With Ever Joyful Hearts: Essays on Liturgy and Music in Honor of Marion J. Hatchett

Anglican Theological Review, Winter 2003 by Larson-Miller, Lizette

Edited by J. Neil Alexander. New York: Church Publishing Incorporated, 1999. vi + 417 pp. $24.95 (paper).

This substantial collection of twenty-three essays "celebrates the distinguished life and ministry of Marion Josiah Hatchett-a tireless scholar, a devoted teacher of liturgy and music, a faithful presbyter of the Episcopal Church" (p. 1). In his introduction, former Sewanee colleague J. Neil Alexander praises both the breadth and depth of Marion Hatchett's extensive career and relates it to the wide-ranging topics covered in the essays. As with any large collection of writing, the length, quality, and appeal to any given reader varies, but there are many excellent proposals and summaries amid the topics covered. As the editor himself explains, the essays were not intentionally organized "around a common theme" (p. 2), but there are predictable axes around which they move in light of the interests of the festschrift recipient.

The first essay, by Paul Marshall, "Odium Politicum Odium Liturgicum: Sectionalism and the First American Prayer Book," situates this prayer book in the political, ecclesial, geographical, and cultural settings that Anglicans in New England found themselves, in sharp contrast to those Anglicans "south of Connecticut" (p. 6). The lengthy essay is captivating and informative, full of moments that remind scholars of liturgy to be wary of any approach to the field which studies liturgy in a historical, cultural, or political vacuum. After Jill Burnett's extensive review of the waxing and waning of ordination liturgies for deaconesses in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, there are six essays on varied aspects of initiation, four of which are primarily concerned with confirmation. This critical mass of confirmation focus is not really a surprise considering the interest and influence Marion Hatchett had on the current prayer book configuration and the ongoing confusion with the current arrangement of rites, but it is amazing how the intensity of the discussion continues. Whether the articles are first and foremost historical works or analyses of contemporary and future ritual directions (David R. Holeton, "The Fifteenth-Century Bohemian Origins of the Reformation Understanding of Confirmation"; Leonel L. Mitchell, "Mitchell on Hatchett on Cranmer"; Ruth A. Meyers, "Scholarship Shaping Liturgical Reform: Massey Shepherds Influence on Rites of Christian Initiation"; and Linda L. B. Moeller, "Confirmation: Sacramental Rite or Rite of Discipline and Politics?"), the same issues prevail-what is confirmation? what does it mean? what does it do? The answers generally fall into two camps (drawn from different historical arenas): is it a rite of passage for adolescents centered on acquisition of religious knowledge (here Lesley A. Northup's later article "Good Theology, Bad Ritual: What Liturgy Can Learn from Ritual Studies" should also be consulted), or is it a sacrament of initiation, the chrismation of baptism? The question is not solved in the above-mentioned essays, but interesting and less well-known resources are drawn upon to add to the complexity of the issue. Other essays on initiation include Byron D. Stuhlman's overview of Eastern historical voices on initiation patterns for children, and Charles P. Price's "By Water and the Spirit: An Essay in Understanding References to Water and Baptism in the Fourth Gospel."

Along with the block of initiation essays, there is a grouping of musical offerings. For students and/or teachers of hymnody, there are two substantial essays on eucharistic hymns, one drawing on the work of Isaac Watts ("The Fruits of Life O'erspread the Board: Isaac Watts' Hymns for the Lord's Supper" by Daniel B. Stevick) and another on the Wesleys ("With Eloquence of Speech and Song: Anglican Reflections on the Eucharistie Hymns (1745) of John and Charles Wesley" by J. Neil Alexander). The latter provides an interesting historical study of possible influences on the Wesleys, most notably the relationship between what is known of the 1662 prayer book and the Wesleys' interaction with the non-jurors at the time in question. Three other essays round out the music contributions. Harry Eskew traces the rise of American tunes, as distinct from European, in Episcopal hymnals and David W. Music charts the surprisingly large number of Americans contributing to the English Hymnal of 1906. In addition, the first of two biographical works at the conclusion of the book is a treatment of the teaching of music, as Carol Doran recounts the steady increase in quality, quantity, and diversity of offerings at Sewanee under Marion Hatchett's careful and deliberate shaping of a seminary liturgical music course of studies.

Other essays cover a multitude of topics: preaching the Kingdom of God (William H. Hethcock); the theology of morning and evening prayer (H. Boone Porter); marriage (William Seth Adams); Palm Sunday processions (Thomas J. Talley); unity, uniformity, and Anglican prayer books (Louis Weil); seeker services versus sacramentality (George Wayne Smith), and the requisite summary of the honoree's academic teaching and publishing record (Don S. Armentrout). The remaining two essays, Joe Burnett's "Always and Everywhere: The 1979 Book of Common Prayer and the Promise of a Liturgical Evangelism" and Joseph Monti's "A Just-Making Presence: Worship and the Moral Life," stand out as exceptional examples of broader present and prophetic concerns. Burnett offers a thoughtful critique of the church growth movement and counters it with an equally thoughtful analysis of what liturgy does to us as a lifelong experience of formation in the praise of God. Very closely related in approach is the essay on sacramental theology by Monti in which he presents a eucharistic theology that rightfully demands much of us, and as Burnett's essay does, calls us to an "ontological evangelism" by being sign and symbol of God in and for the world.