Lutheran in SC: Pure White Ribbons

Tuesday after Pentecost 15
September 7, 2010

The Lord be with you

The two books that have recently been reviewed on this blog (Jim & Casper Go to Church and At Home in the House of My Fathers) bring up the whole question of contextualizing the Christian Faith. There is a perennial tension between contextualizing and repri

stinating the faith. The “contextualizing” camp love passages like “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22). The “repristinating” camp love passages like “I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).

From my point-of-view, both camps have a good point, and both camps err if they go too far. The repristinators can put a halo around the past, as if everything was grand back in the good-old-days. The contextualizers, on the other hand, tend to throw the past out, often throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Both points can be made by considering hymnody. The music in some churches is dominated by trendy, contemporary words and tunes. Because they reflect modern sensibility, it is quite difficult for many to see their weaknesses. This is the danger faced by the contextualizing crowd. The danger faced by the repristination crowd is to accept anything, as long as it has some age. The following hymn was copyrighted in 1913 by Homer A. Rodehever and found in the hymnal Awakening Songs: For the Church, Sunday School and Evangelistic Services, published by The Rodeheaver Company.

This song had it all; a contemporary melody, catchy repetitive words, and addressed a hot contemporary issue. Much the same could be said about many of the contemporary “praise” songs. In one hundred years they, like "Pure White Ribbons," will be forgotten by everyone except odd people like me. The weaknesses of "Pure White Ribbons" are obvious to us now, but they were not so obvious a hundred years back. On the other hand, just because it is old and written in four-part harmony, the repristinators would make a serious mistake in bringing this hymn back.

What is needed in this whole discussion is not posturing, but an agreed upon set of theological standards by which all hymns, praise songs, choir selections, and so on, can be evaluated. If, for example, the standard included a requirement of at least some reference to Jesus, Pure White Ribbons would never have come off the printing press.

The date something was written is no guarantee that the product is a quality one. It doesn’t matter if that date is 2010 or 1010. The music attached to the words is no guarantee that the product is a quality one. It doesn’t matter if the music is four-part choral or electric guitars and drums.

So that people will know that I feel a standard should be applied to historical Lutheran material, I’m going to include another hymn. This one is from Common Service Book with Hymnal, which was published by The United Lutheran Church in America, copyright 1917. The hymn, by Johann A. P. Shulz, was written in 1800. It is actually much better than the one I already reproduced, but consider this as you read it: What makes it distinctively Christian? Could a Mormon, Moslem, or Jew sing it with just as much gusto?

Once again, if the standard included a requirement of at least some reference to Jesus, this hymn would not make the cut.

If you were sitting in a park singing these hymns and an atheist walking by sat down to listen, there is nothing in the first hymn that would make him think you are an adherent of any faith community whatsoever. After listening to the second hymn, he would know that you were “religious,” but have no idea to which religious community you belonged. However if you sang this final hymn, written 1861 by Ann Warner, there would be no doubt that you were a believer in Jesus.

(School Carols, Joint Synod of Ohio, # 48, as my copy lacks the title page, I don’t know the publication date.)

Blessings in Christ,
Pastor John Rickert

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Pure White Ribbons

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