A laughable position?

From a report that a Sacred Harp singer made about the September United Association weekend:

“Over the weekend I heard a lot of sacred harp politics and gossip, including some dissatisfaction over the revision process and consultation with composers. … Unsurprisingly there seems to be a small schism forming that intends to stick with the 1991 book, rejecting the 2025 due to all the non-Christians and queers who worked on the book or who have their music included. This is a laughable position if one has even superficial knowledge of Sacred Harp history.”

The above excerpt is from a report that one singer wrote about his experience at the singing of the United Association in Atlanta in September. (He rejoiced in “the presence of many transgender singers able to be themselves with such apparent confidence.”) Take note of a few things stated in the excerpt.

1. The “dissatisfaction over the revision process and consultation with composers” is quickly passed over to make it about “all the non-Christians and queers who worked on the book or who have their music included.” This takes the focus away from the discussion of ethics and makes it more of an emotional appeal to get people on the side of what might be made to seem like a minority. However, from the beginning the main objections concerned questionable ethics, a premeditated agenda, and the lack of promised impartiality in how the revision played out. Who knew what when? How many times did the committee know who submitted certain songs? Why did the committee revise songs without the permission of the composers? Why did some composers have opportunities to revise their songs, while others had their songs revised by someone on or working for the committee – with a “here it is, take it or leave it” option? Why do songs appear in the book dated after the submission deadline? None of these answers have been forthcoming. There is no transparency, but rather subterfuge in its place.

• Re ethics, see: https://baptistsearch.blogspot.com/2025/09/outside-looking-in-part-2.html

This is not to say we are not dissatisfied with leaders trying to normalize behaviour that is inconsistent with the historic practice of Sacred Harp, and outside of Christian worldview and morality. It is to say that leaders apparently want to put the focus on this and hope for a sympathetic reaction – because they cannot and will not answer the ethical questions.

2. “a small schism…” The author wishes to dismiss and downplay the “schism” as “small.” I do not doubt that more people are now using the new 2025 than are using the 1991 book. However, might does not make right. Additionally, that fact does not necessarily mean that all who are using the 2025 like everything about the new book or the way the revision process was conducted. It may mean that some singers have just accepted the book as what is now being printed and that they are willing to live with. It may mean that some singers are unwilling to stand against these things to the point of not using the new book. It may mean that a few people are in “la-la land” and have no idea what is going on. It is a known fact that some people who are using the new book have complained of some things about it. Eventually, the euphoria will wear off and time will test the quality of the work done for the 2025 revision.

3. “Unsurprisingly…” The author uses the word “unsurprisingly” when referencing a schism over the book. Why is it “unsurprising”? Because you knew this would lead to dissatisfaction, dissension, and division? Yes, this is a (perhaps unintended) admission that folks pushing the boundaries knew that they were moving things in a direction that would lead to schism. So, you now say that it is “unsurprising” when it occurs, and call the ones who you knew would object schismatics.

4. The author finds that those who are dissatisfied have a “laughable position if one has even superficial knowledge of Sacred Harp history.” This in itself is laughable from someone who has been involved in Sacred Harp less than 10 years, to think he has a firm grasp on Sacred Harp history while those from families that have been singing it for multiple generations are quite slow on the uptake! It is also a disrespectful dig at the living elders who have passed this Christian faith singing tradition down from the previous generation to the present generation. Such is the hubris of the new non-traditional singer. Considering that kind of attitude, I guess a schism is unsurprising after all!

A pilot without a compass

The true Christian was intended by Christ to prove all things by the Word of God, all churches, all ministers, all teaching, all preaching, all doctrines, all sermons, all writings, all opinions, all practices. These are his marching orders. Prove all by the Word of God; measure all by the measure of the Bible; compare all with the standard of the Bible; weigh all in the balances of the Bible; examine all by the light of the Bible; test all in the crucible of the Bible. That which cannot abide the fire of the Bible, reject, refuse, repudiate, and cast away. This is the flag which he nailed to the mast. May it never be lowered!

A church which does not honor the Bible is as useless as a body without life, or a steam engine without fire. A minister who does not honor the Bible is as useless as a soldier without arms, a builder without tools, a pilot without compass, or a messenger without tidings.

J. C. Ryle, Light from Old Times

A poor despised company

The following hymn is number CXXV in Divine Hymns, or Spiritual Songs: for the Use of Religious Assemblies and Private Christians (Joshua Smith, Samuel Sleeper). There it is captioned “A brief description of the Children of God, in a Dialogue.” In some books it is called the “The Pilgrim Company.” The caption in Divine Hymns is helpful, cueing us in to the fact that this is a dialogue, discussing a despised company of travelers. In form, the first stanza is a question answered in the second stanza. Afterward, each stanza has the question in the first half and the answer in the last half. According to Warren Steel and Richard Hulan (The Makers of The Sacred Harp, p. 209), the hymn probably first appears in Hymns and Spiritual Songs by James Maxwell (London: 1759).

The hymn provides a contrast of the view of those “that walk in yonder narrow way.” The world can only see them in a temporal physical manner, while the narrator explains the long view – the eternal and spiritual look. Nothing is ever properly evaluated until it is evaluated in light of eternity. The type of hymn about “a poor despised company” or “poor and afflicted saints” have fallen into general contempt among most wealthy and prosperous Western churches.

1. What poor despisèd company
Of travellers are these,
That walk in yonder narrow way,
Along that rugged maze?

2. Ah, these are of a royal line,
All children of a King;
Heirs of immortal crowns divine,
And lo! for joy they sing.

3. Why do they then appear so mean
And why so much despis’d?
Because of their rich robes unseen
The world is not appriz’d.

4. But some of them seem poor, distress’d,
And lacking daily bread.
Ah they’re of boundless wealth possess’d,
With hidden manna fed.

5. But why keep they that narrow road—
That rugged, thorny maze?
Why, that’s the way their Leader trod;
They love and keep his ways.

6. Why must they shun the pleasant path,
That worldings love so well?
Because that is the road to death,
The open road to hell.

7. What, is there then no other road
To Salem’s happy ground?
Christ is the only way to God,
None other can be found.

In The Sacred Harp tradition, we sing this hymn to the tune Irwinton, by T. W. Carter. (Only the first and second stanzas are printed with the tune.) Irwinton was dropped from The Sacred Harp in the 1870 revision. The 1902 Cooper revision of The Sacred Harp added it back in an arrangement by N. Cheshire, called Joyful News (p. 244(. The Denson stream of The Sacred Harp added Irwinton back in 1911 (in the James Book, called Invitation, p. 482). It was dropped once again, and then returned to the book in 1991 (under the name Irwinton, p. 229).

Thomas W. Carter was born in Abbeville District, South Carolina, the son of Edward R. Carter, Sr. and brother of Matthew M. Carter. He attended medical school in Augusta, Georgia, and afterward married Lucinda A. Tompkins in 1849. They had one daughter, Hannah, who married James McNeil. After the death of Lucinda, Carter married Mary C. Dozier circa 1875. He died August 19, 1876, and was buried somewhere in Lake City, Florida.

Thomas W. Carter wrote or arranged 13 songs that appeared in The Sacred Harp by B. F. White & E. J. King, published in 1844: Augusta, 35; The Old Ship of Zion, 79; Little Children, 86; Church Triumphant, 91; Oak Bowery, 94; Ecstasy, 106; Night Watchman, 108; Concord, 111; Sandtown, 112; Florence, 121; Irwinton, 124; Exhilaration, 170; Banquet of Mercy, 177.

With an eye on the cross

 

Hymn Book as “Prayer Book”

An interesting thought.

It has been asserted by some that in many of the English “free churches” (dissenters from the Anglican Church, including Baptists), the hymn book acted as a central, unifying, and authoritative resource. In that place it fulfilled many of the same functions as the Book of Common Prayer did in the Church of England. I find this very intriguing, and think there is some merit in that assertion. A group of churches with a shared hymn book had a degree of shared theological and structural framework for worship.

For example, Ernest Payne says that the hymn book as a body of practical and experimental divinity was “One of the more immediate and personal legacies of Wesley was the hymn book he edited.” He continues, “In the Free Churches a hymn book takes the place occupied by the Prayer Book in the devotional life, public and private, of the Anglican. This in part explains how it is that the hymns of Watts, Doddridge, and the Wesleys have so entered into the life of the English people.”

The Free Church Tradition in the Life of England, Ernest Alexander Payne. London: S.C.M. Press Ltd., 1944, p. 79

Acts 28:30-31

A final summary statement, 28:30-31

Verses 30 and 31 provide a summary statement to conclude the account. It began in the Jewish capital of Jerusalem and ends in the Gentile capital of Rome, taking Acts 1:8 to its logical “conclusion.” Yet there is no conclusion, for the witness still goes forth.

Verse 30: in his own hired house (εν ιδιω μισθωματι, a place of lodging that is hired, or rented).[1]

The word of God cannot be bound. What might have seemed to be a setback and stumblingblock in Paul’s ministry was so ordered and arranged by God. Paul acknowledged “that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel” (Philippians 1:12). Often we do not at first see clearly what God has designed for our good, the good of others, and his glory. While here Paul would not only preach freely, but he also wrote what are commonly called “The Prison Epistles.” The term “Prison Epistles” refers to the four letters written while Paul was under house arrest in Rome – Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. The “we” section of 27:1-28:16 indicates that Luke travels with Paul from Cæsarea to Rome. Paul mentions Luke’s presence when writing to the saints at Colosse (Colossians 4:14), and to Philemon (v. 24). Previously, Paul had most often dwelt with others; now he has a dwelling place of his own. He had been on the move in the Roman empire; now he is settled in Rome. He had gone out with the gospel message to others; now others come to him to hear the message.

In the end of this chapter, soldiers guard Paul. He receives visitors, and freely shares the gospel (Acts 28:16, 20, 30-31). In the letters, Paul mentions being with “they that are of Cæsar’s household” (Philippians 4:22), his bonds (Ephesians 6:20; Philippians 1:7, 12-16; Colossians 4:3-4, 4:18; Philemon 10-13), and refers to himself as a prisoner (Ephesians 3:1; 4:1; Philemon 1, 9, 23). This was not Paul’s only incarceration, of course. He was bound in Philippi (Acts 16:23-40), Jerusalem (Acts 21:33), Cæsarea (23:23-24; 24:27), and Rome (Acts 28:16) – as well as when transported as a prisoner from Jerusalem to Cæsarea to Rome. Paul made it to Rome, as he believed, and was able to preach concerning “the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.”

“…the narrative ends as it does because it had caught up with history, and at the moment there was nothing more to record.”[2]

“Yet it is a pleasure to us (for we are sure it was to him) that, though we leave him in bonds for Christ, yet we leave him at work for Christ, and this made his bonds easy that he was not by them bound out from serving God and doing good.”[3]

The open ending!

Alexander MacLaren said the book of Acts “stops rather than ends.”[4] The work of the Lord through his churches is not finished. God the inspirer pulls the curtain on “Act 28,” but his show goes on.

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[1] Josephus, Antiquities, Book XVIII, 6.10 mentions the circumstance of Agrippa, while “still in custody,” going to live in “that house where he lived before.” This might be a situation comparable to that of Paul.
[2] Ladd, Wycliffe Commentary, p. 1178.
[3] Matthew Henry’s Commentary, Volume VI, page 361. “Luke is with me” again when Paul is in prison in Rome the second time (II Timothy 4:11).
[4] MacLaren, The Acts of the Apostles, Expositions Of Holy Scripture, p. 383. He further suggests, like Ladd, “that nothing more is said for nothing more had yet been done.” That is, simply, the book stops at the point in history when it is written. There are many dreams and nightmares recounted by the unbelieving and misbelieving scholars, when instead a simple explanation is quite sufficient. It ended where the Holy Spirit ended it.

Hymns can mean anything

Hymns can mean anything ... or can they?

“I tend to tell people that whatever meaning or relevance they take from that is up to them.” unnamed Facebook commenter, cited in Sacred Harp Singing in Europe: Its Pathways, Spaces, and Meanings, Ellen Leuck, p. 226[i]

“Flexible interpretations of texts permit singers with diverse beliefs and experience to relate to Sacred Harp in personally meaningful ways…” Traveling Home: Sacred Harp Singing and American Pluralism, Kiri Miller, page 132

Regarding the texts and scriptural bases for the songs in the Sacred Harp tune books, it is important to understand that they have a context and underlying meaning. They cannot just mean whatever someone wants them to mean. Now, I understand that different texts may touch different folks in different ways, make us think different things, or make us feel different things. However, we must also understand that what we think and feel about a text is not part of the text itself, and does not become the standard for the meaning of the text. First and foremost (except for a few patriotic songs, e.g. “Behold, the smiling happy land,” “My country, ’tis of thee”) the texts are Christian texts.[ii] Therefore, the songs have a Christian worldview and meaning. That fact does not mean the texts cannot touch someone who is not Christian. That fact DOES mean that Christian hymns cannot be removed from their context and mean just anything and everything to everybody. That folks think they can have their own meaning and eat it to is a sad commentary on an age that does not understand or believe objective truth. May God help Christian singers not acquiesce to this falsehood. The Christian texts have Christian meaning.

There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains.

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[i] A couple more quotes from Sacred Harp Singing in Europe: Its Pathways, Spaces, and Meanings: “…Sacred Harp singers in Europe who identify as generally non-religious…find other ways of internalizing the meaning of the texts outside of the realm of religious worship” (p. 220). “…the religious words in The Sacred Harp do have meaning for secular participants, though not a literal meaning. They have meaning within the context of the music, and they perhaps facilitate tapping into feelings of emotional and spiritual depth that secular lyrics can do less easily. Furthermore, it is understood by the community-at-large that the meaning of the texts is interpreted by participants privately” (pp. 222-223).
[ii] The Christians who included the patriotic songs doubtless understood them to fit within their Christian worldview.

Bearing the Cross

And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha: John 19:17

There is no incident in our Lord’s passion which, to a heart quickened with spiritual sensibility, is more replete with holy instruction, or more deeply, tenderly touching than this—Christ bearing to Calvary the cross upon which he was to suffer. It unveils such a profound abasement, and yet such a depth of love—it portrays a stoop of the Majesty of heaven to earth’s lowest degradation—so marvelous, and yet, is the measurement of grace, so vast, the fact stands out, amid the many marvels of our Lord’s death, one of the most touching and significant of all. To compel the criminal to bear the wood upon which he was to be impaled, was one of the severest elements of degradation in the Roman punishment of crucifixion. To this our Lord was subjected, “And he, bearing his cross, went forth.” Little did they dream, as they bound the fatal wood upon his shoulder, by whose power that tree was made to grow, and from whom the beings who bore Him to the death drew their existence. So completely was Jesus bent upon saving sinners by the sacrifice of himself, he created the tree upon which he was to die, and nurtured from infancy the men who were to nail him to the accursed wood. Oh, the depth of Jesus’s love to sinners! Lord! the universe in its accumulation presents no love like yours! Your love, eternal as your being, saw from everlasting the cross of Calvary, and yet you did not falter in your purpose, nor modify your plan of saving lost sinners by the sacrifice of yourself. You saved others, yourself you would not save!

Octavius Winslow, The Foot of the Cross, 1864