Christian Worship: A Lutheran Hymnal

Rating:
Summary: Christian Worship: A Lutheran Hymnal
Review: Christian Worship: A Lutheran Hymnal is the hymnal of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. It was published in 1993, and within a few years it was in use in over 90% of WELS congregations. The committee's goal was to "preserve, improve and enlarge" the Lutheran worship heritage, building on the materials in The Lutheran Hymnal (1941). The hymnal uses contemporary, and inclusive language, yet retains Elizabethan English in many hymns that could not be revised without violence to the text. I've been leading worship with it for over nine years, and have found it is very user friendly, yet very substantial in content. The hymns are not "dumbed down." Special features: sixty psalms with refrains, responsive prayers for the seasons, multiple settings (harmonizations) of tunes when the tune appears more than once, contemporary settings of Service of Word and Sacrament, Service of the Word, Evening Prayer (Vespers). The Common Service and Morning Praise (Matins) retain the tunes that were in TLH. ...and yes, it does have Amazing Grace (#379) and How Great Thou Art (#256)!

Rating:
Summary: Best in Class - A Reappraisal
Review: The purpose of this mini-review is twofold: to make two factual emendations to my original review of July 2003 that go a little beyond the bounds of the "Edit" function -- and especially to apologize for them. Also I'd like to personally thank Mr. Paul Stradman for so tactfully editing his review to indicate out that yes--indeed--the WELS' *CHRISTIAN WORSHIP* hymnal (1993) does indeed contain the hymns "Rock of Ages" and "Amazing Grace," unlike what I had said in my original July 2003 review. That review, unless redacted by Amazon, should still appear intact a couple of entries below.

(I know this sounds trivial but if a church organist assumes the church hymnal contains "Amazing Grace" and a firefighter's funeral looms, well . . .) At any rate, Mr. Stradman's slight nudge provokes this Red Ryder BB-gun onslaught of honesty; I can only ask that you read me out before reaching for the all-damning "NO" button that would indicate I wasn't of help. I am trying to be of help, and indeed my original July 2003 review is still of help, subject to what's below.

WELS' hymnal contains not only "Rock of Ages" but "Amazing Grace". That was my first mistake. The second was my implication that a hymn like "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling" had to be translated out of the German when the truth is more circuitious if a bit irrelevant. Some of the old 18th Century and older English hymns were translated into German before the 19th Century emigration of Northern German and Scandinavian Lutherans to the USA and Canada, and sometimes, upon translation back into contemporary American English, they sounded a bit different--and a bit less open to interpretations of "cheap grace" as I explained in my original review.

All this is true--but in the interest of active ethics--Mea Culpa! I culled my two examples from *THE AMBASSADOR HYMNAL*! Blame "living-room floor" research compounded by to adult-onset color blindness. I was juggling, comparing and contrasting the Missouri Synod, WELS, and Ambassador hymnals to look for different nuances of phrasing and translation. WELS' *CHRISTIAN WORSHIP* and *THE AMBASSADOR HYMNAL* are as good as identical for thickness, trim size, format [liturgy followed by hymnody], indexing, ordering of hymns, pub. date [early 1990s], and color: one is a very deep dark red, the other just dark. My "dim" (in both senses of the word) research helped trigger both blunders.

Nonetheless, I stand by the general tenor and thesis of my appraisal of the WELS hymnal and the reasons I like it; a follow-up phone call to the book's owner was in order. Mr. Stradman gave even solider reasons he liked it so much to award it a "five" as a hymnal for his home denomination. Indeed, a ninety percent acceptance rate is extraordinary. Seven years after the introduction of the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s hymnal in 1991, acceptance was only in the middle eighties and actual use down in the low seventies.

My "four" rating represents no actual flaw in "CHRISTIAN WORSHIP" but merely my assumption that, since the hymnal had received such thunderance acceptance within its home audience, that Amazon shoppers would consist instead mostly of people like home pianists, church organists, people interested in different kinds of church liturgics (including those in search of fresh or insightful wording such as clergy), people interested in Northern European ethnic heritage or Lutheranism--and finally some side consideration to those who collect hymnals as physical product (the "well-made book"), and just possibly congregations playing the field looking for a starter or replacement hymnal.

Some people among such a polyglot universe may indeed find CHRISTIAN WORSHIP a veritable "Six" (that's Ideal, isn't it?) but to me the whole idea is that CHRISTIAN WORSHIP can't and shouldn't be all things to all people all the time, something like the old adage that "Everyone's friend is everyone's fool." Besides, I rarely give Fives. ;)

Please, though, read my earlier review of this underappreciated tome, and read Mr. Stradman's superior effort even more closely. When I can, I intend to re-borrow THE AMBASSADOR HYMNAL from the same well-heeled Lutheran intellectual who lent it to me last year along with CHRISTIAN WORSHIP and review it--under a brighter light!

"To err is human, to forgive, divine."

Rating:
Summary: Best in Class - A Reappraisal
Review: The purpose of this mini-review is twofold: to make two factual emendations to my original review of July 2003 that go a little beyond the bounds of the "Edit" function -- and especially to apologize for them. Also I'd like to personally thank Mr. Paul Stradman for so tactfully editing his review to indicate out that yes--indeed--the WELS' *CHRISTIAN WORSHIP* hymnal (1993) does indeed contain the hymns "Rock of Ages" and "Amazing Grace," unlike what I had said in my original July 2003 review. That review, unless redacted by Amazon, should still appear intact a couple of entries below.

(I know this sounds trivial but if a church organist assumes the church hymnal contains "Amazing Grace" and a firefighter's funeral looms, well . . .) At any rate, Mr. Stradman's slight nudge provokes this Red Ryder BB-gun onslaught of honesty; I can only ask that you read me out before reaching for the all-damning "NO" button that would indicate I wasn't of help. I am trying to be of help, and indeed my original July 2003 review is still of help, subject to what's below.

WELS' hymnal contains not only "Rock of Ages" but "Amazing Grace". That was my first mistake. The second was my implication that a hymn like "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling" had to be translated out of the German when the truth is more circuitious if a bit irrelevant. Some of the old 18th Century and older English hymns were translated into German before the 19th Century emigration of Northern German and Scandinavian Lutherans to the USA and Canada, and sometimes, upon translation back into contemporary American English, they sounded a bit different--and a bit less open to interpretations of "cheap grace" as I explained in my original review.

All this is true--but in the interest of active ethics--Mea Culpa! I culled my two examples from *THE AMBASSADOR HYMNAL*! Blame "living-room floor" research compounded by to adult-onset color blindness. I was juggling, comparing and contrasting the Missouri Synod, WELS, and Ambassador hymnals to look for different nuances of phrasing and translation. WELS' *CHRISTIAN WORSHIP* and *THE AMBASSADOR HYMNAL* are as good as identical for thickness, trim size, format [liturgy followed by hymnody], indexing, ordering of hymns, pub. date [early 1990s], and color: one is a very deep dark red, the other just dark. My "dim" (in both senses of the word) research helped trigger both blunders.

Nonetheless, I stand by the general tenor and thesis of my appraisal of the WELS hymnal and the reasons I like it; a follow-up phone call to the book's owner was in order. Mr. Stradman gave even solider reasons he liked it so much to award it a "five" as a hymnal for his home denomination. Indeed, a ninety percent acceptance rate is extraordinary. Seven years after the introduction of the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s hymnal in 1991, acceptance was only in the middle eighties and actual use down in the low seventies.

My "four" rating represents no actual flaw in "CHRISTIAN WORSHIP" but merely my assumption that, since the hymnal had received such thunderance acceptance within its home audience, that Amazon shoppers would consist instead mostly of people like home pianists, church organists, people interested in different kinds of church liturgics (including those in search of fresh or insightful wording such as clergy), people interested in Northern European ethnic heritage or Lutheranism--and finally some side consideration to those who collect hymnals as physical product (the "well-made book"), and just possibly congregations playing the field looking for a starter or replacement hymnal.

Some people among such a polyglot universe may indeed find CHRISTIAN WORSHIP a veritable "Six" (that's Ideal, isn't it?) but to me the whole idea is that CHRISTIAN WORSHIP can't and shouldn't be all things to all people all the time, something like the old adage that "Everyone's friend is everyone's fool." Besides, I rarely give Fives. ;)

Please, though, read my earlier review of this underappreciated tome, and read Mr. Stradman's superior effort even more closely. When I can, I intend to re-borrow THE AMBASSADOR HYMNAL from the same well-heeled Lutheran intellectual who lent it to me last year along with CHRISTIAN WORSHIP and review it--under a brighter light!

"To err is human, to forgive, divine."

Rating:
Summary: Best in Class
Review: This innocuous, maroon-covered charmer was published specifically to meet the needs of the Milwaukee-headquartered Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), a smallish denomination only about five percent the membership of the two largest American Lutheran affiliations combined. It doesn't pass the politically-correct acid-test of other 1990s hymnals (Did it omit "Onward, Christian Soldiers"? Did it include "Spirit Song"?).

No, it doesn't have "Spirit Song." Not even "How Great Thou Art," which seems pretty shocking for a hymn which was translated from Swedish in the Fifties and has been showing up, translated, into all kinds of American hymnals since then--especially those with a heavy German/Scandinavian heritage close kin to the WELS denomination's *Christian Worship.*

But really--that's beside the point. To this reviewer it isn't a matter of what it lacks; there are plenty of middle-of-the-road hymnals out there but this one is relevant and appropriate to WELS members and clergy. The volume contains catechisms, confessions, creeds and service liturgies like the Eucharist. It's chock-full of hymns from Northern Germany and Scandinavia and considered as a bearer of heritage is certainly no more provincial than the current (1982) Episcopal hymnal, which bears even fewer of the best-known American hymns in favor of multiple versions of English tunes.

And for the rest of us, the more I look at the Hymnal, the more intriguing it can be. *Christian Worship* is a non-compromiser in its stance on its specifically Lutheran viewpoint on theology. By means such as fresher (and frequently more contemporary and accurate) translations from the German or minor alternative phrasing to text, the reader/singer will encounter subtle nuances more in accord with Martin Luther's doctrine of "Salvation Through Grace by Faith" specifcally that demonstrate that the process of salvation is, under Lutheran doctrine, less automatic and autonomous ("cheap grace" is the slur term) than were often seen to be the case in later Wesleyan/Methodist interpretations of salvation.

For example, the last line of verse one of "Rock of Ages" ends in most mainline hymnals with "Be of sin the double cure, Save from wrath and make me pure." The WELS version leaves no doubt that salvation is not something like a consumer good that can be ordered: "Be of sin . . . Cleanse me from its guilt and power." At this point I must say that other hymnals from other similarly-sized Lutheran denominations and affiliations in the Upper Midwest have their own take (or poetic license, if that metaphor isn't too presumptuous) in terms of theological guidance. For example, what is in the United Methodist Hymnal's version of "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling" as "Let us find that second rest," winds up in the *Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary* from Mankato, MN as "Let us find Thy promised rest." (At this point, I've exhausted my theological knowledge ;) .)

Here's where it must be said that using alternate translations or even scrapping traditional in favor of alternative lyrics (if properly indicated as such) is no sin, not legal, intellectual or theological. These are matters of very old expressions of faith, not copyrighted Rogers & Hammerstein tunes. The public domain rules the old, old hymns.

The bound volume itself is very, well stitched, very "flippable" and easy to use, and with all the best back-of-the-book reference techniques. Pity it seems not to be on acid-free paper or else it would last a lot longer than its 62-year-old parent. Nonetheless, a bargain.

If WELS members are more than pleased with the 1993 hymnal, from what I know I quite agree. From my own situation and all mental trifling aside, I can think of situations in which congregations outside the fold might want to use such a dignified hymnal. (An appreciation of Lutheranic or Scandianavian/ German heritage certainly helps, of course.) Such a close-bound congregation might see the WELS hymnal as preferable to the type of hymnal catering to the burgeoning "unihymnals" deliberately marketed toward more rootless, homogenized or surburban fellowships--there are tradeoffs pro and con, of course.

Not a Nordic? Anyone with an interest in general liturgy or musicology would do well to take a look at the unique contributions of style, liturgics, heritage and outlook found in this handsome, distinctive and well-wrought tome.

...
.