THE RELIGIOUS CHARACTER
With respect to the religious character of the Lutheran church hymns, it must be quite clear that if these hymns have grown up out of the soil of the Church, if they are expressions of the spirit of the Church, then they ought to reflect quite faithfully the nature and peculiarities of the Church. The Church, the Communion of Saints, where the Gospel is preached in its purity and where the Sacraments are administered according to the teachings of the Gospel, may be considered partly with regard to the unique religious life-content, which is communicated to the faithful through the Word and the Sacraments and which not only unites them to Christ, the Head of the Church, but also unites them with one another; partly with regard to her nature as a congregation, a communion or community in external form with characteristic expressions and order of life. The same twofold point of view arises in our study of the church hymns. The religious character of the church hymn may, therefore, be determined partly from the point of view of religious life, having its source and standard in Holy Writ, and partly from the point of view of the church communion or the congregation, of whose common life the church hymn is an expression and reflection, and whose common purpose it seeks to promote. The religious character of the church hymn thus centers in the fact that both as to content and form it must be Biblical and congregational.
1. The Biblical character of the church hymn:
First of all, the church hymn must be thoroughly Biblical. It cannot move only in the realm of general religious truth, not only sing the praise of certain abstract ideas about God’s being, about the immortality of the soul, about virtue, etc. Not even such subjects as God’s attributes, the providence of God, Creation, “man’s physical and spiritual attributes, reason, will, conscience, nature and purpose,” have any place in the hymns of the Church, when these subjects are treated in an abstract way, isolated from God’s revelation through Jesus Christ and detached from human life. The subject of the church hymn, provided it possesses sound religious character, is, briefly stated, Christ for us and Christ in us; on the one hand the objective saving grace through Jesus Christ, and on the other hand the subjective appropriation of faith, with love and submission and devotion to God. The sphere of the church hymn will not thereby be restricted to an incessant reiteration of the name of Jesus, his wounds and blood, his love, etc. The church hymn sings the praise of God’s entire means of salvation: God’s thoughts and works of love through Christ for humanity; His sure and saving institutions of grace upon earth; the work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of men unto repentance, faith and sanctification; the benefits, struggles and victories of His kingdom of grace; the glory of the heavenly bridegroom; death and judgment; the world to come and eternal life. All these subjects become the object of the hymns of the Church. The faithful express through the church hymn their ardent desire for these things; they meditate upon these things, they rejoice in their possession, they describe them and they extol them; they adore, thank, and laud their Saviour, and they give themselves up to God. Since the content of positive Christian faith, or God’s revelation of salvation through Jesus Christ, is the principal subject of the church hymn, it is clear that the church hymn must be in perfect harmony with the Word of God, the Bible, the very source of the revelation of salvation. But this does not mean that the Church should use exclusively the hymns of the Bible, as, for example, the Psalms of David. It is perfectly well to use other hymns, provided they are permeated by the Holy Spirit and constitute a vital reproduction of Biblical truths, grown up out of the soul-experiences of the Church in perfect harmony with Holy Writ. Then the liturgical principles of truth and freedom will come into proper use in congregational hymn singing.
With this character of religious truth in the objective sense, or the conformity of the church hymn to Holy Writ, goes also the matter of religious truth in the subjective or psychological sense. This means that the religious experience, expressed in the church hymn, is not merely a product of human imagination, more or less foreign to those who gather their spiritual life and their soul experiences from the fountain of Holy Writ under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but it is far more an experience gained from the reality of true spiritual life, and thoroughly accordant therewith, something to which, therefore, every true Christian can easily agree.
Finally, the Biblical character of the true church hymn reveals itself also in the style of language, which follows very closely Biblical expression, idiom and form. The language of the church hymn harmonizes very well with that type of religious language which has attained a deep appreciation among Christians; the language of the popular old religious books of the Church; Biblical language. This old hymnic language possesses very decidedly a character of immortality, depending upon the character of the content, whose linguistic garb it is, and with which it has become so closely united. As the content is rooted in eternity and fundamentally consists of God’s incorruptible thoughts and works, so the hymnic language, which is the vessel for these realities of the eternal world, in a way also attains a character of eternity. The history of the church hymns also shows very clearly that whenever this peculiar character of hymnic language has been disregarded, whenever there have been vigorous attempts at modernization of the good old church hymns, when new and modern hymns have been sought, to satisfy some modern aesthetic or aristocratic need, then the true church hymn has suffered very greatly and lost much of its original soundness and genuineness. Indeed, the hymn writer, like any other poet, is influenced more or less by his age; his hymns may show more or less the influence of the peculiar turn of mind, the stage of development and the demands of the age in which he lives; personal ability as a poet and personal life experiences may be distinctly reflected in his hymns. But it should also be true, that if the poet is a sincere student and lover of the Bible and delights in singing its praises, then his hymns ought to possess Biblical tone and content, since there is a very close union between content and form in every human religious product. A church hymn possessing Biblical tone and language ought to be understood and appreciated by the present age. Biblical language is antique but it will never be antiquated; it is old but eternally new and youthful. In all ages and in all churches the thoroughly Biblical church hymn holds the prize for youthful health and beauty.
2. The congregational character of the church hymn:
In the second place, the church hymn should be suitable for use in the congregation, it should possess a congregational character. This quality of the church hymn implies, of course, that it must not contain anything which is at variance with the confession or the doctrines of the Church. The Lutheran Church may use hymns that have been written by non-Lutheran hymn writers, provided these hymns contain nothing offensive to sound Lutheran doctrine. So Lutheran hymnals may contain hymns taken from the Reformed Churches, and Reformed church hymnals may contain many Lutheran hymns.
The congregational element in the Lutheran church hymn further means that it must be free from all unsound and unjustifiable subjectivity. The church hymn is the work of a poet who is vitally united with the religious organism—he is a member of the Church—and from this consciousness of perfect communion his hymns emerge. Writes Dr. Martin Luther: “Church hymns are so called, because the Church has accepted them and uses them as if produced by the Church and as her own hymns. We do not say: thus sings Ambrose, Gregory the Great, Prudentius, Sedulius; but we say: thus sings the Christian Church. It is the songs of the Church that Ambrose, Prudentius and others sing with the Church and the Church with them; when they are dead and gone, the Church remains, and continues to sing their songs.” Personal poetic gifts and temporal conditions and circumstances influence the church hymns. The true church hymn does not lack individuality; but it is free from individualism. The experiences which the church hymn expresses, the soul states which it describes, should not be of an extreme, a singular or an abnormal character, but they should be normal and common to the Church. Not that the church hymn must restrict itself to what every member, in whatsoever condition of spiritual life, would readily subscribe to. Such a requirement would be unreasonable, because the participants in divine worship have reached different stages of spiritual development; in fact, this would restrict the subject matter of the church hymn to only certain general facts and abstract ideas. But it must be required of every church hymn that it express only such religious experiences as are in the main common to the whole communion of the faithful, only such soul states and spiritual stages of development as are essentially experienced by every true Christian.
If the requirement of community in the church hymnody permits dealing with special situations and experiences in the realm of spiritual life, then it ought to follow that this character of community will not be violated if the content of the church hymn bears upon certain external conditions and circumstances in which the entire congregation never can find itself at any one time. Since there are liturgical acts which directly affect only certain individuals in the congregation, not the congregation as a whole, there may be church hymns for certain individuals and special occasions. There are church hymns for marriage, confirmation, ordination, etc. It is also perfectly well to have church hymns for the aged, for the sick, for the dying, for prisoners, in time of war, etc. Since the church members should be kindly and lovingly interested in each other, the congregation may well give expression to certain sympathetic feelings in the church hymns. But such conditions and circumstances in the life of an individual as are quite exceptional and of special interest only to him, not to the congregation as such, are unsuitable as subjects for church hymns, since they may quite easily form a disturbing digression from that character of community which should distinguish the church hymns as such. Hymns “for a father or a mother at New Year, for a poor young man, for a young lady, for a blind man,” and the like, really have no place in the hymnal.
The congregational character of the church hymn also finds expression in the language and style of presentation. This must be plain and clear, so that the hymn may be easily understood and appreciated by all who possess a reasonable religious training, young or old. The mode of expression is original, naive, true-hearted and graphic. The true church hymn avoids startling phrases, prettiness, and mere rhetoric.