ugly<\/em>, only a little uglier.<\/p>\nI\u2019ve long loved to sing the hymn \u201cSing Praise to God Who Reigns Above\u201d since I broke away from my pop worship roots in graduate school. I still think ultimate line in each stanza, \u201cTo God all praise and glory,\u201d is one of the most thrilling to sing in all of hymnody.<\/p>\n
Most hymnals include four stanzas, except most Lutheran hymnals. God love the Lutherans for not being afraid of singing a bunch of stanzas.<\/p>\n
As most translated hymns go, there were quite a few variations in the text of this hymn from its first English rendering in the mid-19th century, until around 1950, when the variations became fewer, and we were left with a few more or less standard versions.<\/p>\n
Until the past few decades, when heavy-handed hymnal committees began to jack around with beloved hymns to make them sound more modern and inclusive. This is not the most dramatically altered hymn text, but one particular change stood out to me as I was reading through it this week, and it got me thinking about the rest of it.<\/p>\n
The hymnal I was using was a newer publication from a mainline Protestant denomination. This is how the first stanza of \u201cSing Praise to God Who Reigns Above\u201d appeared two hymnal revisions ago, in the mid-1950s, and the changes made in the current revision:<\/p>\n
Sing praise to God who reigns above,<\/em>
\nThe God of all creation,<\/em>
\nThe God of power, the God of love,<\/em>
\nThe God of our salvation;<\/em>
\nWith healing balm my soul He fills<\/del> is filled,<\/em>
\nAnd every faithless murmur stills<\/del> stilled:<\/em>
\nTo God all praise and glory.<\/em><\/p>\nI get it, we all use<\/del> passive voice is used by all of us, but it doesn\u2019t make for beautiful poetry. Quite the opposite, actually. It\u2019s uglier. In this case it\u2019s awkward, it doesn\u2019t sing particularly well, and it obscures the identity of who is performing the action, who happens to be Almighty God. It\u2019s a curious choice, too, considering this hymnal doesn\u2019t eliminate every single masculine pronoun used for God the Father. Many beloved texts remain unchanged, such as this one:<\/p>\n\u201cO my soul, praise him, for he is thy health and salvation!\u201d<\/p>\n
So is it because one hymn is more beloved than others? Or was the committee bored with their tedious busywork by the time they considered it? I don\u2019t know. So why would you choose to make one text uglier? Particularly when Jesus himself taught us to pray using the locution \u201cOur Father.\u201d<\/p>\n
Consistency aside, this is a classic case of scholars creating problems and doing their best to convince us all that we share those problems. And while I am sympathetic to the pastoral concerns that arise for some by referring to God as Jesus taught, those pastoral concerns do not give us license to rewrite the whole book.<\/p>\n
The madness continues in stanza 2:<\/p>\n
What God\u2019s almighty power hath<\/del> has made,<\/em>
\nHis<\/del> God\u2019s gracious mercy keepeth;<\/em>
\nBy morning glow or evening shade<\/em>
\nHis<\/del> God\u2019s watchful eye ne\u2019er sleepeth;<\/em>
\nWithin the kingdom of His God\u2019s<\/del> might,<\/em>
\nLo! all is just and all is right:<\/em>
\nTo God all praise and glory.<\/em><\/p>\nEveryone knows what \u201chath\u201d means. Again what are we afraid of exactly? Particularly when \u201ckeepeth\u201d and \u201csleepeth\u201d are kept unaltered.<\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s the great pronoun debate that has raged on through the past, um, five minutes, basically. If God is Father, we can use male pronouns with the understanding that such language is, in a sense, metaphorical. God is not male as I am. But the imminence of God as so wonderfully described by this hymn is left incomplete if we neuter Him, especially considering the shortcomings of the English language.<\/p>\n
Plus, the edited version sounds ugly and weird. The original repetitions of the word \u201cGod\u201d in stanza one are clearly for rhetorical effect: \u201cthe God of power, the God of love, the God of our salvation\u201d refers to the God mentioned in the incipit. It is a categorical unpacking of the first use.<\/p>\n
The newly added repetitions of \u201cGod\u201d in stanza two are different. People don\u2019t talk like this, and they shouldn\u2019t write poetry like this, either. For instance, my dog has been active in the past few minutes while I\u2019ve been writing this post. Let me tell you about it.<\/p>\n
My dog ate food and drank water.<\/em>
\nThen my dog barked at the back door.<\/em>
\nNext my dog went outside to relieve my dog\u2019s self,<\/em>
\nAnd while my dog was out there,<\/em>
\nMy dog rolled in excrement left by the neighbor\u2019s cat.<\/em>
\nMy neighbor\u2019s cat is not a very good cat.<\/em>
\nMy neighbor\u2019s cat likes to leave my neighbor\u2019s cat\u2019s excrement in my backyard for my dog to find.<\/em>
\nNow I have to give my dog a bath because my dog has grass and dirt and cat excrement in my dog\u2019s hair.<\/em><\/p>\nSee. Weird. And awkward.<\/p>\n
Stanza three is more of the same:<\/p>\n
The Lord is never far away,<\/em>
\nBut, through all grief distressing,<\/em>
\nAn everpresent help and stay,<\/em>
\nOur peace, and joy, and blessing;<\/em>
\nAs with a mother\u2019s tender hand,<\/em>
\nHe<\/del> God gently leads His own, His<\/del> the chosen band:<\/em>
\nTo God all praise and glory.<\/em><\/p>\nAnd finally, stanza four:<\/p>\n
Thus, all my toilsome way along,<\/em>
\nI sing aloud Thy praises,<\/em>
\nThat men<\/del> all may hear the grateful song<\/em>
\nMy voice unwearied raises;<\/em>
\nBe joyful in the Lord, my heart,<\/em>
\nBoth soul and body bear your part:<\/em>
\nTo God all praise and glory.<\/em><\/p>\nThis change doesn\u2019t bother me as much in this particular context. By \u201cmen,\u201d it\u2019s clear we mean everyone hearing my voice as I sing God\u2019s praises. In other hymns, such a change, particularly when oft-repeated, can be quite jarring and end up meaning something other than the author intended.<\/p>\n
While most of us in the past few decades have been trained to write with inclusive language, and to not say \u201cmen\u201d unless we are talking about male persons, it\u2019s okay to acknowledge that this was not always the case, and to preserve the beauty of the poetry. Here is what one woman, Episcopal Priest Fleming Rutledge, says about this predicament in the forward of one of her books:<\/p>\n
\u201cI have generally avoided the use of \u2018man\u2019 and \u2018him\u2019 in my more recent work, but I am not fanatical about it. If I value the cadence of a sentence, or the time-honored use of a term (for instance, \u2018the old Adam\u2019), I will retain the old form.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nMaybe we shouldn\u2019t be fanatical about it, either. And it is certainly fanatical when we\u2019re singing to and about a beautiful God to make those hymns distinctively less beautiful.<\/p>\n
Photo:
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<\/a><\/p>\n