Essays in honor of Eugene L. Brand and the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Lutheran Book of Worship

Currents in Theology and Mission, Oct, 2003 by Ralph W. Klein

As the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is making preparations for a new service book and hymnal, it seems appropriate to take stock of what was intended and what was actually achieved in the publication of Lutheran Book of Worship in 1978. Anita Stauffer and Carlos Messerli proposed this project to me and assisted me in identifying the writers of these articles, all of whom played major roles in producing LBW. It was also their idea to take this occasion to honor Eugene Brand for his work as Project Director of LBW.

Bishop Robert A. Rimbo, who was executive assistant to Eugene Brand during the final stages of the LBW project, has written the opening tribute.

Eugene L. Brand wrote his essay without knowing that this issue would be in his honor. In fact, he suggested to me that other contributors who have entered God's nearer presence be honored. He notes that the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship began its work in 1966 and that LBW carries on the tradition of the Common Service (1888), The Lutheran Hymnal (1941), and the Service Book and Hymnal (1958). The LBW set out the full mass as the normal Sunday service and attempted to restore Holy Baptism to the liturgical rank and dignity implied by Lutheran theology. The LBW included a revised version of the three-year Roman Catholic Lectionary that mandated Old Testament readings and has facilitated ecumenical sermon study groups. For "church-political" reasons the Triduum could only be included in the Ministers Edition of LBW. Lay involvement in the liturgy was a major innovation. The corporate and sacramental view of the church enshrined in LBW has drawn criticism from pietistic and free church circles.

Richard Hillert tells the story of how he composed and revised the music for Setting One in LBW. Musical pieces like this go through innumerable reviews, and there were a lot of suggestions, some wise, some otherwise. Half notes eventually became quarter notes, and eighth notes became sixteenths. He shares a lament that LBW's fullest potential has not been explored and notes changes he would make if he were to rewrite Setting One now. There will come a time when Setting One will pass from the scene, and the author remarks: "It is in the order of things that the church, alive and contemporary today, will one day be the church of yesterday. We should rejoice and not be sad about that."

Carlos R. Messerli summarizes fourteen innovative features of LBW and assesses the reasons for and the degree of their acceptance. Adoption of an element of worship is most often related to the liturgical inclinations of the pastor and church musician. In addition to weekly Eucharist and an emphasis on baptism, already noted, LBW replaced the Introits and Graduals with whole psalms and commissioned original compositions for Settings One and Two. Options for all or parts of the rite are a hallmark of LBW, but the plan to vary the rite while preserving its integrity has been only partially successful. Only a few of the twenty-one canticles have been found to be useful by pastors and church musicians. The concept of the Hymn of the Day, advocated by LBW, has also not caught on. One of the greatest successes of the book is some form of lay leadership in the worship practices of almost every Lutheran congregation.

Ralph Quere reminds us that the suggestion for a common Lutheran service book came from Oliver Harms, then president of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Ironically, after the Missouri Synod fight in the 1960s and 70s, the new administration backed out of the project and published their own Lutheran Worship. Another irony: 337 of the 569 hymns in LBW made it into LW and a good number of the liturgical pieces as well. Almost in spite of themselves, Lutherans have come closer to one another in liturgies and hymns through the work of the Inter-Lutheran Commission. There were plenty of other disputes within those church bodies that eventually became the ELCA as the ten volumes of Contemporary Worship rolled off the presses--about confession and absolution, marriage, burial, saints, and the Eucharistic prayer. Fifteen thousand letters came to the ALC about hymn selection alone! Compromise led to the inclusion of more hymns and the consequent deletion of a number of psalms.

Carl Schalk writes about the tensions in hymn selection that brought together high-church Swedes, Norwegians of both high and low inclinations, fans of Luther Reed, anti-clerical Haugeans, and doctrinally concerned Missourians. Committees were established for hymn texts and hymn music. There were a lot of other issues to resolve--to print only tunes or tunes with harmonizations, to print the tunes with classic rhythms or isometrically, to include Bach harmonizations or guitar chords (there are only two of the former and thirty-nine of the latter). Publication of Contemporary Worship 1 and 4 produced thirty-eight new hymns for LBW. Picking the hymns for the new ELCA service book will not be easy, nor in many circles a popular task.