This year, we mark the 500th anniversary of the congregational hymnal. It was created in 1524 out of the Reformation with hymns by (who else?) Martin Luther, that great advocate of catechizing church members by singing doctrine in the vernacular. Lutherans got a head start on Anglicans, who had to wait more than three centuries for their own hymnals.

Predictions of the demise of the hymnal have been rampant for a decade or two, whether due to new contemporary genres of worship music, the desire of some to employ the latest hits off the Christian radio charts, or just a general suspicion of books if not the printed word altogether.

Still, in a fit of optimism, two new hymnals for American Anglicans were introduced last fall, alongside the three existing alternatives I discussed four years ago.^[1] One, A Hymnal of the Heart from Nashotah House Press, was reviewed in this journal in 2022, but first sold on Amazon last November.^[2] The other, Sing Unto the Lord from Anglican Music Publishers, I first saw as a draft PDF a year ago, and as a printed book in November.

In anticipation of writing an extended review of the latter, I thought it would first be useful to answer a more basic question: What makes a good hymnal today?

If you ask the average parishioner what makes a good hymnal, the most likely answer will be, “It has all the hymns that I like.” A possible corollary is, “It doesn’t allow the music director or rector to select hymns that I don’t like.” Certainly today’s hymnals are about the selection of hymns and service music.

Beyond the individual (or average or minimum) quality of each hymn, there is also the broader question how to assemble a portfolio of hymns — as with an art collection or investment portfolio. A good hymnal will have something appropriate for every situation and context, such as specific services (baptism, funeral) or seasons (e.g. obscure saints’ days). It will also have staying power — be useful for a parish for at least one generation, if not longer.

To address these issues, I think it’s helpful to consider some related questions: Where do hymnals come from, and what are the goals of hymnal editors and publishers? To illustrate these points, let me first review the most important Anglican hymnals of the past 175 years.

Great Anglican Hymnals

In the 20th century, Anglicanism was known for its great hymns that were highly influential with other Protestant (and later even Catholic) hymnals.^[3] But that hymn tradition dates only to the middle of the 19th-century Church of England, many years after the various hymnals from English Methodists, Baptists, and other Nonconformists.

The early impetus to create Anglican hymnody came from the Cambridge Ecclesiologists, a group of Cambridge grads who — inspired by the Oxford Tractarians — sought to restore ancient and medieval ideas of art and beauty to Anglican worship.^[4] The best known of these was John Mason Neale, who led the Latin translations by the Cambridge men to produce the two-volume Hymnal Noted (1851–1855). The music was arranged by Thomas Helmore, with plainchant tunes adopted from Sarum and other medieval sources. The staying power of this one compilation is such that 26 of the hymns were later found in 20th-century American Protestant hymnals. The most popular were “All Glory, Laud, and Honor,” “O Come, Emmanuel,” “Christ is Made the Sure Foundation,” and “Of the Father’s Love Begotten.”^[5]

Only a small number of parishes adopted Hymnal Noted. Instead, the first comprehensive Anglican hymnal was Hymns Ancient & Modern, edited by Henry Williams Baker (with music editor William Henry Monk). Of the 273 hymns in the initial 1861 edition, “ancient” (actually pre-19th-century) comprised 129 translations by Neale, Edward Caswell and others; the “modern” included 10 German, one Italian, and 133 English hymns. Of the latter, 12 new texts were by Baker; of the tunes, 14 were composed by Monk and 104 were arranged by him.^[6]

With two revisions in the 19th century — an appendix in 1868 and a 2nd edition in 1875 — A&M quickly cemented its pre-eminence among Anglican hymnals. By 1892, a survey of more than 13,000 CofE parishes reported that nearly 76% used A&M, with two rivals at slightly more than 10% each, and the remainder fragmented among other hymnals.^[7] While it flopped with its first revision of the 20th century — the 1904 “New” edition that completely renumbered hymns — the 1922 “Standard” edition (an update using the 1875 renumbering) lasted until 1950. With continued revisions into the 21st century (the latest in 2013), the publisher claims to have sold “nearly 200 million copies” in its first 160 years.^[8]

Instead, A&M was eclipsed by the most influential Anglican hymnal of the 20th century: The English Hymnal of 1906, edited by Percy Dearmer with music editor Ralph Vaughan Williams. A major goal was to prune out (as one scholar later put it) “the increasing mediocrity of successive editions of Hymns Ancient & Modern.”^[9] As Vaughan Williams biographer Alan Dickinson observed on the 50th anniversary of TEH:

with few exceptions the objectionable “old favourites,” dating from 1861 at the earliest … are out. The hymnody of two generations, thus cleansed, becomes the true starting point for a gradual extension to the many fine but unknown tunes of all ages…^[10]

In addition to numerous new texts, what is striking is the new music introduced by Vaughan Williams. He succeeded in broadening the music of CofE worship beyond Victorian hymn tunes, by adding adaptations of English folk tunes, contributing his own new compositions, and curating the portfolio to his own high standards.^[11] Of the 16 folk tunes in TEH,^[12] only a handful were adopted by US hymnals, of which the best known is Forest Green, what English choirs sing for “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” Better known are his own original tunes for hymns such as “For All the Saints,” “I Bind Unto Myself Today,” and “Hail Thee, Festival Day!”^[13]

The two collaborated on TEH’s slightly revised edition of 1933, with identical numbering, nearly identical hymn texts, but adding new tunes and moved some existing tunes to the appendix. For parishes that considered TEH too “Catholic,” the two men released Songs of Praise (1925) and Songs of Praise, Extended Edition (1933); these two editions were “enthusiastically adopted by the … not over-large, Modernist party within the Church of England. Otherwise it did not seriously affect the sales of either The English Hymnal or Hymns Ancient & Modern.”^[14]

The New English Hymnal of 1986 is a comparatively gentle update. The seven-member committee retained 400 of the 656 original hymns and was more cautious about modernizing language than American Protestants of the same era. This is the hymnal you’ll hear in most English choir broadcasts today, including the Christmas Eve service from King’s College Cambridge.

Meanwhile, starting in the mid-19th century, American hymnals were officially sponsored by the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America (PECUSA). The triennial conventions approved various (text-only) hymnals from 1865 to 1896, but with conflicting, privately published musical editions; each showed the increasing influence of Victorian hymnody, particularly A&M.^[15]

The first official PECUSA hymnal with music was The Hymnal of 1916, consciously developed as a revision to the 1896 hymnal. The 12-member committee surveyed 56 diocesan committees to ask which hymns they used; it retained 427 of the 431 endorsed by at least 45 committees — as well as six at its own discretion— while dropping the remaining 246 “which from carefully gathered testimony are shown not to have come into general use.” To this it added “126 hymns which have proved their value in other important collections” and confidently predicted that from its new compilation “every hymn will be used.”^[16]

The most influential Episcopal hymnal was The Hymnal of 1940, both for selection and for new contributions. Led by Charles Winfred Douglas, it finished the assimilation of key English hymns from A&M, TEH and the more recent SOP/SOPEE. It included new texts, music, and arrangements by Douglas (some uncredited) and other committee members, including F. Bland Tucker (e.g. “O Father, We Thank Thee, Who Hast Planted”) and Leo Sowerby (an arrangement of Venite adoremus). The choices made by H40 percolated through American hymnals for the remainder of the century.

The most gentle update to H40 came with the Book of Common Praise 2017 from the Reformed Episcopal Church. It was targeted to those who still were using H40, but either sought modest changes or feared that H40 would go out of print (so far, it has not). In addition to adding some newer (or omitted) hymns,^[17] two members of the hymnal committee — Andrew Dittman and Chris Hoyt — published 33 and 16 musical contributions; Hoyt also contributed six new hymn texts and one new translation.

A more drastic update to H40 came with The Hymnal 1982. Although later than the liberal Lutheran hymnal (Lutheran Book of Worship, 1978) it was still influential for the revision of mainline Protestant hymnals at the end of the 20th century, holding sway at the tail end of The Episcopal Church’s oversized influence in the 20th century.^[18] The hymnal has been denigrated if not anathematized among those with whom I’ve studied and worshipped, although that might be a biased sample.^[19] While it is impossible to judge the staying power of a current hymnal, a vote in its favor is that most of the hundreds of parishes that decamped this century for the ACNA and adopted the new ACNA prayer book are still singing from Hymnal 1982 (if they use a hymnal at all).

Finally, for our northern neighbors, the Anglican Church of Canada (née Church of England in Canada) published four hymnals in the 20th century: two editions of the Book of Common Praise (1908, 1938), The Hymn Book (1971) jointly with the United Church of Christ, and its most recent, the 1998 Common Praise.

Where Do Hymnals Come From?

A hymnal is a collection of hymns to support congregational singing during a worship service. As one hymnal begins:

THE ENGLISH HYMNAL is a collection of the best hymns in the English language, and is offered as a humble companion to the Book of Common Prayer for use in the Church. It is not a party book, expressing this or that phase of negation or excess, but an attempt to combine in one volume the worthiest expressions of all that lies within the Christian Creed, from those “ancient Fathers” who were the earliest hymn-writers down to contemporary exponents of modern aspirations and ideals.^[20]

For commercial and cultural (and ego) reasons, new hymnals are produced every few decades. A new hymnal can be big business, with a mainline hymnal generating millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. For example, after publishing an unpopular 1982 hymnal, in 2006 a major Lutheran publisher pushed hard to sell its new hymnal to every congregation in the country, and eliminate the use of both the 1941 and 1982 hymnals. When Southern Baptists were due to update their 1991 hymnal, a Baptist publisher rushed to bring out a new edition in 2008, pre-empting by two years an independent hymnal committee that included several members from the 1991 committee.^[21]

A few individuals since Luther have personally created a hymnal, typically of their own work. But compiling a comprehensive hymnal across the breadth of Christian hymnody — the norm for more than 160 years — generally requires a committee. The hymnal committee has two main jobs: selection and promotion.

For the first task, there is a vast repertoire to select from. Charles Wesley (1707–1788) is said to have written more than 6,000 hymns, and some 500 were still in use at the end of the 20th century,^[22] but the 1989 United Methodist Hymnal only had room for 51.

Isaac Watts (1674–1748) wrote more than 550 hymns: early on, both English and American Baptists used his Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1707) as their primary hymnal, but the 2008 and 2010 Baptist hymnals today include only 18 and 16 respectively. Even James Montgomery (1771–1848), a Moravian activist and poet, wrote 400 hymns, of which Hymnary.org today indexes 15, and ten are found in Hymnal 1982.

Some hymnals are a clear sequel to an existing denominational hymnal, and thus those creating (and using) the new one explicitly consider it in light of the earlier one. For example, Hymnal 1982 and Book of Common Praise 2017 were each a sequel to The Hymnal (1940), while Sing Unto the Lord is effectively a sequel to all three.^[23]

From the previous hymnal, the committee will cull both the chaff (the never popular) and the wheat (the once popular but now out of favor), reflecting the preferences of its members and sometimes a systematic survey of existing users.

There are clear bandwagon effects, when a once popular hymn will be dropped by one denomination’s hymnal which gives implicit license for other committees to do likewise. For example, Hymnary.org lists 639 hymnals with “Art Thou Weary, Art Thou Languid,” John Mason Neale’s adaptation of an 8th-century text by Stephen the Hymnographer (nephew of St. John of Damascus), usually sung with Stephanos — a tune introduced with the hymn’s appearance in the 1868 A&M.^[24] Of these hymnals, 625 were before 1979, including the major Episcopal, Lutheran, and Methodist hymnals of the mid-20th century, but not their successors.

Only indirect evidence is available to explain the selection of new hymns, which fall into three categories: those written for the new hymnal, others published since the previous hymnal, and previously omitted older hymns. An example of the latter is “Amazing Grace,” found only in Hymnal 1982 among the previously mentioned American (1916, 1940, 1982) and English (1906, 1925, 1933, 1986) Anglican hymnals of the 20th century.

The selection of new hymns is obviously highly political, typically favoring either the committee members or their friends. In the worst case, the result is a significant fraction of mediocrity (as with 1904 or 1982) that will likely disappear in the next generation of hymnals. In the best case, a talented hymnal committee creates or identifies excellent new hymns. For this, the hymns composed or arranged by Vaughan Williams are exemplary: H40 lists 16 hymns by Vaughan Williams, H82 has 25 and BCP17 has 22.

Less dramatically, with The Hymnal (1940), Charles Winfred Douglas created the first service music section of any Anglican hymnal, both canticles for Daily Office and four mass settings intended for congregational singing. For the latter, in addition to his own arrangement of historic medieval chants, he also introduced Episcopalians to Willan’s Missa de Sancta Maria Magdalena and the original English-language mass setting, Merbecke’s 1550 The Booke of Common Praier Noted (omitted from the above English hymnals before 1986).

Faithful Hymn Teaching

A good hymnal is one comprised of mostly if not entirely good hymns. But what makes a good hymn? Realistically, it’s the text, the music (both melody and harmony), and how the two fit together.

If there was an early advocate of the teaching value of hymn texts, it was Martin Luther. In 1524, printers in four different German cities printed Lutheran hymnals, with Luther’s work the most numerous in each.^[25] Luther wrote an estimated 36–38 hymns.^[26]

Dozens of articles and several books have been written about Luther’s 1529 hymn “Ein feste Burg” (“A mighty Fortress”),^[27] which has been called the “battle hymn of the Reformation.” The cumulative effect of these widely sung hymns was so great that, in an oft-quoted line, a 1620 Jesuit wrote, “Luther’s hymns have destroyed more souls than his writings.”^[28]

Hymns continued their doctrinal role after the Reformation. While hymns were discouraged in favor of psalms by 16th-century Calvinists in Geneva and Britain, in the 18th century English Calvinists such as Watts, Newton, and Cowper used them to promote Reformed doctrine.^[29]

Then as now, hymns play an essential role in preaching, teaching, and participatory worship. As J. R. Watson wrote in the introduction to his comprehensive survey of English hymnody:

Hymns permit the congregation to take part actively in a service… They allow preachers to supplement what they have to say with hymns which contain relevant statements of doctrine, or ideas about belief: they also unite a congregation in making music and in singing the same words simultaneously. Liturgically they were important in the Reformation and after, because of the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, for whom the singing of psalms and hymns was an expression of a universal right to understand and interpret the gospel.^[30]

A powerful impact of hymn texts is memorization through oral repetition: in Luther’s day, such oral tradition was powerful for Christians who could not read, while today it serves equally well for those who don’t like to read. For example, since age eight I have eagerly looked forward to each Trinity Sunday and the chance to sing “Holy, Holy, Holy.” Written by Anglican bishop Reginald Heber, it is sung to an 1861 tune specifically composed for Hymns A&M:

Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee:
Holy, Holy, Holy! merciful and mighty!
God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity.

Holy, Holy, Holy! all the saints adore thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
Cherubim and seraphim falling down before thee,
Which wert, and art, and evermore shalt be.

Holy, Holy, Holy! though the darkness hide thee,
Though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see,
Only thou art holy; there is none beside thee,
Perfect in power, in love, and purity.

Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!
All thy works shall praise thy Name, in earth, and sky, and sea;
Holy, Holy, Holy! merciful and mighty!
God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity.

It’s only in the past decade or so that I have attended churches (and even organized a retreat) where all seven verses of St. Patrick’s Breastplate were sung out by clergy and laity, eagerly proclaiming a more detailed and ancient Trinitarian doctrine.

Two 18th-century Anglican priests who were very interested in using hymns to promote Trinitarian orthodoxy were Charles and John Wesley.^[31] This topic was so important that in 1767 Charles published Hymns of the Trinity to promote Anglican views of the Trinity against contemporary Arian and Socinian heresies.^[32] While their theological writing had an immediate impact on creating and growing Methodism, Charles’ hymn texts later held a prominent place in other Protestant hymnals, including (eventually) Anglican hymnals.

Given that teaching role, hymns crossing denominational boundaries have long been vetted for doctrine. In his 1849 essay “English Hymnology: Its History and Prospects,” Neale sought to remove hymns by Watts, Wesley, and John Newton from Anglican hymnody not only because of doctrine, but also for excessive use of the first person singular which was “scrupulously avoided” by ancient hymnwriters.^[33]

In the 21st century, editors of new mainline Baptists and Presbyterians hymnals sought changes to Stuart Townend’s words for the 2001 megahit praise hymn “In Christ Alone.”^[34] Both groups objected to “the wrath of God was satisfied” in verse two, with the Baptists making an unauthorized substitution and the Presbyterians dropping the hymn when they could not win authorization for the same substitution; the Baptists also changed “no scheme of man” in verse four.^[35] Within 21st-century ACNA hymnals, both Book of Common Praise 2017 (#411) and Sing Unto the Lord (#459) faithfully include the original phrases.

Subjective and Objective Measures of Hymns

In addition to textual teaching, Luther also emphasized the unique emotional role of sacred music:

next to the Word of God, music deserves the highest praise [as] a mistress and governess of those human emotions. … For whether you wish to comfort the sad, to terrify the happy, to encourage the despairing, to humble the proud, to calm the passionate, or to appease those full of hate … what more effective means than music could you find?^[36]

I am a strong believer in the emotional power of four-part harmony in sacred music — as were Bach, Haydn, and many other Christian composers. Alas, hymnals have a mixed record in printing harmonies in pew hymnals, with H82 worse than earlier hymnals and BCP17 noticeably better.

Even if a hymn has the same words and music, the meaning ascribed to that hymn may differ between denominations. Anglicans are likely to have a stronger affinity for their own distinctive hymns, such as “All Glory, Laud, and Honor” or “For All the Saints,” much as Lutherans do for “A Mighty Fortress.” Similarly, borrowed hymns will have a different meaning for Anglicans — as Linda Clark demonstrated in her comparison of the meanings drawn by New England Methodist and Anglican worshippers from “Amazing Grace”.^[37]

While such experience thus has subjective elements, there are some objective measures of quality. For example, two objective attributes of Suzanne’s Toolan’s “I Am the Bread of Life” are that the first three verses are a faithful paraphrase from John 6, but it is often difficult for newcomers to sing because of the irregular meter of the verses and the wide vocal range on the refrain. How to balance these (or other) factors is a subjective decision: since it was written in 1966, it seems to have been one of the most polarizing hymns in the 20th-century canon of hymnody — included in H82 but not in BCP17 or SUtL.

For any hymn written in the past 10 years, by definition it is hard to establish whether or not it will prove to be timeless. The 1938 Oldroyd mass setting was included in H40 but justifiably dropped in H82. At the other extreme, all major Anglican hymnals of the past 150 years include “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded” ­— most with Bach’s harmonization of the 1601 tune Passion Chorale — even if they all use slightly different translations of the 12th-century text by Bernard of Clairvaux.^[38]

Texts more than ten centuries old are comparatively rare, but (like all older hymns) even the most timeless tend to get discarded by newer hymnal committees. For example, in a recent analysis, I found that H40 had 52 hymn texts from the first millennium, of which H82 retained 40 and BCP17 retained 33. About half of these early texts in each hymnal were translations by Neale, the leading Church of England hymn translator of the 19th century.^[39]

The texts for service music — settings of the mass and daily offices — are a special case. More than a dozen office canticles are straight from the NT or the psalms, while others (such as the Te Deum) have ancient origins.

However, the service music is much more recent. Except for the Douglas-edited medieval setting and Merbecke’s 16th-century setting, the mass settings of the past century of hymnals were all written in the 20th or 21st century. Meanwhile, the tunes for most office canticles date from the 19th and 20th centuries.

Portfolio of Hymns

Since 1861, Anglican hymnals have been making hymns available for singing at church and at home. For more than a century, what was in the hymnal in each pew largely (or entirely) determined what a congregation sang.

As boundaries between Christian denominations have become fluid — gone are the days when Methodists would be shocked if their daughter married an Episcopalian — denominational hymnals are paying more attention to including hymns that would be familiar for congregants from other Christian traditions. Compared to its 1940 predecessor, BCP17 was notable in both including more Methodist hymns and eight from the influential 1835 compilation of American folk hymns, Southern Harmony.^[40]

Such an ecumenical approach can also offer a familiar hymn for more casual visitors. When I wrote a paper about hymns for a Lutheran funeral, the (Lutheran) editors were less interested in what I said about Lutheran hymnals and more interested about which hymns would be recognized by other Christians. I concluded that the six most recognizable funeral hymns in the latest Missouri Synod hymnal were: “Abide with Me,” “Amazing Grace,” “O God, Our Help in Ages Past,” “Rock of Ages,” “My Faith Looks Up to Thee,” and “Jerusalem, My Happy Home.”^[41]

A good hymnal will also have a portfolio of easy, moderate, and difficult hymns. The easy might be needed for a small congregation (or retreat) singing a capella, whereas difficult hymns may require a skilled choir to preserve and celebrate that element of our musical heritage.

I recall one Palm Sunday — at a small church where our traditional service was briefly between accompanists — I selected “Ride On, Ride On, in Majesty” as the recessional. A nave packed with cradle Episcopalians with an organ would have relished the selection — sung to H40’s tune The King’s Majesty — but the various exvangelicals didn’t know it, and (beyond my family) no one could follow the voice leading. Conversely, “All Glory, Laud, and Honor” would go smoothly, since the voice leading is simple and each verse (like both phrases of the refrain) begins and ends on the root of the major key.

Hymns for Special Occasions

A good hymnal is not just about having good hymns, but having good hymns for the right occasion. Some peak seasons — Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter — are well covered. Holy Week is often covered by Eucharistic hymns (Maundy Thursday) and Lenten hymns (Good Friday). I must say that no choice of Good Friday hymns would be complete without “Were You There?” published in gospel and youth hymnals in the early 20th century, but introduced to mainline hymnody by H40 as a “Negro spiritual.” From this, it was adopted by hymnals from other major denominations: Presbyterian (1955), Lutheran (1958),^[42] Methodist (1966), American Baptist (1970), Catholic (1971), and Southern Baptist (1975). This very American hymn is even sung by Anglicans using The Australian Hymn Book (1977) and the New English Hymnal (1986).

Many would fault H40 for omitting “Amazing Grace” — today one of the most popular funeral hymns around. John Newton’s deeply emotive hymn was controversial with many Anglican hymnal committees, which left it out. While I love H40 — both for objective and subjective reasons — from a practical standpoint, this is a major omission.

Another (more systematic) failing is the availability of hymns for lesser feast days, particularly saints’ days. Certainly H40 has good coverage for All Saints’ Day, led by the granddaddy of all such hymns, “For All the Saints.” Inexplicably, 34 years after The English Hymnal introduced Vaughan Williams’ majestic Sine Nomine, H40 still included a second 1868 tune (Barnby’s Sarum) — one that H82 and BCP17 justifiably dropped. The H40 presentation of nine verses of Neale’s great “O Sons and Daughters, Let us Sing” allows its use either for Easter or St. Thomas Sunday — an approach retained by BCP17, but split into two separate hymns by H82.

One hymn that H82 has that the other two do not is “By All Your Saints Still Striving,” with the first and third verses loosely based on a text by Horatio B. Nelson, and a choice of two tunes: Vaughan Williams’s majestic King’s Lynn and Nyland, a Finnish folk tune. It offers a choice of middle verses for 11 different feast days, with the All Saints’ version using Nelson’s own words. For some of these days — such as St. Bartholomew or Sts. Simeon and Jude — there isn’t enough material to make a full hymn.

On the other hand, the H82 editors could not bring themselves to use Nelson’s original 1864 text — “For All Your Saints in Warfare” — an understandably martial reference by the grand-nephew of the great hero of the British Navy. For my hypothetical future supplement to H40, I would adapt (and probably license) the approach used by the Missouri Synod’s 2006 Lutheran Service Book, which combines Nelson’s original phrase sung to King’s Lynn with alternate middle verses for 25 different occasions.

Editing Hymns

Alas, hymnal committees can’t resist tinkering with the hymns they include.

Often, it’s cutting out verses. Yes, only a small number of hymns warrant inclusion of eight or more of the original verses. Unfortunately, newer hymnals tend to cap most hymns at three verses. Three verses are not enough for an opening or closing hymn at a medium-sized church, particularly if there’s censing the altar after processing or assembling the altar party at the recession. Four verses (with an optional verse indicated) seems like a better policy.

As with “Saints in Warfare,” hymnal committees also can’t resist tinkering with the words. Originally, the most common reason was the competing goals of poetry and accuracy in hymn translation.

One of the most tinkered-with texts was Neale’s translation of the various Veni Emmanuel Latin antiphons, with origins (depending on who you ask) in the 12th century, the 9th century, or even earlier. Occasionally, the tinkering is an improvement — as when Neale’s opening verse from Hymnal Noted (1851)

Draw nigh, draw nigh, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here,
Until the Son of God appear;
Rejoice! rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall be born for thee, O Israel!

was changed in 1861 by Hymns A&M to

O come, come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here,
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

Fortunately, this opening verse was retained by H40, H82, and BCP17. Alas, unable to resist tinkering, The English Hymnal and New English Hymnal have their own different variants, while other verses were changed by H40 and other hymnals. Similarly, multiple translations are in use for many other hymns — translated from Greek, Latin, and German originals — among those commonly sung in English-language worship.

If “improving” translations was the goal of the first century of tinkering, more recently it has been to use more inclusive language. Starting in the late 1970s, prayer books and hymnals began eliminating the use of “he” and “man” to represent all (hu)mankind.

Christmas hymns illustrate the result. Sometimes, such gender neutering is gentle, as when in the third verse of Wesley’s “Hark the herald angels sing,” the traditional phrase “man no more may die” became “we no more may die” in H82.

Other changes are more drastic, as when the modernized hymnals replace “men” with “friends” in each verse of “Good Christian Men, Rejoice.” By comparison, English hymnals such as New English Hymnal have been more cautious in changing the traditional words of Christmas hymns.

If the late 20th century brought divergent approaches on gender-neutral texts for hymns and other liturgy, cultural change is leading to two other changes.^[43]

First, some seek to remove gender from the Trinity. An early pioneer was the 1995 New Century Hymnal, perhaps the most gender-neutral hymnal of the previous century. For example, it changed the third verse of “Angels We Have Heard on High” from

Come to Bethlehem and see
Him whose birth the angels sing
Come, adore on bended knee
Christ, the Lord, the newborn King

to

Come to Bethlehem and see
Christ whose birth the angels sing;
Come, adore on bended knee
God, our world now entering.

In Canada’s 1998 hymnal Common Praise, Neale’s “Of the Father’s Love Begotten” begins “Of Eternal Love Begotten,” but retains “He is Alpha and Omega, he the source, the ending he.”

While the most frequent approach for Trinitarian gender inclusivity is thus avoiding Trinitarian gender entirely, others have called for stronger approaches to eliminate patriarchal worship.^[44] A survey of 244 UK seminary students from 2003 to 2005 found that male seminarians preferred a masculine image of the Trinity, whereas female seminarians preferred a feminine one; those seminarians who scored high on “traditional and orthodox theology” most consistently rejected any alternative formulation of Trinitarian gender.^[45]

More recently, language such as “sisters and brothers” — once promoted as inclusionary — is now seen as exclusionary for those who believe there are more than two genders.^[46] While again the easiest solution is to avoid gender entirely, with the “nonbinary” revolution in its earliest stages, it is not clear if this will be enough.

Will the next round end the cycle of linguistic reformation, or is such a process of textual change intended to be a permanent revolution? The latter would make it difficult for liturgical or hymn texts to survive for the life of an individual, let alone for three centuries as when the 1662 BCP reigned supreme.

Overall, tinkering with words in newer hymnals creates confusion, eliminating the commonality of our musical heritage. This confusion can be seen when a new hymnal is adopted by a parish and when different parishes use different hymnals. It also creates ecumenical confusion when people visit or switch between denominations, which is much more common than it used to be.

Hymnals in the 21st Century

Some argue that hymnals are obsolete. One justification is due to a new delivery mechanism — whether a projection screen or a weekly printed booklet (a.k.a. “pew bulletin”). Others lament the inflexibility of a predetermined collection, preventing the music director (or “worship leader”) from choosing the latest song from the Christian Top 40 or another one of his or her favorites.

Conversely, I believe such inflexibility is an asset.^[47] Prayer Book Anglicans — who recently have become a minority of Anglicans in much of the world — worship with and value a stable liturgy that is in continuity with the 16th-century Reformers and the ancient texts of the Western Church. Similarly, since the new round of patristic translations began in 1838,^[48] Anglican and other orthodox Christians have read the Bible the way that theologians did in the early church.

There is a similar benefit for a stable portfolio of hymns for congregational singing, one that is provided by the continued use of a good hymnal. If North American Anglicans today are justifiably proud of how they catechize their parish through a constancy of their liturgy and biblical interpretation, shouldn’t they be equally proud of doing so through a constancy of hymns with which we celebrate the Good News of our faith?

Notes

1. Joel W. West, “Hymnal Choices for North American Anglicans,” North American Anglican, June 15, 2020, https://northamanglican.com/hymnal-choices-for-north-american-anglicans. ↑
2. Brandon Letourneau, “Book Review: ‘A Hymnal of the Heart’,” North American Anglican, July 8, 2022, https://northamanglican.com/book-review-a-hymnal-of-the-heart/. ↑
3. The first of four editions of the GIA Worship hymnals (1971, 1975, 1986, 2011) began as a solid ecumenical Protestant hymnal with a few Catholic folk songs, and continued to closely resemble the mainline hymnals of the late 20th century. ↑
4. Dale Adelmann, The contribution of Cambridge Ecclesiologists to the Revival of Anglican Choral Worship, 1839–62 (Routledge, 2019). ↑
5. Joel W. West, “Neale’s Hymnal Noted and its Impact on Twentieth-Century American Hymnody,” The Hymn 69, no. 3 (Summer 2018), 14–24. ↑
6. James Dickinson, Hymns Ancient & Modern 1861–2013: Its Rise, Development and Influence (Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 2013), 19–24. ↑
7. Richard William Wilkinson, “A History of Hymns Ancient and Modern,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Hull (March 1985), https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4215354. ↑
8. “The History and Traditions,” Hymns Ancient & Modern Limited, July 2019, https://www.hymnsam.co.uk/about-us/the-history-and-traditions ↑
9. John Bawden, “The Music of The English Hymnal.” In Alan Luff, ed., Strengthen for Service: 100 Years of The English Hymnal, 1906-2006 (Canterbury Press, 2005), 133–54 at 133. ↑
10. A. E. F. Dickinson, “Some Thoughts about The English Hymnal,” Musical Times 97, no. 1359 (May 1956), 243–45 at 244, https://www.jstor.org/stable/936457 ↑
11. Bawden, “Music of The English Hymnal,” 135–36. ↑
12. Julian Onderdonk, “Hymn Tunes from Folk-songs: Vaughan Williams and English hymnody,” in Vaughan Williams Essays, edited by Byron Adams and Robin Wells (Routledge, 2017), 103–28. ↑
13. See https://anglicanmusic.blogspot.com/search/label/Vaughan%20Williams. ↑
14. Donald Gray, “The Birth and Background of The English Hymnal,” in Strengthen for Service: 100 Years of The English Hymnal, 1906-2006, edited by Alan Luff (Canterbury Press, 2005), 1–30 at 27. ↑
15. Leonard L. Ellinwood and Charles G. Manns, “The Publication of the Hymnal of the Episcopal Church,” in The Hymnal 1982 Companion vol. 1, edited by Raymond F. Glover (Church Publishing, 1990), 49–76. ↑
16. Report of the Joint Commission for Revision of the Hymnal to the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The University Press, 1916), v–xi. http://archive.org/details/ointcomOOepis. ↑
17. See West, “Hymnal Choices.” ↑
18. Various sources suggest that a gradual decline from 1966 peak attendance shifted to a more precipitous (and seemingly irreversible) one after 2000. See David Goodhew, “Facing Episcopal Church Decline – the Latest Numbers,” Covenant, October 19, 2020, https://livingchurch.org/covenant/facing-episcopal-church-decline-the-latest-numbers. ↑
19. This brings to mind the famous statement by New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael on Richard Nixon’s 49-state victory in 1972: “I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken.” See John Podheretz, “The Actual Pauline Kael Quote,” Commentary, February 27, 2011, https://www.commentary.org/john-podhoretz/the-actual-pauline-kael-quote—not-as-bad-and-worse/. ↑
20. The English Hymnal (Oxford University Press, 1906), iii. ↑
21. David W. Music, “Tune Your Hearts with One Accord: Compiling Celebrating Grace, a Hymnal for Baptists in English-Speaking North America,” in The Changing World Religion Map: Sacred Places, Identities, Practices and Politics, edited by Stanley D. Brunn and Donna A. Gilbreath (Springer, 2015), 2721–34. ↑
22. Hymn totals from John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, rev. ed. (London: John Murray, 1908), https://books.google.com/books?id=5sRNAQAAMAAJ. ↑
23. This “dropped” metric does not apply to A Hymnal for the Heart, which with only 100 hymns is not offered as a direct successor to earlier comprehensive hymnals (which each have 600+ hymns). ↑
24. Neale did not consider this to be a translation of the 8th-century text, because it contained “so little that is from the Greek.” The Hymnal 1940 Companion, 3rd ed. (Church Pension Fund, 1951), 257. ↑
25. See Robin A. Leaver, “The First Lutheran Hymnals of 1524,” Lutheran Quarterly 37, no. 4 (2023): 373–406, https://doi.org/10.1353/lut.2023.a911858, and also “Celebrating the 500th Anniversary of the First Lutheran Hymnal,” Concordia Publishing House, March 19, 2024, https://blog.cph.org/worship/celebrating-the-500th-anniversary-of-the-first-lutheran-hymnal. ↑
26. The smaller count is by Hans Schwarz, “Martin Luther and music,” Lutheran Theological Journal 39, no. 2/3 (2005), 210–17, and the larger by Peter C. Reske, The Hymns of Martin Luther (Concordia Publishing House, 2016), pp. ↑
27. For a summary of recent scholarship, see Andreas Loewe and Katherine Firth, “Martin Luther’s ‘Mighty Fortress’,” Lutheran Quarterly 32, no. 2 (2018), 125–45, https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/696466. ↑
28. Schwarz, “Martin Luther and Music,” 210. ↑
29. Robert Sherman, “The Catechetical Function of Reformed Hymnody.” Scottish Journal of Theology 55, no. 1 (2002): 79–99, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0036930602000157. ↑
30. John Richard Watson, The English Hymn: A Critical and Historical Study (Oxford University Press, 1997), 8. ↑
31. Wilma Jean Quantrille, The Triune God in the Hymns of Charles Wesley, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (Drew University, 1989); Seng-Kong Tan, “The Doctrine of the Trinity in John Wesley’s Prose and Poetic Works,” Journal for Christian Theological Research 7 (2002), 3–14. ↑
32. Laura A. Bartels, “Hymns of the Status Quo: Charles Wesley on the Trinity,” Methodist History 41, no. 2 (2003), 25–33. ↑
33. Joel W. West, “The Ressourcement of Liturgical Music by John Mason Neale,” in Re-Formed Catholic Anglicanism (Dallas: Cathedral Church of the Holy Communion, 2024), 357–72 at 362–63. ↑
34. Wikipedia helpfully notes that Townend was the son of a West Yorkshire CofE vicar, and in 2017 received the Cranmer Award for Worship from Archbishop Justin Welby. ↑
35. Chris Fenner, “In Christ Alone My Hope Is Found,” Hymnology Archive, revised January 16, 2024, https://www.hymnologyarchive.com/in-christ-alone. ↑
36. Ulrich S. Leupold, ed., Luther’s Works, Vol. 53: Liturgy and Hymns (Fortress Press, 1965), 323. ↑
37. Linda J. Clark, “Songs My Mother Taught Me: Hymns as Transmitters of Faith,” in Beyond Establishment: Protestant Identity in a Post-Protestant Age, edited by Jackson W. Carroll and Wade Clark Roof (Westminster John Knox Press, 1993), 99–115. ↑
38. J. W. West, “Bernard, Paul and Bob,” Anglican Music weblog, April 10, 2009 https://anglicanmusic.blogspot.com/2009/04/due-to-work-commitments-i-couldnt-go-to.html ↑
39. West, “The Ressourcement of Liturgical Music.” ↑
40. For hymns in Book of Common Praise, see West, “Hymnal Choices”; for a brief history of Southern Harmony, see Harry Eskew, “William Walker: Carolina Contributor to American Music,” Sacred Heart Publishing Company, December 31, 2013, http://originalsacredharp.com/2013/12/31/william-walker-carolina-contributor-to-american-music ↑
41. Joel W. West, “Through Death to Life: Selecting Ecumenical Hymns for a Lutheran Funeral,” Logia: A Journal of Lutheran Theology 29, no. 2 (April 2020), 19–27. ↑
42. The 1958 hymnal was from the Lutheran Church in America, forerunner to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, a denomination formed in 1988. The reason that it was long before that of the more conservative Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod was the LCMS did not publish a new hymnal between 1941 and 1982. ↑
43. Ruth A. Meyers and Katherine Sonderegger, “Jubilate: A Conversation about Prayer Book Revision and the Language of Our Prayer,” Anglican Theological Review 103, no. 1 (2021), 6–26. ↑
44. Ruth C. Duck and Patricia Wilson-Kastner, Praising God: The Trinity in Christian Worship (Westminster John Knox Press, 1999), 2. ↑
45. Mark Cartledge, “God, Gender and Social Roles: A Study in Relation to Empirical-theological Models of the Trinity,” Journal of Empirical Theology 22, no. 2 (2009), 117–41. ↑
46. Meyers and Sonderegger, “Jubilate.” ↑
47. With a bookcase overflowing with 16 Anglican hymnals and 30 from other Christian denominations — not to mention dozens of public-domain PDFs for pre-1929 hymnals — I am probably an outlier. ↑
48. Edward Pusey and other Tractarians edited A Library of the Fathers (1838–1885); two Scottish Presbyterians, Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, edited The Ante-Nicene Christian Library (1867–1885); and Philip Schaff and Henry Wace edited two series of The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (1885–1900). ↑