the Roman Empire. Then the strength of acclamation indicated the strength
of legitimacy. This seems also to be the reason for the many variations of
‘Halleluiahs’ in Gregorian songs and in the ‘Amens’, the Hebrew word for ‘so
must it be’; only think of the glorious finish of Handel’s ‘Messiah’,
culminating in the ‘Amen’.
Luther’s hymns still maintain a ‘we’ and ‘our’ language of the congregation,
while later poets sing in the ‘I-form’ (like ‘Be though my vision’) and are
singing strangely emotional love songs to God, who now is not remote in His
Glory but near to us in a relationship. The earlier forms of such poetry were
less subjective but still formal models of the 17th and 18th centuries, but the
19th and 20th centuries produced many rather sentimental songs. This finally
led to a kind of Pop, not only by replacing the organ by keyboard and guitar
but by using language of everyday jargon instead of a more formal language
of confession of faith. The God upon whom these songs call is a rather
particular individual one, the God of enemies of capitalism or of nature
lovers. Luckily, the Love of God does not depend on the linguistic ability of
the song writer.
We do, however, see a revival of traditional hymns, new hymn books contain
both, the best of modern and ancient, and as long as we keep singing, we
can yet sing popular choruses and carols, even if they are ‘kitsch’. May we
sing them too to the Glory of God!
B Williams
(Using also Die Zeit,19 December 2013)
Positive Action in Housing is a small Scottish charity which is responding
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It is currently appealing for 200 volunteers with medical or lifeguard skills
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The website also contains information about hosting refugees in the UK:
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