Compilers of Hymnbooks Encountering Sour Notes

At the hilltop burial of President Herbert Hoover, whose Quaker faith upheld pacifism, a U.S. Marine band marched slowly up a rural Iowa hill playing his requested, favorite hymn--”The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,” it begins, and the noted Quaker philosopher Elton Trueblood, the minister at that Oct. 26, 1964, service, spoke of the hymn’s spirit of fortitude and beauty in an unstable world.

But while that view was indicated by those two notable “peace church” members, it apparently doesn’t resonate with some denominational musicologists charged with updating hymnbooks.

An 18-member committee has compiled a new hymnal for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) that doesn’t include the rousing “Battle Hymn,” or another popular old marching-beat number, “Onward Christian Soldiers.”

“There can’t be wholesale satisfaction of everybody,” said Melva Costen of Atlanta, a music-worship professor who headed the committee.

Both songs have rankled tastes of some church music specialists because of martial imagery, although Costen said in a telephone interview that was not the reason for their omission.

“It had nothing to do with martial language,” she said, but was simply to make room for new songs. “We couldn’t put in everything we had.”

However, the military analogies--something the New Testament writer Paul also used--consistently have been cited in other church moves to drop the two hymns, such as in 1987 by a United Methodist Church hymnal committee. That panel had to back down under an avalanche of protests, and the two hymns stayed.

But there was scant chance for such reaction among Presbyterians, some complain, because of short notice for it and because decisions were mainly made in closed sessions, despite a church policy of open meetings.

Much of the process was closed and there was little chance to participate in the decision-making, said the Rev. Richard Bass of Brunswick, Ga., executive of the Savannah-area presbytery.

“It’s going to be counter-productive,” he said. The abrupt dismissal of the committee in October “cut off discussion,” he added. “There was no public process. Any time this happens we’re in trouble.”

Costen said the committee in three years work held eight open hearings around the country. They discussed possible contents and tried out a song “sampler,” but didn’t make decisions on what was in or out, she said.

The committee made final choices in July, shortly after a full potential list was disclosed. Of the 600 hymns included, Costen said 300 traditional numbers are preserved, while 300 are “new to Presbyterian hymnody.”

She said of about 350 letters received about contents, 250 were complaints.

Called the “Presbyterian Hymnal: Hymns, Psalms and Spiritual Songs,” the book is to be issued by the 3 million-member denomination’s Westminster Press in May, shortly before the church’s annual legislative assembly.

The Rev. George Telford, head of a theology and worship unit, commended the hymn committee’s choices as reflecting concern for more psalms and evangelical songs and also the church’s growing ethnic diversity.

The new compilation “is richer, more nurturing and finally more useful and pleasureable than before,” he said. He added that it still contains “bunches and bunches of the old goodies.”

Robert McIntyre, head of the church publishing house, estimated costs of producing the new hymnal at $500,000. He predicted “wide acceptance of it.”

The church’s past hymnal of 1972, combined with worship materials, contains 300 hymns. The earlier 1955 Presbyterian hymnal contained 600 songs. Both included the two controversial martial-toned hymns.