A Musical Critique of
the Draft List of Proposed Hymns and Tunes
for a New Book of Worship
as found in the Report to the Church
Council, November 16, 2004
-by Richard E. Thorell, Zion Lutheran Church, Indiana, PA
The worship of the
Christian assembly is at the heart of the church’s identity and purpose.
-“Renewing
Worship in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America,”
Report to the Church Council, November 2004, p. 1.
For several years now we Lutherans have been presented with opportunities to study and experience the Renewing Worship materials being promoted by Augsburg Fortress and the ELCA. I personally have seen and experienced them in a variety of venues: internet, hard copy, Synod Assemblies, Valparaiso’s Liturgical Institute, a Renewing Worship workshop, and the Draft List mentioned in the title of this critique. It is the last named which has provided the inspiration and focus for this critique, and leads me to elaborate upon the following. . .Conclusion
Enactment of Renewing Worship will lead the ELCA away from a liturgical worship centered in its rich Lutheran musical heritage, and toward a vague, generic American Protestant aesthetic heavily influenced by the popular culture.
Methodology
Based on a survey of the 615 hymns/songs on the Draft List, I determined which came from the Lutheran Book of Worship (LBW), With One Voice (WOV), or “The Renewing Worship Songbook” (R). I was then able to determine which LBW hymn titles and tune names are not included on the Draft List. In other words, this analysis shows us what we stand to lose through Renewing Worship. I then created a list of WOV and R hymns/songs that are included on the Draft List. This in turn shows us the nature of what we stand to gain through Renewing Worship.
Throughout this paper I will employ the term, genre, to refer to a distinctive type, family, or category of hymnody. Assigning hymns to such categories is somewhat subjective and can be a risky business, and many readers may disagree with some of my designations. My use of the term, hymn, usually takes into account the total package of both words and music, and does not focus exclusively on the words.
Findings
On the Draft List eliminates no fewer than 240 of the 569 hymns and canticles presently in LBW; that amounts to over 44% of our present body of congregational song. The chart below focuses on these omissions from a different perspective. I selected four hymn genres which I believe to be integral and essential to our Lutheran musical heritage and liturgical worship. German and Scandinavian hymnody are obvious choices, and I contend that both hymnody from the continental Reformed tradition and Chant are closely related. The chart shows that 107 of the 239 LBW hymns from these four genre categories are to be eliminated from a new worship resource. That amounts to 44% of this crucial, core repertoire. (Appendix I lists all LBW hymns eliminated from the Draft List.)
Hymn Genre No. in LBW No. eliminated from Draft List
German Hymnody 171 70
Scandinavian Hymnody 38 21
Chant 17 8
Reformed, continental 13 8
Totals: 239 107
Turning from hymn title to the more purely musical consideration of tune name the picture is much the same. LBW contains a total of 202 tunes from these four genre categories. (Because 32 tunes are used with more than one hymn text, the number of tunes does not equal the number of hymn titles in the above paragraph.) Renewing Worship’s Draft List would eliminate 93 of them, or 46%. Again, this core repertoire, and with it our distinctive Lutheran musical heritage, are taking a heavy hit at the hands of Renewing Worship. (Appendix II lists all LBW tune names in these categories alphabetically.)
So what do we get in return? A total of 244 hymns/songs from WOV and R are included on the Draft List. These, plus approximately ten hymns/songs from other sources, are therefore presumably scheduled to be part of a new worship book. My expanded list of hymn/song genres employed in the chart below has been necessary to adequately reflect the diversity concerns of Renewing Worship. The first six genre categories, shown in bold, represent what I consider the most non-Lutheran entries, and also much music of questionable quality. They total 124, over half of the new entries, 50.8%to be exact. (Each hymn/song included in the chart below is listed by genre classification in Appendix III.)
German and Scandinavian hymnody, Chant, and Reformed hymnody (shown in italics) account for only 20 “new” entries, or a mere 8% of the total. And most of these give us nothing new in musical terms, but simply wed a tune currently used to LBW to a different text.
The large middle group of 100 represents a type of stylistic miscellany. I do not show these in more detail because they are not the focus of this critique. However, within this category we do stand to gain a few excellent tunes, most of which are already in WOV. A more questionable addition are some folk tunes strongly linked to their traditional texts, and a number of “chestnuts” from late 19th and early 20th century gospel/revival hymnody.
Hymn/Song Genre No. Added
Praise Songs, or Christian “Pop” 64
Latin, Spanish Language Origin 19
Negro Spiritual 11
African 15
Taizé 6
Misc. (e.g., American Indian, Oriental) 9
Traditional Hymnody from America, the British Isles, and Other,
20th Century and Earlier; also Folk-inspired Hymns from
America and the British Isles 100
German Hymnody 12
Scandinavian Hymnody 5
Chant 1
Reformed Hymnody 2Service Music, A Brief Detour
A review of the Renewing Worship volume, Holy Communion and Related Rites, gives us some of the texts and music intended for our various liturgies. The examples of service music in this volume give us melodies that are, at best, undistinguished. The music settings often remind one of cocktail lounge piano noodling. With our rich heritage including both the Service Book and Hymnal and the Lutheran Book of Worship, not to mention the number of talented and active Lutheran composers on the scene, we have every right to expect better.
A Course of Action
I began this critique with a quotation from Renewing Worship. To say that “worship. . . is at the heart of the church’s identity and purpose,” is but another way of saying Lex orandi-Lex credendi, meaning that how we worship affects what we believe. If we take worship seriously, if we value our Lutheran heritage and identity, then how can we support a Renewing Worship enterprise that would impoverish rather than enrich us, that would weaken rather than strengthen our Lutheran identity? We need and deserve a better blueprint for the future, and we need new leadership.
