Tuesday, June 14, 2005 AD
"Forgive our foolish ways!"
We sang one of my favourite hymns at church on Sunday, Dear Lord and Father of Mankind.
This hymn was written by the 19th century Quaker poet (and noted abolitionist), John Greenleaf Whittier. The context of the words is very interesting: they come at the end of his poem, The Brewing of Soma, which Whittier wrote as an attack the sensual worship he had witnessed in revivalist meetings.
Whittier compares the frenzy of revivalistic worship with pagan rites involving the use of hallucinogenic drugs to achieve religious ecstasy ("Soma" being a plant found in India, which was used to induce a frenzy as part of Hindu religious rituals from the second century BC):
I'm not saying this is true for all charismatic Christians; but it is a danger that is insufficiently guarded against. In charismatic circles, one of the main purposes of "worship" (i.e. the singing of choruses) is seeking an ecstatic, unmediated encounter with "the naked God": what another recovering charismatic, Tony Payne, describes as "an experience of communion with God, where God's presence is especially encountered" (see also my post on the sacrament of praise and worship from last year).
Anyway, to return to the topic, Whittier never intended this poem to become a hymn, so perhaps its fitting that the wonderful tune with which it has become associated, Repton, was never intended to be a hymn tune. It is taken from CHH Parry's 1888 oratorio, Judith, and only became known as a hymn tune when it was published in the hymnal of the English public school Repton, in 1924.
One of the roads near our house is called Repton Road, and whenever I see the road sign the hymn starts going round my head (as happened on the way home last night, when I was very grateful to have it drive out the irritating children's ditty that had been on a 15-second tape loop for the previous ten minutes). It's like when we went on holiday a few years ago to Gloucestershire: we were staying near the village of Down Ampney, and so I had "Come Down, O Love Divine" going round my head for the whole week. Bliss.
Update: For the record, the reference to Repton only being published as a hymn tune in 1924 is clearly wrong. I happened to be looking in my copy of The English Hymnal last night for an unrelated reason, and saw that "Dear Lord and Father of Mankind" is in there, to the tune Repton.
The English Hymnal was published in 1906, and while a slightly revised edition came out in 1933, the preface makes clear that no tunes or words were changed in the revision. If anyone happens to know when Repton did make its debut as a hymn tune, please mention it in the comments.
This hymn was written by the 19th century Quaker poet (and noted abolitionist), John Greenleaf Whittier. The context of the words is very interesting: they come at the end of his poem, The Brewing of Soma, which Whittier wrote as an attack the sensual worship he had witnessed in revivalist meetings.
Whittier compares the frenzy of revivalistic worship with pagan rites involving the use of hallucinogenic drugs to achieve religious ecstasy ("Soma" being a plant found in India, which was used to induce a frenzy as part of Hindu religious rituals from the second century BC):
As in the child-world's early year,It is in contrast to these "foolish ways" of revivalistic (or, might we say, proto-charismatic?) frenzy that Whittier then goes on to pray:
Each after age has striven
By music, incense, vigils drear,
And trance, to bring the skies more near,
Or lift men up to heaven!
[...]
And yet the past comes round again,
And new doth old fulfil;
In sensual transports wild as vain
We brew in many a Christian fane
The heathen Soma still!
Dear Lord and Father of mankind,From my own experience of charismatic worship, I think Whittier has a point. In retrospect, a lot of what I was doing in my more charismatic days - I was once "slain in the Spirit" in the south aisle of York Minster, and there's not many people can say that ;-) - looks an awful lot like an attempt to "brew ... the heathen Soma still". Both in public worship and private prayer (not least in "speaking in tongues"), I was striving to enter into an altered state of consciousness, what I now look back on as a form of self-hypnosis, which I could then interpret as evidence of God's blessing (otherwise known as "having a warm fuzzy").
Forgive our foolish ways!
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.
I'm not saying this is true for all charismatic Christians; but it is a danger that is insufficiently guarded against. In charismatic circles, one of the main purposes of "worship" (i.e. the singing of choruses) is seeking an ecstatic, unmediated encounter with "the naked God": what another recovering charismatic, Tony Payne, describes as "an experience of communion with God, where God's presence is especially encountered" (see also my post on the sacrament of praise and worship from last year).
Anyway, to return to the topic, Whittier never intended this poem to become a hymn, so perhaps its fitting that the wonderful tune with which it has become associated, Repton, was never intended to be a hymn tune. It is taken from CHH Parry's 1888 oratorio, Judith, and only became known as a hymn tune when it was published in the hymnal of the English public school Repton, in 1924.
One of the roads near our house is called Repton Road, and whenever I see the road sign the hymn starts going round my head (as happened on the way home last night, when I was very grateful to have it drive out the irritating children's ditty that had been on a 15-second tape loop for the previous ten minutes). It's like when we went on holiday a few years ago to Gloucestershire: we were staying near the village of Down Ampney, and so I had "Come Down, O Love Divine" going round my head for the whole week. Bliss.
Update: For the record, the reference to Repton only being published as a hymn tune in 1924 is clearly wrong. I happened to be looking in my copy of The English Hymnal last night for an unrelated reason, and saw that "Dear Lord and Father of Mankind" is in there, to the tune Repton.
The English Hymnal was published in 1906, and while a slightly revised edition came out in 1933, the preface makes clear that no tunes or words were changed in the revision. If anyone happens to know when Repton did make its debut as a hymn tune, please mention it in the comments.
