"This stimulating collection provides much-needed coverage and enrichment in a neglected sector of American religious experience. If you want to understand the evangelical stream of what gets called 'religion in practice' these days, there's no better place to start. By contrast, copies of this superb book will soon be as well-thumbed as your grandmother's hymnal. "Collections of scholarly essays typically gather dust, their spines hardly cracked, their pages pristine and unread. Wonderful Words of Life models the kind of scholarship we need for every time and place where Christianity has gone, to understand the powerful effects of ordinary people singing praise to God.
Hymn singing expresses theological ideas, challenges common wisdom, defines and enacts community, and roots the gospel in culture. For American Protestants, hymn singing is nearly sacramental it also can be political. Isn't it odd, then, that so little careful study has been devoted to popular hymnody? True religion, Jonathan Edwards once said, can never be doctrinal knowledge only, 'without affection.' Vital faith is rather 'a ferment, a vigorous engagedness of the heart.' Few human acts can so powerfully fuse heads, hearts, hands, and voices like singing, and these authors show how multidimensional vocal praise has been. "At least since the time when Paul and Silas sang from the depths of the Philippian jail, praising God with hymns has been central to the Christian faith. Bergler Virginia Lieson Brereton Esther Rothenbusch Crookshank Kevin Kee Richard J. Includes appendixes on the American Protestant Hymn Project and on hymns in Roman Catholic hymnals.Ĭontributors: Susan Wise Bauer Thomas E. The book focuses mainly on church life in the United States but also discusses the foundational contributions of Isaac Watts and other British hymn writers, the use of gospel songs in English Canada, and the powerful attraction of African-American gospel music for whites of several religious persuasions. Written by knowledgeable church historians, Wonderful Words of Life explores the significance of hymn-singing in many dimensions of American Protestant and evangelical life.
This book examines the role and importance of hymns in evangelicalism, not only as a part of worship but as tools for theological instruction, as a means to identity formation, and as records of past spiritual experiences of the believing community. While many evangelical congregations have moved away from hymns and hymnals, these were once central fixtures in the evangelical tradition.
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