God, save us from a silent spring

(Tune: Gonfalon Royal)

God, save us from a silent spring*,
when sparrows are too sick to sing:
no hymns of praise announcing dawn
but muted cries as nature mourns.

When pesticides have done their worst,
when seed and soil, once blessed, are cursed,
when deserts creep where forests grew,
how can we plead we never knew?

When coral reefs all disappear,
as waters warm and acid sears,
and whales no longer sound and breach,
will seas forgive our overreach?

And what of beasts we hunt and kill
for pelts and tusks or passing thrill;
the animals that Adam named,
will they absolve us of our shame?

God, help us to apologise
for desecrating earth and skies;
for sins of pride and thanklessness,
have mercy, Lord, as we confess.

Then raise us up with Christ, we pray,
and send the dove to show the way
to know the peace of wildest things**
and celebrate a songful spring.
(Amen.)

* Silent Spring (1962), by Rachel Carson, documents the disastrous effects of pesticides on American agriculture, and is often cited as the book that launched the modern environmental movement.

** “The Peace of Wild Things” is a poem by Wendell Berry. It depicts the poet, unable to sleep for his “despair for the world”, going to a nearby pond or lake where “I come into the peace of wild things…. For a time / I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”

Holy Spirit, breath of life: a hymn for Pentecost

(Tune: Gwalchmai) - from Paddling by the Shore: Hymns of Kim Fabricius

Holy Spirit, breath of life,
     breathe upon me;
comforter in times of strife,
     make my fears flee.
You alone can save my soul
     from life’s wild sea;
you alone can fill the hole
     deep within me.

Come, then, Spirit from above,
     fall upon me;
bond of Son and Father’s love,
     set my soul free.
To the cell in which I’m bound
     you’re the sole key;
through the years you’ve sought and found
     self-enclosed me.

God of warmth who goes between
     others and me;
God of light who can’t be seen,
     help us to see:
only as we live in you
     can we then be;
living then for others too,
     I become me.

A Christmas carol about St Nicholas, the Arians, and the Nicene Creed

St. Nicholas bringing gifts © Elisabeth Ivanovsky

On Facebook the other day, Derek Rishmawy said he wished there were more Christmas carols about St Nicholas' defence of the Nicene faith. The Santa Claus songs are excellent in their own way, but they don't always go as deeply as they could into the problems of 4th-century trinitarian theology. So, as an early Christmas present to Derek, I wrote this carol about St Nicholas, the Arians, and the Nicene Creed.

Possible titles: "Santa Ain't an Arian", or "Put Some of That Old Time Trinitarian Theology in Your Stocking", or "All I Want for Christmas Is the Faith of Saint Nick," or, perhaps best of all (suggested by David Koyzis), "Ho-ho-homoousios". Whatever you call it, just be sure to sing it nice and jolly, accompanied by sleigh bells.

To the tune of Jingle Bells

Chorus:
Nicholas, you’re the best,
Nicky all the way!
Defender of the Nicene ὁμοούσιον Πατρί – hey!
Nicholas, you’re the best,
Nicky all the way!
Defender of the Nicene ὁμοούσιον Πατρί.

“There was when he was not,”
said Arius & Co.
It seems they had forgot
that God has come below:
born in Bethlehem,
crucified and raised,
not a creature but the One
whom angels hymn with praise – oh!

Chorus

By the candlelight
Share some Christmas cheer!
Give someone a gift!
Drink another beer!
For our light has come
And burned away our dross.
God in flesh: O come let us
Adore φῶς ἐκ φωτός – oh!

Chorus

Heresy is dull,
a bland philosophy,
it steals away the gifts
beneath the Christmas tree.
The holy catholic church
Bids all our joys increase,
So get beneath the mistletoe
And give the kiss of peace – oh!

Chorus

Every girl and boy,
And all the grown-ups too,
Let your hearts be glad,
Let Christ be born in you.
Sinners, don’t despair,
There’s no need to be blue,
Lift your hearts up to the Son,
he’s θεὸν ἐκ θεοῦ – hey!

Chorus.

God’s church is a school for learning: a hymn by Kim

A hymn to go with yesterday's sermon on Bartimaeus (to the tune of Bethany).

God’s church is a school for learning,
     life-long learning in the Lord;
here we’re taught to be discerning
     as we read and hear his Word.
Taught to dramatise the Story,
     Christians all have parts to play
in the theatre of his glory,
     improvising on the way.

In the church of God are courses
     in the arts of peace and prayer,
and in using the resources
     from the files of love and care;
classes in the craft of living,
     seminars on grace and sin,
Sunday workshops in forgiving,
     coaching by the Christ within.

Thinking thoughts of God – what wonder! –
     trained in virtue, given space,
we will make mistakes and blunder,
     still in church there’s always place:
place for all – here no exclusions –
     place for each – the fast and slow;
here we see through sight’s illusions,
     here by faith alone we know.

Pilate poses, Christ exposes: an Easter hymn

A hymn from Paddling by the Shore: Hymns of Kim Fabricius (2015).

(Tune: Infant holy)

Pilate poses,
Christ exposes –
power challenged and defied;
Christ appearing,
people jeering –
sin and righteousness collide.
Life the winner,
new creation;
for the sinner
full salvation:
Christ the Lord is crucified!
Christ the Lord is crucified!

‘Midst the shambles
soldiers gamble,
bandits braying at his side;
earth is shaken,
dead awaken
at the dreadful deicide.
An absurd day –
wait! – surprises! –
on the third day
Jesus rises:
Christ the Lord is glorified!
Christ the Lord is glorified!

Paddling by the shore: new book by Kim Fabricius

Reader, you will be pleased to learn that our resident gadfly, Kim Fabricius, has published a new book. It is called Paddling by the Shore: Hymns of Kim Fabricius, and I commend it to you. It's available from Wipf & Stock or from Amazon. Some hymns are written for angels, but these ones are written for human beings.

Migrant Jesus, at the border

A hymn by Kim

(Tune: Drakes Broughton)

Migrant Jesus, at the border,
     refugee of fear and hate,
you’re a threat to law and order,
     nightmare of the nation-state.

Child of Israel, fleeing soldiers,
     from the Jordan to the Nile,
were your parents passport-holders,
     were you welcomed with a smile?

Home from Egypt, Spirit-breathing,
     in the towns of Galilee,
how you had the people seething
     when you preached the Jubilee.

At the margins, far from centre,
     where you met the ostracised,
even friends weren’t keen to enter
     conversations that you prized.

Ease our fears, forgive our hatred
     of the other and the odd;
help us see the single-sacred:   
     face of stranger – face of God.

Migrant Jesus, at the border –
     Dover Beach or Rio Grande –
Greetings, sister! Welcome, brother!
      Make this place your promised land.

Church attendance manual (2): singing

Each Christian tradition has its own special attitudes towards singing. When attending a service, it is vital to understand these attitudes in order to avoid the dreaded liturgical faux pas. Mistakes where singing are concerned can incur grave ecclesiastical penalties. The visitor who sings like a Pentecostal during a Presbyterian service will run the risk of being escorted from the premises and given a referral to a clinical psychologist; while the one who sings like a Presbyterian during a Pentecostal service will be regarded as an infidel and may therefore become a target of Friendship Evangelism; this can lead in turn to ten pin bowling, dating, and then eventually marriage and who knows what else. Such misfortunes can easily be avoided if one takes care to observe the following liturgical rules:

Presbyterian
What to do: Let your singing be tempered by a manly soberness and austerity, as if you were respectfully singing somebody else's national anthem. Let your lips remain thin, your body erect, and your hands at your side where everyone can see them.
What to think: As a matter of fact, I'm not 100% certain of the doctrinal correctness of this verse. I'd better mumble the words just to be on the safe side.

Pentecostal
What to do: Let your depth of feeling be inversely proportional to the depth of meaning in the lyrics. Too much meaning = boring. "I'm coming back to the heart of worship" = very intense. The singing must also be done with the aid of an exceptionally talented band.
What to think: I'm not thinking, I'm worshipping.

Evangelical
What to do: You should sing all the Pentecostal songs, but sing them as if you were a Presbyterian. This means you get the best of both worlds: you can sing songs that don't mean anything while feeling nothing at the same time.

What to think: I thank you, God, that we are not like those Pentecostals. (Especially the part about the talented band.)

Roman Catholic
What to do: Don't even bother opening the hymn book.
What to think: Hymns? You can't expect Vatican II to be right about everything.

Anglican
What to do: Same as above.
What to think: On second thought, I should probably open my hymn book.

Orthodox
What to do: Same as above. Except that there is no hymn book. And no hymns really.
What to think: Is this another hymn? I wish there were some kind of hymn book. I guess I'll just keep belting out "Kyrie eleison" every twenty seconds and hope for the best.

African American church
What to do: Sing! Sing like your life depended on it! Sing till your heart cracks and your eyeballs sweat and your great grandmother taps her bony foot in the grave.
What to think: Anything worth singing once is worth singing forty times over. 

Quaker
What to do: Same as above. (Just kidding. Don't even think about it.)
What to think: Think whatever you like, as long as you keep it very Zen.

Fresh Expressions
What to think: Singing is a culturally relative and outdated form of religious expression. We don't do that kind of thing around here because we wouldn't want to create unnecessary obstacles or to make anybody feel uncomfortable.
What to do: Put the latest Matt Redman album on your iPod and listen to it very prayerfully on the way to church. But never tell a soul. (If anyone asks, tell them it's U2.)

Progressive
What to think: Same as above.
What to do: Step 1: Change the lyrics to remove all references to God. Step 2: Resume singing like a Presbyterian.

A Christmas carol

Merry Christmas, and thanks for reading my ramblings at F&T this year! Here's a Christmas carol I wrote during this morning's sermon:

Though our lives have fallen down
And though our hearts are sad,
A child is born in Bethlehem
And he will make us glad.

Though the angry nations rage
In wars that never cease,
A little child in Bethlehem
Is called the prince of peace.

Though we're born to slavery
And though injustice reigns,
A baby born in Bethlehem
Will take away our chains.

Though we poison all the seas
And though the earth is scarred,
A little boy in Bethlehem
Will mend what we have marred.

Though we'd lost a paradise
Which nothing could restore,
Our God is born in Bethlehem
And him our hearts adore.

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! (a hymn by Kim)

by Kim Fabricius

(Tune: Sussex / Laus Deo)

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!
God’s in heaven, all is well!
No, he’s not, and all’s not well here:
“God’s on earth, but earth is hell.”

Jolly families in December,
round the telly, watching Morse –
that’s the image, but remember:
child abuse and bleak divorce.

Roof extension, central heating,
double glazing, sofa bed;
while the homeless, in the sleeting,
search for doorway, box, or shed.

British blood and UK passport,
porridge, Guinness, cawl, and tea –
this is our land, for our own sort:
no room for the refugee.

Bonus for the city slicker,
cuts in care for sick and old,
politicians strut and snicker:
same old story, newly told.

Tyrants – they will not enslave us;
terror – we will not condone;
but our formless fears deprave us:
now we hunt and kill with drones.

Jesus, we have come to greet you,
star-crossed child of midnight birth;
now we go to tell or tweet you:
“Earth is hell, but God’s on earth!”

Marian hymn

Mary the dawn, Christ the Perfect Day;

Mary the gate, Christ the Heavenly Way!
Mary the root, Christ the Mystic Vine;
Mary the grape, Christ the Sacred Wine!
Mary the wheat, Christ the Living Bread;
Mary the stem, Christ the Rose blood-red!
Mary the font, Christ the Cleansing Flood;
Mary the cup, Christ the Saving Blood!
Mary the temple, Christ the temple’s Lord;
Mary the shrine, Christ the God adored!
Mary the beacon, Christ the Haven’s Rest;
Mary the mirror, Christ the Vision Blest!
Mary the mother, Christ the mother’s Son
By all things blest while endless ages run.
Amen.

“Mary the Dawn,” by an anonymous poet; audio recording here.

A new hymn: Christ is Lord of all creation

A hymn by Kim Fabricius

(Tune: Rhuddlan)

Christ is Lord of all creation,

     rules the universe in peace;

brings to judgement every nation

     which would be the world’s police:

Lamb of God who lies with lions,

     slain, he conquers Babel’s beast.

Weapons used for mass destruction,

     tools deployed in torture cell – 

horror shows of sheer revulsion

     scripted, acted, shot in hell: 

Where is God? Not hid in heaven,

     here, in blood – Immanuel!

In this world of fear and violence, 

     in the teeth of hate and death;

courage, Christian, and defiance

     till your faithful final breath:

in our deeds and proclamation – 

     “God is love” our shibboleth.

We hang our heads in shame and guilt

A hymn by Kim Fabricius
(Tune: Mit Freuden zart)

We hang our heads in shame and guilt
for ruthless exploitation:
we heat the earth and watch it wilt
for capital and nation.
In pitiless pursuit of oil
we poison air and sea and soil –
the lords of de-creation.

“Have mercy on us, Lord!” we plead,
but is it false confession?
We mask misdeeds, we gild our greed,
as peace we spin aggression.
We’re skilful at the apt excuse,
and the dark arts of word-abuse –
the truth is in recession.

O God, this is our world of vice,
come, judge us, test us, try us;
though we deny you, Jesus Christ,
Deliverer, don’t deny us;
break down the selves in which we hide,
evict our vanity and pride –
O Spirit, occupy us!

Who are we called to be?

A hymn by Kim Fabricius
(Tune: Moscow)

Who are we called to be?
The Father’s family –
greatest is least.
Sisters and brothers, pray
for bread and peace today,
and for the poor that they
share in the feast.

Who are we called to be?
The Son’s community –
song, salt and light.
Become what Christ became,
witness to Yahweh’s reign,
go set the world aflame –
God’s dynamite!

Who are we called to be?
The Spirit’s colony –
exiles and clowns.
Live as the dispossessed,
free of the fear of death,
heal hate with tenderness –
world upside-down!

Precious five the senses are

A hymn by Kim Fabricius

Tune: Humility – without refrain (any suggestions on alternative tunes would be welcome)

Precious five* the senses are,
how we find our way around
God’s creation, near and far,
lengthways, sideways, up and down.

And we, using hearts and minds,
sounding depths and scaling heights,
logic-bound or unconfined,
navigate our way through life.

Conscience too directs our ways,
outer law and inner voice,
through the endless moral maze
with its agony of choice.

Yet with all these human skills,
sense and sensibility,
still we can’t do what we will –
impotent ability.

Is there no way to release
old creation from its vice?
Look at what the Lord, by grace,
now has done in Jesus Christ!

God in peace invades the earth –
free at last from Satan’s grip! –
triggers new creation’s birth:
cruciform apocalypse!

* The title of a poem by W. H. Auden

An empty tomb hymn

John Hartley posted this playful hymn as a comment – it’s so good, I can’t resist posting it here as well:

Easter’s dawning day reveals
a tomb, once filled, now empty!
All in vain were Pilate’s seals,
and questions rise aplenty!

Did he swoon and then revive,
to push enormous boulders?
Could he really be alive
though pierced by testing soldiers?

Did the women all forget
the tomb’s exact location?
Is he maybe buried yet
awaiting exhumation?

Did some robbers come and hump
his body off for profit?
Surely they would not just dump
the linen wrappings off it?

Did authorities remove
the body for protection?
They’d produce it! That would prove
there’d been no resurrection!

In a Godless universe
the dead stay dead forever.
If he rose, then here’s the worst:
this God exists! Oh, bother!

In the graveyard Christ appeared

A hymn by Kim Fabricius

(Tune: Puer nobis)

In the graveyard Christ appeared,
reaching out to Mary,
wiped her tears and calmed her fears –
disciples, they were wary. [Repeat.]

Christ on the Emmaus Road
gave two his attention,
yet another episode
of blind incomprehension.

Jesus in the upper room
late that Sunday evening,
friends still filled with doom and gloom –
they hadn’t got the meaning.

Seven days, and Thomas too,
in doubt and deep dejection,
showed he didn’t have a clue
about the resurrection.

By the lakeside – Christ again! –
after celebration,
questioned Peter there and then
about his dedication.

Still disciples ask today,
“Was it an illusion?”
Holy Spirit, chase away
our muddle and confusion.

The stupidest hymn ever written

In the previous post, I mentioned that hymn-writing has not declined: hymns have always been mainly bad; the selection of a very small number of highlights for our modern hymnbooks simply creates the misleading impression that earlier generations were better, more profound songwriters.

If you need any proof, Steve Holmes posts these amazing verses from the 18th century – this hymn probably deserves the title of the stupidest thing ever written (seriously, you could never find a contemporary hymn even remotely as stupid as this). It’s a stirring anti-Muslim tirade, written for the worship and edification of the saints:

The smoke of the infernal cave,
Which half the Christian world o’erspread,
Disperse, Thou heavenly Light, and save
The souls by that Impostor led,
That Arab-chief, as Satan bold,
Who quite destroy’d Thy Asian fold.

O might the blood of sprinkling cry
For those who spurn the sprinkled blood!
Assert Thy glorious Deity,
Stretch out Thine arm, Thou Triune God
The Unitarian fiend expel,
And chase his doctrine back to hell.

Try singing it to the tune of “When I Survey Thy Wondrous Cross.” It’s very moving: I always get goosebumps when I sing the line about the “Unitarian fiend.” So who do you think wrote this liturgical gem? Why, it was Charles Wesley himself – the greatest hymn-writer who ever lived! As Steve observes, Charles Wesley published about 6,000 hymns – today, we still sing perhaps 20 of them. What happened to the other 5980? They were sung for a while (like our own contemporary ditties), then mercifully forgotten.

Steve also posts this little beauty, penned by a Baptist hymn-writer in 1696 – come on, lift your hands to the Lord and sing it with me now (to the tune of “Crown Him with Many Crowns”):

All mixtures, Lord, in Doctrine
And Practice thou dost hate;
Ourselves therefore with wicked men
Let’s not associate!

And John Stackhouse wants to complain about Chris Tomlin? Seriously? To accuse Tomlin of writing lyrics “considerably stupider than [those of] our much less educated Christian forebears”? Crikey, the man might as well be Shakespeare compared to these creative efforts of our esteemed “forebears”.

The moral of the story? That (for reasons difficult to fathom) the church of Jesus Christ can survive and preserve its witness even in spite of all the hymns and hymn-writers and hymnals – perhaps even in spite of all the worship CDs and worship leaders and worship committees. “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Are our hymns becoming stupider?

In a spirited polemic, John Stackhouse complains about the stupidity of contemporary Christian hymns: “We are the most educated Christians in history, and yet our lyrics are considerably stupider than our much less educated Christian forebears.”

I sympathise with Stackhouse’s complaints. But in all fairness, I think the majority of hymns have always been pretty stupid. If we think the 19th century (for example) was full of great hymn-writers, it’s just because our hymnbooks today include only the highlights from that entire century. And let’s face it, even the highlights are usually pretty atrocious. Hymns typically suffer either from painfully bad lyrics or from a trivial, no-less-painful sentimentality.

The great hymns – and there are so few great hymns: if you subtract the Christmas carols and Charles Wesley, there’s hardly anything left – are always the exception. For strange and mysterious reasons, these hymns awaken our feelings of reverence and love and thanksgiving and joy. In spite of the fact that they are hymns, they somehow manage to communicate truth and to evoke deep feeling. 

Of course, there’s no single recipe for writing a great hymn. And similarly, bad hymns can be bad in several different ways. They can deploy metaphor ineptly, or they can mix metaphors in ridiculous ways (my favourite examples are hymns that get hopelessly muddled over the two different words “Son” and “sun”). They can use rhythm badly, so that the wrong kinds of words and syllables are stressed (this is most noticeable when the end-of-line stress falls on a banality). They can use horrible words with no poetic capacity (for example, I once heard a contemporary praise song with the line “this is my priority in life” – any hymn that uses the word “priority” will immediately be very very bad). And as Stackhouse observes, they can also fail to rhyme properly – although in my opinion, this is actually the least problematic feature of a bad hymn, since rhyme is far less important than the function of rhythm or metaphor or word-choice.

Furthermore, it’s worth noting that our more progressive contemporary churches have actually invented a brand new way of writing bad hymns: these are the hymns that sound not so much like worship as the recitation of an official policy document. All the fashionable leftist causes are celebrated and affirmed with solemn sincerity; everything is carefully included, so that the entire song unfolds with all the humourless deliberation of a meeting of the committee of management. As I said, there are several kinds of bad hymns; but these ones are probably the worst of all (even though it is a genuine achievement to have invented an entirely new way of writing badly).

In any case, I don’t share John Stackhouse’s pessimism about contemporary hymn writing. Hymns have always been bad; the good hymn (to say nothing of great hymns like “Amazing Grace” or “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing”) will always be the exception to the rule. The historical narrative of decay and decline really has more to do with churchly nostalgia than with the actual state of present (or past) songwriting.

Take, for example, Stuart Townend’s songs such as “In Christ Alone” and “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us”. These songs are infinitely richer than most of the sentimental bourgeois crap produced by 19th-century hymn writers; and I’d say the same about a Keith Green song like “There Is a Redeemer”.

Bad hymns will always abound. But if we get a few good hymns each decade – and a couple of great ones in a century – then we should rejoice and clap our hands and sing and be glad.

A hymn for Lent

A hymn by Kim Fabricius

(Tune: Aurelia)

Baptised and Spirit-driven,
our Lord went forth inspired,
for all the unforgiven
to face the Satan’s fire;
he wrestled the temptation
for agonising hours,
of gaining our salvation
through soul-corrupting power.

He tested his vocation
with ruthless honesty,
without equivocation
he probed his inner “me”;
he fought his desert demons,
he battled with his beasts,
they left him for a season,
but did not leave in peace.

The devil bashed the Bible,
appealed to common sense;
but Jesus saw the libel:
“Go, Satan, get thee hence!”
No, Lord, you weren’t exempted
from Adam’s awful plight;
be there when we are tempted,
our forty days and nights.