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Monthly column on hymns and songs: three for a century?

Which hymns will make it to the end of the third millennium?

Not many people know this, but very soon we reach the end of the 20th century; the second Christian millennium, in fact. One or two people seem to have jumped the gun 12 months ago; never mind them.

How shall we mark the occasion memorably? From the stacks of major hymn books appearing towards the end of this age, I recently picked up ten. Seven are broadly denominational; add three which cross all such boundaries, and we have maybe 90% of the material which Protestant Christians turn to every Sunday if they use books at all. (If they don't, they still benefit from the books their transparencies borrow from.)

How many 20th century hymns, do you think, appear in all ten? If you subscribe to the Quarterly News of Hymnody you may remember the answer. Before I looked, I had no idea. But the total was still surprising for its smallness. Five hymns came in nine of my chosen hymnals, but only three swept the board. Only three (so far) have been judged by editors to be indispensable fruits of the past hundred years.

Top three

Here they are, in order of writing: 'Thine be the glory' (1904); 'Be Thou my vision' (1912); 'Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord' (1961). For this purpose I have included some varied versions of the texts, since the first two have sometimes been tidied up. An enterprising examiner in a test paper on hymns might ask what these have in common. All three have strong tunes which instantly spring to mind, though the third pairing happened long after the words were written. All three vividly paraphrase an original in another language. All three are meaty texts in distinctive words, with Christian doctrine spelled out at suitable length. You could not easily confuse these hymns with any others. None is either trivial or trite.

News of Hymnody

But before this year ends let me add a modest plug for that Quarterly. Having supervised its eight pink pages for two separate spells after their previous editors both did a moonlight, I am completely partisan. Now I have handed over the baton again I commend the product without shame or reserve. You order it for a ridiculous £3.00 a year from Grove Books, Ridley Hall Road, Cambridge CB3 9HU.

Why do I tell you this? So often people pronounce upon hymns and hymn books as if they were the first to think of such things. Or as if when it comes to hymns, anyone can be an expert. Or even that hymns belong to the past! A year's subscription to NOH puts us in touch with many whose insights can do wonders for our humility and bring us closer to the expanding world of global hymnody. 'Let the Creator's praise be sung throughout the land, by every tongue'; Isaac Watts's psalm-based orders from 1719 have only just begun to be fulfilled in our generation, for those whose openness to hymns does not stop at Dover or Berwick-on-Tweed.

Healthy fresh air

One more thing, News of Hymnody has been firmly evangelical since its 1982 beginnings. When that is genuine, we are not so insecure as to see heresy under every bed. Our reviews are not so blinkered that they notice nothing beyond the party line. Letters and features don't have to agree with the editor or publisher in every detail before they stand any chance of appearing. Leave intolerance to the liberals; fresh air is healthy.

What a good way to start a third millennium! A mere 100 years on, which hymns will prove the winners? And if the world does not last so long, our greatest hymn writers will have warned us.