Above:  The Title Card of The Overnighters

A Screen Capture via PowerDVD

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

THE OVERNIGHTERS (2014)

Directed by Jesse Moss

Rated PG-13

1 Hour, 42 Minutes

The Overnighters is a powerful documentary which reminds me of George Carlin‘s critique of the American Dream:  we call it that because we must be asleep to believe it.  The setting is Williston, North Dakota, an oil boomtown which the film presents as a place dominated by residents fearful of job seekers moving into the community.  The rapid change includes the presence of more job seekers (including desperate men with criminal records) than jobs.  Where will they sleep until they find work and housing?  And what, if anything, should the city government do to extend hospitality to them or to make the town a less inviting place?

The biblical commandment to extend hospitality is an order to save lives.  Violations of that command reside at the heart of Genesis 19 (Sodom and Gomorrah) and Matthew 25:31-46.  The Good Samaritan–an oxymoron in the opinions of many people in the original audience for the parable–extended hospitality to the brutalized traveler in Luke 10:25-37.  In that parable the main question is, who acted as a neighbor to the man on the road to Jericho?  The conclusion is that the Good Samaritan was that neighbor, and that we who encounter that story have a mandate from God to go and do likewise.

Above:  Jay Reinke Being Introspective

A Screen Capture via PowerDVD

Pastor Jay Reinke of Concordia Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod) went and did likewise.  During the period of about two years (until the City of Williston shut down the Overnighters program) more than a thousand people slept in the church building and hundreds more slept in their cars, which they parked in the church’s parking lot.  The Overnighters program prompted much hostility in the community, opposition in the church, an exodus of members from the congregation, strained Reinke’s marriage, and filled much time he would have spent with this family otherwise.

The members of the Reinke family–all of them remarkable, generous, compassionate, and Christian people–made themselves vulnerable.  They did the right thing at the right time at the right place–even taking some of the Overnighters into their home.  Jay Reinke, the main figure in the documentary, admits to being a broken person (all people are broken, he says accurately) and questions his motives.  He also makes difficult decisions–sometimes making the wrong decisions–and finds that former allies have become bitter enemies.  Reinke is a mere mortal, for better and for worse–more of the former than the latter.  Who of us always makes good decisions, especially in difficult circumstances?  And who of us acts consistently out of pure motives?  I am not Reinke’s judge.  I conclude, in fact, that his greatest strength as a minister is his awareness of his weaknesses, for that helps him to recognize the potential in people and to reach out to assist them.  His cracks let the light in.

The documentary takes a dramatic turn in the final minutes, after the Overnighters program has ceased.  Reinke’s wife, who has known for years that he struggles with same-sex attraction, learns of a fairly recent infidelity which has led to extortion.  This revelation leads to Reinke’s public confession and the termination of his time as pastor at Concordia Lutheran Church, for The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod is officially homophobic.  The documentary informs us that Reinke is seeking work in the oil fields.  He has, in fact, found work as a salesman in that industry.  He can support his family, but he is not using his greatest gifts to do so.

The recent decline in oil and gasoline prices, which constitute good news for many of us, constitutes bad news for the oil industry in North Dakota.  I wonder how this reality will affect Reinke and many others working in that industry there.  I also hope that he will find a professional position which will permit him to support his family and to utilize his ministerial vocation, for that is where he belongs.  His story deserves a happy conclusion.

The Overnighters challenges me to ask myself if I would have acted hospitably in the context of the events of the documentary or if I would have acted out of fear.  Then it challenges me to look around where I am and ask myself if I am acting hospitably in the city where I reside.  Affirming pious principles is easier than acting according to them.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

FEBRUARY 26, 2015 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINT ALEXANDER OF ALEXANDRIA, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP

THE FEAST OF EMILY MALBONE MORGAN, FOUNDER OF THE SOCIETY OF THE COMPANIONS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

THE FEAST OF FRED ROGERS, EDUCATOR AND U.S. PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER

Advertisement

Above:  My Copies of the Moravian Book of Worship (1995) and Sing to the Lord a New Song:  A New Moravian Songbook (2013)

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

LITURGY IN THE MORAVIAN CHURCH IN AMERICA, PART V

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The Moravian Book of Worship does not slavishly demand one style of tune or text, but attempts to recognize the wide diversity in our congregations’ worship patterns.

—Moravian Book of Worship (1995), page iii

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I.  PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION

This post stands in lineage with the Preface and Parts I, II, III, and IV.

This post concludes the Liturgy in the Moravian Church in America series.  The process of researching and preparing the entries in this series has been an intellectually rewarding one, for I have learned much, and I have an inquiring mind.

I have not endeavored to provide thorough descriptions and analyses of the elements of the Moravian Book of Worship.  For that I refer you, O reader, to the Manual for Worship Planners and the companion volume to the service book-hymnal, which the Interprovincial Board of Communication sells.

Worship patterns in congregations of the Moravian Church in America (the Moravian Church in North America when one includes the Canadian congregations of the Northern Province of North America) have long been diverse.  This diversity has increased with the arrival of Moravian immigrants from Europe, Central America, and the Caribbean Basin, as well as with the spread of contemporary and charismatic forms of worship in the Protestant mainline since the 1970s.  My perusal of websites of North American Moravian congregations has confirmed summaries of the diversity of worship I have read in official denominational resources.  I have found evidence of the existence of styles of worship ranging from traditional, classical Moravian worship (brass choirs, et cetera) to Low Church, Southern Gospel music to contemporary “seeker” services to charismatic practices.  I also know that the rise of the charismatic movement within the Unitas Fratrum has divided or played a supporting role in the division of several provinces (Honduras, Czech Republic, and Alaska) of the global Moravian Church.

Official worship resources of the Northern and Southern Provinces in North America reflect the diversity of practice in their congregations.  The logic of that fact makes sense to me.  As I age, however, I find myself becoming more liberal and collegial in many matters theological and socio-political yet more conservative in matters liturgical.  European classicism appeals to me, and I have no desire to dilute that very much.  Guitars in church always make me uncomfortable, for not once have I heard classical guitar music in church.  Once, about fifteen years ago, at a conference in the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia, someone handed me a tambourine in the vain hope that I would play it.  I returned the instrument immediately silently as I looked at that person with an icy gaze.  Here I stand; I will do no other.  If that reality offends someone, I offer no apology, for I have committed no offense.

Now, without further ado, I commence the body of this post.

II.  MORAVIAN BOOK OF WORSHIP  AND SOME RELATED VOLUMES (1995)

Scan by Kenneth Randolph Taylor

+++++++++++++

General Comments

By 1995, the year the Moravian Book of Worship debuted, ecumenical influences had also transformed worship in the Moravian Church in America.  Celebrations of Holy Communion had become more frequent in many congregations.  Also, the Northern and Southern Provinces had adopted the Revised Common Lectionary.  The-gesimas were gone and Sundays after Pentecost replaced Sundays after Trinity.  These changes are evident in each annual edition of the Moravian Church Desk Calendar and Plan Book, available from the Interprovincial Board of Communication.

Scans by Kenneth Randolph Taylor

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

One of the most obvious differences between the Moravian Book of Worship (1995) and the Hymnal and Liturgies of the Moravian Church (1969) is the contemporary nature of the current service book-hymnal.  The services are in modern English, even providing two forms (King James and contemporary ecumenical) of the Lord’s Prayer.  52% of the hymns are new to American Moravian hymnals.  The 1995 hymnody is also more ecumenical than that of 1969, for 21% of the texts (excluding translations) are of Moravian authorship.  Many of the “new” texts are actually new and the products of authors alive in 1995.  Likewise, 42% of the tunes in the Moravian Book of Worship are new to American Moravian hymnals.  Many of those tunes are works of composers alive in 1995.

Hymns and Other Music

The Moravian Book of Worship, a new service book-hymnal, not a revision of its predecessor, offers more diversity of musical styles than does the Hymnal and Liturgies of the Moravian Church (1969).  Most tunes in the 1969 volume were for four voices, with a smattering of other styles and arrangements.  In the 1995 book, however, one can find numerous representations of Lutheran chorales, Moravian chorales, contemporary four-part chorales, rounds, unison hymns, chords for guitar or autoharp, antiphonal songs, spirituals, and folk songs.  Also available is Singing from the Heart:  A Shorter Moravian Hymnal and Liturgies (2010), an abbreviated version of the Moravian Book of Worship with guitar chords included.  Singing from the Heart also contains thirteen original “Congregational Prayers for Moravian Worship,” brief forms for worship.

The arrangement of the 559 hymns is topical, with the church year establishing the first categories.  Hence the first category is Advent.  The count of 559 hymns in the Moravian Book of Worship is down from 594 in the Hymnal and Liturgies of the Moravian Church (1969) and 952 in the Hymnal and Liturgies of the Moravian Church (Unitas Fratrum) (1923).  The 1995 book contains 33 selections of service music and 20 entries in its Psalms and Canticles section of the Liturgy.

On One Hand Yet On the Other Hand

Ecumenical convergence has its virtues, especially in liturgy.  Jettisoning the -gesimas and the Season after Trinity Sunday is good, as is adopting the Revised Common Lectionary, a near-twin of the current Roman Catholic lectionary.  These are visible signs of Christian unity.  Addressing God is “you,” not as “thee,” is also positive, for using the contemporary form of English restores the familiarity of language present in older forms of English when God, one’s parents, one’s friends, and one’s neighbors were all “thee.”  Much change is actually a return an older tradition.

As positive an ecumenical convergence is much of the time, it is not always a good thing, for it can lead to a “vanilla” hymnody.  I, as a collector of hymnals and service books-hymnals (especially old ones), like diversity in hymnody.  Moravian hymnals have always included a healthy representation of ecumenical hymnody, as they should.  I have found, however, that many wonderful ethnic hymns, present in older hymnals, seldom make the cut in subsequent hymn books.  (A comparison of U.S. Lutheran hymnals of the twentieth century, as ethnic synods merged into non-ethnic denominations, is an especially good way of documenting this fact.)  Sometimes ecumenism becomes an altar on which hymnal committees sacrifice beautiful ethnic hymns and quality texts.  Thus sometimes the best way to balance one’s heritage is to use more than one book, lest wonderful hymns fall into disuse and obscurity.

The Liturgy of 1995

The thoroughly revised Liturgy of 1995 bears many similarities to that of 1969, for the new Liturgy retains much of Moravian tradition–in modern English, however.  There is also evidence of textual nipping and tucking, one of the oldest games in liturgical practice.  The Liturgy of 1995 continues another Moravian practice–flexibility.  There are many rubrics such as the one on page 4, in General Liturgy 1:

All may join in The Church Litany, or the Shorter Church Litany, or the Service may proceed as the liturgist directs.

“Or…as the liturgist directs” occurs often in the Liturgy (pages 1-254 of the Moravian Book of Worship).

The Liturgy of 1995 contains six sections, which I will unpack in order:

1. General Liturgies,
2. The Church Year,
3. Topical Liturgies,
4. Rites and Sacraments,
5. Services for Holy Communion, and
6. Psalms and Canticles.

General Liturgies

There are seven General Liturgies.  (The Hymnal and Liturgies of 1969 has four of them.)

1. General Liturgy 1, which contains the Church Liturgy and the Shorter Church Liturgy, is a variation on the traditional Moravian service.
2. General Liturgy 2–Reconciliation contrasts divine perfection and the sinful world.
3. General Liturgy 3–Adoration, unlike its 1969 predecessor, uses the Nicene Creed, not the Apostles’ Creed.  The Church in the Nicene Creed is “Christian,” not “catholic,” however.  There is an asterisk then a note explaining the original text reads “catholic” and states that “catholic” means “universal.”  (The Protestant Reformation, by traditional counting, started 497 and 1/2 years ago.  Can we finally get past a Protestant hang-up with Roman Catholicism, please?  Should not anti-Roman Catholicism be a thing of the past?  I write as one who, although not a Roman Catholic, acknowledges the riches of that tradition.)
4. General Liturgy 4–Creation, a new service, contains contemporary music (by Jaroslav J. Vajda and Martin Nystrom) and a statement of faith drawn from the Ground of Unity in the Unity Book of Order.
5. General Liturgy 5–Grace combines elements of the 1969 Liturgies of Confession, Trust, and Covenanting.  It also features a different statement of faith drawn from the Ground of Unity in the Unity Book of Order.
6. General Liturgy 6–Discipleship combines traditional and contemporary music.
7. General Liturgy 7–Celebration, a new service with a non-traditional arrangement of traditional elements, combines traditional and contemporary hymns.

Church Year

Some of the services in the Church Year section retain titles from the Hymnal and Liturgies (1969):

1. Advent and Palm Sunday,
2. Advent 2,
3. Christmas,
4. Easter Morning,
5. Easter,
6. Trinity, and
7. All Saints.

The Liturgy of 1969 offers just one service in Lent, but the Moravian Book of Worship includes two–Lent 1 and Lent 2.

Two services in the Church Year section have slightly different names than their 1969 counterparts:

1. “Epiphany and Christian Witness” has become “Epiphany and World Mission,” and
2. “Pentecost (Whitsunday)” has become “Pentecost and Spiritual Renewal.”

New to the Church Year section is “Reign of Christ/Second Coming,” for the Sunday immediately preceding Advent more than any other Sunday.  The existence of this service indicates that the Moravian Church has authorized the observance of Christ the King Sunday, which the Roman Catholic Church has celebrated on the Sunday immediately preceding Advent since 1970.  And, just in case you, O reader, wonder about the linguistic difference between “Christ the King” and “Reign of Christ,” it is not just a matter of inclusive language (although Jesus was male).  The Bible does contain a distinction between a kingdom and a royal reign, as I have learned by reading scholarly books.  That reading has also taught me that often the distinction is one without much a difference, for the reality of a reign does imply the existence of a kingdom.

The Liturgy of 1995 omits the service for the Ascension, due to the rare use of that rite from the Liturgy and Hymnals (1969).  The Moravian Book of Worship does not include Ascension themes elsewhere, however.

Topical Liturgies

Most of the titles of the Topical Liturgies are new; only three repeat from the Hymnal and Liturgies (1969):

1. Education,
2. Thanksgiving, and
3. National Occasions.

The other titles are:

1. A General Prayer of Intercession,
2. Intercessions in a Time of Crisis,
3. Christian Hymns,
4. Christian Unity,
5. Evangelism (“The Spread of the Gospel” in 1969),
6. New Year and Anniversaries,
7. Peace and Justice, and
8. Stewardship.

The National Occasions service contains a line as troublesome to me as those to which I objected in the Hymnal and Liturgies (1923) and the Hymnal and Liturgies (1969) in Part IV of this series.  On page 141 of the Moravian Book of Worship one can find the following petition:

Enable us to accept the authority of government for your sake….

Is there no embrace of civil disobedience?  And what about the authority of tyrannical governments?  (Sometimes I like to turn to my inner Mohandas Gandhi.)

Rites and Sacraments

The Moravian Book of Worship contains four Rites and Sacraments:

1. Baptism,
2. Confirmation and Affirmation of Baptism,
3. Marriage, and
4. Memorial Service and Burial.

One must consult the Manual for Worship Planners (1995) to find seldom-used services which would fit into this section otherwise.  They are:

1. Ordination of a Deacon,
2. Consecration of a Presbyter,
3. Consecration of a Bishop,
4. Special Celebration of Holy Communion (formerly Private Communion),
5. A Service of Word and Sacrament,
6. Groundbreaking for a Church Building,
7. the Laying of a Cornerstone, and
8. Dedication of a Church Building or other Structure.

Services for Holy Communion

The Liturgy of 1995 offers eight Services for Holy Communion, four of which the Moravian Book of Worship contains.  Those four are:

1. In Celebration of Christ’s Coming,
2. In Celebration of the Atonement,
3. In Celebration of the Resurrection, and
4. In Celebration of the Holy Spirit.

Four others are available in Services for Holy Communion (1996):

1. In Celebration of the Chief Eldership of Jesus Christ (for November Thirteenth),
2. In Celebration of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday,
3. In Celebration of Unity and Renewal (for August Thirteenth and the Martyrdom of Jan Hus), and
4. In Celebration of the Anniversary of a Congregation.

Psalms and Canticles

I have summarized the Psalms and Canticles section of the Liturgy of 1995 already.

End Matter

The church calendar, the obligatory acknowledgments, and a set of indices (minus biographical notes) complete the Moravian Book of Worship.

III.  READINGS FOR HOLY WEEK (1995)

This is an appropriate venue to write about another liturgical volume and its predecessors.  The Readings for Holy Week (1995), which exists in a regular edition, a large-print edition, a music edition, and an organ edition, is a successor of a series of books, reaching back to the time of Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700-1760).  He prepared the first Moravian harmony of the Passion accounts in the canonical Gospels for liturgical use.  A second edition, picking up the story the day before Palm Sunday, debuted in 1769.

The line of English-language Passion Week Manuals began in 1771.  I found an 1877 edition at archive.org.  The Northern Province printed a new edition in 1932.  The innovative aspect of that version was printing hymn stanzas at appropriate places in the narratives.  Prior to then liturgists were supposed to select the hymn stanzas.  The following year the Revised Bethlehem Edition of the 1932 Passion Week Manual debuted, adding choir music and using the American Standard Version of the Bible (1901).  The Southern Province published its Passion Week Manual in 1943, using the text of the Authorized Version of the Bible and using fewer and different hymn stanzas than its Northern Province counterpart.  Readings for Holy Week (Passion Week Manual) (1969), keyed to the Hymnal and Liturgies of the Moravian Church (1969), succeeded the 1932 and 1943 Passion Week Manuals.  The innovation in this edition was to cease breaking up the readings into different services, therefore allowing for more variety in congregational observance.

The Readings of Holy Week (1995), keyed to the Moravian Book of Worship (1995), uses the text of the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible (1989) and combines traditional and contemporary hymns from various genres.  The various editions (such as regular and music) break up the composite narrative by day and provide a resource for corporate and private devotion.

IV.  SING TO THE LORD A NEW SONG:  A NEW MORAVIAN SONGBOOK (2013)

Scan by Kenneth Randolph Taylor

++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hymnody and written liturgy is always changing–often for better, but sometimes for worse.  It is certainly never like an insect preserved for millions of years in amber.  Although I am a self-described and practicing European classicist and a liturgical conservative, I do not reject the new because it is new and affirm the old because it is old.  No, I seek quality and affirm it regardless of its age.  Unfortunately, much of recent church music is of inferior quality; mind-numbing praise choruses with few words one sings repeatedly come to mind immediately.  Verbose, theologically dense texts appeal to me, and most of those are old.

Sing to the Lord a New Song:  A New Moravian Songbook (2013), a product of the Moravian Music Foundation, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, contains gold, dross, and much in the middle.  The texts–liturgies, prayers, hymns, and songs–are all new, as are some of the tunes.  Most of the tunes, however, are standards.  Three examples follow:

1. “Passion Chorale” is the tune for the familiar “O Sacred Head, Sore Wounded.”  In Sing to the Lord a New Song it is the tune for “Walk With Me Each Day, Savior.”
2. “Slane” is the tune for “Be Thou My Vision” and “Lord of All Hopefulness” in many hymnals.  In Sing to the Lord a New Song it is the tune for “We Humbly Gather in This Place.”
3. “Tallis’ Canon” is the tune for “All Praise to Thee, My God, This Night” in many hymnals.  In Sing to the Lord a New Song it is the tune for a new Communion hymn, “Gather All Sisters and Brothers.”

Those are three examples of good texts.  Unfortunately, some of the texts are bad.  Exhibit A in my case is a Christmas song, “In This Crowd, Sing Aloud,” set to “Jingle Bells.”    The unimpressive lyrics include the following:

What a big surprise!

The Savior was a child!

The Christmas story goes to show God’s plans are really wild!

That text is far removed from the exalted standards of the Moravian Youth Hymnal (1942), a volume whose creators sought to give young people “the best in sacred music.”

Sing to the Lord a New Song contains eight liturgies, some prayers, and 78 or so hymns and songs.  The liturgies are:

1. Liturgy of Servanthood,
2. The Good Shepherd,
3. Examine Prayer,
4. Reflections on Psalm 121,
5. A Journey Through Psalm 23,
6. Mothers’ Day,
7. Fathers’ Day, and
8. inTending commUnity:  A Reflection.

Some of the liturgies and prayers are of a higher literary quality than others, but I propose that none of the authors can claim to be stylistic heirs of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556).

My verdict regarding Sing to the Lord a New Song is that one should pretend that the liturgies, the prayers, and some of the hymns and songs do not exist–like Jar Jar Binks, Howard the Duck (1986), and the Sixth Doctor’s garish outfit.

Above:  The Doctor and Davros in Revelation of the Daleks (1985)

A Screen Capture I took via PowerDVD

One can use most of the book in a spiritually and intellectually profitable manner, however.

The church calendar, the obligatory acknowledgments, and several indices complete the volume.  An index of hymn tunes is glaringly absent, however.

V.  CONCLUSION

I grew up in the State of Georgia–the southern part longer than in the north thereof.  There is only one Moravian congregation in the state–in the Atlanta suburb of Stone Mountain, to be exact.  Since 2005 I have lived in Athens-Clarke County, Georgia, to the northeast of Atlanta.  The combination of the these facts means that I have viewed the Moravian Church from a distance and never entered a building of a congregation thereof.  My experiences of Moravian music and liturgy have come via books, compact discs, radio programs, and Internet videos.  Classical Moravian music has become one of my favorite genres and has functioned as the soundtrack to much of my blogging–especially regarding Moravians and the Moravian Church.

Much of what I have learned while researching and writing this series of posts bothers me.  Members of the Unitas Fratrum are heirs to an illustrious heritage of quality–one which many, to their credit, maintain.  More of them should honor it and extend it into the future.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

FEBRUARY 25, 2015 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINTS GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS, NONNA, AND THEIR CHILDREN:  SAINTS GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS THE YOUNGER, CAESARIUS OF NAZIANZUS, AND GORGONIA OF NAZIANZUS

THE FEAST OF ELIZABETH FEDDE, LUTHERAN DEACONESS

THE FEAST OF JOHN ROBERTS, EPISCOPAL MISSIONARY TO THE SHOSONE AND ARAPAHOE

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Updated and Corrected Slightly on April 25, 2015

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HARDCOPY SOURCES

Burcaw, Robert T.  Discovering the New Moravian Book of Worship.  Bethlehem, PA:  Interprovincial Women’s Board of the Moravian Church, 199

__________, ed.  The Moravian Book of Worship Manual for Worship Planners.  Bethlehem, PA:  Interprovincial Board of Publications and Communications, 1995.

Frank, Albert H.  Companion to the Moravian Book of Worship.  Winston-Salem, NC:  Moravian Music Foundation, 2004.

Hymnal and Liturgies of the Moravian Church.  Bethlehem, PA:  Moravian Church in America, 1969.

Hymnal and Liturgies of the Moravian Church (Unitas Fratrum).  Bethlehem, PA:  Moravian Church in America, 1923.

Knouse, Nola Reed, ed.  The Music of the Moravian Church in America.  Rochester, NY:  University of Rochester Press, 2008.

Moravian Book of Worship.  Bethlehem, PA:  Moravian Church in America, 1995.

Moravian Church Desk Calendar and Plan Book 2014.  Bethlehem, PA:  Moravian Church in North America, 2013.

Moravian Youth Hymnal.  Bethlehem, PA:  Interprovincial Board of Christian Education, 1942.

Readings for Holy Week.  Bethlehem, PA:  Interprovincial Board of Communication, 2000.

Readings for Holy Week.  Music Edition.  Bethlehem, PA:  Interprovincial Board of Communication, 2000.

Sing to the Lord a New Song:  A New Moravian Songbook.  Winston-Salem, NC:  Moravian Music Foundation, 2013.

Singing from the Heart:  A Shorter Moravian Hymnal and Liturgies.  Winston-Salem, NC:  Moravian Church in America.  2010.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Above:  My Copies of the Hymnal and Liturgies of the Moravian Church (Unitas Fratrum) (1923), the Moravian Youth Hymnal (1942), the Moravian Youth Hymnal (1961), and the Hymnal and Liturgies of the Moravian Church (1969), February 20, 2015

Image Source = Kenneth Randolph Taylor

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

LITURGY IN THE MORAVIAN CHURCH IN AMERICA, PART IV

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Throughout, the revisers have striven to maintain the high standards and noble ideals handed down in the worship-song of the Moravian Church.

—Hymnal and Liturgies of the Moravian Church (Unitas Fratrum) (1923), page 5

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I.  PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION

This post stands in lineage with the Preface and Parts I, II, and III.

With this post I enter the phase of this series in which I operate almost entirely from hardcopy sources.  This reality appeals to me, for I relate better to a book than to a PDF file of a book.  I prefer paper to a screen any day.  And I can open two books and compare them side-by-side more easily than I can compare pages on PDF files on the same computer.

The Moravian Church in America published two major liturgical books-hymnals–in 1923 and 1969–and two youth hymnals-songbooks during the span of time this post covers.  The two provinces usually succeeded in balancing quality of texts and music on one hand and cultural popularity of style on the other.

II.  HYMNAL AND LITURGIES OF THE MORAVIAN CHURCH (UNITAS FRATRUM) (1923)

Above:  My Copy of the Hymnal and Liturgies of the Moravian Church (Unitas Fratrum) (1923), February 20, 2015

Image Source = Kenneth Randolph Taylor

Perhaps the best way to commence an analysis of the Hymnal and Liturgies of the Moravian Church (Unitas Fratrum) (1923) is with its appearance.  The gold-embossed letters in an ornate font set against a black cover proclaim a strong sense of reverence for God and the worship thereof.  Fortunately, most of the content is consistent with the formality of the external font.  Unfortunately, some of the content is inconsistent with the formality of the external font.

Next I move along to the Liturgy, which occupies pages 11-171.  Most of the content is identical to that of the 1890 expanded version of the 1876 Liturgy from the Liturgy and Hymns.  Some notable differences exist, however:

1. The Lord’s Supper service permits the use of individual cups.
2. The Communion for the Sick has become the Private Celebration of the Lord’s Supper.
3. Language in some rituals indicates the influence of the American Standard Version of the Bible (1901).
4. The new Special Services section includes four new services:  Missionary, Patriotic, For Schools and Colleges, and the Office for the Service Preparatory to the Holy Communion.
5. There is a second rite for the Burial of the Dead.
6. The Liturgical Service in Memory of the Martyrs has become the rite for All Saints’ Day.
7. The service for a Day of Humiliation and Prayer has departed the Services for the Church Seasons section for the new Special Services section.
8. The service for the First Sunday in Advent also fits the Third and Fourth Sundays in that season as well as Palm Sunday.  (The Second Sunday in Advent retains a separate service.)
9. The Communion Liturgies section has become the Communion Hymns section.

Of all of these changes, the one which arches my eyebrows the most is the fact that the service for three of the four Sundays in Advent applies also to Palm Sunday.  I, as an Episcopalian who uses The Book of Common Prayer (1979), am accustomed to a Palm Sunday ritual unique to that day.  The Moravian service in questions sounds like Advent, for it includes the hymn “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus” and sounds like Palm Sunday, for it includes the hymn “Hail to the Lord’s Anointed” and Isaiah 42:3 (Authorized Version):

A bruised reed shall He not break, and the smoking flax shall He not quench; He shall bring forth judgment unto truth.

The Patriotic service (pages 79-81) replaces Office of Worship XXXI (pages 31 and 32 of the Offices of Worship and Hymns, 1891).  The new service replaces a certain prayer, the one with the morally troublesome petition to learn “submit ourselves to every ordinance of man” for God’s sake.  That prayer, in full is:

Watch graciously over all governments; establish them in truth and righteousness, and give them thoughts of peace.  Bless the President of the United States and both Houses of Congress; the Governor and Legislature of this Commonwealth, and all others that are in authority; and grant us to lead under them a quiet and a peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.  Teach us to submit ourselves to every ordinance of man for Thy sake; and to seek the peace of the places where we dwell.  Give prosperity, O God, to this land, and salvation to all its people.

–Offices of Worship and Hymns (With Tunes) (1891), page 32

Is there no exemption for civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and genocidal dictators?  The replacement prayer is still troublesome from a post-Watergate perspective, however:

Bless the President of the United States and both Houses of Congress, the Governor and Legislature of this Commonwealth, and all others that are in authority.  Protect them from violence, and fill the hearts of the people with reverence and love for those who, as the ministers of God, have been set for the punishment of evil-doers and the praise of them that do well.  Raise up for us shepherds that shall perform Thy pleasure, who, in patience and fortitude, shall stay themselves upon their God.

—The Hymnal and Liturgies of the Moravian Church (Unitas Fratrum) (1923), page 80

The Hymnal and Liturgies (1923) includes a lectionary table, a list of the festivals of the church year, 25 chants and responses, 952 hymns, and several indices.  The topically arranged hymns include a healthy representation of the output of Moravian authors, translators, and composers as well as products from ecumenical hymnody.

The hymns range from the old to the more recent, “recent” meaning the author, translator, or composer was alive in 1923.  Most of the hymn content of the book, however, comes from people who died before that year.  And the quality of texts ranges from John Mason Neale (1818-1866) translations of Greek and Latin hymns on the high end to Frances Jane Van Alstyne (Fanny J. Crosby) (1820-1915) hymns on the low end, with “Jesus Loves Me, This I Know” occupying room in the middle (closer to Crosby than to Neale).

The format of the hymn section is old-fashioned by contemporary standards.  The musical systems contain the first verse only, so the other verses fill space below the systems.  This is a format consistent with practice of the time.  I have identified it in other volumes dating from 1895 to 1918 in my collection.  I have also noticed a different format–placing more or all verses inside the systems–in denominational hymnals as early as 1918.

III.  MORAVIAN YOUTH HYMNAL (1942-1961)

Above:  My Copies of the 1942 and 1961 Editions of the Moravian Youth Hymnal, February 20, 2015

Image Source = Kenneth Randolph Taylor

The First Edition (1942)

The Moravian Youth Hymnal for Use in Church School and All Young People’s Meetings stands in line with Moravian youth hymn books as far back as 1755.  It is certainly a successor to the Hymns and Offices of Worship (1866) and the Offices of Worship and Hymns (1872).  Those who prepared the Moravian Youth Hymnal manifested a commitment to quality.  As the Preface to the First Edition stated:

It is a lamentable fact that the Christian churches of America have been slow in giving their young people the best in sacred music.  Many testify to the fact that they find better music in their public schools than in their churches and church-schools.  The various denominations have been moving to raise the quality of church-school music.  With this hymnal, the Moravian Church makes its contribution to a great cause.

The First Edition opens with 219 hymns, arranged topically.   All the verses are inside the musical systems, unlike the arrangement in the Hymnal and Liturgies (1923).  The selection of hymns indicates a classical bias, of which I approve.  They range from antiquity (Clement of Alexandria, who lived from 170 to 220 C.E.) to the twentieth century, with Henry Van Dyke‘s masterpiece, “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee,” set to a tune arranged from Ludwig von Beethoven‘s Symphony #9.  Also, “Jesus Loves Me! This I Know,” present in the Hymnal and Liturgies (1923), is absent from the Moravian Youth Hymnal.  The classical bias is also evident in the Orders of Worship.  The first Order of Worship opens with either “Morning” from Edvard Grieg‘s Peer Gynt or a hymn, “Light of the World, We Hail Thee.”  The hymnal impresses me.

The Worship Section of the Moravian Youth Hymnal (1942) contains Orders of Worship, Aids to Worship, and a Devotional Poetry section.  There are sixteen Orders of Worship:

1. Morning Watch;
2. Divine Guidance;
3. The Word of God;
4. The Lord Is Come;
5. The Lord is Risen;
6. The Spirit-Filled Life;
7. The Good Shepherd;
8. Worship and Admonition;
9. Christian Education;
10. Worship Through Music;
11. Life, a Stewardship;
12. The Christian Home;
13. For God and Country;
14. Peace and World Brotherhood;
15. The Field is the World; and
16. A Service for the Out-of-Doors.

Order of Worship XIII, the patriotic service, includes the troublesome prayer about submitting “ourselves to every ordinance of man” for God’s sake, unfortunately.  I have too much of a rebellious tendency in my thinking to consent to that sentiment.

There are six categories of Aids to Worship:

1. Calls to Worship,
2. Prayers,
3. Offertory Sentences,
4. Benedictions,
5. Suggested Scripture Selections; and
6. Responsive Readings.

The Devotional Poetry Section has twelve categories:

1. Worship,
2. Prayer,
3. God’s Word,
4. God’s Time,
5. Faith and Trust,
6. The Child Christ,
7. The Man Christ,
8. Salvation and Easter,
9. The Christian Life–Brotherhood-Aspiration,
10. Nature and the Out-of-Doors,
11. Peace, and
12. Morning Worship.

Indices complete the volume.

Subsequent Editions and Printings

The Moravian Youth Hymnal went into multiple printings and editions.  I acquired two different versions via the Internet for my library.  One is the First Edition (1942); the other comes from 1961.  The title page of that volume contains four years:  1942, 1954, 1956, and, of course, 1961.  That book has two prefaces and claims to be the Second Edition.  I notice some discrepancies, however:

1. The Preface to the Second Edition states that the hymn section remains unaltered and that the Orders of Worship have undergone extensive revision.
2. Yet that same Preface mentions junior hymns supplement (#222-235), all classical, tasteful hymns, such as “Away in the Manger” and “We Three Kings.”
3. The 1961 version of the Moravian Youth Hymnal also contains hymns #220 (Christian Gregor‘s Hosanna of 1783) and #221 (Francis Florentine Hagen‘s Morning Star).

The revised Orders of Worship exist in two sections:  Services of Worship and Liturgical Forms.  The revised forms quote the Revised Standard Version of the Bible (1952), not the Authorized Version.  Updated versions of all of the sixteen orders from 1942 are present, with one name change; “Divine Guidance” has become “Choosing the Way.”  The two new Services of Worship are “The Church” and “Thanksgiving and Harvest Home.”  The eleven Liturgical Forms are:

1. Worship,
2. Beatitudes,
3. Christ (Lent),
4. Trinity,
5. Christian Life,
6. Christian Growth,
7. Love,
8. Humility,
9. Peace,
10. Stewardship, and
11. Youth.

The Aids to Worship section has five categories–the six from 1942 minus Prayers.

Indices complete the volume.

I know from Internet searches that the Moravian Youth Hymnal remained in print at least as late as 1966.

IV.  MORAVIAN FELLOWSHIP SONGS (NO EARLIER THAN 1954)

Moravian Fellowship Songs is a volume considerably less illustrious than the Moravian Youth Hymnal.  The slim paperback (96 pages, to be precise) offers no publication date, but my review of internal evidence (copyright notices on songs) indicates that the American Moravian Youth Fellowship published the book no earlier than 1954.  The range of quality of the 112 songs ranges from the abysmal to the excellent.  Classics of hymnody rub shoulders with “This Old Man” and “Hiking Song.”  Between those two extremes reside rounds and spirituals, far from my favorite genres.  (I am a European classicist.  Brian Wren takes this attitude to task in Praying Twice:  The Music and Words of Congregational Song, 2000.  It is an expression of classism, he writes in disapproval.  Nevertheless, I remain an ardent European classicist.)  Forms for a communion service and a lovefeast fill the back of the book, which ends with an index and a list of fun songs.

V.  HYMNAL AND LITURGIES OF THE MORAVIAN CHURCH (1969)

Above:  My Copy of the Hymnal and Liturgies of the Moravian Church (1969), February 20, 2015

Image Source = Kenneth Randolph Taylor

The final volume I analyze in this post is the Hymnal and Liturgies of the Moravian Church (1969), the one with a cross and a chalice on the red front cover.  My copy of the Hymnal and Liturgies (1969) is thicker than my copy of its 1923 predecessor despite the fact that the 1969 book contains 358 fewer hymns than the Hymnal and Liturgies (1923).  The 1923 volume offers 952 hymns and 25 chants and responses, but its immediate successor contains 594 hymns and 29 chants and responses.  Another difference is that the Hymnal and Liturgies (1969) offers a more ecumenical hymnody than does its immediate predecessor.  The selection in the 1969 volume is more contemporary relative to its publication date and contains more folk and gospel hymns than does the Hymnal and Liturgies (1923).

The Liturgy of 1969 is similar to that of 1923 in many ways.  There are, however, some noticeable differences:

1. The Liturgy of 1923 contains two General Liturgies, I and II.  The Liturgy of 1969, however, contains four, the Liturgies of Confession, Trust, Adoration, and Covenanting.
2. The version of the Church Litany in the Hymnal and Liturgies (1969) is abbreviated and revised to remove duplications.
3. There is just one rite for the Burial of the Dead again.  (There are two in the Liturgy of 1923.)
4. The Liturgy of 1969 merges the Liturgical Services for the Church Seasons section and the Special Services section from 1923 into the Church Year and Special Occasions section.
5. Some of the rites in Church Year and Special Occasions section have different names than their 1923 counterparts.  “Missionary” has become “the Spread of the Gospel,” “Epiphany” has become “Epiphany and Christian Witness,” “Whitsunday” has become “Pentecost (Whitsunday),” “All Saint’ Day” has become “All Saints,” “For Schools and Colleges” has become “Education,” “Patriotic” has become “National Occasions,” and “A Day of Humiliation and Prayer” has become “Penitence and Prayer.”
6. The Communion Hymns section has become the Holy Communion section.
7. The preparatory service for the Lord’s Supper, located in the Special Services section in 1923, has moved to the Holy Communion section.
8. The Liturgy of 1969 merges the services for Pentecost and August Thirteenth.
9. The Liturgy of 1969 merges the confirmation service and the rite for Baptism of Adults, adds the Reaffirmation of Faith, and creates a unified rite for the Admission of Adults with the option of omitting unnecessary elements in congregational settings without, as the Preface says, “damage to the whole.”

The Liturgy of 1969, debuting on the cusp of great change in the language of worship and in the calendar of much of Western Christianity, retained old-fashioned pronouns (Thee, Thy, et cetera) and the old calendar, complete with Septuagesima, Sexagesima, Quinquagesima, and Sundays after Trinity.  (The revised Roman Catholic calendar and lectionary, which influenced much of Protestantism and Anglicanism, became effective on the First Sunday of Advent, 1969.  The -gesimas were gone and Sundays after Pentecost replaced Sundays after Trinity.)  These facts, combined with the rapidly changing hymnody of the 1970s (not to mention the 1980s), rendered the Hymnal and Liturgies (1969) outdated when it was young.  The volume was not unique in this regard; I can name other books of the same genre and generation (about 1965-1973) to which that statement applies.  Many of them were excellent books of greater quality than then-contemporary, Low Church Evangelical resources.  And, as much as I pray to God as “You,” not “Thee,” I would rather sing out of the Hymnal and Liturgies (1969) than out of non-denominational Evangelical hymn books such as Hymns for the Living Church (1974), Hymns for the Family of God (1976), and The New Church Hymnal (1976).

As usual with Moravian hymnals, the indexing is thorough.  Also, the biographical notes in one index are quite helpful.

VI.  CONCLUSION

The Moravian Book of Worship (1995) replaced the Hymnal and Liturgies (1969).  Just as use of the Hymnal and Liturgies (1923) continued after 1969, use of the Hymnal and Liturgies (1969) persists.  (I have found evidence of this on congregational websites.)  The increasing diversity of the Moravian Church in America, fed in large part by immigration, has led to more variety in worship and song styles.  Official and unofficial Moravian Church publications I have read accept, if not praise, this change.  I, however, remain a staid Episcopalian and an unapologetic European classicist.  I know what I like, and old Moravian hymnals approach that ideal more often than contemporary ones do.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

FEBRUARY 22, 2015 COMMON ERA

THE FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT, YEAR B

THE FEAST OF ERIC LIDDELL, SCOTTISH PRESBYTERIAN MISSIONARY TO CHINA

THE FEAST OF SAINT PRAETEXTUS, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF ROUEN

THE FEAST OF RASMUS JENSEN, LUTHERAN MISSIONARY TO CANADA

THE FEAST OF SAINTS THALLASIUS, LIMNAEUS, AND MARON, ROMAN CATHOLIC MONKS

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HARDCOPY SOURCES

The Book of Common Worship:  Provisional Services and Lectionary for the Christian Year.  Philadelphia, PA:  Westminster Press, 1966.

The Book of Worship for Church and Home; With Orders of Worship, Services for the Administration of Sacraments, and Aids to Worship According to the Usages of The Methodist Church.  Nashville, TN:  Methodist Publishing House, 1965.

Burcaw, Robert T., ed.  The Moravian Book of Worship Manual for Worship Planners.  Bethlehem, PA:  Interprovincial Board of Publications and Communications, 1995.

Common Service Book of the Lutheran Church.  Philadelphia, PA:  Board of Publication of the United Lutheran Church in America, 1918.

The Covenant Hymnal.  Chicago, IL:  Covenant Press, 1973.

Frank, Albert H.  Companion to the Moravian Book of Worship.  Winston-Salem, NC:  Moravian Music Foundation, 2004.

Holy Women, Holy Men:  Celebrating the Saints.  New York, NY:  Church Publishing, 2010.

The Hymn Book of the Anglican Church of Canada and the United Church of Canada.  1971.

The Hymnal.  Philadelphia, PA:  Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath-School Work, 1895.

The Hymnal.  Philadelphia, PA:  Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath-School Work, 1911.

The Hymnal.  New York, NY:  Oxford University Press, 1918.

Hymnal and Liturgies of the Moravian Church.  Bethlehem, PA:  Moravian Church in America, 1969.

Hymnal and Liturgies of the Moravian Church (Unitas Fratrum).  Bethlehem, PA:  Moravian Church in America, 1923.

The Hymnal with the Supplement of 1917.  Philadelphia, PA:  Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath-School Work, 1917.

Hymnbook for Christian Worship.  St. Louis, MO:  Bethany Press, 1970.

Hymns for the Family of God.  Nashville, TN:  Paragon Associates, 1976.

Hymns for the Living Church.  Carol Stream, IL:  Hope Publishing Company, 1974.

Knouse, Nola Reed, ed.  The Music of the Moravian Church in America.  Rochester, NY:  University of Rochester Press, 2008.

The Liturgy of the Reformed Church in America Together with the Psalter Selected and Arranged for Responsive Reading.  Gerrit T. Vander Lugt, Ed.  New York, NY:  Board of Education, 1968.

The Methodist Hymnal.  New York:  Eaton & Mains, 1905.

The Methodist Hymnal:  Official Hymnal of The Methodist Church.  Nashville, TN:  Methodist Publishing House, 1966.

Moravian Book of Worship.  Bethlehem, PA:  Moravian Church in America, 1995.

Moravian Youth Hymnal.  Bethlehem, PA:  Interprovincial Board of Christian Education, 1942.

Moravian Youth Hymnal.  Bethlehem, PA:  Interprovincial Board of Christian Education, 1961.

The New Church Hymnal.  Lexicon Music, 1976.

The New Psalms and Hymns.  Richmond, VA:  Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1901.

The Pilgrim Hymnal with Responsive Readings.  New York, NY:  Pilgrim Press, 1904.

The Pilgrim Hymnal with Responsive Readings and Other Aids to Worship.  Boston, MA:  Pilgrim Press, 1912.

Worship in Song Hymnal.  Kansas City, MO:  Lillenas Publishing Company, 1972.

The Worshipbook–Services and Hymns.  Philadelphia, PA:  Westminster Press, 1972.

Wren, Brian.  Praying Twice:  The Music and Words of Congregational Song.  Louisville, KY:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2000.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Above:  The Flag of the United States of America, 1877

Image in the Public Domain

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

LITURGY IN THE MORAVIAN CHURCH IN AMERICA, PART III

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Watch graciously over all governments; establish them in truth and righteousness, and give them thoughts of peace.  Bless the President of the United States and both Houses of Congress; the Governor and Legislature of this Commonwealth, and all others that are in authority; and grant us to lead under them a quiet and a peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.  Teach us to submit ourselves to every ordinance of man for Thy sake; and to seek the peace of the places where we dwell.  Give prosperity, O God, to this land, and salvation to all its people.

—Offices of Worship and Hymns (With Tunes) (1891), page 32

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I.  PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION

This post stands in lineage with the Preface, Part I, and Part II.

I wrote Part II of this series in August 2014.  Since then I have been pursuing other projects, but now I return to this series.  I predict that the Liturgy in the Moravian Church in America series will have five installments.  The projected Part IV will cover the Hymnal and Liturgies of the Moravian Church (Unitas Fratrum) (1923), the Moravian Youth Hymnal (1942, 1954, 1956, and 1961), and the Hymnal and Liturgies of the Moravian Church (1969).  The projected Part V will encompass the Moravian Book of Worship (1995) and Sing to the Lord a New Song:  A New Moravian Songbook (2013).

Part of what I have been doing relative to blogging since August has proven helpful in preparing for the writing of this post and the initial planning of the projected Parts IV and V.  Among my other projects is the Ecumenical Calendar of Saints’ Days and Holy Days at SUNDRY THOUGHTS, my original weblog.  Some of the people I have added to the Ecumenical Calendar have been figures to whom I will refer to in this post and in subsequent posts in this series.  When, for example, I read the name “Mrs. J. Kenneth Pfhol” in the Preface to the Second Edition of the Moravian Youth Hymnal (1954), I know that she was actually Harriet Elizabeth “Bessie” Whittington Pfohl (1881-1971), wife of Bishop John Kenneth Pfohl, Sr. (1874-1967).  And the name of Francis Florentine Hagen (1815-1907) means something to me, for I have also declared him to be a saint recently.

A few notes regarding sources are appropriate.  An invaluable source has been Michael E. Westinghouse’s academic paper, “A Look at Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century Liturgy” (December 2011), which he wrote in partial fulfillment of his Master of Arts in Liberal Studies at Wake Forest University.  I found that resource via an Internet search and downloaded the PDF file.  Links to electronic copies of certain books at archive.org populate this post so that you, O reader, will have an opportunity to read those volumes.  Finally, I have included a Bibliography of Hardcopy Sources at the end of this post.

Shall we launch into the material without further ado, O reader?

II.  ESTABLISHING AN AMERICAN MORAVIAN IDENTITY

 Context and Theoretical Approach

Transitions are difficult times, for being betwixt and between, neither one thing or another, is inherently awkward.  That is true of individuals, as those familiar with adolescence understand.  It also applies to institutions, such as those making the transition from one language to another.  The Moravian Church in America struggled with that issue as it contended with problems germane to cultural assimilation and related questions of identity in the marketplace of ecclesiastical ideas in the United States of America.  The new shape of American Moravian identity and practice arose from the old and remained easily recognizable as Moravian.

Certain old ways were ceasing to be feasible.  Moravian communal living, which had not prevented profitable enterprises among members of the Unitas Fratrum, had made maintaining a rigorous worship schedule possible.  Yet, by the late 1850s, as many of the United Brethren accepted mainstream employment and kept schedules consistent with it, attendance at services plummeted.  A contributing factor to this change in church attendance was the decline in the number of German speakers and the increase in the number of English speakers.  Many liturgical resources were in German, hence irrelevant to English speakers.  The production of German-language hymnals continued, with a new hymnbook (containing 836 texts) in 1848 and its revision rolling off the presses in 1885.  A constituency for such resources existed for some time, obviously, but it was shrinking.  In addition, many English-speaking Moravians departed the Unitas Fratrum for congregations of other Protestant communions, such as the Baptists and the Methodists, which had simpler forms of worship.

During much of the nineteenth century U.S. Moravian worship resources were reprints or adaptations of books from England and Germany.  The first original U.S. Moravian liturgies and hymnals debuted in the 1860s and 1870s, a few years after 1857, when the global Moravian Church, accepting an American proposal, restructured itself and granted home rule in the provinces.  American Moravian provincial synods, using their domestic autonomy, declared liturgical independence and innovated within their tradition.

U.S. Lutheran minister Philip H. Pfatteicher, writing about the transition from the Service Book and Hymnal (1958) to the Lutheran Book of Worship (1978), including the Contemporary Worship series of ten temporary and provisional volumes in which liturgists experimented from 1969 to 1976, observed:

The revolution of the 1960s and the early ’70s was flawed because, as Sigurdur Nordal wisely observes in another context, “The preservation of old values is an indispensable counterpart to the creation of the new.”  The church needed by trial and occasional error to come to understand that the new is not always found in opposition to the old but arises from the old as its natural growth and development.  Stability and continuity are essential elements of catholic Christianity.

—Commentary on the Lutheran Book of Worship:  Lutheran Liturgy in Its Ecumenical Context (1990), page 10

Likewise, U.S. Moravian liturgical innovation during the late 1800s arose from old practices and adapted to then-contemporary circumstances.

New Hymnals and Liturgies

Prior to 1851

The first Moravian liturgical book anyone printed in America was the 1801 hymnal (with the supplement of 1808) of the British Province, in 1813.  A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the Protestant Church of the United Brethren–New and Revised Edition (composite, 1809) was just one resource Moravians in the United States used in worship.  There was also the British Province’s revised hymnal of 1826, A Collection of Hymns for the the Use of the Protestant Church of the United Brethren–New and Revised Edition.  And there were, of course, German-language resources. Then, in 1849, the British Province published another hymnal, the Liturgy and Hymns for the Use of the Protestant Church of the United Brethren, or Unitas Fratrum–A New and Revised Edition, with 1260 hymns.

The Liturgy and Hymns for the Use of the Protestant Church of the United Brethren, or Unitas Fratrum–A New and Revised Edition (1851)

Two years later the American adaptation of the 1849 British Liturgy and Hymns debuted.  The U.S. version dropped some hymns, added others, and offered 1200 hymns.  It was a text-only volume, in accordance with Moravian practice at the time.  The traditional services, such as the Church Litany, populated the front of the book, but the Litany had been falling out of favor in America.

The Hymns and Offices of Worship, for Use in Schools; With an Appendix of Tunes (1866) and the Offices of Worship and Hymns, Principally for Use in Schools; With an Appendix of Tunes (1872)

Reinvigoration of U.S. Moravian worship began in 1864, with the authorization of the creation of new liturgies.  The resulting volume was the Hymns and Offices of Worship, for Use in Schools; With an Appendix of Tunes (1866).  The second edition, renamed the Offices of Worship and Hymns, Principally for Use in Schools; With an Appendix of Tunes, debuted six years later.  The Offices of Worship marked a turning point in American Moravian liturgical practices.  The first volume, intended for occasional use  in informal settings, such as Sunday Schools and boarding schools, became popular in more contexts, such as churches and homes, hence the slight difference in the title in the second edition.  Peter Wolle (1792-1871), whose Moravian Tune Book, technically Hymn Tunes Used in the Church of the United Brethren (1836) had edited traditional Moravian tunes to make them sound less foreign to native-born Americans, served on the committee for the first edition.  One goal of the 1866 edition was that Moravian children would, to quote The Book of Common Prayer with regard to scripture in the collect for Proper 28, to “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” the 360 hymns included in the volume and grow up with a better grasp of Moravian hymnody than many Moravian adults had.  The first edition introduced seven Offices of Worship (drawn heavily from the Bible) for use alongside the traditional rites.  The second edition (1872) revised some of those Offices and added four more.

The Offices of Worship stood within tradition and departed from it simultaneously.  Including hymn tunes and texts (seldom on the same page) departed from the then-contemporary practice yet approached a tradition the Moravian Church had abandoned in the seventeenth century.  Also, the Offices of Worship, which were consistent with traditional rituals in content were new in structure.  Furthermore, the 1866 and 1872 books standardized the American hymn tunes which many congregations had been singing for years.  The hymnal portion of the 1872 Offices of Worship, consisting of 365 texts, was small by Moravian standards (1260 in the 1849 British hymnal, 1200 in the 1851 American hymnal, et cetera), but it was a start.  And the third edition, that of 1891, contained 1564 hymns.

The Liturgy and Hymns of the American Province of the Unitas Fratrum, or the Moravian Church (1876 and 1890)

The Liturgy and Hymns of the American Province of the Unitas Fratrum, or the Moravian Church (1876) drew from German rites, ecumenical hymnody, and the Offices of Worship.  The Liturgy and Hymns, which existed in early and late versions, became more extensive by 1890, when it came to include ten Communion Liturgies and fourteen Liturgical Services for the Church Seasons, including two for Sunday Evening.  These Communion Liturgies and Liturgical Services included designated hymns for the congregation to sing.  The rubrics for the Liturgical Services gave ministers discretion to use those rites in lieu of the traditional Church Litany.  The 1876/1890 book was the first really American Moravian formal liturgy and hymnal.  It also reflected the influence of the Oxford Movement within the Anglican Communion and established the template for the beloved Hymnal and Liturgies of the Moravian Church (Unitas Fratrum) (1923).  930 hymns (words only), 28 doxologies and benedictions (also words only), and an index completed the volume.

The Offices of Worship and Hymns (With Tunes) (1891)

The next liturgical development was the Offices of Worship and Hymns (With Tunes) (1891), which returned to the long-abandoned Moravian tradition of pairing words and tunes in hymnals consistently.  This book, which arranged the tunes by meter, provided the tune (usually without words inside the systems) then the hymns one could sing to it.  This, the third and greatly expanded edition in the Offices of Worship series of volumes, was for use in churches, homes (at morning and evening worship), schools, et cetera.  Whereas the first edition (1866) had offered 360 hymns and the second edition (1872) had contained 365 hymns, the third edition boasted 1564 hymns, indexed thoroughly in various indices.  Furthermore, the 1891 Offices of Worship offered 31 services, including one for a national holiday, in contrast to the seven services in the 1866 book and the eleven services in the 1872 volume.  The 1891 Offices of Worship resembled the 1876/1890 Liturgy and Hymns, down to the tables for the festivals and the lectionary for the church year.

The Liturgy and Offices of Worship and Hymns of the American Province of the Unitas Fratrum, or the Moravian Church (1908)

The merged form of the Offices of Worship (1891) and the Liturgy from the Liturgy and Hymns (1876 and 1890) was the Liturgy and Offices of Worship and Hymns of the American Province of the Unitas Fratrum, or the Moravian Church (1908).  Two standard works became one.  The Hymnal and Liturgies of the Moravian Church (Unitas Fratrum) (1923) succeeded it in 1923.

One should not imagine, however, that adherence to the official Moravian rituals, even allowing for substituting another rite for the Church Litany, was uniform in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  Sometimes extemporaneous prayer replaced litanies, for example.  Furthermore, congregations adapted liturgical practices.  The Reverend Otto Dreydoppel, Jr., in Chapter 1 of The Moravian Book of Worship Manual for Worship Planners (1995), quoted Bishop Edwin W. Kortz, who said that the Moravian Church

is not so much a liturgical church as it is a free church with a long and rich tradition of liturgical prayer.

–page 13

That description is consistent with the liturgical deviations I mentioned earlier in this paragraph.

III.  CONCLUSION

Some of the old problems persisted after the publication of the Offices of Worship (1866, 1872, and 1891) and the Liturgy and Hymns (1876 and 1890).  Although the Offices of Worship and Hymns (1891) had congregations singing hymns such as “Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me” in particular services, the Reverend Francis Florentine Hagen (1815-1907), a great Moravian composer, found cause to complain about the detrimental effects of singing German chorale tunes badly upon the life of the Church in 1893:

By forcing upon English-speaking American Churches foreign tunes, which but few are able to sing properly, we estrange from our services the very people among whom God has placed us to work.  Need we wonder at our stunted growth?

–Quoted in The Music of the Moravian Church in America, edited by Nola Reed Knouse (2008), page 255

The saga of liturgy and hymnody in the Moravian Church in America is far from over.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

FEBRUARY 19, 2015 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINT NERSES I THE GREAT, CATHOLICOS OF THE ARMENIAN APOSTOLIC CHURCH; AND SAINT MESROP, BIBLE TRANSLATOR

THE FEAST OF BERNARD BARTON, ENGLISH QUAKER POET AND HYMN WRITER

THE FEAST OF SAINT ELEUTHERIUS OF TOURNAI, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP AND MARTYR

THE FEAST OF MILES COVERDALE, BIBLE TRANSLATOR

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HARDCOPY SOURCES

The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church Together with The Psalter or Psalms of David According to the Use of The Episcopal Church.  New York, NY:  Oxford University Press, 1979.  Reprint, 2007.

Burcaw, Robert T., ed.  The Moravian Book of Worship Manual for Worship Planners.  Bethlehem, PA:  Interprovincial Board of Publications and Communications, 1995.

Engel, Katherine Carte.  Religion and Profit:  Moravians in Early America.  Philadelphia, PA:  University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009.

Frank, Albert H.  Companion to the Moravian Book of Worship.  Winston-Salem, NC:  Moravian Music Foundation, 2004.

Hutton, James E.  A History of the Moravian Church.  London, England, UK:  Moravian Publication Office, 1909.  Reprint.

Hymnal and Liturgies of the Moravian Church (Unitas Fratrum).  Bethlehem, PA:  Moravian Church in America, 1923.

Knouse, Nola Reed, ed.  The Music of the Moravian Church in America.  Rochester, NY:  University of Rochester Press, 2008.

Pfatteicher, Philip H.  Commentary on the Lutheran Book of Worship:  Lutheran Liturgy in Its Ecumenical Context.  Minneapolis, MN:  Augsburg Fortress, 1990.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++