Below, for your consideration and reflection, is the sermon from Bethel's August 8, 2004 Sunday Morning worship service.

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Evangelicalism, which most people can neither pronounce nor spell, like the words liberal or conservative, fundamentalist or progressive, is an elastic word subject to a variety of interpretative uses. In the fight to define religion in America, particularly in seasons of political ferment and change, words like these get charged with potent meanings, and the meanings are constantly shifting.

I came across an essay, entitled “Evangelicalism at its Best,” written by one of our finest historians of American religion, a man who also happens to be a self-acknowledged evangelical, a professor at Wheaton College in Illinois by the name of Mark Noll, who has written extensively about Christianity in North America. While I might want to quibble that the word “evangelical” belongs to all Christians since its root meaning says simply that we are to be bearers of the good news, he writes about “evangelicalism” as a particular movement with a particular theological identity within American church history. Such themes as the divine inspiration of scripture, the necessity of conversion to a cross-centered piety, the recognition of salvation alone through Christ, and the missionary impulse of the Church outward to convert others are some of these themes that form the heart of Christianity among those who would self-identity around the label, “evangelical.”

But Mark Noll says that if you want really to see these themes played out in the life of the Church, if you are curious about what the word evangelicalism is all about, you have to look at the classic hymnody of the Church.

I couldn’t agree with him more. Regardless where we locate ourselves along the theological or ecclesiastical spectrum, the truth of the matter is that Christians of all stripes today are not, for the most part, biblically conversant folk nor do we read a lot of theology, but whatever we believe, whether it be something old or something new, those beliefs are often learned primarily through the hymns that we sing.

And so, whether we would agree with the tenets of the evangelical movement, I suspect that all of us have been formed and shaped by those core evangelical ideas about the Christian faith. And it is the hymns that have done a lot of the forming and shaping. Hymns and hymnbooks, I believe, have an iconic value, that is, they are icons, windows through which we communicate our understanding of God’s majesty and transcendence, God’s self-revelation in Christ and the hope of salvation. Icons have a sacred status, and hymn singing is often the single most treasured and revered corporate practice in public worship. Hymns boil it down to an essence that can be memorized; the heart of faith gets crystallized into a few phrases or tunes.

There is always a tension between what can be sung and what should be sung, because some see hymnody as an act of nostalgia and most of us are, in truth, musically-challenged, whereas others see hymns as an ever-new opportunity to teach the faith and to stretch that faith for the coming of a new generation.

Today, I thought we should revisit some of our old hymn-friends, and maybe a few her-friends, too, but along the way, to consider what exactly it is that makes these compositions so enduring, and to do so by thinking about the phrase, “Evangelicalism at its Best.”

The academic historian might want to date the American advent of evangelicalism to the preaching on justification by faith of Jonathan Edwards in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1735, or to the proto-Methodist John Wesley’s Aldersgate experience in May 1738 when he felt his “heart strangely warmed” or even to the Calvinist revivalist George Whitefield’s momentous preaching tour through the colonies in 1740.

But, it could be argued that the heart of American evangelical Christianity goes back, not to any of these great pulpiteers or pastoral theologians, but to the prolific hymn writer, Charles Wesley, John’s brother. Even though the Methodists rightly claim the Wesley boys, our own Presbyterian Hymnal would be incomplete without the beloved hymn, “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling, Joy of Heaven to earth come down” nor would Advent and Christmas be the same without “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus” or “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” or Easter without “Jesus Christ is Risen Today,” all Charles Wesley originals. If you doubt the weight of Charles Wesley’s contribution to the emergence of evangelicalism, ask yourself how many of the words of Edwards, Whitefield or John Wesley you can quote, and then reflect on how much of Charles Wesley is stored away, not only in your brain but in your heart. “Rejoice the Lord is King” and “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing,” just to name a few more that have come from his prolific pen.

But, I am not sure that any of us can really appreciate the power of the evangelical experience, particularly the dangers of sin and the need to cling to Christ to withstand God’s scrutiny on Judgment Day, until we have been in a place where people sing because that’s really all they can do. Such is always my experience when we go to the Morgan County Correctional Facility on the 5^th Sunday to worship with the inmates there. More than any of us can ever know, those inmates sing as if the world were about to end, they sing with an enthusiasm we cannot match, and with the certainty that whatever conviction has gotten them there, there is now a higher conviction to try and follow Jesus.

You have never heard #303 in our hymnal, Charles Wesley’s “Jesus, Lover of My Soul,” really sung until you have been on the other side of the razor wire and heard the huge metal door clang shut behind you, and you know that Jesus is the only hope.

Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly.
While the nearer waters roll, while the tempest still is high
Hide me, O my Savior, hide, till the storm of life is past.
Safe into the haven guide: O receive my soul at last!

[play #303]

The evangelical call to hide oneself in Christ returns again and again to the vision of the cross. The redemptive encounter with Christ is the defining experience, so that images, tropes, metaphors, and biblical quotations in hymns constantly reiterate the need to be washed clean in the blood of the lamb. Even the tunes of these cross hymns, often written in a minor key, create a mournful mood as the sinner realizes afresh in each singing of the hymn his or her need to be completely reliant on the atoning sacrifice of Christ. Just try humming a few bars of “Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me” or “The Old Rugged Cross” and see if you, too, don’t begin to feel a bit mournful over your sin and shame!

The hymn #101, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” composed by the Englishman Isaac Watts in 1707, has been called the most perfect hymn ever written Who has not felt wholly unworthy and utterly ashamed when we sing,

See from his head, his hands, his feet
Sorrow and love flow mingled down;
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown.

[play #101]

By the 19^th century in America, something like an evangelical cultural hegemony had been established, as various forms of revivalism in camp meetings and urban tent revivals swept across many sections of the nation. For instance, revivalist denominations like the Methodists outstripped numerically the old colonial powerhouse denominations such as the Congregationalists, Episcopalians and Presbyterians. In fact, unlike our own day when Protestantism is on the decline, when just barely over 50% of Americans would claim that general label, the 19^th century was a time when many Protestants believed that a Christian, that is, a Protestant America could be realized, even if it did have to come at the expense of Catholics and Jews, not to mention various other groups like native Americans and African Americans!

Cultural influence is a notoriously difficult thing to measure, but perhaps notions of the dominance of evangelical Protestantism in the 19^th century spread from the pen of one person as much as any other, that person being a blind hymn composer from Brooklyn, Fanny J. Crosby, who wrote over 8500 hymns, dozens of which became the defining emblems of evangelical experience. “Jesus Keep me Near the Cross,” “All the Way my Savior Leads Me,” “I am Thine, O Lord,” “Jesus is Tenderly Calling Thee Home,” and then the two we are singing today, “To God be the Glory” and “Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine!”

Far away from the refinement of Brooklyn Heights where Fanny J. was doing her incredible work, composing sometimes three hymns a week, evangelicalism was gaining increasing prominence among a people who were, unwillingly, hewers of wood and drawers of water. The decades between the American Revolution and the Civil War witnessed an accelerating evangelization of African Americans, both slave and free. And even if they weren’t able to read, African- Americans sang of their faith with the courage and hope of a new Exodus, freedom from bondage. It is testimony to the power of the Christian message that a people victimized by the American holocaust at the hands of white Christians, should rise above that to produce some of the great hymns of the church, often giving their hymns a distinctive twist and flavor. Who has not felt the simple power and longing desire of #372,

Lord, I want to be a Christian, in-a my heart, in-a my heart.
Lord, I want to be a Christian, in –a my heart.

[play #372]

The end of the 19^th century saw the evangelical missionary impulse reach its height in American and world experience. The YMCA, which we sometimes forget is the Young Men’s Christian Organization and similar groups took up the motto, “the Evangelization of the world in this generation.” This was a time, not unlike our own, when Americans saw themselves as the center of the universe, and the missionary impulse beat loudly at the heart of the American church. Just like the British who once believed that the sun would never set on the British empire, late 19^th and early 20^th century evangelical Protestants appropriated old hymns in new ways in their quest to bring newly “discovered” peoples in Africa and Asia into the Protestant fold. One hymn that captures the essence of this missionary impulse was a renewed emphasis on the old Isaac Watts tune, #423, a tune best heard on the organ with trumpets (or in our case, saxophone) declaring God’s triumphal reign.

Jesus shall reign where’er the sun, does its successive journeys run
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore, till moons shall wax and wane
no more.

[play #423]

If the primary impulse of evangelical Christianity is always outward, especially in response to Christ’s call to convert the unsaved, then the doctrine of sola gracia (grace alone) would have to be considered the rallying cry enabling others to experience salvation. It is self-evident to evangelicals that such salvation can only happen through the power of the blood and the power of Jesus’ name.

Sometimes, such as in today’s church music context when contemporary music has become all the rage in some circles, it seems that the medium, not the message, is the primary thing. But not so with the classic evangelical hymns. The tune was always secondary to the rehearsal of the story of salvation. An American religious historian, Stephen Marini, once surveyed virtually every hymnal written in America since the early 19^th century to try to determine our most popular evangelical hymn. No, it wasn’t what you think it was, that is it wasn’t “Amazing Grace,” nor was it “Just as I Am” or “How Great Thou Art,” or even “Joy to the World.”

I’m not going to tell you the answer, but let you listen to two tune versions of the same hymn, the first version I am guessing will be unfamiliar. This illustrates to me that its not the tune that really matters, but the story the hymn tells that says it all.

[play 143 on clarinet, then 142 on sax]

Like “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name!,” the most frequently reprinted hymn in American evangelical hymnody, the sound and the words of the classic hymns are constantly being adapted to new situations, new instrumentation, new voices.

Some would argue that, rather than lament the decline of mainline white American Protestantism, we should turn our attention to the forms of worship and the places where Christianity is flourishing today. While Presbyterians are not growing in terms of our numbers, Pentecostals and other evangelical groups that emphasize a direct, unmediated experience of the Spirit are achieving tremendous success around the globe, especially in Latin America and Africa, where historian Philip Jenkins predicts that by the year 2050, only one Christian out of five worldwide will be white and the center of gravity of the Christian world will have shifted permanently to the southern hemisphere.

It is virtually impossible for our hymnal to capture the kind exuberance and freedom of a Pentecostal experience of worship and music, but one of the great advantages of our current Presbyterian Hymnal is that we are seeking to take much more seriously now than before the third person of the Trinity.

Even though this next hymn has been around since the early 1960s, I doubt many of you grew up singing “There’s a sweet, sweet Spirit in this place, and I know that is the Spirit of the Lord,” number 398. It takes up the evangelical themes of revival, the assurance of salvation, and the sweetness of heaven, but more importantly, invites the living God to come and have a direct, transforming experience with the singer

Sweet holy spirit, sweet heavenly dove
Stay right here with us, filling us with your love;
And for these blessings, we lift our hearts in praise.
Without a doubt we’ll know that we have been revived
When we shall leave this place.

[play #398]

We miss the real thrust of the evangelical hymns if we ever should begin to regard them as forms of entertainment, that is, as something designed only for our listening pleasure. The hymns were written to be sung, and in the singing, the tunes were meant to stay on one’s mind as a constant reminder of our need for divine grace and mercy.

A new generation of hymn writers will continue to put new words into old forms, such as the hymn that we will now sing, #386, “O for a World,” set to the familiar tune that accompanies, “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing.” Whether this one, #386, will ever become a classic evangelical hymn, I do not know, but it does take up one of the buzz words of our generation, the word “respect,” and calls the Church to a new way of life ordered around notions of radical sharing, the oneness of the whole human family, and God’s vision of an all-inclusive love.

And so, let our voices declare God’s hope
for a world where goods are shared and misery relieved,
where truth is spoken, children spared, equality achieved.

And maybe, when all is said and done, that indeed will be Evangelicalism at its best!

Let us stand as we sing.

[play and sing #386]