Esolen's Liturgical Stooges
If you are unfamiliar with Anthony Esolen, he is a modern Roman Catholic scholar and thinker, and friend of the LCMS who was given an honorary doctorate by Concordia Theological Seminary. His writings on modern culture, art, hymns, and liturgy would make him an honorary member of The Gottesdienst Crowd as well. His book Out of the Ashes is one that I recommend to all Christians.
His latest piece in Crisis Magazine, “Liturgical Stooges,” can easily be applied to a Lutheran audience, and I argue that we should take it up and read it. It addresses the 20th century butchery of hymnody, mainly in the context of Roman Catholic churches. This applies even more to us as Lutherans, as “the singing church,” given that our traditional Gottesdiensts (Masses) generally include as least three hymns as well as one or more for the distribution of the Most Holy Sacrament. Our hymnody is far more important to our tradition than it is to Roman Catholicism. The hymns from our Lutheran tradition - as well as solid hymns that we have appropriated - express scriptural fidelity, artistic beauty, theological rigor, and encouragement to soldier on as members of the church militant. They are rooted in Christ and in the means of grace.
But in our modern hymnals, the words are often changed. Esolen explains why:
The editors will vandalize when they think they can get away with it, with these aims:
To eliminate all archaic language;
To blunt or obliterate masculine references to God or Christ, when possible;
To obliterate the generic use of man, for which there is no adequate substitute in English;
To excise verses and hymns about the Church Militant.
The first aim is foolish and pointless. The others are malignant.
Thus Esolen identifies the reasons for this “vandalism” as the desire to modernize all archaic language (the “Thees and the Thous” as some people say it). There is also the urge to downplay the inclusive masculine - such as “man” or “mankind” or the masculine pronouns. But when it comes to lyric poetry, changing a word, say, “descendeth” to “descends” (as both Roman Catholics and Lutherans have done with the hymn, "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence,”) results in a change in the rhyming scheme. This results in further monkeyshines with the text to fix that problem. This leads to a messed-up meter, and even more three stooges style shenanigans. Grammar has to get changed, clauses have to get chip-chopped, and like one rescheduled flight at the airport, there is a cascade effect.
Esolen’s piece includes a detailed analysis of this hymn, as well as another one that is popular with a certain demographic cohort: “Lift High the Cross.”
In our Lutheran context, we have also taken the hatchet to some of our best and most beloved chorales, removing stanzas because, I suppose, we are too bored, stupid, or distracted to sing them all like our great-grandparents did. And so certain unnamed editors have had the power to forever remove certain stanzas from hymns that are hundreds of years old. Well, maybe not forever. Modern self-publishing options have created opportunities to go around the gatekeepers and to restore the beauty to our hacked-up hymnody - especially where the rapacious lawyers have been neutered by the words that frighten every CEO of every publishing house: “public domain.”
We don’t have to submit to an elite of butchers who are intent on emasculating our hymns to appease what the sainted Professor Marquart called “little old ladies of both sexes.”
Dr. Esolen’s piece is great food for thought, especially as we are approaching the time for a new hymnal. Unity is an important consideration, but it isn’t the only one. It would greatly serve the church for the editors of LSB’s successor to restore the missing stanzas, put back the masculine imagery, and just trust us to know that “descendeth” simply means “descends” - and keep the artistic integrity and beauty of the poetry that we have squandered away for limericks and cringeworthy lyrics along the lines of “roses are red, violets are blue.”
Dr. Esolen points out that we still pray the Lord’s Prayer with all the Thees and Thous - even though LCMS hymnals post-TLH did try to modernize the Our Father. Even for a certain demographic cohort and for the CoWo crowd, that was a bridge too far. This serves to prove that the vandalism can be repaired and re-beautified. We don’t have to live with the blight. What was taken from us can be put right back. As C.S. Lewis reminds us, we can turn back the clock:
First, as to putting the clock back. Would you think I was joking if I said that you can put a clock back, and that if the clock is wrong it is often a very sensible thing to do? But I would rather get away from that whole idea of clocks. We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man. We have all seen this when doing arithmetic. When I have started a sum the wrong way, the sooner I admit this and go back and start again, the faster I shall get on. There is nothing progressive about being pig-headed and refusing to admit a mistake. And I think if you look at the present state of the world it's pretty plain that humanity has been making some big mistake. We're on the wrong road. And if that is so we must go back. Going back is the quickest way on.
As Dr. Esolen puts it:
In the Our Father, we say, “Hallowed be thy name,” and we know what we’re saying…. What’s wrong with that? The saintly Fr. Walter Ciszek, writing about his years in the gulags of the Soviet Union, took as the title of his work the first words of a beloved hymn, He Leadeth Me. Anyone confused? When editors modernize the language, they invariably screw it up.
So maybe we need to stop thinking we know better than Michelangelo and knock it off with our “improvements.” Unity is important, but integrity should be of a higher priority. That said, why can we have both?
Thank you, Dr. Esolen. You can read his piece here.