A Trendy Voice

When a hymn needs to address modern issues or speak with a particularly trendy voice, Jane Park Huber’s new collection of 73 songs (Westminster Press) is a useful resource. In A Singing Faith, she writes out of a love for congregational (and recreational) hymnody. Her style is predictable and familiar, but the topics are often omitted: human worth, women in biblical stories, peace and justice, the dignity of work, the joy of social service. Although written in the last decade, the texts’ anachronistic style resembles nineteenth-century hymnody shifted to use inclusive (nonsexist) language.

Huber, the wife of a minister and mother of six, was born in China of missionary parents. She calls her vocation “homemaker and church volunteer,” and sees herself on “a journey that many people of [her] generation have taken”: She observes that her approach to inclusive language is followed “more deliberately than [by] younger women.” Huber wants women to “unlearn” the assumption that “men” means both men and women; to approach “inclusive language first in terms of people.” And she struggles with gender in reference to God: “How gender-specific is Christ after rising from the dead?”

Familiar Tunes

Huber’s hymn texts are less than powerful. Except for four that are connected to equally new tunes, her seemingly new wine is poured into old wineskins with predictable results. Familiar tunes become a distraction since Huber’s rhyme scheme and phrasing usually parallel well-known words that have been associated with a tune for many years. For example, “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise” becomes “Designer, Creator, most provident God”—words beggared by the mystical poetry of a hundred years earlier. The use of old tunes keeps asking for comparison of the poetry.

Huber, who is on the committee currently revising the Presbyterian hymnal, admits to the problems of adjusting hymns that the congregation knows by memory. She wants alterations of language to be unnoticed, but calls herself “one of the radicals.” And should her own hymns endure, she would like for them to be updated in future centuries.

One new combination in this collection is an example of the impact of good partners. “Ours is a singing faith!” matches a Huber text with a tune by Arthur Frackenpohl: the praise is inclusive (“saints,” “youth and age,” “us”), and the tune is appropriate—still in hymnlike 4/4 time, but with rhythm syncopation, word sensitivity, and occasional modal harmony.

A few of Huber’s hymns may work their way into lasting repertoire; one—“For ages women hoped and prayed to see th’ Anointed one …”—is effective for Advent. Other hymns that do not reach the same poetic level function for an occasion, as in this Communion text: “So with solemnity we drink and eat. Serving our neighbor, our Saviour we meet”; or this peace expression: “God, teach us peacemaking in church and home, in school and hall, beneath Capitol dome, in shop and industry, city and farm: Show us the pathways that cause no one harm.”

Gracious Note

Huber wants her hymns to be used. A gracious note in small print on back of the title page gives permission to reprint the words in a worship bulletin. In so doing, she has overcome a major problem of the distribution of new hymnody and given congregations the opportunity to try her texts. She says she is “very easy about people using them.” Unlike many pop musicians, she cheerfully says, “I like to have people ask. I’ve never said no … never asked a fee. I don’t think you get rich as a hymn writer.” Jane Park Huber has found the opportunity and vehicle for touching a large group. She understands the power of congregational song and is committed to the congregation. A Singing Faith meets a need, and with utility. It is a valid reference, and though its limited size prevents its wide use as a pew hymnal, its concepts and selected repertoire may eventually reach that standard tool. Huber knows what she is doing.

By Richard J. Stanislaw, professor of music and vice-president for academic affairs at Taylor University.

Ambivalence

Many Christians are a bit nonplussed by efforts to make sure our hymns are nonsexist; some revisionists, they fear, have overreacted, with resulting bizarre terminology. That concern appears to be in evidence in the hymn “Ambivalence.” Author F. Pratt Green seems to have planted his tongue firmly in cheek, as did composer Alice Parker, whose tune is a perfect fit.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.