Connecting to Christ, not to traditions: Hymnals, Liturgy and the essential work of the Church

The trend toward the past in some Lutheran circles has been present for a few decades now, and it is taking stronger shape in a culture that does not seem able to hold on to anything for more than 24 hours. The movement here is understandable: we look back to what we consider solid and familiar. Pews, liturgy, hymnals are an example of it. We assume there was a time when the Church was better than it is today, and we think we should return to that model if we want the Church to remain and grow, or at least to faithfully decline.

I have addressed the topic of the golden era of the Church  in another essay. This text focuses on hymnals, and the attempt to turn them into something they were never meant to be: the only way in which a church that wants to be considered faithful to Christ and the Word can properly conduct the Divine Service and worship the Lord. 

There was this time when I was questioned, right after a fully traditional service, why I had replaced the "gloria in excelsis" by a hymn which was a gloria in excelsis hymn from the hymnal. This type of critique sounds the alarm about the way in which venerating what is written in hymnals as the only faithful liturgical and musical option may actually prevent tradition from being what it has always been: a living source of content, adaptation, and growth within the life of the Church.

Because we are not in the business of connecting people to specific types of liturgy or hymns, which in itself would be dangerously close to idolatry. The Church's essential work is to connect people to Christ. The Church does not exist to preserve particular liturgical forms as ends in themselves; it uses them as tested means through which Christ delivers His gifts.

Hymnals as continued work 

I do appreciate hymnals greatly, and the rich traditions they carry. I use them, I’m shaped by them, and I’m grateful for them. My concern is not hymnals themselves, but the way it can be used to absolutize certain preferences and demonize anything that does not look like it.

Hymnals are not God given, but historically situated books, under the influence and work of editorial processes, theological climates, and aesthetic sensibilities.  They are connected to the history of Church, that's beyond question; but they also bear the marks and the choices of their time.

Take the Lutheran Church in North America, for example. Many, if not most, congregations utilize the Lutheran Service Book, released in 2006. One can certainly argue that it stands in continuity with the multi secular Christian tradition—and it does—but it remains a product of a particular moment: editorial committees, theological debates, musical fashions, and anxieties about what counts as “contemporary” or “traditional”, just to quote a few influencing factors. It bears its differences, for example, from its grandmother, the 1940's The Lutheran Hymnal(TLH). So much so that many congregations have never adopted the LSB, keeping the TLH in their pews. This in itself strengthens the argument of this essay, since both sides of the aisle would still be considered faithful congregations. (Or not?...)

A hymnal is a part, not the whole, of the Christian story. If we freeze worship to what those in positions of leadership in the Synod approved in 2006 and treat that as a closed standard, we are not actually being traditional; we are ignoring the historical reality that liturgy has always developed and adapted, sometimes slowly and organically, sometimes more visibly, within the Church’s life. If Christian liturgical and musical practice had remained the same for 2000 years, we would not be using the nunc dimittis, the aaronic blessing, instruments, barroque hymns, round wafers, fancy robes and stoles and we would still be dismissing non-Christians from Church right before the Sacrament.

The essence has never changed. The forms and practices have ever adapted. 

Our goal is connect people to Christ, not to specific traditions.   

 

Content, review and sound Theology

Here, the conversation often turns to control, expressed in questions like: “But shouldn’t every song that is not in the hymnal be reviewed by a third party before it is used in the service?” It is a fair question, but it leads to another. Why is liturgical and musical discernment singled out in this way, while sermons, Bible studies, announcements, pastor’s funny quips during the service, and teaching materials are ordinarily entrusted to pastoral discretion and discernment? The pastoral office is called and examined precisely to handle the Word and its application. The question, then, is not whether there should be discernment, but why that discernment is sometimes applied as a general blanket suspicion toward anything not bound between the covers of a hymnal.

Sermons and Bible studies would actually call for more revision that music, since we believe that the proclamation of the word is the very voice of God through the called minister.  As opposed to songs which, even when versed on biblical themes, are almost in their totality a product of the pen and the editorial choice of hymn and song writers, and can be at any time ditched from the next Sunday on.

The distinction that matters is not that that hymns carry less weight than sermons;  the difference is in their source and function. A sermon, when faithful to the text, is the Word of God proclaimed. Most hymns are a human composition about the Word of God. In Lutheran terms, the norma normans of worship (the norm that norms all else) is Scripture itself, confessed in the Book of Concord. Hymnals belong to the realm of the norma normata: good, tested, useful, but always a subordinate norm, that can go under evaluation by the very Word it seeks to serve. The question "Is this text faithful?" gets replaced, without anyone noticing, by "Is this text included? 

This argument does not diminish hymnals. Rather, it honours them in their proper place. But it does raise the question of whether, in practice, we apply this distinction consistently, or if we simply trust Baroque-styled hymns more, even when their content could be questioned, while extra-hymnal songs are held to a stricter standard even when no wrong teaching is present in them.

This prompts an even more specific question: how are these extra-hymnal songs being evaluated, and by whom?

Many times, it is not a question of right or wrong,  but that it does not say things the way a particular editor or committee believes they should be said. Reviewing is never neutral. If you wear a personal theological magnifying glass, and stare long enough, you can find problem in each and every one of the hymns.  

This becomes clear when we look at concrete examples.  Why does “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing” is deemed not fit for the hymnal by some, while “Away in a Manger” remains untouched? It seems that no one in editorial committees noticed that "Just as I am" doesn't articulate third article theology clearly (The Holy Spirit calls us) as it insistently repeats "I come, I come". When you look to LSB #617, it has a line saying "May this feast thereof remind us!". Because it is a hymn under the Holy Supper section, the use of "Remind us" can misguide people to lean into "remembrance" and "symbolism" instead of the doctrine of the Real Presence.

These, and many other examples, illustrate the point: many editorial decisions reflect personal preferences, context, and sometimes, ingredients of herd mentality.  Even what appears “timeless” within a hymnal is the result of selection.  Editorial decisions have been made in different eras of the Church. Inclusion in a hymnal does not make a text inherently  infallible; exclusion does not make it suspect. That applies to the 600-and-something hymns included, and just as true of the countless hymns excluded. I have seen changes in hymn and songs that have nothing to do with doctrine and everything to do with preference, style or bias even. One of my own songs, published in an IELB songbook, had a line changed from "I will thank you" to "I want to thank you." There was no theological, musical, or prosodic necessity for the change, only the preference of an editorial committee — and, by the way, without asking the songwriters' permission. 

The pedagogical reason

And here is an angle you don't see very often. Avoiding the repetition of the same liturgies Sunday after Sunday, year after year, has a positive pedagogical effect. It helps the congregation to understand that God's action in Word or Sacrament doesn't depend on repeating the same liturgical words every time. Otherwise, church members may come to the conclusion that if the pastor doesn't use the Sanctus or the eucharistic prayer, that Holy Supper is less valid, or not valid at all. Or if the the acclamation of the Gospel is omitted, the Gospel is not truly being received. 

This is one of the ways in which lex orandi lex credendi is applied to the Service: we do not want to lead people to think that the Service is only “biblically true” or “really effective” when we repeat the same formula every time. Word and Sacraments are the essence of the Service, around which everything else unfolds, in Christ who works through His Word and promise.

Of course, we know that repetition is a very good teacher. A congregation that uses the same liturgy consistently knows it by heart, and that is a great gift: catechesis by repetition. We see children who cannot yet read learn to confess the Creed because they have heard it a hundred times before. So the point here is not that repetition is bad, or that variation is inherently better. The point here is clear and precise: repetition should never be turned into the proof of validity over variation, just as variation should never be turned into a virtue over repetition. Repetition is a powerful teacher, and variation can be confusing if it is careless. The issue is not frequency of change, but whether repetition and variety are both governed by clear catechesis and a firm trust in Christ’s promise. 

We don't want absolutes replacing Christ's promise with our own comfort, be it the comfort of the same or the comfort of the new.

When a congregation is aware that faithful variety is not only good but desirable, this helps to prevent a form of liturgical superstition:  the idea that only certain specific liturgical words and forms (sometimes repeated 5 times in the same day) carry the power of the Word, and not Christ's promise attached to Word and Sacrament. The Supper is not less valid because of variations in its preceding liturgy, and neither is the Gospel less received. If it were so, we would be trusting in the formula, not in the One who instituted it.

  

Faithful Musical and Liturgical Practice

Here's a word of appreciation of the importance of hymnals. They often carry a broad ecclesial consensus. They protect us from shallow, disposable songs. They function as portable confessions of what we teach, believe, and sing. They give us a shared repertoire so that when a congregation in Toronto, Tanzania or Tokio sings “Savior of the Nations, Come,” they join voices with Christians everywhere. All of that is gift.

Here's a word of warning about hymnals: when they are treated as the only legitimate source of what may be sung, and everything outside its covers is viewed with suspicion, we have shifted our authority. The living Word and the Church’s Confession utilized and pastorally applied by local pastors are no longer the measure; the book is. 

Hymnals were meant to serve the Church’s ongoing discernment of faithful song. They gather what has been tested by Scripture, time, and use, so that congregations do not have to start from zero. But if we treat that gathering as a closed system, we deny what hymnals themselves testify: that tradition, not traditionalism, has always been the norm in the History of the Church. (And if you are wondering about it: rejecting hymnals and focusing only in context and the present time is equally dangerous. )

A faithful liturgical and musical practice will hold to this:
_the Divine Service is Governed by the Word and aims to connect people to Christ
_Hymnals as a reference book for the Church to connect people to Christ;
_Liturgical and musical practices are done under pastoral and congregational discernment to connect people to Christ.

The essence has never changed. The forms and practices have ever adapted.  

The work of the Church is to connect people to Christ. That can be done in more that one way, but always connected to The Way.

Image source: Concordia Publishing House