Luther on Being Overly Fascinated with Rubrics and Rituals

Pr. Paul T. McCain, over at Cyberbrethren, has some excellent thoughts about putting too much stock in being "liturgical," an ever present danger for at least myself.

When Luther Made Fun of A Guy Overly Fascinated with Rubrics and Rituals

Christians, to the Paschal Victim

I promised two posts ago to talk about arrangements. I've decided to show how this has been done in the church of old, taking the lesser-known Easter hymn Victimæ Paschali Laudes, found in LSB 460 and here.

Here is the original. 

Here is an arrangement from 1100, Christ ist erstanden, LSB 459.

Here is Luther's arrangement, Christ Jesus Lay in Death's Strong Bands, LSB 458.

Here is Bach's Baroque arrangement of that.

Here is a Romantic (Joaquim António Peres Fontanes) arrangement of Victimae for Organ.

And here is an Impressionistic arrangement of the same and for the same, by Charles Tournemire.

Bible Vocabulary: Words that Should Be Replaced: Justification

What?! The most important word in Christian theology should be replaced?! Sadly, yes.

First, I'd like to talk about what the word should mean. Justification should mean "our becoming right before God because God bequeaths us so." The word is a performative one, to use theological lingo. Remember how God said "Let there be _ and there was _?" It's like that. Or like a baseball umpire who calls a runner 'SAFE,' even though the tag was clearly in-time. Regardless of all else, that runner is safe.

Next, let's think about what it means today. Today, one hears things like "There's no justification for what they did!" or "Can you justify that statement?" Justification has come to mean 'excuse' or 'reason.' And that's okay, language changes like that. But the problem for Christians is that God does not excuse our behavior or reason out our differences. He bequeaths us guiltless.

So what word do I propose instead? Acquittal. Now, I realize that this word is a big one, but I really think it accurately conveys the idea and is not terribly uncommon. Like my definition earlier, 'acquittal' is performative: when a judge or jury acquits, it removes all guilt and consequences from a defendant, regardless. Likewise, God acquits us of all charges the devil and our worldly 'friends' may charge us with.

Alternative Hymn Settings

(Btw, my apologies on the long delay between posts. Turns out that Seminary requires a great deal of my time.)

In my last post, I mentioned Taize as a possible alternative to throwing out the baby with the bathwater of traditional worship. Another possibility is changing the accompaniment of hymns. Let's explore both the upsides and downsides to this.

Upsides
1) Historical Precedent: Alternative hymn settings are about as old as hymns themselves, especially Lutheran hymns. Take, for example, A Mighty Fortress. There are settings by Johann Walther, Michael Prætorius, Heinrich Schütz, J.S. Bach, Felix Mendelssohn, etc, etc, etc. Each one of these settings puts Martin Luther's great hymn in a "contemporary" light, without losing the character of the original.
2) No doctrinal worries: Since the hymns will be found in the Church's hymnal already (LSB, for example), there will be no need to do an in-depth search of each text, since that will already have been done by the Church/Denomination.
3) Keeps the traditional folks happy: All those old, beloved hymns are still on the table. "Thee Will I Love, My Strength, My Tower?" No problem! All we need to do is find a setting.
4) Makes the "Contemporary" folks happy: Okay, they won't be overjoyed, but most folks are willing to compromise some things. The organ is an outlandish instrument for virtually every genre of music (save the best!) and merely changing the instrumentation can be enough for some.

Downsides
1) Finding settings: While the LSB has a guitar-chord edition, it almost requires some skill and knowledge in music. After that, it's merely up to chance whether or not a suitable harmonization is to be found, and if it's not been "adopted" by American "evangelicals," good luck!
2) Not traditional enough: For those that like everything done as traditionally as possible, the change of accompaniment will be too much. Furthermore, it might heighten the suspicions of said folks, that something nasty is a-brewing.
3) Not "contemporary" enough: For those that love novelty, merely changing accompaniment will be about as different as watching Scrubs on ABC instead of NBC. For church-hoppers and those that listen to "Christian" radio, not hearing the songs might be an issue.

Like Taize, it's not a flawless solution and it won't get rid of every complaint. But it can be a small enough variation that might be just the thing for some congregation.

Now, for some examples:

1) For percussion. "Il est né, le divin enfant" or in English, "He is born, the divine Christ-child"

2) For a band (electric guitar, electric bass, etc.) "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing"

3) According to one source, Heinz Werner Zimmermann believed that a congregation needed only a bass for accompaniment and wrote compositions to prove it. Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any such compositions, but he might be another option.

Next time, we'll consider alternative hymn arrangements.