Donald P. Hustad

Music in Twentieth-Century Worship

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The trend toward a return to primal traditions in theology and worship practice was intensified in the mid-twentieth century, partly due to the influence of the “New Reformation.” Along with a return to biblical authority, we have seen a revival of Reformation worship forms and practice, including even neo-baroque organ design. The total result is a blend that includes three traditions: the apostolic heritage, historic medieval contributions, and Reformation distinctives.

The Liturgical Movement

The liturgical movement includes a renewed interest in liturgical symbolism, especially in vestments, church design, and furnishings. The liturgical movement has had considerable influence on Calvinist and free churches, some of whom have been guided by the same objectives mentioned above: to unite their own distinctives with the traditions of the apostles and the medieval church. To illustrate, the Worshipbook (1974) of the United Presbyterian Church contains a Communion service which can be said to combine the early form of John Calvin with elements of eucharistic worship from earlier centuries. The text of the service is an amplification of Calvin’s Geneva service of 1542. In the music section of the book, the historic songs of the mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei) are included so that they might be added to that service.

Though some evangelicals may doubt that they have been influenced by the liturgical movement, these trends will be noted in many groups:

1. Increased interest in more sophisticated church architecture and furnishings, whether or not it includes the consideration of theological principles in symbolism.
2. Development of more complete worship forms, with more congregational participation.
3. More frequent observance of the Communion. Many evangelicals do so once each month, rather than quarterly—the historic norm.
4. Increased observance of the liturgical year, especially as related to Advent and Holy Week.

The Evangelical Influence of Vatican II

Eugene L. Brand describes the liturgical movement as “the label given to efforts across the breadth of the Western church to restore full and vital corporate worship that centers in a eucharistic celebration where Sermon and Supper coexist in complementary fashion” (“The Liturgical Life of the Church,” in A Handbook of Church Music, ed. by Carl Halter and Carl Schalk, 53). As such, much of its impetus came from encyclicals of Pius X and Pius XII and from other church leaders both in Europe and America. The Second Vatican Council of 1962 marked the climax of the movement for Roman Catholics with the release of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. All observers agree that its reforms have been “evangelical” in nature. These are some of the most significant:

1. Worship is to be social and rational, not personal and mystical.
2. A return to vernacular languages.
3. Full congregational participation, including the use of “Protestant” hymns.
4. Inclusion of several Scripture readings from both Old and New Testaments.
5. Inclusion of a sermon on a regular basis.
6. “Concelebration” of the mass—the people with the priest.
7. A retreat from extremely sacerdotal theology. (The revised Sacramentary includes four versions of the eucharistic prayer; only one closely resembles the old Roman Canon.)

There is now more similarity between the services of Lutherans and Episcopalians (even of liturgical Presbyterians) and those of Roman Catholics than there has been at any time since the Reformation. As a result of their new freedom, many Roman Catholics now participate in the worship services of evangelicals. Some regularly attend small Bible study groups, and even extra liturgical, charismatic worship services.

The New Pietism

What we identify as “celebration” today may be partly a reaction to the liturgical movement of yesterday. Laypersons who are expected to take a larger part in worship may well insist that it should consist of activities that they enjoy. For this reason, we may call the contemporary style “the new pietism” (the emphasis is on religious experience), or even “the new worship hedonism” (the emphasis is on enjoyable experience).

There are other contributing influences which should be noted:

1. Existentialist philosophy—emphasis on the “now” experience which may sometimes be suprarational.
2. McLuhanism—“the medium is the message.” McLuhan foresaw the weakening of words as communicative symbols and noted increased interest in audio-visual media.
3. Secular theology—a decline in the significance of traditionally sacral expressions in the awareness that the church is sent forth “into the world.”
4. Roman Catholic reforms—Vatican II encouraged its communicants to be rational, social, and joyful in worship.
5. Relational theology—the importance of our relationships with other persons, both in and out of the church.
6. The philosophy of “linguistics”—a consideration of the meaning of words.
7. A reappearance of the aesthetic concept of music as “revelation” (see Mellers, Caliban Reborn).
8. The growth of Pentecostalism.

The resultant expressions in contemporary worship can also be listed:

1. Emphasis on celebration—a total experience in which there is an appeal to all the senses by means of new worship forms and expressions, more emotional music, multimedia, drama, new symbolism, physical movement, etc.
2. Updated translations of Scripture; fresh, more personal language in liturgy, hymns, prayers, and sermon.
3. Congregational participation not spectatorism.
4. Renewed emphasis on Christian fellowship in worship (in the tradition of the “kiss of peace”) and in daily life.
5. Cross-fertilization of the sacred by the contemporary, in text as well as music.

“The new pietism” appeared first among the liturgical churches and more liberal communions, and its total impact may have been more revolutionary among them. After all, the movement simply validated the ancient heritage—of joy in worship and in fellowship with other persons. Furthermore, it was moving counter to the interest of some evangelicals who were seeking to develop a greater sense of reverence in public worship.

One of the first expressions of the new music in contemporary worship was Geoffrey Beaumont’s Twentieth Century Folk Mass, which appeared in 1957. As a member of the Light Music Group of the Church of England, he stated their philosophy succinctly and boldly: Worship should include not only the timeless music of master composers but also the popular styles of the day, which are so much a part of people’s lives. Soon thereafter, youth musical ensembles were appearing among evangelicals in Great Britain, patterning their styles after those of the Beatles and other folk and rock groups. Their objectives were to communicate the gospel and to express Christian response in word/music languages that were comprehensible to young people, both inside and out of the organized church. Before long, liturgical churches and traditional denominational bodies in America were following these examples in an endeavor to make worship services more relevant and celebrative.

Among typical American evangelicals, popular expressions in witness music had not changed dramatically since the advent of the gospel song about 1850. To be sure, there had been modest variations in style in the mid-twentieth century—including “Southern quartet” forms, “western” hymns, a few songs in a mild Broadway-musical style, and the beginning of a country ballad hymnody. But, by and large, evangelicalism had not shown great interest in new music since the days of Billy Sunday and Homer Rodeheaver.

There was, however, considerable awareness of the need for fresh expressions in the church, and considerable (but not universal) support for new translations of the Bible and new phraseology in prayer. Evangelicals used the available new Scripture versions and even sponsored some of their own. The musical breakthrough came with a few gospel folk songs by Ralph Carmichael that appeared in Billy Graham films and with the youth musical Good News, released by the Southern Baptists in 1967. The latter was soon followed by a flood of similar works, written for various age groups, using contemporary popular music forms and frequently performed with the recorded accompaniment of a full professional orchestra.

Soon shorter musical works began to be published in the same idioms. Older titles (and even new works in older forms, like Bill Gaither’s gospel songs) continued to appear, but in upbeat arrangements—with strong syncopated rhythms, a goose-bump-raising orchestration, and a series of “half-step-up” modulations—which added up to strongly-emotional expression.

In the last ten years, we have also seen an unparalleled rise in the number of professional performances of popular religious music by traveling artists. A large number of youth groups are on the road, like Re-Generation (with Derek Johnson) or the Continentals (sponsored by Cam Floria). Older professional singers (e.g., Hale and Wilder, the Bill Gaither Trio, Andrae Crouch, Ken Medema, Bill Pearce, Suzanne Johnson, Jimmy McDonald, and Evie Tornquist) give full programs of music, sometimes in churches and sometimes in auditoriums. And there is a new breed of professional Christian musicians, some of whom have crossed over into the pop market, most notably Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith. Many of these young performers write their own songs and perform them almost exclusively. All of this activity has been a great boon to the religious music publishing and recording businesses and has created a multimillion dollar market-centered largely in Nashville, Tennessee. It is safe to say that we have just witnessed the most significant new development in Christian witness music since Ira Sankey popularized the gospel song more than 100 years ago.

No doubt there is much that is good in the new spirit and expressions of worship. But, as in so much of life, every plus is a potential minus if we do not maintain a healthy balance. It is well to give vent to emotional expression, providing it does not lead to emotionalism and irrationality. The new humanism is good when it helps us be more aware of ourselves and our neighbors in full-orbed worship and fellowship, but bad if we substitute transcendent human experience for a full understanding of the transcendence of God. The creativity that new forms offer may lead to a loss of meaning and identity if we forsake completely the historic expressions that are part of our religious roots. Finally, the “new enjoyment” may lead to a worship hedonism that is another form of idolatry—worshiping the experience instead of God.

Music in Traditional Churches During the Modern Era

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Through much of the nineteenth century, worship in liturgical churches followed largely low-church convictions. In the mid-nineteenth century and continuing into the twentieth, many of these churches began recovering ancient patterns of worship. In music, this meant the recovery of Gregorian chant in the Catholic church, the return of Lutherans to sixteenth-century liturgy forms, a movement in some Anglican churches away from Puritan-influenced worship to the recovery of catholic forms, and the trend in some free churches from revival-style worship to quasi-liturgical practices.

Worship Forms and Music in Diverse Churches

It has already been noted that, in its frontier culture, early American worship practices were exceedingly primitive. Concurrent with advances in education and in the arts, there was pressure in the older churches for the development and the standardization of worship forms. Following the War for Independence, all Protestant bodies severed their Old World connections. Nevertheless, worship design was frequently influenced by liturgical movements abroad as well as at home. At the same time, this interest in patterned worship came into direct conflict with the repeated outbreaks of revivalism. Through the years, there has been continuing tension between these two forces—formal versus spontaneous worship.

In the twentieth century, we have seen “thesis, antithesis, and synthesis” in the outworking of the struggle. Some groups are clearly “formal” or clearly “spontaneous” in worship habits. In other churches, a new interest in liturgy and liturgical symbolism has been coupled with a concern for Christian fellowship and a desire for spontaneity in worship.

The Liturgical Communions

Roman Catholic. Roman Catholic worship in America is not appreciably different from that in other parts of the world, and it did not change its basic patterns from the Council of Trent (1562) until the Second Vatican Council (1962). Nevertheless, there has been considerable diversity in the music which accompanies the liturgy.

Little is known about Roman Catholic music in the thirteen colonies. In 1787, A Compilation of the Litanies, Vespers, Hymns and Anthems As They Are Sung in the Catholic Church was published in Philadelphia by John Aitken, containing litanies, historic hymns, psalms, anthems, a Mass of the Blessed Trinity, a requiem mass (in plainsong), and a Solemn Mass with musical settings in both Latin and English. In the nineteenth century, new waves of Catholic immigrants came to these shores, mostly from very humble circumstances in Europe. Consequently, their musical expectations were very limited, and in most churches there was no singing at all.

In those that supported choral music, the preference was for nineteenth-century operatic styles, in many instances performed by a quartet choir. In a few dioceses, beginning in the late nineteenth century, the influence of John B. Singenberger (1848–1924) and his Cecilian Society led to musical reform. Like the parent Cecilian movement in Germany, this group espoused the revival of Gregorian chant, a return to a cappella polyphonic forms, and vernacular congregational singing. However, its influence was chiefly felt in the German communities of Cincinnati, Chicago, and Milwaukee. Most Catholics in typical parish churches continued to favor the spoken mass, and singing occurred only in the popular novena services.

Lutheran. Lutherans have brought many different national and regional traditions to this country. Those who found homes in the East lost their ethnic language and identity more quickly than those who settled later in the Midwest. Consequently, Lutheran worship (and especially its hymnody) along the Atlantic seaboard was more Anglo-American than German or Scandinavian. Many adherents had been identified with the pietist movements within European Lutheranism, and in this country that influence was intensified by revivalist activity. In the mid-nineteenth century, a growing disaffection with revival-influenced worship was fed by the sentiments of new European immigrants. The widespread desire to recover their confessional roots resulted in a conference of all Lutheran groups which adopted a Common Service in 1888, based on “the common consent of the pure Lutheran liturgies of the sixteenth century.” Nevertheless, there continued to be considerable variation in Lutheran worship, since conformity was not obligatory. In the late twentieth century, there seems to be a growing preference for a completely vernacular version of Martin Luther’s Formula missae as evidenced in the ecumenical Lutheran Book of Worship (1978).

American Lutherans inherited the European preference for an ante-Communion service. Through the nineteenth century, the full Eucharist was observed only a few times each year. In recent years, Holy Communion has been offered more frequently, and the historic Lutheran Matins service has also been used, perhaps once each month. In the nineteenth century, congregational singing was the musical norm. In the East, Anglo-American hymn traditions prevailed, while the Midwest churches perpetuated their German or Scandinavian hymnody. In recent years, Lutherans countrywide have shown a desire to share their unique ethnic traditions while preserving their common Reformation heritage. In addition, thanks largely to the efforts of Concordia Publishing Company, choirs are using plainsong, as well as polyphonic styles, in singing the “propers” of the liturgy.

Anglican. Established in the colony of Virginia in the early seventeenth century, the Church of England in America was organically united to the bishoprics of Canterbury and York. The church grew rapidly and by the time of the American Revolution was the dominant religious force in this country. After the Declaration of Independence, Anglicans in the United States formed an independent Protestant Episcopal Church, linked only in heritage and in fellowship with the Anglican Communion worldwide. In colonial days, and even much later, Anglicans used the services of morning and evening prayer almost exclusively, with Communion being observed only three or four times a year. The American Book of Common Prayer was derived from Cranmer’s Prayer Book of 1549 (through the Scottish Book of Common Prayer) and was less Calvinistic than the 1552 and 1662 books that were commonly used in England.

According to Leonard Ellinwood, the music of colonial Anglican worship was scarcely different from that of the Puritans in New England and consisted mostly of metrical psalms sung with the aid of a precentor. Anglican chant was introduced during the last two decades of the eighteenth century, and its use became common within a short time. There is further record that organs began to be used in the 1700s, playing a voluntary following the “Psalms of the day” and an offertory for receiving the collection. A few choirs (with boys singing the treble parts) also appeared during the eighteenth century. All of the extant music from that period is related to the services of Matins and Vespers.

In the mid-nineteenth century, the Episcopal church was influenced by the ideas of the Oxford Movement, which brought back much of orthodox theology and liturgy into a number of British churches—reviving the ancient Greek and Latin hymns in English translations, Gregorian chant, and the use of symbolism in vestments, furnishings, and liturgical action. This worship revolution, together with the advent of liberal theology in another group of Anglican churches, eventually resulted in the development of three Anglican parties in England in the late nineteenth century: (1) the Anglo-Catholics, who were closest to Rome in theology and worship practice; (2) the Low churchmen, many of whom were strongly evangelical in emphasis, rejecting the Oxford movement as “popish,” and (3) the Broad churches, who tended to be moderate in the liturgy but liberal in theology, emphasizing social reform rather than personal salvation. In America, Episcopal churches have tended to be high or low in liturgy, but only a few are as evangelical as their British counterparts. Beginning in the late 1970s, however, a significant number of evangelicals from free church traditions have entered the Episcopal church, in some cases influencing parishes in a low-church direction, in others uniting evangelical theology with high liturgical practice.

After 1850, a number of American churches adopted the principles of the Oxford movement, using vested choirs (of boys and men) and substituting plainsong for Anglican chant. However, the quartet-choir was more common—a volunteer group of men and women led by four soloists, which often degenerated into just a quartet, singing mostly romantic services and anthems by European, and later, American composers. The most-used compositions were written by such well-known musicians as Mendelssohn, Gounod, Gaul, Mozart, Boyce, Stainer, Parker, Shelley, Rossini, and Buck, and others who are now forgotten—Hodges, Naumann, Larkin, Bridgewater, Hatton, and Gilbert.

In the early twentieth century, Anglican churches outside the United States experienced a musical renaissance under the influence of such composers as Charles Stanford, Hubert Parry, Charles Wood, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Walford Davies, and the Canada-based Healey Willan. Increasingly, their music (both service music and anthems) has also been favored in American Episcopal churches, along with the works of American composers Leo Sowerby, T. Tertius Noble, David Mck. Williams, Thomas Matthews, and others. During this century, the outstanding leader in Episcopal church music has been Charles Winfred Douglas (1867–1944). An ordained priest in the church, he was long a member of the Episcopal Joint Commission on Church Music and the Hymnal Commission, serving as music editor for the denomination’s hymnals of 1916 and 1940. A frequent lecturer on church music, he founded the Evergreen Conference in Colorado and presided over its annual School of Church Music.

In very recent times, the Episcopal church has adopted a new liturgy which, while retaining its essential Anglican character, has returned to the basic outline of the historic mass. For example, the Gloria in excelsis has been returned to the early part of the service, and much of the evangelical text of the eucharistic prayer has been restored.

Nonliturgical Churches—Revivalist vs. “Pseudo-Liturgical” Worship

Methodism in England resulted from an eighteenth-century schism in the Anglican Church, precipitated by the preaching of John and Charles Wesley. Worship among Methodists varied from group to group, from the low-church style of the Church of England to the unstructured pattern of Baptists. Although many of the Calvinist and Wesleyan groups in Europe and Great Britain followed traditional worship patterns, their American successors—Presbyterian, Methodist, Evangelical, and Reformed—tended to adopt the freedom of the nonliturgical Congregationalists and Baptists. For some this meant a revivalist format; others developed what I choose to call a “pseudo-liturgical” pattern. These two styles are still common in many American churches.

We have already narrated in detail the story of American revival movements and the resultant worship tradition which lingered in many churches. Following is their basic service outline, although the most significant feature was a sense of freedom and spontaneity generated by the leadership of “charismatic” personalities.

• Hymns (a group, often not related to each other or to the sermon, led by a “song leader”)
• Prayer (brief)
• Welcome and announcements
• Special music (choir, solo, or small group)
• Offering
• Solo
• Sermon
• Invitation (Hymn)
• Dismissal (Benediction)

Revivalist free churches in the nineteenth century tended to favor gospel songs for congregational singing, with a sprinkling of traditional hymns from English and American authors. If the choir literature developed beyond those same hymnic boundaries, they tended to use “chorus choir” selections—two-page settings (found in the hymnal or songbook) in the style of extended hymns or abbreviated anthems.

Other free churches evidenced a broader concept of worship, particularly as the influence of revivalism waned and liturgical movements abroad and at home came to their attention. They moved toward a pattern that has some kinship to the ante-Communion service of Lutheranism or the Liturgy of the Word in an Anglican Eucharist.

Choral and solo literature in the early twentieth century tended to fall into the same mold as that of Episcopal (and even Roman Catholic) churches of that period. Congregational singing was often limited to one or two selections in a service and tended to use the standard hymns of British and American authors; gospel hymns were often standard fare on Sunday evening, for Sunday School, and in other informal services. Until later in the twentieth century, organists relied heavily on the music of romantic composers, including transcriptions of popular orchestral works.

Like the liturgical fellowships, free churches tended to use the quartet-choir when their budget permitted it; their choices in literature were also similar. Instrumental music varied according to the size and affluence of the individual group: pipe organs with trained performers for the larger, wealthier congregations and reed organs and amateur organists for the smaller and less prosperous.

As the twentieth century progressed, free churches broadened the scope of their music—congregational, choral, and instrumental—though there is marked variance within both traditional and revivalist groups. Hymnody now includes materials from the entire Christian heritage, American and European. Choral and organ performance covers the entire historic literature, from the Renaissance period through the contemporary. In addition, our century has encouraged the emergence of a large group of “functional” church music composers, who supply materials in every conceivable style for every possible taste. Nowadays only a few evangelical churches employ a quartet of professional singers, partly because of the high musical competence of many members in the congregation. In the early twentieth century, following the example of revivalists of that day, pianos replaced the reed organ in small churches and joined forces with the pipe organ in the larger. With the advent of electronic organs in 1935, many small congregations were financially able to add that sound to their worship experience for the first time. All in all, American churches today have more music activity—with more choirs and instruments, and larger budgets—than those in any other country in the world.

Music in the Modern Revivalist Tradition

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The revivalist tradition is rooted in pietist hymnody. It is characterized by an emphasis on the relationship of Christ (the bridegroom) to the church and to the individual believer (the bride). It is commonly held that Isaac Watts combined most successfully the expression of worship with that of human devotional experience. The Wesleys developed what we know today as “invitation” songs. When transported to America, this tradition gave rise to the modern revival movement.

The Pietist Movement in Germany

In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, an important movement flowered in the German Lutheran church known as pietism. Its first leader was Philipp Jakob Spener (1635–1705), who called the church from its obsession with dry scholasticism and cold formalism to an emphasis on personal study of the Scriptures and experiential “religion of the heart.”

Pietists rejected all art music in worship because of the “operatic tendencies” of the time. Johann Sebastian Bach was in constant conflict with the pietists, though his cantata texts show the influence of their theology. The movement inspired a flood of subjective hymnody, much of which was set to tunes in dance-like triple meter, in sharp contrast to the older, rugged chorale style. Some of the best-known hymnists were Johann Freylinghausen (1670–1739), Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700–1760), Benjamin Schmolck (1672–1737), and Erdmann Neumeister (1671–1756). It is interesting to note that Neumeister wrote cantata texts used by J. S. Bach and also the original version of the gospel hymn “Sinners Jesus Will Receive” (Christ Receiveth Sinful Men).

One of the favorite images of pietest hymnody—the relationship of Christ (the bridegroom) to the church and to the individual believer (the bride)—appears in even earlier hymns, such as “Jesu, meine Freude” by Johann Franck (1618v1677). The following is a rather literal translation of the first stanza and part of the last.

Jesus, my joy
My heart’s longing,
Jesus, my beauty.
Oh, how long, how long
Is the heart’s concern
And longing after you.
Lamb of God, my bridegroom,
May nothing on earth become dear
To me except you.
Get out, spirit of sadness!
For my Lord of gladness—
Jesus, enters in.
To those who love God,
Even their sorrows
Are purest sweetness (“sugar”).

Franck had modeled his hymn on the love song of H. Alberti, “Flora, meine Freude” (Flora, my joy). English translations have ignored much of the original anthropomorphic imagery, and current German versions have changed the word Zucker (sugar) to Freude (joy).

Dissenters in England

We have already noted that it was a Dissenter—Benjamin Keach, a Baptist—who first introduced a hymn of “human composure” into the psalm-singing culture of seventeenth-century England. Isaac Watts (1674–1748), a Congregational minister, had the most profound influence on his country’s transition to hymn singing and thus became known as the “father of English hymnody.” It is significant that hymn singing flourished in the “renewal-born” free churches (Congregational, Baptist, and Presbyterian) for a hundred years while it was still being rejected in the established Church of England. Watts has been said to combine most successfully the expression of worship with that of human devotional experience, and it is best illustrated in his well-known hymn “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” of which the first and last stanzas are quoted here.

When I survey the wondrous cross,
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my life, my soul, my all.

The Wesleyan Revival

Evangelistic hymns in the modern sense were one of the glorious by-products of Britain’s Great Awakening in the eighteenth century. It was the preaching of John (1703–1791) and Charles Wesley (1707–1788), and the underlying tenets of the Dutch theologian Jacob Arminius (1560–1609) that led to the creation of the first “invitation” songs. Hard-line “hypercalvinism” based on covenant theology and the doctrine of predestination had rarely generated widespread, enthusiastic evangelism. In contrast, the Wesleys’ Arminian theology emphasized that an individual may say either yes or no to a seeking God. To press the claims of Christ while still admitting human free will, Charles Wesley wrote:

Come, sinners, to the Gospel feast:
Let every soul be Jesus’ guest;
Ye need not one be left behind
For God hath bidden all men sing.
This is the time; no more delay!
This is the Lord’s accepted day;
Come thou, this moment, at his call,
And live for him who died for all. (Methodist Hymnal [1964], no. 102)

The Wesleys must be credited with rescuing hymn singing from the bondage of the two-line meters—common long and short. Their sources were the newer psalm tunes, opera melodies, and folk songs of German origin. An example of this type of tune is “Mendenbras” (which was actually first used with a hymn text by Lowell Mason in 1839), which we commonly sing with the text “O day of rest and gladness,” although it may still be heard with its historic popular words in the beer gardens of Germany. The Wesleys’ texts were fundamental for early Methodist theology. They also covered almost every conceivable aspect of Christian devotional experience and may be said to be the progenitors of the modern gospel song.

In any period of spiritual renewal, old symbols frequently lose their meaning and new ones must be sought. Obviously, they will be found outside the church, and because they must be “common” or “popular,” they will come from folk songs and even from commercial entertainment music. In the evangelistic thrust of renewal, these fresh melodies become an effective vehicle for a witness to the uncommitted. The newly adopted modern language eventually gains a new sacralization and becomes the norm for divine worship. It remains so until another spiritual revival displaces it.

In a theological rationale, one might say that this process demonstrates the church’s willingness to be forever incarnational, to identify with “the world” and to transform it for Christ. It is certainly not a new concept in church music.

The American Scene

The early colonies took their worship and evangelism cues from Mother England. America’s first worship music consisted of metrical psalms, and these were still the norm during the thundering revival preaching of Jonathan Edwards, best remembered by the title of one of his famous sermons, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” When the Great Awakening came to America in the mid-eighteenth century—largely through the preaching sorties of the Wesley’s associate George Whitefield—singing broke the bonds of strict psalmody and the hymns of Isaac Watts came to these shores. In the late 1700s, rural Baptists in New England were singing “old country”; the tunes were perpetuated through such books as Kentucky Harmony (1825) and The Sacred Harp (1844), and have come to be known as “white spirituals” or “Appalachian folk hymns.”

The Camp Meetings. In 1800 the camp meeting movement began with an outbreak of revival in an outdoor encampment in Caine Ridge, Logan County, Kentucky. The music which characterized the camp meetings was very simple with many repetitions, evidently very emotional, and frequently improvised. These are typical texts which are little more than refrains:

Come to Jesus, come to Jesus, Come to Jesus just now,
Just now come to Jesus, Come to Jesus just now.
He will save you, he will save you, He will save you just now,
Just now he will save you, He will save you just now. (The Revivalist [1872], 142)
O get your hearts in order, order, order,
O get your hearts in order for the end of time.
For Gabriel’s going to blow, by and by, by and by,
For Gabriel’s going to blow, by and by. (The Evangelical Harp [1845], 40)

Much has been said about the relationship between black spirituals and camp meeting music, with the general impression that the latter may have copied the former. However, at that time in history, particularly in the revival context, blacks and whites worshiped together. It is possible that both cultures contributed to the spontaneous singing in the “brush arbor” meetings, and that blacks continued the tradition after the interest of the whites had diminished and they had moved on to new forms of more traditional, “composed” music. The similarity between camp meeting songs and black spirituals is shown by Ellen Jane (Lorenz) Porter in her lecture “The Persistence of the Primitive in American Hymnology.” She points out that the song “Where Are the Hebrew Children?” is found in both the North and the South.

Many of the camp meeting songs also used popular melodies. According to Mrs. Porter, “Where Are the Hebrew Children?” has many parodies, including the Ozark song, “Where, O Where Is Pretty Little Susie?” and the college song “Where, O Where Are the Verdant Freshmen?”

It is evident that refrains were the most important element in camp meeting music, and some songs were little more. In other instances, favorite refrains were attached to many different hymns. In the Companion to Baptist Hymnal (p. 48), William J. Reynolds cites a quotation of P. P. Bliss in which “I will arise and go to Jesus” is identified as “one of the old-fashioned camp meeting spirituals” which could be sung as a response to Joseph Hart’s “Come ye sinners, poor and needy” or after each stanza of an anonymous paraphrase of the prodigal son story, “Far, far away from my loving Father.” Note also that the refrain “Blessed be the name of the Lord” appears with Charles Wesley’s “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing” (Baptist Hymnal [1975], no. 50) and with William H. Clark’s “All praise to Him who reigns above” (Hymns for the Living Church [1974], no. 81). In the same tradition, Ralph E. Hudson added the lilting testimony refrain “At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light” to the sober, devotional “Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed?” of Isaac Watts. In another example, the final stanza commonly sung to John Newton’s “Amazing Grace,” by an unknown author, was also appended both to Isaac Watts’s “When I Can Read My Title Clear” and to the sixteenth-century anonymous hymn “Jerusalem, My Happy Home,” despite its grammatical weaknesses.

When we’ve been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun;
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we first begun. (sic)

The Finney Revival. The Second Great Awakening was an urban phenomenon in Eastern seaboard states in the early nineteenth century. Charles Granville Finney, a Presbyterian with a pronounced Arminian theological bent, was the central preacher. He frequently worked with the music educator-composer Thomas Hastings. Their association marks the first recorded instance of a songbook published specifically for a revival campaign. The following hymn was reputed to have been in one of Hastings’s compilations and to have been used by Finney at the conclusion of the sermon as part of a protracted, emotional “altar call.”

Hearts of stone, relent, relent,
Break, by Jesus’ cross subdued;
See his body, mangled—rent,
Covered with a gore of blood.
Sinful soul, what hast thou done!
Murdered God’s eternal Son.
Yes, our sins have done the deed,
Drove the nails that fixed him there,
Crowned with thorns his sacred head,
Pierced him with a soldier’s spear;
Made his soul a sacrifice,
For a sinful world he dies.
Will you let him die in vain,
Still to death pursue your Lord;
Open tear his wounds again,
Trample on his precious blood?
No! with all my sins I’ll part,
Savior, take my broken heart.

Sunday School Hymns and the Gospel Song

Beginning in the 1840s, the Sunday school hymns of William B. Bradbury and others had the same musical form as camp meeting songs—catchy melody, simple harmony and rhythm, and an inevitable refrain. Eventually, these children’s hymns were picked up by adults, and the “gospel hymn” or “gospel song” was born, so named by Philip Phillips, “the Singing Pilgrim.” It was the evangelistic missions of Moody and Sankey in Great Britain and America that launched the gospel song on its century-long career that is still going strong. The gospel song also received a great impetus by its association with the “sing schools” conducted by itinerant music teachers in the middle of the nineteenth century. The most successful of the teachers—J. G. Towner, P. P. Bliss, and George F. Root, and many others—wrote and published both sacred and secular music, and in much the same style as Stephen Foster, composer of “My Old Kentucky Home” as well as many sacred selections. The hallowed Fanny Crosby, author of perhaps 9,000 gospel song texts, had achieved earlier success writing popular secular songs in collaboration with George F. Root, an associate of Lowell Mason in public school music, who taught at New York’s Union Theological Seminary and also supplied music for the original Christy Minstrel Singers.

It should not be thought that these were unlettered, uncultured individuals who lacked recognition in their own society. Phoebe Palmer Knapp, composer of the music for “Blessed Assurance,” was married to the president of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, and William Howard Doane, the most frequent collaborator of Fanny J. Crosby, was an extremely wealthy industrialist and civic leader. William Bradbury, George F. Root, and Charles Converse (What a Friend We Have in Jesus) all studied in Europe, and were acquainted with Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, and Louis Spohr. Fanny Crosby was well known by five American presidents and many other government leaders. The music these individuals wrote was highly successful in nineteenth-century America, and often made a great deal of money for them and their publishers.

We must also note that “experience hymns” continued to appear in evangelical settings the world around. For one thing, American hymns in this style were translated into every language in which Protestant worship was conducted, both in Europe and in mission lands. In addition, other countries produced their own versions. In Sweden, for example, a renewal movement developed in the Lutheran church during the 1840s under the lay preacher Carl Rosenius (1816–1868). Lina Sandell (1832–1903) supported the movement with her hymns to such an extent that she became known as the “Swedish Fanny Crosby.” Music for many of her songs was written by Oscar Ahnfelt, who was called the “Swedish Troubadour” because of his itinerant ministry of singing and playing his own accompaniments on a guitar. The Sandell/Ahnfelt songs were published in a series of books with the help of the famous coloratura soprano, Jenny Lind, “the Swedish Nightingale.” This is the first stanza of one of Lina Sandell’s best-known hymns, many of which were brought to America by Swedish immigrants and are now sung by many evangelicals.

Day by day and with each passing moment,
Strength I find to meet my trials here;
Trusting in my Father’s wise bestowment,
I’ve no cause for worry or for fear.
He whose heart is kind beyond all measure
Gives unto each day what He deems best—
Lovingly, its part of pain and pleasure,
Mingling toil with peace and rest. (Lina Sandell, 1865, Trans. by A. L. Skoog)

There have been many attempts to define a “gospel song” in order to differentiate it from more traditional hymn forms. Frequently it has been argued that hymns are “objective” (about God, the “object” of our thought) and gospel songs are “subjective” (about the thinking “subject” and his or her experience of God). However, many historic hymns are simultaneously both “objective” and “subjective” (e.g., Watts’s “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”) while some acknowledged gospel songs are quite thoroughly objective (e.g., “Praise Him, Praise Him, Jesus Our Blessed Redeemer,” by Fanny J. Crosby). Even metrical psalms have been set to gospel song music (e.g., E. O. Sellers’s adaptation of Psalm 119, “Thy Word Is a Lamp to My Feet”).

The title gives some cue as to the norm. “Gospel” suggests that it is usually concerned with a simple gospel: the message of sin, grace, and redemption, and a person’s experience of them; “song” indicates a nontraditional origin—that is, it is not a hymn. Basically, the poetry was simpler than that of a hymn—less theological and less biblical, less challenging to the imagination, sometimes even inane. The musical structure was characterized by a refrain—a novelty in hymns, a simple lyric melody, inconsequential harmony, and a sprightly rhythm.

The Moody-Sankey Campaigns

Early in his ministry in the slums of Chicago, the untutored lay preacher Dwight L. Moody (1837–1899) sensed the power of the new songs to motivate men and women to spiritual action. When he embarked on a wider ministry, he chose Ira D. Sankey (1840–1908), a civil servant and amateur musician, to accompany him. Sankey led the congregational hymns and sang his solos while seated at a little reed organ. He was also a prominent composer and publisher of gospel songs. The story of Sankey’s experience as he accompanied Mr. Moody to Scotland in 1873 is told in his own book, My Life and the Story of the Gospel Hymns and of Sacred Songs (New York: Harper, 1907). On one particular occasion, he was concerned because the illustrious hymn writer Horatius Bonar was in the audience:

Of all men in Scotland he was the one concerning whose decision I was most solicitous. He was, indeed, my ideal hymn writer, the prince among hymnists of his day and generation. And yet he would not sing one of his beautiful hymns in his own congregation … because he ministered to a church that believed in the use of the Psalms only.

With fear and trembling, I announced as a solo the song, “Free from the law, oh, happy condition.” Feeling that the singing might prove only entertainment and not a spiritual blessing, I requested the whole congregation to join me in a word of prayer, asking God to bless the truth about to be sung. In the prayer my anxiety was relieved. Believing and rejoicing in the glorious truth contained in the song, I sang it through to the end.

At the close of Mr. Moody’s address, Dr. Bonar turned toward me with a smile on his venerable face, and reaching out his hand he said: “Well, Mr. Sankey, you sang the gospel tonight.” And thus the way was opened for the mission of sacred song in Scotland. (Ibid., pp. 61–62)

In the Moody-Sankey meetings, England and America witnessed the advent of “Jesus” preaching and singing. Along with the biblically-strong “Free from the law,” which was a good choice for the theologically minded Scots, there were many simple expressions of the love of God through Christ:

I am so glad that our Father in heaven
Tells of His love in the book He has given;
Wonderful things in the Bible I see:
This is the dearest, that Jesus loves me. (P. P. Bliss)

It is characteristic of the best witness songs that they are always couched in contemporary language. In Moody’s day the idea of “being lost” or “saved” was often expressed in nautical terms:

Pull for the shore, sailor, pull for the shore,
Heed not the rolling waves, but bend to the oar;
Safe in the lifeboat, sailor, cling to self no more;
Leave that poor old stranded wreck, and pull for the shore. (Author unknown)
I’ve anchored my soul in the haven of rest,
I’ll sail the wide seas no more;
The tempest may sweep o’er the wild, stormy deep,
In Jesus I’m safe evermore. (H. L. Gilmour)

The idea of conflict and challenge in spiritual living probably took images from the Civil War.

Ho, my comrades! See the signal waving in the sky!
Reinforcements now appearing! Victory is nigh!
Hold the fort! for I am coming;
Jesus signals still.
Wave the answer back to heaven;
“By thy grace, we will!” (P. P. Bliss)

Since the days of Sankey, the solo singer has been a distinctive part of musical mass evangelism in America. Philip Phillips (1834–1895) was perhaps the first in a long line of illustrious soloist-song leader-publishers, which includes Sankey’s contemporaries Robert Lowry (1826–1899), P. P. Bliss (1838–1876), James McGranahan (1840–1907), P. P. Bilhorn (1865–1936), and Homer Rodeheaver (1880–1955). The strong contribution of the gospel singer is the “person to person”—often layperson to person—witness of Christian experience. In this ministry, the gospel message acquired an intensity of emotional communication that is acknowledged by both its proponents and its detractors. This was true even in the earliest days when the songs were not characteristically soloistic but were sung by soloists and congregations alike. It is even more so now that styles of writing and performing solo music are fully developed. The gospel singer’s appeal and popularity may be surpassed only by the singer of secular popular music. It was this same personal, emotional communication of common human experience that gave Sankey equal billing with Moody.

“Charlie” Alexander and Gospel Choirs

In the early twentieth century, it was Charles Alexander (1867–1920), song leader for evangelists R. A. Torrey and J. Wilbur Chapman, who brought the “gospel choir” to its apex. Not an outstanding soloist himself, Alexander specialized in the leading of massed choirs and congregations around the world for more than twenty-five years. Once again, the significance of a ministry in music gave the song leader equal billing with the evangelist. Earlier it had been Moody and Sankey. Now it was Torrey and Alexander as well as Chapman and Alexander. One is tempted to discount the laudatory reports of Alexander’s conducting successes in newspapers of that day.

Mr. Alexander is a conductor of the first order, and he exercises a curious spell over an audience. He drills a thousand people with the precision and authority of a drill-sergeant. He scolds, exhorts, rebukes, and jests. And the amusing feature is that the great audience enjoys being scolded and drilled.… They seem at first an audience for whom music has ceased to have any ministry. But as the singing goes on, the tired faces relax, the eyes brighten, the lips begin to move.… Music, as the servant and vehicle of religion, has fulfilled its true and highest office. It has set a thousand human souls vibrating in gladness. No one need doubt that the gospel can be sung as effectively as it can be spoken. (A statement by W. H. Fitchett, editor of The Southern Cross, describing a midday meeting in Melbourne, Australia’s Town Hall, quoted in Helen C. Alexander and J. Kennedy Maclean, Charles M. Alexander: A Romance of Song and Soul-Winning [New York: Marshall Bros., 1921], 51-52)

I have watched the methods and the triumphs of the most famous baton-wielders of the time—Colonne, Nikisch, Mottl, Weingartner, and Henry J. Wood. Never have I been so much impressed as I was by this bright-faced, energetic young evangelist. As the leader of a choir he has an amazing and almost magical influence, not only over the trained choir; he simply makes everybody sing, and sing as he wants them to. “Watch my hand!” he calls, and the men’s unaccompanied voices rise and fall in crooning cadences with an effect any conductor might be proud of. Watch his hands? Why we are watching every part of him; we cannot take our eyes off him; we are fascinated, hypnotized, bewitched … (Ibid., p. 106. The article is by H. Hamilton Fyle, music critic, in the London Daily Mirror, February 6, 1905, reporting on a meeting in Royal Albert Hall.)

This kind of entertaining genius may help to account for the physical stamina which was demonstrated by audiences of that day. A “Festival of Song”—shared equally by congregation, choir, and soloists—was expected to last for three hours. In a report of the meetings in Royal Albert Hall, London, it was said that the audience came at two o’clock in the afternoon and stayed until six. Torrey preached for about forty-five minutes and the rest of the time was consumed by song, with the audience calling for one favorite after another.

It is apparent that the revival choir was expected to share the prophetic/evangelistic ministry of the evangelist; its materials consisted of the “basic gospel,” and it was seated with the evangelists behind the pulpit, not in a “divided chancel” or in the balcony in the tradition of Old World churches.

“Charlie” Alexander was responsible for one more innovation in revivalist music—the use of the piano. Earlier leaders had used the pipe organ when it was available, or else a harmonium, a reed organ. Alexander found that the percussive piano was more helpful in leading the livelier songs of his day. Robert Harkness was his best-known pianist. Harkness also wrote a number of songs in a more distinctively “soloistic” style (e.g., “Why Should He Love Me So?”) It is said that Harkness was recruited from a “music hall” before he was a committed Christian and that Alexander led him to personal faith in Christ.

The Team of Billy Sunday and Homer Rodeheaver

It is a popular misconception that “gospel music” did not change much from 1850 to 1950. Each generation has contributed its own theological, poetic, and musical flavor. From 1890 to 1910, the scene was dominated by teachers and students of the Moody Bible Institute, where D. B. Towner had become the mentor of gospel music. Songs of that period were intensely biblical and theological. Between 1910 and 1920, Billy Sunday came to the fore as an evangelist, with his song leader-soloist-trombonist, Homer Rodeheaver. Both men had gifts suited to the theater—Sunday was the dynamic, compulsive, athletic spellbinder, and Rodeheaver was the genial, suave, relaxed, joking “master of ceremonies.” They brought evangelistic crusades to a new level, with crowd-pleasing mannerisms of entertainment.

“Rody” was a master at getting people to sing. He used every gimmick at his disposal to break down the traditionally staid approach to religious music. Neither “Rody” nor Sunday would tolerate glumness in the Gospel, and the tabernacle crowds soon learned to expect the unexpected. Delegations that came were asked to sing their favorite song; railroaders, for instance, stood to sing “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.” College groups could count on a chance to sing their Alma Mater and give a victory cheer. (D. Bruce Lockerbie, Billy Sunday [Waco, Tex.: Word Books, 1965], 58)

Seafaring imagery was still around in those days because memories of the “Titanic” tragedy were still vivid.

I was sinking deep in sin, Far from the peaceful shore …
Love lifted me, love lifted me,
When nothing else could help, Love lifted me. (James Rowe)

Other expressions were more serene, if not strongly theological:

What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought,
Since Jesus came into my heart;
I have peace in my soul for which long I had sought,
Since Jesus came into my heart. (C. H. Gabriel)

The early twentieth century had its own “physical” music, as well. I remember singing one in the 1920s that was obviously inspired by stories of the First World War.

Over the top for Jesus, Routing every foe;
Never delaying when we hear the bugle blow,
We’ll fight for the right with all our might
As over the top we go. (Author unknown)

Radio Renewal

During the “roaring twenties” mass revivalism went into a decline. It continued to be practiced in the local church, but there was no commanding evangelist to capture the nation’s attention for a period of almost thirty years. Southern Baptists showed the most interest in continuing the tradition in the local church or community, and their most gifted songwriter, B. B. McKinney, composed words and music of some of the most important gospel hymns of the period. For many, the interest in outreach shifted to radio. The music of “gospel radio” was colored by the demands and the traditions of the new medium. Like television twenty-five years later, radio contributed much to the “spectator complex” in the recreation habits of our culture, and undoubtedly it encouraged spectatorism in church life. Much of the new gospel music had been “special,” never intended for congregational use. Undoubtedly the voicing (the ladies’ trio, for instance), the choral and instrumental arranging techniques, and the more advanced harmonic and rhythmic patterns were all borrowed from the entertainment world.

At the historic, radio-conscious Chicago Gospel Tabernacle, Merrill Dunlop wrote and published Songs of a Christian (Chicago: Van Kampen Press, 1946). He says that he was first inspired by the “different” harmonies and styles of Robert Harkness’s songs. In his own advanced, jazz-related rhythm and harmony, Dunlop foreshadowed the present day. On one occasion he wrote a missions hymn in rhumba rhythm; to him, this was perfectly logical because his special interest in foreign missions was South American. At about the same time and in the same city, Moody Bible Institute began gospel broadcasting in 1926; their radio director, Wendell Loveless, wrote gospel songs and choruses in a pseudo-Broadway style.

Youth for Christ

In the 1940s, evangelism was frequently associated with Youth for Christ, one of the parachurch organizations that have become so common on the evangelical scene. Traditionally YFC rallies met on Saturday evening for a pleasant blend of entertainment, fellowship, and religious challenge. Their norm for congregational singing was the gospel chorus. This return to the camp-meeting emphasis of the 1800s seemed to indicate that they agreed that the refrain was the only significant part of a gospel song, or that it was all the text that an audience could be expected to assimilate. When traditional gospel songs were sung, frequently the stanzas were completely omitted. In addition, many independent choruses were composed and collected in a huge proliferation of “chorus books.”

In the late 1940s a new gospel hymn writer appeared. John W. Peterson (b. 1921), a pilot in World War II, first came to national attention about 1950 when his song “It Took a Miracle” began to be played on jukeboxes. His music was generally designed to be sung by soloists, choirs, and small ensembles, and only recently has begun to appear in hymnals. Peterson later found that he had a talent for composing “cantatas” for churches that had not traditionally used that form; he has now written more than a score of them and reportedly has sold more than a million copies!

In general, his lyrics show his strong biblical roots, particularly his postwar study at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. His music varies from a typical gospel song style to an imitation of Broadway show tunes and was sufficiently creative to capture the attention of a large section of the evangelical public.

The Era of Billy Graham

The world-famous evangelist Billy Graham began his ministry with Youth for Christ, and in 1949, thanks to publicity by Hearst newspapers, he came to the attention of much of the world. The music of the Billy Graham crusades has largely depended on materials developed since 1850, borrowing some items from each period. A doctoral dissertation (George Stansbury, The Music of the Billy Graham Crusades, 1947–1970 [Louisville, Ky.: Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1971], 311-312) points out that, unlike its revivalist predecessors, the Graham ministry has neither produced nor promoted a large body of new musical material. This may be partly due to the fact that, unlike Sankey, Alexander, and Rodeheaver, song leader Cliff Barrows is not a publisher.

However, this unique phenomenon in the history of evangelism more likely reflects the “establishment” image which characterized revivalism in the mid-twentieth century. Dr. Graham evidently purposes to be conservative—fresh and appealing but shunning the sensational and overemotional. Consequently, Barrows has used materials that have been already proven to be widely popular, choosing them from the compositions of Ira Sankey, Fanny Crosby, Charles H. Gabriel, Haldor Lillenas, Merrill Dunlop, John Peterson, and finally, Bill Gaither. The Billy Graham films have made their own contribution to contemporary music through the folk/ballad songs of Ralph Carmichael (e.g., “He’s Everything to Me” and “The New 23rd”), who composed the musical scores for several releases. Pianist Tedd Smith has also written some very significant music. The new musical feature in Graham crusades, however, has been the use of show-business talent like Johnny Cash and Norma Zimmer—as well as the best-known contemporary gospel singers—to attract the unchurched.

In the 1980s, the music of John Peterson came to be considered sophisticated and even elitist. In the typically “gospel song” style, it was Bill and Gloria Gaither from central Indiana who captured the imagination and the approval of much of the evangelical public. The Gaithers write songs that are much less theological and overtly biblical than Peterson’s. They get their inspiration, they say, by listening to the latest pop songs; their songs, then, are “religious” reply. There is just enough contemporary freshness in the title and the principal refrain-phrase to appeal to modern evangelicals, many of whom are drawn to country music. Among the best-known Gaither songs are “He Touched Me,” “Get All Excited,” “The King Is Coming,” “Just Because He Lives,” and “The Old Rugged Cross Made the Difference.”

As in all experience songs, the new gospel music reflects the thought patterns of our day. A modern person’s need of God will not be expressed well in such frontier language as “I’ve wandered far away from God; Now I’m coming home,” or “Would you be free from your burden of sin? There’s power in the blood.” Sin and lostness must be redefined for each succeeding generation. An individual’s estrangement from God may be better described today in one of the favorite solos of Graham’s gospel singer, George Beverly Shea: “Tired of a life without meaning / Always in a crowd, yet alone.”

Other Musical Styles

Of course, the gospel song has not been the only variety of witness music known in recent years. In the 1930s, perhaps recalling the heyday of barbershop quartet singing, the Stamps-Baxter “gospel quartet” emerged to present all-night gospel sings and to publish scores of small songbooks which became popular, particularly in rural churches of the South. Most of these Southern hymns were up-tempo, combining the call-and-response techniques of spirituals with the word-repetition common to the quartet song. In later years, the singing groups have varied in size and in voicing (including women as well as men), have adopted several different musical styles, and communicate both in “sacred concerts” and on television.

Even more startling varieties of gospel music were yet to come. In the wake of the Beatles and Geoffrey Beaumont’s Twentieth Century Folk Mass, “gospel folk” and “gospel rock” appeared in Great Britain in the early 1960s. It was quickly transported to America, where its first appeal was strongest in the liturgical and more liberal ecclesiastical communities. It was heralded as a renewal in communication by churches whose attendance and financial support were falling off, and where young people were conspicuous by their absence.

The first reaction of the traditionally evangelical groups was a little amusing when one remembers their long-time heritage of borrowing secular tunes for sacred purposes. Horrified protests that “this-worldly, entertainment music [was] not worthy of the message of Christ” poured in from many denominations. However, most evangelicals soon recovered their equilibrium, and their young people eagerly joined the crescendo of drums, guitars, and voices. At first, they were not allowed to indulge their new musical tastes in the church sanctuary; the folk musicals had to be performed in the fellowship hall or in an outside auditorium. But in the last ten years, gospel rock and gospel folk music have become common, and many other styles have been added. It is already apparent that we have seen the most complete invasion of religious expression by popular music in history. Music leaders change formats almost monthly to keep up with the latest trends in secular popular music.

Summary and Evaluation

Much criticism has been leveled at modern-day evangelism. What can we say then about the effectiveness of revivalism with its music in the history of America and of the world? Since we believe that the Holy Spirit has been present and creatively active in the world since Pentecost, we must acknowledge that the extra-ecclesiastical, personality-centered ministry of revivalists has contributed to the growth and the renewing of the church, from Francis of Assisi to John Hus to the Wesleys to D. L. Moody to Billy Sunday to Billy Graham and Barry Moore. Whatever their personal weaknesses—of character or theology or method—these individuals have been used by God to accomplish some of his purposes.

It would be difficult to separate the musical expression of revivalism from the preaching; the two seem to belong to each other, though both have tended to be anti-establishment. In sixteenth-century Germany, Luther was both a preacher and hymn writer, and it would be hard to prove that one role was more significant than the other in advancing the cause of the Reformation. In the history of Great Britain in the 1870s and 1880s, the names of Moody and Sankey are forever linked, for the musician seemed as important as the preacher in accomplishing God’s work. It was the same with Chapman and Alexander and later with Sunday and Rodeheaver. Furthermore, each period of renewal has been characterized by a flowering of new hymnody; it is as a result of these stimuli that hymnology textbooks are written.

We need both the transcendent and the immanent in music because that is the God we know—the God who is above all his creation, whom we cannot see except “through a glass darkly” (1 Cor. 13:12), and yet One who dwells within the believer, closer than hands and feet. It is expressed well in one verse from the Old Testament:

For thus says the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite. (Isa. 57:15)

This theological paradox is argument enough for a twofold purpose in church music. The church requires music that expresses both the perfections of the “high and holy” God, and also the personal, religious experience of the “broken and humble.”

Music of the Reformation

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The reforms in music which attended the reform of worship in the Reformation ranged widely from the rejection of all instruments and the restriction of singing solely to the Psalms to the choral Eucharists of the Anglicans.

Christian Worship in the Reformation

During the Middle Ages, worship had developed into an elaborate ritual which evidenced serious distortions of apostolic standards, according to the Reformers, in both theology and practice. The following five developments were especially troubling to the Reformers.

(1) The Liturgy of the Word had little significance. Although provision was made for Scripture reading and a homily in the vernacular, a sermon was rarely heard since most local priests were too illiterate to be capable of preaching.

(2) Typical worshipers understood little of what was being said or sung since the service was in Latin. Their own vocal participation was almost nonexistent.

(3) The Eucharist was no longer a joyful action of the whole congregation; it had become the priestly function of the celebrant alone. The congregation’s devotion (mixed with superstition) was focused on the host (the bread) itself, on seeing the offering of the sacrifice, or on private prayers (e.g., the rosary).

(4) Each celebration of the Mass was regarded as a separate offering of the body and blood of Christ. The emphasis was limited to Christ’s death, with scant remembrance of his resurrection and second coming. Furthermore, the custom of offering votive masses for particular individuals and purposes became common.

(5) The Roman Canon was not a prayer of thanksgiving, but rather a long petition that voiced repeated pleas that God would receive the offering of the Mass, generating a spirit of fear lest it not be accepted. As a result, most of the congregation took Communion only once a year. On many occasions, only the officiating priests received the bread and the cup.

Our look at the worship of the Reformation churches will include a consideration of the German, English, and French-Swiss traditions. However, none of these was the first expression of rebellion against Rome. The Unitas Fratrum (United Brethren), which began under John Hus in Bohemia, had its own liturgical and musical expressions. However, the reforms that were begun in this movement were aborted because of the death of Hus, who was burned at the stake in 1415.

The Lutheran Reformation

Martin Luther’s quarrel with Rome had more to do with the sacerdotal interpretation of the Mass and the resultant abuses which accompanied it than with the structure of the liturgy itself. For him, the Communion service was a sacrament (God’s grace extended to man). A musician himself, he loved the great music and the Latin text which graced the mass. Consequently, in his first reformed liturgy—Formula missae et communionis (1523)—much of the historic mass outline remains. Luther (1483–1546) is remembered as the individual who gave the German people the Bible and the hymnbook in their own language in order to recover the doctrine of believer-priesthood. He also restored the sermon to its central place in the Liturgy of the Word. But in the Formula missae, only the hymns, Scripture readings, and sermons were in the vernacular; the rest continued to be in Latin. He achieved his theological purposes relating to the communion by removing many acts of the Liturgy. All that remained were the Preface and the Words of Institution.

The German Mass (Deutscher messe, 1526) was more drastic in its iconoclasm and may have been encouraged by some of Luther’s more radical associates. In it, many of the historic Latin songs were replaced by vernacular hymn versions set to German folksong melodies.

Throughout the sixteenth century, most Lutheran worship used a variant of the Western liturgy. The Formula missae was the norm for cathedrals and collegiate churches, and the German Mass was common in smaller towns and rural churches. Twentieth-century Lutherans tend to agree that Luther was excessively ruthless in the excisions made in the Communion service. Consequently, in recent service orders, they have recovered much of the pattern and texts of the third and fourth-century eucharistic prayers, while still retaining their Reformational and Lutheran theological emphasis.

We have already mentioned Luther’s love of the historic music of the church. In the Formula missae, the choir sang the traditional psalms, songs, and prayers in Latin to Gregorian chant or in polyphonic settings. They also functioned in leading the congregation in the new unaccompanied chorales. Later, they sang alternate stanzas of the chorales in four- and five-part settings by Johann Walther, published in 1524 in the Church Chorale Book. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the choir made significant new contributions to worship in the singing of motets, passions, and cantatas.

The treble parts of the choral music were sung by boys who were trained in the “Latin” (parochial and cathedral) schools. The lower parts were sung by Latin school “alumni” or by members of the Kantorei—a voluntary social-musical organization that placed its services at the disposal of the church. Where there was no choir, the congregation was led by a “cantor.” That title, meaning “chief singer,” was also given to a musical director of large churches such as J. S. Bach, whose career culminated with service to churches in Leipzig from 1723 to 1750.

Luther seems to have been indifferent to (and occasionally critical of) the organ in divine worship, as were most Roman Catholic leaders of that period. As in the Roman church, the organ gave “intonations” for the unaccompanied liturgical singing and also continued the alternatim practice in the chorales. The “intonation” for the congregational chorales developed into what we know as a “chorale prelude.” Later, as composing techniques moved toward homophonic styles with the melody in the soprano, the organ took over the responsibility of leading the congregation in the chorales.

Luther felt that the multiple services of the medieval offices had become an “intolerable burden.” Since monasteries had been abolished, he prescribed that only the most significant morning and evening “hours”—Matins and Vespers—would be observed daily in local churches. However, office worship never really caught on among Lutherans. The practice soon died out and has only recently been revived, with moderate success. For non-eucharistic worship, Luther’s followers have preferred a shortened Mass called an “ante-Communion,” which simply omits the Lord’s Supper observance from the regular liturgy.

The Reformation in England

The early impetus for the Reformation in England was more political than spiritual. This was partly evident in the fact that for years after Henry VIII broke with the pope (1534) and assumed himself the leadership of the English (Anglican) church, the Latin Roman Mass continued to be used without change. However, during the ensuing years, evangelical thought became more widespread and after Henry’s death in 1547, Archbishop Cranmer (1489–1556) set about to devise a truly reformed English liturgy.

The first Book of Common Prayer was released in 1549, the title (“common”) indicating that worship was now to be congregational. This vernacular Mass retained much of the form of the Roman rite, with drastic revision only in the Canon (eucharistic prayer), because of the rejection of the concepts of transubstantiation and sacrifice. A significant number of Anglicans (especially Anglo-Catholics) still express regret that this rite never became the norm for the Church of England. As was true in Lutheran Germany, popular opinion seemed to demand even more drastic revision, and three years later another prayer book was published. Much of the influence for the more radical trend came from the Calvinist movement in Strasbourg and Geneva.

In the Prayer Book of 1552, the word Mass was dropped as the title of the worship form, vestments were forbidden, and altars were replaced by Communion tables. The Agnus Dei, the Benedictus, and the Peace were all excised from the liturgy, and the Gloria in excelsis Deo was placed near the end of the service. Thus the beginning of the ritual became basically personal and penitential, losing the corporate expression of praise and thanksgiving. The introit, gradual, offertory song, and Communion song were replaced by congregational psalms in metrical versions and later by hymns. In comparison with the “Liturgy of the Eucharist” that Roman Catholics used c. 1500, the greatest difference lies in the very-much shortened eucharistic prayer.

During the brief reign of “Bloody Mary” (1553–1558), the Roman Catholic faith and worship were reinstated, and many Protestant leaders were burned at the stake or beheaded. Others fled to such European refuges as Frankfort and Geneva, where they came under the influence of John Calvin and John Knox. When they returned to their native country, they brought with them an even more radical revisionist attitude that eventually showed itself in the Puritan movement within the Church of England and the emerging of Nonconformist churches (Presbyterian, Independent, and Baptist). With the death of Mary, Queen Elizabeth I sought to heal the wounds of her broken country and to bring papists, traditionalists, and Puritans together. Under her leadership, the prayer book was revised in 1559. Some worship practices found in the 1549 version were restored, though the changes were slight. Vestments, for example, were once again permitted.

The Puritan movement gathered increasing momentum during the close of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century. In worship, its emphasis was on “scriptural simplicity”—no choral or instrumental music, no written liturgy, and no symbolism (vestment, liturgical movement, etc.), much after the pattern of John Calvin’s Geneva. Eventually, the group developed enough political strength to overthrow the king and set up a republic. In 1645 the Prayer Book was replaced by the Directory for the Plain Worship of God in the Three Kingdoms. For a brief period, the choral and instrumental worship of the church went into complete limbo.

In 1660 Charles II was placed on the throne. He immediately brought the prayer book back into use. Soon a new revision (1662) was brought out; it made no substantial changes in the old version, retaining basically the 1552 worship outline, and that book became the norm for the Church of England for the next 300 years. It remains basically the same today, though there is considerable sentiment for a thorough revision.

We have already noted Luther’s purpose pertaining to the continuance of the two “offices” Matins and Vespers as public, daily services of non-eucharistic worship. This practice was also adopted by Archbishop Cranmer for the English church, and liturgies for these services appeared in each of the prayer books mentioned above. As in the old Roman tradition, the emphasis was on the reading and singing of Scripture; the Psalter was to be sung through each month, the Old Testament read through each year, and the New Testament twice each year. In making this service completely “English,” the revisions of 1552 and 1662 had changed the titles of the services to “Morning Prayer” and “Evening Prayer,” placed a general confession and absolution (assurance of pardon) at the beginning, added the Jubilate Deo (Psalm 100) as a regular canticle plus an anthem, with four collects and a general thanksgiving as the prayers. In common practice, a sermon is also included, and this service has been for many Anglicans the “preferred” option for typical Sunday worship.

The 1549 Prayer Book had stressed the requirement that Communion was not to be celebrated unless communicants were present and participating, and specified that members in good standing would receive Communion at least three times a year. The 1552 prayer book indicated that “ante-Communion”—the same service but omitting the eucharistic prayer and Communion—would also be observed on Sundays and “holy days.” Because, like Lutherans, most Anglicans retained the medieval sense of awe and fear in receiving Communion, non-eucharistic services tended to be the most popular in Anglican worship until recent times.

We have already noted that congregational hymns became the norm of Protestant musical worship under Luther. In the early development of the English reformation church, this possibility was considered, and Bishop Myles Coverdale made an English translation of certain German and Latin hymns together with metrical versions of psalms and other liturgical material in a volume Goostly psalms and spiritual songs (1543), intended for use in private chapels and homes. But, eventually, the Lutheran example was rejected in favor of the Calvinist standard—metrical psalms. In 1549, a Thomas Sternhold, the robe-keeper to Henry VIII (Albert E. Bailey, The Gospel in Hymns [New York: Scribner, 1950], 7) published a small collection of nineteen psalms without music. By 1562, with the help of J. Hopkins, Sternhold completed the entire Psalter, which was named for its compilers. “Sternhold and Hopkins” remained in use (along with others) for more than two hundred years.

Psalm singing received added impetus during the exile of English Protestants in Geneva during the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots. There they produced a number of versions of the Anglo-Genevan Psalter, with tunes, beginning in 1556. This book was based on Sternhold and Hopkins with certain additions of texts (and especially tunes) from the French psalters of Calvin. In the early eighteenth century, English Nonconformists began to write and sing psalm paraphrases and “hymns of human composure,” beginning with Isaac Watts (1674–1748). But free hymns were not widely accepted in Anglicanism until well into the nineteenth century.

Particularly in the services of morning and evening prayer, the Psalms were regularly sung in prose version; this was also true of the Canticles (Benedictus, Te Deum, Magnificat, Nunc Dimittis). For this purpose, in the seventeenth century a new “Anglican chant” was produced, based on small snatches of Gregorian melody and sung in four-part harmony.

Despite its rejection of Luther’s hymns, the English church followed the example of the Lutherans in adapting the choir to its new Protestant patterns, particularly in the “cathedral tradition.” From almost the beginning of Anglicanism, the choir was retained to lead the congregation, but also to sing alone, as in a Choral Eucharist. In the sixteenth century, the Tudor composers who had produced Latin masses (e.g., William Byrd, John Merbecke, Thomas Tallis, Richard Farrant) began to set portions of the new prayer book services. A complete “service” included music for Holy Communion as well as for the canticles of morning and evening prayer. Anglican services have been written by British (and other) composers in every generation. These services are not performed in their entirety in one service as is the Latin mass, but they are published together for liturgical use in larger Anglican (including Episcopalian) churches.

In addition, the Anglican heritage made a unique contribution to church music in the anthem—originally an English motet, whose name is derived from “antiphon.” So-called anthems existed before 1550, but they remained in disfavor until the Restoration. In the prayer book of 1662, they are acknowledged to be a regular part of worship in churches that boasted a choir.

In the English tradition, it may be said that provision is made for a wide variety of musical tastes. In the parish church, congregational singing is central even though a modest choir may in some instances be available to sing an anthem and to lead the hymns and chants. In the cathedral setting, certain services are essentially choral, with less congregational participation. These services give the opportunity for the very finest examples of choral art to be used.

Both Anglicans and Lutherans continued to observe the liturgical calendar with its festivals and holy days. In both the eucharistic services and the offices, the “Ordinary” remained fairly constant throughout the year. The “Propers” provided Scripture readings, prayers, responses, and “sermon emphases” which changed according to the season and the day involved.

Worship in the Calvinist Tradition

In Reformation times, the most severe reaction to traditional Roman Catholic worship came in the Calvinist tradition; for this reason, it is closely related to modern evangelical practice. But first, we must look briefly at some of John Calvin’s predecessors.

Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531), whose reform leadership centered in Zurich, was more of a rationalist-humanist than Luther or Calvin, both of whom shared the medieval scholastic tradition. Consequently, Zwinglian worship tended to be more didactic than devotional. His typical morning service resembled the ancient Prone liturgy, consisting of Scripture reading (Epistle and Gospel), preaching, and a long prayer. In the first German liturgy of 1525, music was eliminated completely (although Zwingli himself was an accomplished musician); however, psalms and canticles were recited responsively. The Communion service was celebrated four times a year, with the congregation seated as for a family meal. The Eucharist service had no true eucharistic prayer and no prayer of intercession; it consisted of an exhortation, “Fencing of the Table,” the Lord’s Prayer, the prayer of “humble access,” words of institution, ministers’ Communion, Communion of the people, psalm, collect, Dismissal. According to Zwingli, the Eucharist was only “the congregation confessing its faith in obedience to our Lord’s command.”

Martin Bucer (1491–1551), a follower of Zwingli, developed quite a different tradition when he was put in charge of Reformed worship in Strasbourg in 1535. Prior to that time, the city had been dominated by Lutheranism. Consequently, Bucer’s liturgy of 1537 seems to combine Lutheran and Zwinglian elements. He retained the optional Kyrie and Gloria in Excelsis, though in time these were replaced by psalms or hymns. The Communion service included intercessions as well as a Prayer of Consecration.

When John Calvin (1509–1564) first preached and taught at Geneva, he evidently followed no set form of worship, and the service was entirely without music. When he was banished from Geneva in 1538, he went to be pastor of the French exiles in Strasbourg. He was quite impressed with Bucer’s German rite and, according to his own admission, “borrowed the greater part of it” for his own French liturgy of 1540. Later when he returned to Geneva, this liturgy was simplified slightly, becoming the Geneva rite of 1542 and the basis for Calvinist worship in all of Europe—Switzerland, France, Germany, Netherlands, and Scotland.

The medieval eucharistic vestments were discarded. (The traditional black cassock now worn by Presbyterian ministers is essentially a reminder that Calvin preached in his overcoat because the cathedral at Geneva was unheated!) Indeed, all the traditional Roman symbolism was stripped from the building. A Calvinist “processional” (particularly in Scotland) is headed by a deacon carrying the Bible into the sanctuary to place it on the pulpit. Calvin ignored the church calendar (except for the principal feast days) and with it the lectionary of readings. The Scripture was read-only to serve as a basis for the sermon.

Calvin’s ideas about the Eucharist were not radically different from those of Luther, though he rejected the idea of “consubstantiation.” He too saw the Eucharist as a sacrament and desired that it would be celebrated weekly as part of a full service of Word and Eucharist. But this was not to be, because many of the French Reformed leaders (including the magistrates at Geneva) had a more narrow view of Communion. Indeed, they restricted its observance to four times a year, despite Calvin’s persistent objections.

Calvin is most frequently criticized for his actions restricting music in worship. He discarded the choir and its literature completely, and Calvinist iconoclasts removed the organs from the formerly Catholic churches. As mentioned earlier, worship in Geneva had no singing at all, and Calvin complained about the resultant “cold tone” in the services. When he went to Strasbourg, he was pleased with the German Psalm versions he found in the congregations there, whereupon he set several Psalms himself in metrical French to tunes of Mattheus Greiter and Wolfgang Dachstein. These were included with his Strasbourg service book, The Form of Prayers and Manner of Ministering the Sacraments According to the Use of the Ancient Church (1640).

Later he commissioned the French court poet Clement Marot to set all the Psalms in meter, which resulted in the historic Genevan Psalter (1562). The Psalms were sung by the congregation in unison and without accompaniment. (Four-part settings of the Marot Psalms were composed by Sweelinck, Jannequin, and Goudimel, but they were heard only in the home and in educational circles.) Music editor for the volume was Louis Bourgeois (c. 1510–c. 1561), who adapted tunes from French and German secular sources and no doubt composed some himself.

This is not the place to debate Calvin’s decision for the Psalms and against hymns, in the light of his dictum “Only God’s Word is worthy to be used in God’s praise.” No doubt he was reacting strongly to the complex, verbose Roman liturgy, with its many “tropes” and “sequence” hymns. He did not have all the writings of the early church fathers at his disposal, from which he might have learned the significance of the New Testament “hymns and spiritual songs” (which in the early patristic period were not part of the biblical canon) and of the successors of those forms in the early church. The Calvinist tradition of singing Psalms was also inherited by the Anglican church and by early free churches in both England and America. It has persisted in some places to the present day.

Worship in the Free Church Tradition

In the closing years of the sixteenth century, the passion for religious reform was most intense in the most radical of the English Puritans. They are known historically as the Separatists since they intended to part company with the established Anglican church. When they did so, they were more iconoclastic than Calvin himself, reducing worship to something less than the essentials! They rejected all established liturgical forms. When they met together (in barns, in forests and fields, or in houses on back alleys, as such gatherings were forbidden by law), their services included only prayer and the exposition of Scripture. Prayer was always spontaneous; not even the Lord’s Prayer was used, since it was considered to be only a model for Christian improvising.

The early Separatists evidently had no music, but eventually, they began to sing unaccompanied metrical psalms. When it was possible for them to celebrate Communion, the appointed pastor broke the bread and delivered the cup, which was then passed to every member of the group while the leader repeated the words of 1 Corinthians 11:23–26. There is also a record that on such occasions an offering was received at the end of the service, by men who held their “hats in hand.”

The Separatists followed several traditions under a number of dynamic leaders, and eventually formed the churches known as Presbyterian, Independent (Congregational), and Baptist. Their negative attitude about earlier music is expressed in a quote from John Vicar in 1649, who was speaking as a convinced Puritan, but still an Anglican: … the most rare and strange alteration of things in the Cathedral Church of Westminster. Namely, that whereas there was wont to be heard nothing almost by Roaring-Boys, tooting and squeaking Organ Pipes, and the Cathedral catches of Moreley, and I know not what trash, now the Popish Altar is quite taken away, the bellowing organs are demolished and pull’d down; the treble or rather trouble and base singers, Chanters or Inchanters, driven out, and instead thereof, there is now a most blessed Orthodox Preaching Ministry, even every morning throughout the Week, and every Week throughout the year a Sermon Preached by the most learned grace and godly Ministers.

Anabaptists (“re-baptizers,” who insisted that baptism was only for adult believers) appeared both on the Continent and in Great Britain in the late sixteenth century. Records of a group in Holland in 1608 indicate that a typical service consisted of the following.

• Prayer
• Scripture (one or two chapters, with a running commentary on its meaning)
• Prayer
• Sermon (one hour, on a text)
• Spoken contributions by others present (as many as would)
• Prayer (led by the principal leader)
• Offering

It is not surprising that such a service often lasted as long as four hours. Sunday worship ran from about 8 a.m. to noon, and again from 2 p.m. to 5 or 6 p.m. (See Horton Davies, Worship and Theology in England, vol. 2 [Princeton: Princeton University, 1975], 89)

English Baptists were by no means of one mind theologically. They divided into General Baptists (more Arminian in theology), Calvinistic Baptists (John Bunyan belonged to this group), Seventh-day Baptists (who worshiped on Saturday), and Particular Baptist (radically Calvinist). For all of them, the typical worship consisted of the ministry of the Word (reading and exposition), extemporized prayer (lengthy—no collects) with a congregational “amen,” and possibly metrical psalms sung to open and to close the service.

There is evidence that in some churches the only music was sung by a single individual “who had a special gift.” John Bunyan once argued that open congregational singing could not fulfill the standard of Colossians 3:16 because some might participate who did not have “grace in the heart.” As late as 1690, Benjamin Keach (1640–1704) had difficulty persuading his own congregation to sing in unison. However, he did prevail, and it is said that he was the first to introduce hymns (in addition to psalms) to an English congregation. He wrote the first hymn to be sung at the conclusion of the Lord’s Supper, “following the example of Christ and his disciples in the upper room.” Beyond this, we have little indication of how Baptists celebrated Communion, except, ironically, that it was a weekly occurrence.

Evangelicals are in large part the successors of the Separatist movement, and in many instances have inherited the anti-Romanist, anti-liturgical, and anti-aesthetic attitudes of their forebears. It may help one understand why these prejudices are so deeply ingrained to remember that our forefathers were moved by a strong spiritual commitment to evangelism. Furthermore, as dissenters, they endured constant persecution by the Puritan/Anglican regime (or the Lutheran or Calvinist) under which they lived. To disobey the law by leading in clandestine worship was to risk a heavy fine and lengthy imprisonment.

Summary

This article, along with the others that have preceded it, has traced our worship-practice roots, from New Testament times through 1600 years of the history of the Christian church, ending with the Reformation and finally, the emergence of free churches. The purpose has been to show our universal Christian heritage, as well as the unique tradition of each individual fellowship.

To be sure, there is a common, universal heritage. We have seen that material from Scripture was the basis of musical worship in all medieval services. We have also traced the evangelical emphasis on preaching from New Testament times and the early church fathers, through the medieval Prone, the reformed services of Luther and Calvin, and the worship of the Separatists. All Christians continue to experience a Liturgy of the Word and a Liturgy of the Eucharist, though most Reformed and free churches have perpetuated the medieval reluctance to participate in Communion on a frequent basis. Furthermore, particularly in the free-church tradition, occasional observance tends to give the impression that the Lord’s Supper is an appendage that is not central to full-orbed worship. Most evangelical scholars agree that the early church celebrated the Eucharist each Lord’s Day. It may be that the free churches should face up to the question as to whether or not, in this matter, they are living up to their claim to be the New Testament church.

All the changes brought by the Reformation were responses to the sincere desire to be more “evangelical.” Obviously, the reaction of the free (Separatist) bodies was the most radical, but it tended to be tempered (as in the matter of the use of music) within a few years. Nevertheless, some of the attitudes and practices which began at that time have haunted certain free church groups ever since. It is important that we distinguish true evangelical reform from blind iconoclasm. In recent years, many Christian groups have taken a new look at their heritage and have tended to reinterpret those reforms.

Music of the Medieval Era in the Western Church

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The Middle Ages in the West saw the gradual dominance of the Roman rite over the local rites that had developed before the ninth and tenth centuries. Musically this entailed the spread of Gregorian chant. Later centuries saw the development of polyphony. In the late Middle Ages, the preaching service of Prone became the model for Reformed worship.

The Standardizing of Worship

In the early years following Christianity’s recognition, each metropolitan center developed its own liturgy and practices within the sphere of its cultural influence and under the leadership of the bishops of Antioch, Alexandria, Byzantium, Jerusalem, Milan, and Rome. Later developments of the Mozarabic liturgy in Spain, the Gallican liturgy of northern Europe, and the Celtic liturgies in Britain resulted from the missionary expansion of the Western church centers. Each liturgy was sung with its own traditions of cantillation, so that we have historical records of the development of Antiochian chant, Coptic chant (Egypt), Mozarabic chant (Spain), Ambrosian chant (Milan), and so forth. All the early churches used the Greek language in worship, even the church at Rome. Latin began to be used in the fourth century and eventually displaced the Greek in the Western churches.

After the year A.D. 400, the Roman Empire was permanently divided into Eastern and Western empires. The imperial court at Byzantium exerted strong influence toward conformity in doctrine and worship practice in the Eastern churches in order to strengthen the bonds of the empire. By the seventh century, two Byzantine liturgies became standard throughout the domain: the Liturgy of St. Basil (used during Lent, on Christmas and Epiphany, and on St. Basil’s Day), and the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom (a shortened form, most commonly used). Orthodox liturgies have not changed essentially since that time, except that there was no hesitation to translate them from the Greek into the vernacular. Orthodox liturgy is always sung, partly in chant and partly in more contemporary music forms (e.g., Russian Orthodox music).

The Roman Mass

In the West, Rome was the center of the church and the Roman (Gregorian) rite eventually became the universal liturgy. Early important revisions were made by Pope Gelasius I (492–496), St. Gregory the Great (590–604) (who also founded the Schola Cantorum which standardized Western chant), the emperor Charlemagne (742–814), and his associate Alcuin (c. 735–804). Even so, there were many differing practices throughout the Middle Ages until the Council of Trent (1562) and the resultant Missale Romanum (Roman Missal) of 1570 brought liturgical uniformity.

Historically, before Vatican II (1962) there were three modes of mass celebration: (1) The Low Mass (Missa Lecta), which was spoken only and which became most popular in the Middle Ages when it was traditional for every priest to celebrate the Mass once a day and when many individuals celebrated in the same church (at different altars) at the same time; (2) The Sung Mass (Missa Cantata), which was the principal Sunday or holy day celebration in a parish church; and (3) High Mass (Missa Solemnis), which was sometimes called a Festival Mass and included assisting celebrants, and frequently a choir.

The musical masses were commonly sung in Roman (Gregorian) Chant, which included psalm tones (basically the use of a single reciting tone, followed by prescribed cadences). In addition, the high masses could feature composed settings of the five great prayer-songs of the mass (Kyrie, Gloria in excelsis Deo, Credo, Sanctus et Benedictus, Agnus Dei). The oldest extant settings of these mass forms are from the twelfth century composers Leonin and Perotin in Paris. Through the centuries, mass settings (the five songs only) have been written by such great composers as Machaut, Josquin des Prez, Palestrina, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Bruckner, Vaughan Williams, and Stravinsky, each in his own distinctive musical style.

The Schola Cantorum was established by Gregory the Great (c. 540–604) to standardize and to teach the official chant of the church. As Christianity spread throughout the Western world, and as the various cultures developed during the Middle Ages, the cathedrals, monasteries, abbeys, and collegiate churches developed choir schools where boys received their general education and were trained in music for the church’s worship.

The early church fathers forbade the use of instrumental music in worship because of their association with mystery cults, the Greek theater, and pagan rituals. Nevertheless, rudimentary organs began to appear in churches by the sixth century, and their use in the Mass was widespread by the twelfth century. In the fifteenth century, some German churches boasted organs with all the essential tonal resources of modern instruments. Evidently, the use of the organ was limited, however. Basically, it was a means of setting the pitch (“intonation”) for the unaccompanied chant or choral setting. It was also featured in what is known as an alternatim practice, in which portions of liturgical music were shared by choir and organ, with the instrument performing sections (or stanzas) in alternation with the choir.

Non-Eucharistic Worship Through the Medieval Period

During this long period of Christian history, certainly for the millennium 500-1500, eucharistic liturgy was considered to be the highest form of worship. But it was not the only mode.

The Offices. The “Services of the Hours” constituted another form of worship designed to sanctify the time in which Christians live. It probably stemmed from the Jewish custom of regular prayer at stated hours of the day. Early Christians commonly prayed privately at the third, sixth, and ninth hours (Acts 3:1) and eventually this became a public practice, following the Roman division of the day into “hours” (prima, tertia, sexts, and nona) and the night into four “watches.” Office worship, so-called because participation was the duty (“office”) of the celebrants, was developed and perpetuated in the monasteries but also observed in cathedrals and collegiate churches.

The full cycle of eight “offices” consisted of Matins (between midnight and dawn), immediately followed by Lauds (“cockcrow”), Prime (6:00 a.m.), Terce (9:00 a.m.), Sext (noon), None (3:00 p.m.), Vespers (6:00 p.m.), and Compline (before retiring). The principal component of office worship consisted of the reading and chanting of Scripture; thus in the total “Hours” the Psalms were completed (sung responsively) once each week, the New Testament was read through twice in a year, and the Old Testament once. In addition, a special place was given to the biblical Canticles, especially the Song of Zacharias, father of John the Baptist (Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel), The Song of Mary (Magnificat), The Song of Simeon (Nunc Dimittis), The Song of the Three Hebrew Children (Benedicite, from the Apocrypha), and the fourth-century extrabiblical hymn attributed to Niceta of Remesiana, Te Deum laudamus. Finally, this form of worship also included hymns, versicles and responses, prayers, and sometimes a homily. The offices of Matins and Lauds in the morning, and Vespers and Compline in the evening, were the major services in which the most music was featured. In the Roman tradition, the psalms, canticles, and hymns were sung in Gregorian chant exclusively, except in the office of Vespers when contemporary, “composed” settings might be used. It is in this latter tradition that Monteverdi composed his “Vespers of 1610.”

One office characteristic has been carried over as a conspicuous part of evangelical worship to the present day. Beginning in the second century it was the custom to follow each psalm (and later each canticle) with the Gloria Patri. This ascription of praise to the eternal trinity served to bring the Old Testament psalm into a New Testament context: Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Preaching Services. Also in the medieval period, a sermon was occasionally featured in the Office of Lauds. Furthermore, “preaching missions” were common throughout Christian history, for which congregations met in the naves of the cathedrals and large churches. This explains the location of a pulpit in the middle of a sanctuary far from the altar, as modern tourists will observe in historic European churches. From this tradition, a basically vernacular worship form developed known as the Prone, first inserted as a part of the mass and later featured as a separate service. It is significant because of its resemblance to the worship form adopted by John Calvin in the sixteenth century, a form which has carried over into common evangelical worship. The following is an advanced form of the Prone that was used in Basel (Eberhard Weismann, “Der Predigtgottesdienst und die verwandten Formen,” in Leiturgia, vol. 3, 23–24; cited by Eugene L. Brand, “The Liturgical Life of the Church,” in A Handbook of Church Music, ed. Carl Halter and Carl Schalk [St. Louis: Concordia, 1978]):

  • Call to worship (“In nomine Patri, … ”)
  • Sermon Scripture in Latin (for the intellectuals)
  • German Votum with congregational “amen”
  • Sermon text in German
  • Invocation of the Holy Spirit
  • Sermon
  • Parish announcements
  • Prayer of the Church
  • Lord’s Prayer and Ave Maria
  • Apostles’ Creed
  • The Ten Commandments
  • Public Confession
  • Closing Votum