Category Archives: Hymns

5 reasons why reverential capitalization is not a brilliant idea

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‘Reverential capitalization’ refers to the practice of capitalizing, for reasons of reverence or respect, the initial letters of words that refer to the deity.

Capitalization of nouns, in written English, does not convey respect or reverence.  Rather, it conveys specification.  We capitalize both Churchill and Hitler, both Pol Pot and Gandhi.

But what about capitalizing personal pronouns that refer to God?

Well, I think it is unnecessary and unhelpful, here’s why.

1. There is no biblical mandate for it

Biblical Hebrew does not distinguish between upper-case and lower-case letters, and the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament were written in all capital letters.…

The resurrection of the body

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“We look for the resurrection of the dead”, says the Nicene Creed.

“I believe in the resurrection of the body”, we declare every time we recite the “Apostles’ Creed”.

These ancient affirmations are well-grounded in Scripture, most obviously in 1 Corinthians 15, but also in Romans 8 and other passages.  They are also consistent with the teaching of 2 Peter 3 and Revelation 21 and 22 that confirms that the future hope of God’s people is not for their bodies to remain buried for ever in the ground of this earth and for their “souls” to fly off to “heaven”, but for bodily resurrection and for future life in God’s new heaven and new earth.…

‘The First-Born Seraph’

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Charles Wesley’s famous hymn ‘And can it be?‘ is still sung from time to time today, even though many of the other hymns that were still popular when I was a Methodist teenager have fallen into neglect.  It is a shame, although I think that the vigorous tune Sagina prompts us to sing it more lustily than the awe-struck words suggest.  At any rate, we would reflect the words better if we didn’t crank the volume up until we reached the bit about ‘my chains fell off’.…

‘Dear Lord and Father of Mankind’ – an ‘Antihymn’?

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Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways;
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.

This hymn, by John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-92), often features in the top two or three in polls of favourite hymns, both in the UK and in the US.

Hearing the hymn sung again recently with the usual lusty enthusiasm caused me to reflect on how singularly usuitable it is to be sung as a hymn at all.…

A few thoughts on ‘modern words to old hymns’

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In addition to our plentiful resources of contemporary hymns and worship songs, we have a rich and varied heritage of traditional hymnody to draw on for our public worship.

The principle of modernising the language of older hymns is a sound one.  Such modernisation has the potential not only to improve comprehensibility but also to reflect important changes in language usage (including inclusive language, where this is compatible with our understanding of scriptural theology).  Modern language can also help to convey the important sense that God belongs to today as well as to yesterday.…