A New Hymnal for Colleges and Schools. - book reviews

Ecumenical Review, The, Jan, 1994 by Terry MacArthur

Jeffery Rowthorn and Russel Schulz-Widmar eds, New Haven and London, Yale University Press in association with the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, 1992, 598pp. [no price]

A New Hymnal for Colleges and Schools is a hymnal with songs of lasting value. The scholarship, the editing, the collection of hymns is well done. The editors have taken note of the liturgical changes that have occurred within the last twenty years, and developed a hymnal usable in ecumenical situations. They have provided a good selection of service music, psalm tones that are singable along with a pointing system that is simple to understand, and most of all a wonderful collection of hymns from a wide variety of sources and traditions. This book, attractive, easy to hold and readable, is a classical hymnal with enough material from cultures outside America and Western Europe to give it a global perspective. The editors rightly celebrate the inclusion of music by American composers, some of whom are African, Hispanic or Native Americans. New texts and tunes abound. This hymnal takes seriously the need to use language that includes all people without exalting this into an ideological barrier. I would quibble about the lack of an index relating hymns to scripture or to the common lectionary. This would have been a big help to worship planners who take the connections between the biblical texts and the content of hymns seriously. But with few reservations this is a good basic hymnal, worthy of use by worshipping congregations. Sometimes it is even bold, such as the inclusion of the hymn, "Who is she", by Brian Wren.

Who is she, neither male nor female,

maker of all things,

only glimpsed or hinted,

source of life and gender?

She is God, mother, sister, lover;

in her love we wake,

move and grow, are daunted,

triumph and surrender.

But boldness is not its main characteristic. More often it reflects the hymnody that congregations like to sing and would expect in a contemporary hymnal with enough of the new to give it energy and interest.

It is a "new hymnal". But is it a hymnal "for colleges and schools"? Students and youth have a particular culture. It is a varied one to be sure, but there are definite characteristics of the youth in this generation. I cannot personally understand MTV [the television pop music channel], but somehow the images and sounds engage those who have become accustomed to it. The fashions come and go quickly, but it is clear that these fashions have great impact upon those who are attuned to them. No group is as susceptible to these as youth and students. Music changes so fast that we can now mark the decades by the style of the popular music. Images recreate reality with astonishing speed. Even the English language has become a vehicle for the fashion-conscious. Words are recycled as fast as hit tunes. Jargon is not just the province of bureaucracies, it is the sales pitch for those who know what -- and who -- is "in".

In these terms, worship is definitely "out". It has its own heritage, its own tradition and life within the churches and in Christian groups. Some would say that a hymnbook is next to the Bible. It is, and should be, a counter-cultural book or at least counter to a culture which shifts values almost as fast as successful perfumes. It is a repository of the faith with lasting value. It is totally disconnected from this modem media culture. Worship is not a "hit parade" activity. But we still need to ask about the relationship of worship to the rapidly changing, media enhanced, cultures in which so many people, and especially students and youth, live today. More specifically since this is a review of a hymnal, what is the connection of a hymnbook to those who live, move and have their being through a constantly-connected earphone?

The editors of this hymnal are right to point out the explosion of new hymns and hymn texts, but what they miss is the explosion of musical styles. There are new American tunes, and some of these are wonderful. Calvin Hampton's setting of "There's a Wideness in God's Mercy" brings these words new life. But where are the composers who are working in gospel, jazz, country or rock styles? "Look there! the Christ", with music by William Albright, comes closest to the rock idiom. I am fully aware that many difficult questions are involved. Much of this new material is very short-lived, and too much of it would make the hymnbook quickly dated. But I would think that a hymnbook for students would have some hymns with guitar chords. After all, more students now play guitar than piano.

In sum, the editors are to be congratulated for producing a good hymnal. But the search for worship resources that link to youth and the media they absorb with mouse and remote control continues.

Terry MacArthur is worship consultant at the World Council of Churches.