The challenge of a hymn. To sing or not to sing?

 “In Christ alone” to sing or not to sing.

We all have our cross to bear and sometimes it can feel as if God has a sense of humour when things keep occurring.

I had sat in a mid week communion service sometime ago now, and the minister had chosen the hymn ‘In Christ  Alone’. My wife knowing my view on this hymn did smile as I always chose not to sing verse two, but she also noted, as did I, another minister in the group kept their mouth firmly shut as did a delightful women who is also an Iona associate. What kind of God are we dealing with that requires their ‘wrath to be satisfied’ by the death of a man on a cross? More of that later!

Well we have sung the hymn at the church we are attending on a  number of occasions these past two years which has surprised me. I would describe the church we attend as middle of the road anglican and certainly not in the conservative evangelical sphere.

One week recently a member of the women’s group said to Jill she was choosing that hymn to talk about at their meeting. “Good job Mark won’t be there he can’t stand it” We had a little good natured aside. Another member  listening to our conversation then commented that ‘oh yes some people do object to it.’

Well some weeks later a visiting priest ( we are in a vacancy), realised the hymn had been chosen and asked at least could the words be changed. Trouble was the words were already typed into the power point and the track was a recorded one. She still made the point in worship and suggested we sing different words when we came to verse two. A comment was made that the former vicar used it..…implying that it was therefore okay. The visiting Priest was delighted to know that there were others who did not care for the hymn. 

Then there we were out on the Good Friday procession and a church member turned to Jill as she had an order of service ‘Oh Mark is going to love the next song” sure enough we had the song again. Then this past Sunday we had the hymn during the taking of communion. Is God trying to tell me something?

Well I have given up not just singing the offending verse but the whole hymn. The more I reflect on it I can’t sing any of it. How it came to be in our Methodist ‘Singing the Faith’ still amazes me. Less I lose perspective I remind myself ‘I’m sure God is enjoying the fun of it all.’

Why do I then object to this hymn? 

It really matters what you sing. People forget your sermons but hymns through the tune sink in. The tune is very accessible and as you find it humming away in your head the words are informing your thinking. Hymns educate people in regard to what we believe about God, our faith, our world. Hymns can therefore be dangerous.

Hymns/songs can also reflect our theological positions which is fine up to a point. I don’t however think they should be divisive. The one thing the congregation does do in a service is sing together. But I know hymns/songs are the great divide. 

For me what hymns/songs should not be doing is limiting God, or making out we have an exclusive faith. A cursory reading of the gospels reveal an inclusive Jesus. He is more concerned about community sin and failure than the individual's so called sins’. Of course this is where so many conservative evangelicals position themselves looking at personal morality (hung up on sex) while failing to voice concerns about the power of institutions, capitalism, the destruction of the environment etc. Jesus however wants to transform the world and speaks out against the system. This hymn in question is a very individualistic hymn.

So a quick guide to why I don’t sing this hymn at all any more.

It starts with the opening line  “In Christ alone my hope is found ” This excludes the Father and the Holy Spirit so its not trinitarian. It's okay to hope in Christ but adding alone makes it exclusive. Jesus himself refers to the Holy Spirit as the comforter but this hymn states that it is Jesus, so further removing the role of the third person of the trinity. The role of the Father is to be that who is wrathful which does not match up with Jesus's teaching, e.g. in that gospel within the gospel , the parable of the prodigal son. We do of course have our hope in God but the hymn writers have revealed a very confused understanding of Christ.

The writers seem to have just grabbed bits of scripture, metaphors etc and stuck them in to make it rhyme. I mean how do you get to be the cornerstone and the foundation at the same time?

When the hymn talks about ‘sins laid upon him’ it fails to reflect the fact that Jesus chose by free choice to take on the sins of the world. There is a big and important difference in that.

In verse four it speaks of ‘from life’s first cry to final breath’ which implies that it is all predestined. I’m not a Calvinist as I believe in free choice but this verse denies that, and implies that we can’t be drawn away from God which flies in the face of reality. The faithful can lose faith and fall away.  See again the parable of the sower.

The hymn implies that my ultimate destiny and every phase of my life is predestined. This is contrary to my Methodist Arminianism roots. For if all is predetermined I have no free will and therefore cannot be held accountable for my actions.  I cannot have sinned as all I have done is willed and destined by God. So the atonement is unnecessary and God’s wrath is only justified if directed against Gods self. Where then is the sense of Jesus entering truly into our humanity and making choices, if as the hymn states, it’s all been  fixed from the outset, including what Jesus said and did.

While the hymn has some aspects that resonate the hymn is fundamentally flawed, and as a piece of teaching falls below the standard that should be expected. It fails also because those who select it with any understanding must know it is divisive and the purpose of our worship and hymnody should be to unite.

What underpins this hymn are two particular theories of the atonement. Caution here please, because they are only theories.  We do not fully understand what happened on the cross or the fullness of its meaning. These two theories are built not upon the experience of the early church but of a later period influenced, as we all are, by the surrounding culture of the time. So we have the Classical Satisfaction theory of the atonement - Anslem of Canterbury  (archbishop) 1093 to 1109 and the Penal Substitutionary theory expounded by John Calvin.

Satisfaction theory is not biblical as it has its origins in medieval notions of honour  and views sin as a disobedience that robs the sovereign God of the honour due to him. That honour can be restored only by a sufficiently worthy, costly and satisfactory reparation. Christ pays the debt that sinful mankind owes to God. Anslem did not however see Christ’s death as a satisfaction of God’s wrath, nor was it a punishment. Christ was obedient to the Father. He took the debt upon himself voluntarily. Anselm saw the whole transaction as the persons of the Trinity working together for love of humanity in a way that remedies the disorder brought by sin and disobedience without compromising God’s justice and righteousness. God’s anger does not come into it. 

The Penal Substitutionary Theory builds onto that idea the notion that God’s justice and sovereignty require that no sin may be left unpunished. Calvin held that all humanity is guilty because of Adam’s sin and under God’s righteous wrath. Justice is satisfied if Christ suffers instead of sinners.  The idea that every sin was laid on Jesus comes not directly from the gospels but from the Suffering Servant passage in Isaiah 53:6: But Calvin leaves us with the problem or contradiction between choosing punishment and being punished. So we have a God hating and loving humanity.

I find like others that when anything falls short of the concept of God as a loving Father as revealed in Jesus then its a bit questionable. There is plenty of talk of God’s wrath in the bible but no where that Jesus’ death satisfied  God.  The term ‘satisfied’ is far more of a problem than the word ‘wrath’. We can even find direct gospel evidence against it, for, John 3:16 says:

He who believes in the Son has eternal life; he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God rests upon him.

If the wrath of God still rests on the unbeliever, then Jesus’ death did not satisfy God’s wrath: that wrath remains. That is a contradiction that is rarely mentioned or addressed because it completely undermines the idea that Christ’s death was an effective penal substitution for all time. Moreover in several places Paul speaks about the wrath that is still to come.

I could go on but you then end up trying to point score. 

So while it has a catchy tune I’ll stick to hymn and songs that for me speak of the God of forgiveness and mercy. The God who makes covenant with communities not individuals. The God who as the prodigal son comes rushing through the village to greet his son forgiveness already given, and brings him into the home to feast and rejoice. What a Father that is and Jesus says that's what God the Father is like. I’ll stick with the God who gives us freedom of choice to mess up, make mistakes, repent, mess up, repent and keep on trying to walk in the footsteps of Jesus empowered by the Spirit.