Lutheran Church in America (ULCA), had been here for several generations when a new wave of immigrants from Germany, Sweden and Norway began landing on American shores. These Lutherans settled in Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and later the Dakotas. When they got here, unused to the pluralism of America, they thought the old Lutherans had been theologically corrupted by their American context which they saw, perhaps, most clearly in their English hymnals with hymns by Watts and Wesley, which these immigrants did not recognize as Lutheran.

The new immigrants did not speak English and needed hymnals in their own languages, not the English versions that members of the Muhlenberg tradition had prepared over the years. So the Germans of the Missouri Synod began producing their own materials in their own languages, as did the Ohio Synod, as did the Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, Finns, Icelanders, and Slovakians.

The first English hymnal produced by one of these groups was a small one, in 1879, by the Missouri Synod. Each tradition produced its first English hymnal around the turn of the century, but none of them lasted very long, partly because of their translations of the old hymns into an English that were, frankly, not very good. The Norwegians tried to produce an English hymnal in the 1890s but because they could not agree on which version of the tunes they would use, they produced two different ones. The Swedes produced an English hymnal in 1899 which was published with music in 1901. The Ohio Synod produced its first English hymnal of consequence in 1908. The first successful English hymnal done by Norwegians was The Lutheran Hymnary, in 1912, done by a joint committee of Norwegian Lutherans (The Hauge Synod, the United Church, and the Norwegian Synod) which merged to become the ELC in 1917. Swedish Augustana published its much loved English hymnal in 1925. The Danes produced a joint hymnal which involved both the pietistic (UELC) and Grundtvigian (AELC) traditions of Denmark, The Lutheran Hymnal for Church and Home in 1928. The churches coming together to form the old American Lutheran Church, the Buffalo, Iowa, Ohio, and Texas Synods, produced a hymnal, The American Lutheran Hymnal in 1930, which they had hoped would become the hymnal of all Lutherans in America, but unfortunately it did not. Icelanders did not have enough time or support or finances to produce

their own hymnal, and Finns also had trouble finding the massive amount of resources it took to produce an English version of their own tradition. The Missouri Synod produced its standard English hymnal, The Lutheran Hymnal, in 1941.

It, however, was the Muhlenberg tradition which trumped the later arriving traditions. The first widely acknowledged Lutheran hymnal in English had been the Church Book, done in 1868 by the General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. This is considered to be the first great Lutheran hymnal in English in America, the flower of the Muhlenberg tradition thus far in American Lutheran English hymnals. It was followed by The Common Service Book and Hymnal, which had first appeared with the “Common Service” in 1888. In the next generation, it was revised by a group made up of members from the General Council, the General Synod and the United Synod of the South, which merged in 1918 to create the ULCA. The ULCA thought of revising its book, but the Great Depression and WWII made that impossible until 1946 when its committee, under the leadership of Luther Reed, of Philadelphia Seminary, started work. Other Lutherans in America wanted to be included in that project, so over the next twelve years, the churches which would make up the ALC and the LCA (the ALC, ELC, LFC, UELC; and the AELC, Swedish Augustana Synod, Suomi Synod, ULCA) worked to put together a Lutheran hymnal suitable for the American context in the middle of the twentieth century. The Scandinavians on the committee, Selmer Berge, Laurence Field, Fred C. M. Hansen, E. E. Ryden, Leland Sateren, were notoriously unsuccessful in getting their treasury of Scandinavian hymns included because Reed, especially, successfully ridiculed the translations and theology of some old Dano-Norwegian classics such as Grundtvig’s “O Day Full of Grace” and Landstad’s “When Sinners See their Lost Condition.”

The Eastern Muhlenberg Lutherans preferred a hymnal that was more English than old world Lutheran, and pushed a greater inclusion of Methodist and Episcopal hymns than old Lutheran chorales from either Germany or Scandinavia. They were also more strongly influenced by the Anglo-Catholic revival of the 19^th century in England than the other Lutherans, so their hymnals were more liturgically based than the others. Not surprisingly, the Muhlenberg tradition dominated the formation of the Service Book and Hymnal (SBH) since it had originally been their book. In 1958, when the SBH came out, it was adopted, with some disappointment among Danes and Norwegians, by 2/3 of all American Lutherans – the ALC, AELC, The Swedish Augustana Synod, ELC, LFC, Suomi Synod, UELC, ULCA. The only significant tradition not to have been included was the Missouri Synod.

Hymnals Precede Mergers

One rule of this process is that hymnals precede mergers, as we can see from the formation of the ELC, the ULCA, and the ALC. Likewise, the ALC and LCA were formed by the church bodies that compiled of the SBH.

When the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship (ILCW) authorized the publication of a new hymnal in 1973, the committees all included members of the ALC, LCA, and the Missouri Synod. As the new hymnal came close to publication, the Missouri Synod became embroiled in its own controversy and ultimately withdrew from the project for several reasons, among them their realization that hymnals precede mergers.

Renewing Worship

Now after nearly thirty years, the ELCA is producing another hymnal with its new Renewing Worship project which will be put up for approval at the 2005 CWA. The people on the various committees are ultimately committed to the Ecumenical Movement and the Liturgical Revival that had its flowering in Vatican II. In order to be “ecumenical,” these committees are working to bring Lutheran liturgies in line with the revised liturgies of Vatican II. So the making of holy water is being proposed for the Easter Vigil baptism service, almost all of the communion services include the Eucharistic prayer, and all suggest the pastor face the congregation during the service.

Ecumenism & Liturgy

An ironic twist has appeared on the scene, however. The current Pope Benedict XVI opposes many of the liturgical revisions of Vatican II, and will no doubt work to change them, especially the folksy exchange between priest and people as he faces the congregation during the Mass. The new pope is said to prefer that priests face East with their backs to the congregation as they celebrate the mass and lead them in prayer.

Now that the new Pope has taken up his new office it will be interesting to see what happens in the Catholic Church and to our liturgical experts. The ironies abound, however. What merger will this book anticipate? Will it not be funny to see that our liturgical experts have put together a resource that will leave them standing alone at an altar facing the wrong way?

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

and a member of the WordAlone Board