Now Let Us Rejoice in the Hymnbook Revisions

The Church has announced that the hymnbook and children’s songbook are both going to be revised. I have a bunch of random thoughts on this. I’ll put them in three lists to try to create some illusion of organization.

Good News

  • The Church is actually asking for our feedback for once! Here’s the survey. (I’m assuming they’ll do something to limit multiple responses from the same person. I’m actually surprised that it looks like they’re not requiring an lds.org account login to participate.)
  • From the FAQ on the project: “New and existing hymns and songs from around the world will be evaluated and considered for inclusion.” This seems like great news, and a welcome change from the English-only hymns we have now. In the Church News story, Elder Kopischke, who’s an adviser to the project, says “We hope that these new books will also include some of the best hymns and songs originating in other languages that will then be translated into English and the other languages of the world.”
  • Elder Curtis, another adviser to the project, says (in the Church News story) “As an extension to the new printed hymnbook and songbook, additional sacred music will be made available online, including music of local interest in each language.” This also sounds like very welcome news to me, as so much music in church is limited by what’s in the hymnbook, so if the hymnbook is expanded with these official supplements, this will give us much more music (potentially) to choose from in church.
  • Also from the FAQ: “Because the new core collections will be the same in every language, national anthems will not be included in the printed hymnbooks.” I am very happy at the possibility of a little more uncoupling of nationalism–particularly American nationalism–from our religion.

Hopes

  • Could we please re-word the existing hymns that are going to be held over to get rid of all the gender exclusive language? This is one thing that irritates me most about our current hymnbook. I’m not typically confrontational enough to sing all the “brethren” and “men” as “sisters” and “women.” Instead, I just don’t sing those words at all, kind of like how profanities get bleeped out on TV, but without the bleep sound. (Although come to think of it, perhaps I should start singing a bleep sound.)
  • I would be thrilled if we could have some more hymns about Heavenly Mother. The couple of lines in “O My Father” are great, but wouldn’t it be cool if Heavenly Mother were front and center in our hymns instead of a rare footnote?
  • This is an oft-discussed issue on the Bloggernacle, but I would definitely be in favor of dropping some of the bouncier hymns. “Let Us All Press On” is a prime candidate.
  • I would also love it if we could get rid of (at least some of) the war imagery in our hymns. It would be fine with me if that happens either by editing hymns or just by dropping the worst offenders (bye bye, “Onward Christian Soldiers”).
  • I’m not a fan of the lines in some of our hymns that are Rameumptom-adjacent, by which I mean we pat ourselves on the back about how great we are. For example, I feel like “We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet” slips into this in its second and third verses. “The wicked who fight against Zion
    will surely be smitten at last,” and “While they who reject this glad message shall never such happiness know,” would fit right in with “thou hast elected us that we shall be saved, whilst all around us are elected to be cast by thy wrath down to hell; for the which holiness, O God, we thank thee” from the Zoramite prayer. I know there’s no chance that such a commonly-sung hymn will be dropped, but could it maybe at least be softened with some edits, like we did with “Praise to the Man”?
  • And speaking of hopeless cases, could we please just drop “Praise to the Man”?

Fears

  • Given that Presidents Nelson and Oaks are both big fans of the Family Proclamation, I am very much afraid that we will get a hymnbook that’s packed to the gills with songs about divine gender roles. “The Family Is of God” is bad enough. Let’s not repeat that mistake.
  • President Oaks loves to talk about the importance of maintaining the Church’s legal right to discriminate against gay people, cloaked with the term “religious freedom.” I really hope that we don’t get any hymns that rhapsodize about the holy right to discriminate or take veiled (or unveiled) swipes at gay people.
  • The first item in the list of purposes of the revised hymn book and children’s songbook in the Church News story is to “fill doctrinal gaps.” I find this worrisome because most of the doctrines that the Church has emphasized more since the last hymnbook revision in 1985 are FamProc related. I’m afraid there may be doctrinal gaps in our existing hymns that I’m not even thinking of but that GAs are deeply concerned need to be filled, and I suspect the hymns they fill them with won’t be ones I will like.

10 comments

  1. Doctrinal gaps likely to be filled and some candidates:
    More Easter hymns and others that focus on different aspects of the atonement of Christ.
    – This is The Christ by J. Faust,
    – More dual purpose Sacrament hymns
    – Some non-English hymns may do well here
    The importance of temple ordinances for exaltation.
    More hymns with direct quotes from the Book of Mormon

    So, will many pioneer hymns become local interest for saints in the western US only?

  2. Bro. Jones: I know, right?

    el oso, great thoughts. Your last point is particularly interesting. I would think that at least some classics (“Come Come Ye Saints”) would be retained in the core set, but it does seem like a bunch that refer to the mountains around us, or being in our lovely Deseret, might be moved to the “local only” set.

  3. Yes, I wanted all the Utah-centric hymns to be removed, as well as all the prophet extolling ones. (I really don’t feel closer to Christ singing those and I feel that they are confusing for people who are new to our services. No, we don’t worship our prophets, but may I interest you singing several hymns that make it sound like we do?) I also want Father of our Fathers gone, which must be uncomfortable for those who continue to suffer the effects of Mr. Kipling’s White Man’s Burden as a contribution to colonialism. Also,True to the Faith, which no one really likes to sing with all the awkward accidentals.

  4. ST,
    I am sure that some church leaders would be happy to trade out one of the songs about the generic current prophet with a hymn about the church being the Lord’s, like “The Church’s One Foundation”. Of course a few lyrics may change, but they would definitely keep those that talk about the church surviving tribulation, heresies, apostates, etc.

    On another note, I think that the children’s hymnbook will get a bunch of new songs. Maybe some about ignoring the discordant voices on social media and listening to parents, teachers and interacting face to face with others. I also expect more militant themes (like the Army of Helaman song) in the children’s hymnbook.

  5. – Directed by the correlation committee. Let’s not pretend that this isn’t a massive swipe at one of the last relatively untouched vestiges of uncorrelated modern scripture. This is our art and our soul. Correlation is reworking it. I’m not optimistic about the outcome.

    -We don’t have to hold our breath or suppose how this will turn out. Many mainstream Protestant Churches did the same thing to their hymnals in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s. Result? Horrible hymnals that whitewashed cultural heritage for some blazee affect of the moment. Most have crawled back to what they used to be.

    -I hope that “All over the world at the end of Day” stays in the children’s hymnal. I’n afraid (actually terrified) that rising racist tides would like to see this gem removed.

    – Carol lynn Pearson and others recited “If you don’t walk as most people do” as a hymn affirming our support of lgbt brothers and sisters. Better believe this is on the chopping block. We desperately need to keep it.

    – magic 8 ball says- “follow the prophet” and its klezmer beat is cut. (Everyone complains about it, except primary kids- they love it.) Come thou fount is voted in by 100% of respondents.

    -Faith in every footstep has poor part-writing and an awkward transition to the chorus. It will be put in, but, ugh.

    – I don’t have the energy to check, but I’d be surprised if the survey was available to all the languages that will be effected.

    – Many areas of the church cannot access the internet or print off paper copies of hymns. The idea of printing single-use copies seems completely wasteful and a green nightmare.
    The online collection sounds nice, but unless it’s in print, it’s not going to be easily used.

    – unless this new hymnal is a big fat anthology, it’s going to be so broad that it address everyone while simultaneously addressing no one.

    – I’m dreading the religious freedom hymn and the family proc songs too.

    – It’s funny how this scriptural work (hymns are scripture) is being created by committee and by common consent (qualtrics poll), yet we decry that premise for the Nicene Creed. It’s easy to see how political pressure, contemporary context, logistics and bias shape the process and final product.

    – Sorry, gender neutral hymnody sucks. Imagine singing “Joy to the World” at a crisp clip and all 300 people having to remember to sing “the diety is born…let earth receive its creator…let every heart prepare it room”. Shoot me now. On the other hand, “yes I know heavenly parents love me” would be a beautiful way to end “whenever I hear the song of a bird”, with one verse male (Heavely Father), one verse female (heavenly mother), and one verse parent (heavenly parents). That works.

  6. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Mortimer. Your next-to-last point is fascinating to me. I had never thought of that, but it’s such an interesting comparison. On your last point, I agree that they can be awkwardly worded, but I have hope that, especially given that so many other Christians have done similar things already (long ago) and paved the way for us, we could just borrow their work for common hymns.

  7. Your mention of “We Thank Thee Oh God for a Prophet” was interesting to me because the Spanish version of that song, “Te Damos, Señor, Nuestras Gracias” does not mention the prophet, neither in the title nor verses. It is primarily a song of thanks. Congregations still sing it when the prophet visits, though, so I have to wonder how many Spanish speakers think of it as adulation for the prophet.

    I wonder if it could be renamed in the new hymnal, at the very least, as a more generic song of thanks.

  8. Rockwell, I just looked up “Te Damos, Señor, Nuestras Gracias” and the Google translation of the Spanish text. I like it so much more in translation. The third line does still mention prophets, but in plural form (“profetas con tu Evangelio”). It’s interesting that simply removing “prophet” from the title and making the other mention plural makes the hymn far more palatable to me.

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