Tacky Hymns 39

Here's another segment in our current series picking on the hymn selection in Evangelical Lutheran Worship (Augsburg Fortress, 2006). A reminder, for the sake of those just now joining this thread: in my crusade against "tackiness on holy ground," I am focusing on what strikes me as out of place in the context of American Lutheran congregational singing and liturgy. Before jumping down my throat for expressing the opinions herein, please observe that distinction. Some of this stuff may play well in a performance by a choir or soloist(s), in a public concert, in a private home, in other countries or cultures or spiritual heritages. But I firmly contend that, in the context specified above, this stuff pushes bad taste to the threshold of sin.

ELW hymn 575 "In Christ called to baptize" is a "Vocation, Ministry" hymn by Ruth Duck (b. 1947),¹ a United Church of Christ pastor and seminary professor and prolific hymn writer dedicated to "language that is fair and just...whose style and tone is as reverent as it is relevant...that speaks of God in universal terms" (source: her biography on the GIA Publications website). In other words, her career as a hymn-writer has been shaped by a concern for inclusive language. What the first stanza of this hymn does not include, however, is a view of baptism as a sacrament (something God does for us). Instead, it speaks of baptism as how "we witness to grace," etc. While the lines, "In deep flowing waters, we share in Christ's death, then, rising to new life, give thanks with each breath" could be understood sacramentally, they can't be understood in terms of a rite of pouring water over a small baptismal font. Unless you understand all this as metaphorical language, and admit that the Pauline imagery of being buried and raised with Christ in baptism does carry "full immersion" baggage, this could be embarrassing to any Lutheran who actually thinks about what he's singing.

Stanza 2 zooms in on the Lord's Supper, but moves even farther from sacramental thinking. The communion Duck speaks of is horizontal, not vertical: "One table we share, a haven of welcome, a circle of care"—perhaps also a subtle dig against those of us still practicing that mean old fossil, Closed Communion. As for the food we take in this rite, Duck describes it as "one bread" and "one cup of thanksgiving" that "proclaims Christ, our head"—but not as His body and blood. Stanza 3 does make a nice gesture in calling the gospel "life-giving." But then Stanza 4 misapplies Ephesians 4:12 (as many in the "everyone a minister" crowd do), putting in the congregation's mouth a prayer that God would equip them for the ministry, for "in Christ is our calling." Is there a hymn writer out there who will grant that each person's vocation in life—be it parent, spouse, farmer, or laborer—is holy and God-pleasing? Will any hymn-writer dare to say that Christ calls specific men into the office of pastor or evangelist, which He instituted, and forbear to burden each individual Christian with some specious "anointing" or "calling" to do the work of the ministry?²

576 "We all are one in mission" is by Lutheran pastor Rusty Edwards (b. 1955).³ It goes on to make the remarkable claim, "We all are one in call, our varied gifts united by Christ, the Lord of all." Thus it spreads a veneer of truth over the same dubious view of Christian vocation on which I just commented. The Great Commission (to make disciples of all nations, etc.) is indeed directed toward the whole church; but the suggestion that we are all equally called to carry out its functions (by teaching, baptizing, etc.) is deeply misleading, as is the confusion between "our varied gifts" and our public vocation. Stanza 2 admits that "our ministries are different," but this language only blurs the sense of "The Ministry" as a specific office that Christ instituted. It goes on to describe our purpose, viz. the Great Commission, as "to touch the lives of others with God's surprising grace, so ev'ry folk and nation may feel God's warm embrace." This sounds soft and cuddly, to be sure; but it doesn't necessarily mean "making disciples." In fact, these lines would fit right into the evangelism paradigm coined in the last couple of decades, under which any mention of your faith to an unknown person would be considered a "significant event" or a contact for Christ, worthy of being counted on the spiritual odometer of our walk together in mission. Stanza 3 calls for us to be united as "a vessel for God's redeeming Word"—apparently for the purpose of pouring it out on other people. To do that, ought we not be a vessel into which God pours His Word? Where is the awareness that the church is carrying out its mission when it is teaching, baptizing, and forming us? Where is the consciousness that we need the gifts we are in such a hurry to bring to the world?

579 "Lord, you give the great commission" is by Episcopalian bishop and seminary professor Jeffery Rowthorn (b. 1934).⁴ The great commission of which Rowthorn speaks is: "Heal the sick and preach the word"—revealing an interesting decision in favor of Jesus' sending of the Twelve in Luke 9 over His post-resurrection command in Matthew 28. This counter-traditional choice could enable Rowthorn to place works of mercy on an equal footing with proclaiming the gospel. He does quote the Matthew 28 commission in Stanza 2, in the context of the service Christ calls us to: for, again, "everyone a minister" gets more play than the message that everyone (including we ourselves) is the mission field. Stanza 3 makes the remarkable (for this book) confession that in the Lord's supper, Christ "make(s) the common holy" and says, "This my body, this my blood." This is more than most of the new communion hymns confess (discussed earlier on this thread), but it lacks direct application to the forgiveness of sins. Instead, following through on its overall missionary theme, the hymn prays: "Let us all, for earth's true glory, daily lift life heavenward, asking that the world around us share your children's liberty." In other words, just as we elevate Christ's body in the mass, we ask that God would help us to lift up the lives of our neighbors in prayer that they may be converted and saved. At least, that's what I think it's saying; it's a bit of a poser. Stanza 4 quotes Jesus saying, "Father, what they do, forgive"—but again, it falls short of applying these words to the giving and receiving of forgiveness. Instead, it sends us on a guilt trip for "hoard(ing) as private treasure all that you so freely give," and urges Christ to lead us "to a just society." Stanza 5 returns to Matthew 28 with a fifth snippet of the words of Christ, "I am with you to the end"—making this one of the most scriptural and Christ-centered hymns I have seen found in this book, albeit with questionable application of the text. In this instance, it takes Christ's promise to serve us as such a given that it doesn't comment further on it, rather offering him our service. And finally, each stanza concludes with the same misapplication of Ephesians 4:12 previously noted: "With the Spirit's gifts empow'r us for the work of ministry." If this is being sung by students or candidates for the ministry, or by a gathering of ministers, well; but placed in the mouths of the congregation, they undermine both the distinctiveness of the pastoral office and the sanctity of every Christian's lawful vocation. D+!

581 "You Are Mine" (first line: "I will come to you in the silence") is a CoWo ditty with words and music by Catholic songwriter David Haas (b. 1957), which from beginning to end puts the imagined or paraphrased words of Christ into the mouths of the singers, or (more likely) the soloist(s) or choir. Trust me on this. The irregular way the words fit the melody, the unexpected instruction to skip the refrain after Stanza 1 and go directly to Stanza 2, and the bars of vocal tacet sparsely filled in by instrumental cues make this a number for trained and rehearsed musicians, not for hoi polloi. For all the merits of the text, it could be printed as a tract, or part of a book of devotional poems. What it's doing in the pew hymnal, I can't make out.

583 "Take my life, that I may be" is a modern-language adaptation of Frances R. Havergal's (1836-79) beloved hymn, "Take my life and let it be." Observe: Havergal did not live in Jacobean times. So when, as a modern hymn writer, she deliberately chooses to use Jacobean language (such as "Thee"), do we not owe her such respect as to leave her poem alone? I'm conflicted within myself as to whether a hymn with doctrinal or poetic shortcomings should be "improved" by hymnal editors, or simply left out of the book; but whether or no, I'm not for bowdlerizing or, worse, arbitrarily deciding to rewrite a whole hymn because its style isn't what one wishes. But this argument is not new to ELW, even with regard to this particular hymn. What ELW brings to this hymn is the pointlessly "multicultural" touch of including a Spanish translation of all four verses. Gee whiz, people; if your congregation is bilingual, go whole hog and invest in a Spanish hymnal! These itty bitty crumbs of Hispanic hymnody will only work as a token gesture at best; as an insult at worst. And then there's the matter of the tune. ELW opted to settle the age-long dispute between those who sing this hymn to William Havergal's tune PATMOS (See Lutheran Service Book hymn 783) and those who prefer Henri Malan's HENDON (See LSB 784), not by laying both tunes side by side, but by scrapping them both and using instead a piece of rhythmically tricky, contemporary Hispanic melody titled TOMA MI VOLUNTAD, by William Dexheimer Pharris (b. 1956). After which the anglophone parishioners might as well give the hymn up entirely to their Hispanic daughter congregation, since they're the only type of congregation likely to make anything but a hideous mess of it. Interesting to note: the English stanzas selected for inclusion in this book do not seem to be the same as the stanzas selected for Spanish translation; or at least, they aren't arranged in the same order. That the hymn itself has a certain tackiness in the Lutheran context, I forbear to mention (for now) because long use has made it a sacred cow. The message ELW 583 sends to little old ladies who can scarcely recognize the church they were brought up in: "Adapt or die, or go away. It's all the same to us."

587 and 588 are both "There's a wideness in God's mercy" by Anglican and later Catholic priest Frederick W. Faber (1814-63), first in a modern musical setting by Calvin Hampton (1938-84), then set to the American traditional hymn-tune LORD, REVIVE US. The latter seems more congruent with the character of Faber's text. I've always been left cold by the impersonal language that dominates this hymn, second only to the chant "I don't know, but I've been told" for distancing oneself from the message one proclaims. There's a feeling of vagueness about it. There's a touch of manipulative sentimentality in its reluctance to commit to anything concrete and specific. See what I mean? Lines, like the second half of Stanza 1, that drop a negative into the sentence (such as "There is no place where earth's sorrows are more felt than up in heav'n"), actually come through more strongly—perhaps due to the principle of logic that holds a categorical "no" to be more persuasive than a "sometimes yes." Perhaps another thing that makes me uncomfortable about language such as "There is welcome for the sinner" (Stanza 2) is the question that immediately jumps to my alert mind: "Where?" And the hymn that doesn't answer that question could either leave its hearer in an agony of doubt, or lead him to seek his own answer, however wrong it may be. Stanza 2 hints that there is "healing in [Christ's] blood," but it doesn't say where that blood is to be found. Without prompting the hearer to choose between "the means of grace" and "other, including your own pious imagination," which answer do you suppose he will give? The same stanza opines, "There is grace enough for thousands of new worlds as great as this; there is room for fresh creations in that upper home of bliss." That could be taken as pure encouragement to trust God's boundless mercy; but in the context of American Protestantism, could it not also be read as sanctioning the ideas of a certain breakaway sect? At last in Stanzas 3 and 4, Faber drops the "there is" construction and begins to make stronger assertions, such as "For the love of God is broader than the measures of our mind," etc. Nevertheless, the latter half of Stanza 3, which complains how "we make this love too narrow by false limits of our own," cries out for more specifics, without which these lines could be read equally as a just condemnation of legalism ("teaching as doctrines the precepts of men") or as a criticism of doctrinal niceties the author may have found too restrictive for his broadminded outlook; and if the author's intentions are open to a range of interpretations, so also will be the ideas that play in the mind of those singing it. I sense some omitted stanzas implied by the "alt." at the end of the credit line, and by a disorienting gap in logic between Stanzas 3 and 4. What is "not all we owe to Jesus"? The answer seems to be lost in the crack between these last two stanzas. Part of Stanza 4 may be read as suggesting that "evil" and "the fall" are good things because they give scope to God's mercy, a facile idiocy of which I hope Faber was innocent; but it's hard to tell.

591 "That priceless grace" is a four-stanza hymn by Emmanuel Grantson (b. 1949), set to a Ghanaian traditional melody. Its repetitiveness is actually disorienting. Stanza 1: "That priceless grace, that priceless grace, that priceless grace which gave me life: Jesus' life is priceless grace. (Refrain:) That priceless grace is life for me." Stanza 2 is the same, except it replaces "grace" with "blood" and "which gave me life" with "was shed for me." Stanza 3 changes "That priceless grace," etc., to "that painful death took sins away." Stanza 4 says, "That precious word, which brought me light," etc. All that it says is good. What you have to go through to find out what it says, is rather trying.

593 "Drawn to the Light" (first line: "People who walk in darkness have sought") is by John C. Ylvisaker (b. 1937), and set to his own tune LA CROSSE. It draws on imagery from Isaiah 9 and Revelation 21, but what it has in biblical credentials, it wants in literary and musical style. Refrain: "Dawn is in sight! Gone is the night, drawn to the light and the morning. Glorious and bright, oh, what a sight to be drawn to the light of God." It's got "for kiddies" stamped all over it; but I think even among children's hymns there are better-written texts and tunes.

598 "For by grace you have been saved" is a Finnish hymn by Kari Tikka (b. 1946), set to his own tune. If I am not mistaken, this Tikka is a composer whose works include an opera about the life of Luther. I like his text. No, that isn't strong enough; I think it's an excellent text—although you have to pay close attention to which stanza is in quotes if you want to keep straight whether you're speaking for Jesus or for yourself; and the fact that an Amen is specifically written in at the end of the hymn, in addition to the Amen at the end of each stanza, undoes years of patiently redirecting organists and parishioners to omit the Amen at the end of a hymn when there's already an Amen in the hymn itself. But why do I think this hymn is tacky? Well, I'm afraid Tikka's tune ARMOLAULU is a bit uninspired. And I am slightly perplexed by the fact that the editors of ELW bypassed this opportunity to include stanzas in Finnish in their book of hymns to the god of multiculturalism, especially given the links between Finnish Lutheranism and the forerunners of the American and Canadian church bodies for which this book was prepared. But mostly, I single this hymn out for attention because, in its very simple language, it knocks most of the other contemporary hymns in this book into a cocked hat. It's not so much that it's tacky in and of itself, as that it makes the tackiness of its more sophisticated neighbors that much more apparent.

---

¹Tune: ST. DENIO, a traditional Welsh tune many will associate with the hymn "Immortal, invisible, God only wise."
²Actually, the answer is Yes. See hymn 580, Fred Pratt Green's "How clear is our vocation, Lord."
³Tune: KUORTANE, a Finnish folk tune, also used in ELW 419, "For all the faithful women."
⁴Tune: ABBOT'S LEIGH by Cyril V. Taylor, my personal first choice for the hymn "Glorious things of thee are spoken."

Three Hainish Novels

Three Hainish Novels
by Ursula K. Le Guin
Recommended Ages: 14+

This omnibus volume of the first three books of the Hainish Cycle is also available under the title Worlds of Exile and Illusion. I chose to lead with the simpler, more plainly descriptive title, mainly because it happened to be this edition that I borrowed from the public library. To be sure, it's a bit of a misnomer. The first three installments in Ursula Le Guin's multiple award-winning series are really more on the order of novellas, weighing in at 117, 113, and 160 pages, respectively. All three were first published between 1966 and 1967, which places them before 1969's The Left Hand of Darkness—a book I had already read before I realized it was part of this series. Adding to the confusion is the fact that two further novels published in the 1970s—The Dispossessed and The Word for World Is Forest—take place before all four books in series chronology, while the 2000 novel The Telling is the latest in both publication and canon order. Plus, the series also embraces more than a dozen short stories, collected in other books. The earliest of these, in fact, seems to have been incorporated into Rocannon's World.

As far as I have read in the series, none of the novels actually take place on the planet Hain, referenced in the "Hainish" designation. Hain seems to be only one of many worlds—perhaps, along with Earth, one of the most important worlds—in a League of All Worlds that later, as the series develops, is replaced by a kinder, gentler entity known as the Ekumen. In the beginning, the League is all about arming and collecting allies for a war against a great cosmic enemy. By the time of the Left Hand of Darkness, that threat has passed, leaving the surviving worlds to pick up the pieces and to try for a less aggressive approach to galactic diplomacy. But if you're looking for nifty space battles with zipping fighters, hulking cruisers, massive explosions, and darting death-rays accompanied by unrealistic sound effects, you may have a different series in mind. All that I have described is distant background to the stories told in these three swift, tightly built, intellect-sharpening and heart-softening tales.

Common themes to look for in the Hainish Cycle include the challenges of learning to communicate with a completely alien culture, the growth of a deep personal love (sometimes asexual, often tragic) between members of different races, the impact of environment on the shape of a society, and the problems that arise from relativistic space travel at near-light speeds. What this last one means is that, for instance, if you travel at light-speed between two planets that are eight light-years apart, the trip takes but a moment from your perspective, while eight years pass on the worlds at both ends of your journey. It's a bit surprising, isn't it? This is why space travelers in these books frequently find that they have no home to go back to, because by the time they get there, everyone they knew will have died; or why, in the earliest book in the series, the main character dismisses the idea of retreating to the nearest planet as "running eight years into the future to see what happened." And this also leads to another theme that contributes to the dramatic strength of these books: the theme of finding home in a place far from where you came from.

Another thing these stories have in common, besides technological gimmicks such as Faster Than Light drive (fatal to humans, the drone warfare of the future) and ansible radios (which transmit instantly over any distance), is a way of beginning and ending quite swiftly. Hainish novels often begin in the middle of an experience so weird and alien that it is difficult, at first, to comprehend; then the picture gradually comes into focus. And when the final crisis is over, they don't lollygag around before coming to an end; they delay just long enough to hit you with a final surprise, or a crowning irony, that may leave your eyes stinging and your throat tight with emotion.

Rocannon's World

The "Hainish" series begins with a heartbreaking vignette, originally published as a separate short story: A beautiful princess from a planet with multiple species of "hilfs" (Highly Intelligent Life Forms) goes on a quest to recover a valuable piece of jewelry. In her pride and her love of her lordly young husband, she is ashamed not to be able to give him as dowry the necklace her family possessed ages ago. To get it back, however, she must negotiate with the race favored by the alien visitors from the League of All Worlds, and pays a terrible price for her ignorance of the Theory of Special Relativity. It could be nothing more than a dark fairy tale (complete with dwarves, elves, and gryphons), except that an ethnologist named Rocannon sees the princess and takes pity on her plight.

Rocannon's vision of the beautiful princess does more than inspire him to visit her planet, known until then only as Fomalhaut II. More importantly, he decides to right the wrong the League has done to the planet's multiple hilf species by arbitrarily choosing to patronize one group, while mostly ignoring the others. The resulting imbalance has had a terrible effect on the world's cultures; but Rocannon's attempt to correct this error, by closing the planet to League meddling until all of its continents and cultures have been studied, has drawbacks of its own. For one: it has made Fomalhaut II the perfect base for an army of galactic malcontents who are preparing an attack on the League. The rebels' first target, before we know what's hit us, is Rocannon's ship. His entire survey team is wiped out at one blow, and he only survives by a stroke of luck. And now, helped by only a few representatives of the planet's strange intelligent races, he must travel across an uncharted continent, locate the rebel base, and use their own transmitter to warn the League in time.

Along the way, Rocannon—also known as Olhor, the Wanderer—makes some great discoveries. He discovers that his destiny lies in a role other than cultural observer or diplomat. He acquires a skill that will change the course of human history throughout the galaxy. He forms cross-cultural friendships that will change not only their lives and his, but the whole world. He learns to fly on great winged cats, survives deadly encounters with several strange beings, finds home and love and heartbreaking loss, and finally leaves a mark on Fomalhaut II proportionate to the mark it leaves on him. If this book does not swell your heart with an ache of melancholy beauty, you haven't been paying attention. But as vivid, pulse-quickening, and sparing of words as this book is, there can't be much danger of that.

Planet of Exile

While this second Hainish novel makes brief reference to the events of Rocannon's World, the setting shifts to another world—Gamma Draconis III, for you stargazers—and another time, some six hundred Earth years farther into the future. In local time, however, that's only ten Years. For on this planet, a month is longer than a whole year on Earth, and a year is almost a lifetime. Because the planet has such a large moon, the tides on the seashore are insane. Because of the shape of its orbit and the tilt of its axis, winters—especially on the northern continent—are not only long (like, 15 years long), but especially severe.

The stone-age natives, who haven't even invented the wheel yet, live from season to season without history, and just manage to survive the winters by burrowing underground, along with their herds and stores of grain. The farborns—visitors from another world, whose ancestors decided to stay behind when their starship left—have stone houses with running water and central heat; so that's no worry. But the two races don't mix very much, don't particularly like each other; and though they are immune to local diseases, the farborns are dwindling in number. Simply put, the planet doesn't agree with them. So neither group, by itself, is in much of a state to defend itself from a horde of northern barbarians, sweeping southward in advance of the oncoming winter.

Among the leaders of the farborns is a certain Jakob Agat, who chooses this most precarious moment to fall in love with a local girl named Rolery, daughter of the Tevan chief. Their ill-timed love affair jeopardizes the chances that both groups will join together to fend off the Gaal. But it also leads to an opportunity for both races to understand each other, and accept each other, as they never have before. It will have to be in good time, though; because a storm is coming. A literal storm—tons of snow, driven by fierce winds—and a storm of human (or at least humanoid) fury, as the Gaal sack first the village of Tevar, then the walled city of the farborns. Members of both groups will have to find unexpected strengths in themselves and each other, or none will survive.

Siege warfare, winter survival, encounters with terrifying monsters, and clashes within and between two interdependent communities form the exciting part of this story. But the part that may unexpectedly move you is the story of how a forbidden love saved a world, and how a planet of exile became a home.

City of Illusions

This third novella in the Hainish Cycle jumps, again, to several centuries after the previous tales of human visitors joining hands and hearts with natives of faraway planets. And now the tables are turned: for the planet where man meets alien is, in this case, Earth. Before you yawn and go looking for something a little more far-out, bear in mind that the Earth in this book is very different from the world you know. Indeed, it's so alien that at first you might not recognize it.

Time has not been kind to our planet. Several hundred years after forming a League with other intelligence-bearing planets, Earth has been leveled by an invading race called the Shing. Not much is known about the Shing, partly because their name is a dirty word to most surviving humans. They are said to be liars through and through—capable even of lying through mindspeech, which is meant to be impossible, even among humans who have learned to use telepathy. Not much is known about how the Shing conquered the planet, except that their mind-lie was part of it. Now they spend their time keeping mankind scattered amid small, isolated enclaves, destroying all records of human accomplishment, and wiping out any human community that comes close to being a city. They do all this in the name of a seemingly benign law: "Reverence for Life." Oh, the irony!

Into this grim future world drops a man with alien-looking eyes. When we meet him at the beginning of the story, his mind is a perfect blank; he does not even know how to talk. A kindly family, dwelling in a clearing in the eastern forests of North America, takes this mind-razed man in, teaches him, and (for the most part) gives him their love, along with the name of Falk. At last Falk has learned enough to set out on his own, and though it means leaving the girl he loves, he does so. He heads west, in search of the Shing city of Es Toch and the answers to the mystery of who he is, where he comes from, and what happened to his memory.

Like most of the Hainish novels that I have read so far, this one follows the outline of a seeker-quest myth. It's a powerful story shape, and Ursula Le Guin knows how to make it work. Falk's journey across what used to be the continental U.S.—now a wilderness sparsely populated, and that mostly by menacing characters—is a potent blend of weirdness, terror, heartbreaking romance, and wilderness survival drama. Only when the bulk of the adventure is behind him does the book really begin to blow your mind. For that's when we meet the Shing themselves, headquartered in a bizarre city on the rim of the Grand Canyon. They have an explanation for how Falk lost his memory—but can they be trusted? They seem to know how to restore the memories of his previous life—but at what cost? The decision that faces Falk is bigger than the life-or-death choice of whether to sacrifice the person he has become during his years on earth to become again the alien visitor he once was. In fact, his decision may be a matter of life or death, slavery or freedom—for himself, for his homeworld (wherever that is), and for Earth.

Once you fully appreciate the position Falk is in, you will wonder how in the galaxy he is going to get out of it. There seems to be no possible solution. Yet that is only a signal to brace yourself, to prepare to be amazed. You might come to see awesome, brain-tickling spectacles, like starships crossing hundreds of light-years of relativistic space, aliens driving around in air cars, cowboys shooting missiles at personal hovercraft, and futuristic people exhibiting the full range of mind-reading abilities. But you may be surprised to find your heart engaged as well: caught up with Falk in an agonizing dilemma, crushed by a friend's betrayal, torn by a killer identity crisis, and kept off-balance by the lies and manipulation of a group of villains who may or may not be alien enemies, but who are definitely up to something. And when it ends, you'll be on the hook to find out what happens next. See the next book in the series, The Left Hand of Darkness, for the answers—though the saga leaves most of the details to your imagination. If it stimulates your imagination as much as it did mine, that won't be a problem.

Heroes of the Valley

Heroes of the Valley
by Jonathan Stroud
Recommended Ages: 13+

Halli Sveinsson's world has been shaped by heroes, but the time of heroes passed long ago. Still he yearns to be like his ancestor Svein, one of twelve legendary warriors who sacrificed their lives fighting off the Trows—a race of tunnel-dwelling, man-eating monsters who have not been seen since the slain heroes were buried with their swords. The cairns, or burial mounds, of these twelve mythical figures formed the beginning of a magical boundary that (so the legend says) confines the hungry Trows to the high moors outside the valley, so long as the people of the valley stay on their side of the line. As generation after generation of clan leaders have joined their forebears in the row of cairns, this protection—and the tabu against breaking it—has grown so strong that the valley doesn't need heroes any more. Disputes are settled through negotiation. Crimes are punished by fines that transfer valuable land from one family to another. And characters like Halli, who itch for adventure and can only seem to find trouble instead—well, they seem to have been born too late.

Halli doesn't look the part of a hero. Short, squat, swarthy, and none too handsome, he has little to look forward to but a lifetime of farming a swampy parcel of land as a tenant to his older brother Leif, heir to the House of Svein. Till then, he gets into enough scrapes, pulls enough pranks, and breaks enough rules to make some doubt he will get even that far in life. Halli's nurse warns him that he is fated, like many of his forebears, to lead a short and violent life. And while her stories of the days of heroism have always fascinated him—hers and the stories of his uncle Brodir, another ne'er-do-well spare heir who never amounted to much—still, he can't help wondering what else is out there in the world outside the valley. Influenced by a tough, free-thinking girl named Aud of House Arne, Halli begins to doubt whether the Trows even exist. Could the old legends be only a gimmick to keep people in line? Could the superstitious fear of trespassing beyond the cairns be just a spur to following the rules and staying where you belong? What if, like Halli and Aud, you don't belong?

When Halli witnesses the cold-blooded murder of his beloved uncle, he gets a chance to learn more about his world. He sees a great deal of it during his lonely quest for vengeance. He learns that there are bigger and grander places than the House of Svein. He learns things about the way different clans spin the legends of the heroes to favor their own ancestors, things that plant doubt in his mind about all that he has learned. But when he faces the test of killing a man, he learns more about himself. On the run, pricked by guilt, pursued by the Hakonsson clan, protected by Aud, he finally reaches home only to become the spark of a political crisis that threatens to fracture the peace of the Valley. And then the Hakons come a-feuding, threatening the lives of everyone Halli cares about, even if they don't care for him. Now he must put everything he thinks he knows about Svein, the heroes, and the Trows, to the test. And the truth turns out to be even more horrific than anything he or Aud imagined.

This book is a mighty piece of chest-beating, roaring, wise-cracking fun. It's like a double-shot of Viking heroism, with snippets of the legends of Svein alternating with chapters of Halli's thrilling tale. It's a glimpse of a fantasy world loaded with possibilities—sort of a lost tribe of Norsemen, isolated by barriers of mountain, sea, and (if you believe the old tales) monsters, oh my. It's spiced with humor, romance, rivalries and grudges stretching across generations, and grisly blood-and-guts, hewing-and-cleaving action. And even if you're not impressed by yet another world-building feat of conjuring a whole culture, complete with folklore, out of thin air, you may want to stick around anyway. Why? Because Halli's visits to the high moors are among the scariest two or three chapters I have read in the past year. They go quickly from deliciously creepy to bloodcurdling, and that's only about a quarter of the way to the awful, sickening terror that Halli, Aud, and you can enjoy together.

The feelings I felt as I read this reminded me of riding a big, wild roller coaster: each time you get on, there's a point when you wonder what possessed you to put yourself through this; yet when the thrill is over, you feel like getting on again. This seems to be a knack Jonathan Stroud has, judging by his Bartimaeus Trilogy and his other books that I have read, including The Leap, Buried Fire, and The Last Siege. So I am increasingly interested in seeing what else he has done. These titles include The Ring of Solomon (a Bartimaeus prequel), The Ghost of Shadow Vale, and The Screaming Staircase (the beginning of a new series titled "Lockwood & Co"). Don't be surprised if I post reviews of them soon.

Tacky Hymns 38

I continue to be amazed at the hymn selection in the 2006 Augsburg-Fortress publication Evangelical Lutheran Worship (ELW). It's as if there wasn't a vast and deep tradition of historic Lutheran hymnody to draw upon; it's almost as if there aren't a multitude of talented Lutheran hymn-writers working today. Almost anything in this book that isn't new to the literature of Lutheran hymnody, or included for inclusiveness's sake, is an "oldie" from a tradition other than Lutheranism. And many, perhaps most, of the new stuff comes from other spiritual orientations, as well. Behold what Lutheranism is being transformed into—at least the part of it represented by the largest Lutheran church bodies in Canada and the U.S. Whatever it is (and the full shape of it has yet to be seen), you may disagree with me as to whether it's tacky. But we might agree, sometime, that calling it "Lutheran" is tacky.

Hymn 551 "The Spirit sends us forth to serve" is another hymn by the much panted-after Benedictine sister Delores Dufner (b. 1939),¹ this time drawing imagery from prophecy of the coming of the Holy Spirit in Isaiah 61, the fulfillment of which Jesus proclaims in Luke 4. When Stanza 1 says, "We go in Jesus' name to bring glad tidings to the poor," etc., is it talking about the whole church's mission? Or is it, once again, hastily laying hands on everybody departing from worship and commissioning them individually as evangelists? Stanza 2 draws on biblical imagery of comforting those who mourn, setting the burdened free, giving sight to the blind; but it adds a new bit: "where hope is dim, to share a dream." Eh?? Stanza 3 makes us out to be the hands of the Sower scattering seed, but nowhere prays that God would cause the seed of His Word to grow in us; it also enjoins us "all our days, to cherish life, to do the loving deed"—which again seems to protest too much, given the ELCA's lukewarm commitment to the sanctity of life. (But then I remember that a Catholic wrote this, and all is well.) Stanza 4 says, "Let us go to serve in peace, the gospel to proclaim"—an expert-level feat of turning gospel into law, and of talking about the gospel rather than proclaiming it. The hymn's next-to-last line says, "God's Spirit has empowered us," baptizing a bit of new-age psychobabble and suggesting, at least to anyone who isn't convinced that this is connected to the seed of the word mentioned two stanzas earlier, the enthusiast's dream of an immediate operation of the Holy Ghost.

554 "Lord, your hands have formed this world" is a Filipino hymn, set to an interesting traditional tune. It eludes ridicule as a chit for cultural diversity by (1) being not bad, and (2) not including any lyrics in a language other than English, though it is a translated hymn. I only mention it here because it is an entirely First Article hymn, praising God for his ongoing creative work, and only lightly touching on anything specifically relevant to worship (i.e., the fact that houses of God are a "sign that you make all things new"). I regret that this hymn bypasses the opportunity to use the refrain just quoted to move beyond First Article matters. Mel Gibson put the words "Behold, I am making all things new" in the mouth of the crucified in his Passion of the Christ. Could the most embarrassing celebrity of the current moment be a deeper-thinking theologian than the authors and translators of this hymn?

555 "Oh, sing to God above" by Carlos Rosas is another First-Article hymn, with the added zest of a Latin-inflected rhythm and the option of singing both stanzas in their original Spanish.

556 "Morning has broken" is the reason the tune BUNESSAN grates on my nerves when I see it paired with any hymn text. Imitating Gaelic folk song, Eleanor Farjeon's (1881-1965) hymn waxes poetic about the joys of morning: "Blackbird has spoken like the first bird" (and me with nothing to throw at it but my precious cup of coffee). Stanza 2 turns the tackiness dial all the way to eleven with the rhyme "new fall/dew-fall," which itches the same spot as rhymes like "snowman/no man" in "Walking in a Winter Wonderland." This stanza then ends in a mortifying excess of cuteness, with a reference to "where God's feet pass," meaning I know not what. Stanza 3 has another comic rhyme with "sunlight/one light," then advises us to "praise with elation...God's re-creation of the new day." Elation? Me? I still haven't finished my coffee!

560 "Christ, mighty Savior" is an evening hymn paraphrased from the Mozarabic liturgy of 10th century Spain, set to Richard Dirksen's (1921-2003) tune INNISFREE FARM. I think it's a lovely tune. But I can say from painful experience that it isn't singable except by trained musicians. I once tried to lead a congregation in singing it during a "stump the organist" session before a Lenten midweek service. Never again! It wasn't that I couldn't play it; I just couldn't convince anyone else that I was playing music they could sing. With a few rehearsals, I could have gotten the choir to give a good account of it. But that's not what the pew hymnal is for, is it?

561 "Joyous light of heavenly glory" is another ancient evening hymn, this time paraphrased from the 3rd century Greek Didache. Both the paraphrase and the tune JOYOUS LIGHT are by Marty Haugen (b. 1950). Both the text and the tune are effective in their way, though I say this grudgingly of a piece of music that sounds to me like an unholy fusion of Celtic folk song and a heart-string-tugging CoWo anthem; but I also happen to know and love the pure, unadulterated Phos hilaron as I have sung it in other, non-paraphrased translations. Haugen adds too many cute things to a venerable old hymn that is wonderful enough as it is, and whose integrity should be respected. Instead of simply saying, "You are worthy of being praised with pure voices forever, O Son of God, O Giver of light; the universe proclaims your glory," he pokes in some stuff about making us "shine with gentle justice" and "reflect your light." Can't we honor the light that comes from God, even for just a moment, without worrying about how we look in it?

563 "O Light whose splendor thrills and gladdens" is Carl Daw's (b. 1944) paraphrase of the same Phos hilaron, the third hymn in a row based on that canticle; and in my opinion, Marty Haugen's version puts it in the shade. First off, I can't stand the tune ST. CLEMENT (so named, for totally non-narcissistic reasons, by its composer Clement Scholefield, 1839-1904); it jingles in my memory as a regular part of the over-the-rooftops playlist of every mainline Protestant church's electronic carillon system, along with other pious chestnuts such as "The Old Rugged Cross" and "In the Garden." It's a stained-glass melody, suited to these stained-glass lyrics, such as Stanza 2's "lamps are lit, and children nod," and Stanza 3's "in all life's brilliant, timeless moments." It's like a Thomas Kincaid painting set to words and music. It's so sweet that I could puke.

566 "When twilight comes and the sun sets" is translated from a text by one Moises Andrade (b. 1948), and set to a nice folksy, minor-key tune by Francisco Feliciano (b. 1941). I'm no authority on this, but I think the hymn comes from a community of messianic Jews in the Philippines, or somewhere in that part of the world. Stanza 1 sets the scene with a long description of a mother hen cuddling with her chicks as the sun sets. Stanza 2 carries this imagery into an analogy of the way "the Rabbi, Lord Jesus" loved his disciples on the night of his last meal, when, "as the hen tends her young, so for them he spent himself to seek and to heal." Not altogether unscriptural, this gender-ambiguous description of Christ is nevertheless vaguely distracting. Oddly enough, even as the stanza continues to express the joy of that night when Jesus served His own, the hymn never specifies whether it is talking about the institution of the eucharist or the washing of the disciples' feet. Stanza 3 invites friends to gather around at evening, "and recount all our frail human hopes: the dreams of young and stories of old." It closes with the most blatant reference to the motherhood of the Triune God that I have ever seen (so far) in my lifelong study of Lutheran hymnals: "by a mother's love embraced in the blessed Trinity." I can't help twitching at the thought of how pleased the feminist theologians will be with this hymn.

570 "Now the day is over" is by Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924), set to Joseph Barnby's tune MERRIAL. Click that link to see what I thought of MERRIAL six years ago, and still think of it now. In spite of superior alternatives, ELW persisted in choosing the most obnoxiously dull and shmaltzy of the tunes associated with this hymn. Baring-Gould, who specialized in writing indigestibly precious hymns for little children, actually does well in this text. Except for a few touches of unnecessarily purple descriptiveness, it's basically the verse equivalent of Luther's evening prayer. I hope small children today are being taught to follow poetic diction, as they should; it would be a pity if, as I fear, this hymn goes over their heads. For it really is written in a way that can, should, and (in past generations) did appeal to the minds and hearts of itty-bitty Christians. If it doesn't prove that children are capable of imbibing stronger fluids than the pablum purveyed by All God's People Sing! (further back on this thread), then at least it shows how far we have to catch up in our duty to form their minds. It's only tacky because of the tune, and because the assumption that kids can't handle hymns like this is not only tragically self-fulfilling, but also historically tripe.

572 "Now it is evening" is by Fred Pratt Green (1903-2000), set to the uninspired tune BOZEMAN by Rusty Edwards (b. 1955). But don't worry! A footnote suggests the alternate tune BUNESSAN! (Groan.) Each of the four stanzas more or less fills in the blanks in the following Mad Lib: "Now it is evening: (noun) in/on/of the (noun) bid(s) us remember Christ is our (noun). Many are (adjective), who will be neighbor? Where there is (noun), Christ is our (noun)." Specifically? The lights of the city prompt us to care for the lonely, remembering that Christ is our light (Stanza 1). The food on the table prompts us to share with the hungry, remembering that Christ is our life (Stanza 2). The little ones sleeping prompt us to care for the neglected, because Christ is our peace (Stanza 3). And here in our meeting we welcome strangers, because Christ is our friend (Stanza 4). It's essentially a moralistic kiddie hymn that, like the advertising jingle about seeing Tootsie Rolls in everything, urges us to see Christ by example urging us to serve our neighbor. Folks, the assumption that moralizing ditties are the only way to reach children is a big part of the reason your kids stopped going to church as soon as they had a choice.

574 "Here I am, Lord" (first line: "I, the Lord of sea and sky") is the CoWo praise song by Daniel Schutte (b. 1946) that makes me glad that I can now slam this book shut in disgust, at least for today. Based on Isaiah 6 (where God commissioned the prophet Isaiah), the three stanzas put a loose paraphrase and expansion of God's words into the mouth of the congregation, who are in the best position to convince themselves that God is addressing them therein. The refrain responds in the character of the people themselves: "Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord? I have heard you calling in the night. I will go, Lord, if you lead me. I will hold your people in my heart." It's all so very tear-jerkingly effective that participants are apt to forget that this entire conversation grows from the fertile imagination of Dan Schutte—a guy whose best-known song appeals so strongly to the "everyone a minister" crowd of Evangelical Christians that they might be surprised to know that he's a Jesuit. Like the ditties of Marty Haugen and several other hymn-writers discussed in the past few installments, Schutte is part of the crowd that is leading the transformation of Christian worship that is trickling down from the Catholic Church to other denominations. And now, last as always, as to one untimely born, the drip has reached Lutheranism.

---

¹Tune: CHESTERFIELD by Thomas Haweis (1734-1820), known to some American Lutherans as the tune to "Hark the glad sound!"

Feedback to ELDoNA on OJ

I'm a member of the Association of Confessional Lutheran Churches (ACLC). My very small church body consists chiefly of congregations and pastors that were involuntarily removed from the Evangelical Lutheran Synod (ELS) in a dispute over the doctrine of church and ministry. The ACLC is in fellowship with another small group called the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America (ELDoNA), whose pastors and parishes emerged from the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS), also following a struggle with the synod hierarchy's response to dissent. Though the two groups come from different backgrounds and are differently structured, they have—at least until now—worked together in mutual respect and harmony, recognizing each other's faithfulness to the same norms of doctrine and practice.

It so happens that, in common more with the background of ELDoNA than my own synod, I left the LCMS clergy roster. I have long-term friendships with pastors in both groups. I chose to join the ACLC, rather than ELDoNA, because the nearest ACLC church is one hour closer to where I live than the nearest ELDoNA congregation. I have been on friendly terms with several ACLC pastors since I was an undergrad at Bethany Lutheran College, Mankato, Minnesota. But I also count some of ELDoNA's pastors as dear friends since we together attended Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana. So please believe me: which group I joined, rather than the other, was a matter of chance and convenience. And which group I stand with when a controversy arises between ELDoNA and the ACLC is a matter of principle, not denominational loyalty or blind cronyism. I love my pastoral fathers and brothers in both synods. And it wrenches my heart to see a rift now widening between them.

One of the stumbling-stones in the way of these two groups walking together takes the form of a document adopted by the pastors of ELDoNA, titled "Theses on the Article of Justification as Taught in Holy Scripture and the Confessions of Christ's Holy Church, with Special Attention to 'Objective Justification.'" This document was studied at ELDoNA's 2013 colloquium and synod, then approved by the pastors of ELDoNA. This is a very serious and important doctrinal statement because, as its Conclusion states: "We see [these theses] as defining the limits of our fellowship with regard to these issues until such time as we are convinced otherwise from the Scriptures and Lutheran Confessions, or until further clarification is needed." Again the document explains its own significance: "These theses are not a declaration of fellowship. Those inside our fellowship voluntarily agree with these theses and support them, but we also wish to have these theses function as a marker of agreement between Christians who are not yet necessarily in fellowship."

So, while agreement with the ELDoNA theses on Objective Justification (OJ) may not by itself result in fellowship between it and another group, it will be understood as an important step on the way to a fellowship agreement. And conversely, if the ACLC cannot reconcile itself to a doctrinal statement that ELDoNA adopted without the ACLC's counsel or assent, the result may be a breaking of fellowship between ELDoNA and the ACLC. I would be sorry to see this. Having read the theses, I do not think this should be the result. If the leadership of both groups would discuss their concerns openly and with good will, I believe there may be a peaceful resolution satisfying both parties. But my impression of the language, method, and evidence chosen by the pastors of ELDoNA in these theses, does nothing to encourage me to believe such a resolution will take place. Indeed, my opinion of the quality of ELDoNA's leadership, scholarship, and theological insight has taken a beating during my study of these theses.

Another word of background is due. It is no coincidence that ELDoNA undertook this study of OJ at about the same time that it invited a former Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) pastor first to address them in a theological paper, then to join the ELDoNA fellowship. I met and spoke with Rev. Paul Rydecki in 2012 at a conference in Chicago. I felt sympathy toward him as he reported the progress of his removal from WELS over doctrinal concerns that he raised regarding the teaching of Objective Justification. I thought then, and still think, this is an interesting topic that deserves open discussion; and I was sensible of the disservice WELS did to the art of theology when it reacted so harshly to what Pastor Rydecki described as "simply asking a question," when at a WELS pastor's conference the keynote speaker took an extreme position on OJ and discussed it in terms not supported by the Lutheran Confessions or the writings of the "orthodox Lutheran fathers." Yes, I think Pastor Rydecki's concerns need some airing, and answers to his concerns should also be discussed fairly, openly, and with brotherly forbearance. But whatever credit I give to the reports of the ACLC representatives who attended the ELDoNA colloquium, the rapid-fire timing of Pastor Rydecki's acceptance into ELDoNA fellowship and the adoption of these theses suggests to me that this very serious matter was pushed through with unseemly haste, and without enough serious discussion and consideration of opposing views. And now the wind is alive with whispers of the type of charges from both sides that cannot be brushed aside lightly. In effect, I see a schism between ELDoNA and the ACLC swiftly approaching.

Insofar as I understand the basic reasons pastors and parishioners ventured to leave their established synods and start new ones—generalizing bravely but trying to put the best construction on things—it basically boils down to the hope that our new church bodies will provide better leadership than the old ones. Where ELS, WELS, and LCMS failed, we will learn to do better; etc. So I am upset by what I see happening here, first of all, because I do not see the quality of leadership members of both ELDoNA and the ACLC should expect and demand. While I have no doubt that the leaders of the ACLC have their shortcomings, what I particularly see is room for improvement in the way the ELDoNA's leadership runs things. But if either group hopes to grow by enticing other disappointed members of the LCMS, ELS, WELS, or other groups to join it, it is incumbent on both groups to avoid advertising itself as a moribund sect. And that is exactly what the whole world will see—or, at least, the small corner of the world that is interested in what we do—if ELDoNA and the ACLC continue to run plays out of the "tiny group of sectarian nuts tearing itself to pieces" playbook. To put it another way, having set out to do things a better way than LCMS and company, it behooves us to show that we (1) actually do things perceptibly better, and (2) exist for a better reason than to be whatever the LCMS (or ELS or WELS, etc.) is not.

The ELDoNA theses on OJ mostly seem fairly persuasive. But I do not think their pretensions to be self-evidently the position of Luther, the Confessions, the dogmaticians of the age of Lutheran orthodoxy, or Scripture meets the test of explaining all of the evidence. Where the theses portray the rejection of OJ as the only reasonable conclusion based on the evidence, I think it is at least possibly shows a refusal or inability to deal with a paradox. While some of the extreme formulations by WELS and even LCMS theologians are perhaps rightly condemned, I reserve judgment, until more evidence has been aired, as to whether these quotes represent the real position of those theologians or are merely cherry-picked, straw-man arguments. (Easy on the mixed metaphors, self!) While I think the WELS may indeed have erred and/or sinned in its treatment of Pastor Rydecki—suggested by the language of Thesis 4¹, the ACLC's representatives have reported similar treatment in response to their concerns by ELDoNA's leadership.

The ELDoNA Theses on OJ briefly cite, and then tacitly brush aside, an alternate solution to the problem of Objective Justification (in a paper by the late Prof. Kurt Marquart), in which the justification of "Man" as a class, through Christ's acquisition of merit for all sinners, was distinguished from the application of Christ's merit to particular men, through faith in the Gospel. The theses then go on to reject any language that comports with the evidence in Scripture, to the effect that "all are justified." I do not think this is a valid and necessary conclusion from the evidence given; I say nothing of evidence the ELDoNA document chooses not to discuss.

The problem is indeed a poser. Separate the justification of sinners from faith in Christ and one could skid off the narrow way in the direction of universalism; deny that every sinner's justification is complete in Christ, prior to faith, and it loses the character of an unconditional (one may say, objective) fact that can therefore be an object of faith, with full assurance. Our faith, though a gift from God, is contingent; God's promise of justification is absolute. ELDoNA's theses shy away from this complex, paradox-ridden problem, condemning only the most blatant heresies at both extremes and then, unless I am mistaken, throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

I would expect people who pretend to have the scholarly credentials of ELDoNA's presiding bishop—Rev. James Heiser has husbanded the translation and publication of many serious works of Lutheran theology, and has written and spoken engagingly about the philosophy of history—to write in a more circumspect manner than the language to which he and his colleagues commit themselves in these Theses. Under Thesis 6, the phrase "Golden Age of Lutheran Orthodoxy" struck me as contrary to Bishop Heiser's view of the nature of human history; at least, it seemed the sort of clumsy editorializing than which better should be expected in a doctrinal statement as carefully worded as this should be. A document like this is too serious and important to be written with haste and unconcern for clarity and precision.

Thesis 9 concludes, "As we are warned not to push a parable beyond its point/ground of comparison, even more we must remember that every illustration or analogy developed by Man will fall short and, while it may be helpful pedagogically, such language must not be made into a necessary part of our confession." I would add to this that ELDoNA should be careful not to do the very thing it chides (an)other synod(s) for doing; and that certainly nothing should be added to our exclusionary confessions without first holding it up to free debate and consent, if not consensus.

Thesis 11 makes an assertion about Christ to which I do not agree: "The fact that the Christ was made sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21) and bore our sins as His own (Psalm 69:5) does not require Him to be absolved, since, again, He was not forgiven for our sins," etc. This is easy to say, and seems reasonable, but it does not account for the fact that Christ submitted himself to rituals of repentance unto forgiveness, from the sacrifices given in his behalf to his baptism by John, all by way of fulfilling his office as the bearer of the world's sins. I do not have a full and systematic answer to this, but I think one is possible, and the pastors of ELDoNA may find they have overstepped themselves in this thesis.

I think Theses 13 and 14 are more clever than clear. 13 Says: "To make the 'justification of the Christ' in any way similar to our justification in connection with Christ is to cheapen the merit of Christ." The predicate, "to cheapen the merit of Christ," seems weak to me. It would have been better to say it is equivocal and have done. As for Thesis 14: "Again, to make the justification of the sinner anything less than the 'justification of the Christ' is to cheapen the merit of the Christ." Were it not for a footnote explaining, "Since what the justified have is the very righteousness of Christ Himself," this thesis would make no sense. A serious doctrinal statement is no place to be cute. There is also a footnote under Thesis 13 that redeems it somewhat. It's too bad the author(s) of these Theses chose to reserve the sense of what they were saying for the footnotes.

Theses 19 and 20 attack the extreme formulations of OJ that, if they are not "cherry-picked straw-men" (sigh), really deserve to be attacked: that OJ means "there took place a change in the heart of God" (whom nothing changes) or that God made a "pre-existing forensic declaration...about the world being without sin," even apart from the merit of Christ.

Footnote 39, under Thesis 24, takes a cheap shot at Walther—something the leaders of ELDoNA seem to think passes for a substantive argument. Their analogy to the historical development of Walther's position on church and ministry is not to the purpose. It is scarcely distinguishable from an ad hominem argument to the effect that, since Walther revived the language of "objective justification" for reasons ELDoNA is uninterested in considering, we may presume that his motives were impure. Hating C. F. W. Walther's guts is not a sound basis for a theological system.

Thesis 29 boasts: "The orthodox Lutheran position, as easily demonstrated from the fathers of the Age of Lutheran Orthodoxy..." Should we accept a mere easy demonstration? How about something more in-depth and pains-taking? In the meantime, the word "easily" bears the odor of an arrogant sneer. Pride goeth before a fall.

Finally, the first paragraph of the Conclusion states that the teaching that "all mankind is sinless before God before and apart from faith in Christ" is "not only dangerous in its grossest abuse (crass universalism), but is itself contrary to God's Word and the exhibition of the same by the Symbols of Christ's Church." By dint of careful wording, this statement just avoids the indefensible assertion that the teaching it describes actually is, or necessarily leads to, crass universalism. I think it may be because of the word "crass"—a word that itself suggests a hostile exaggeration delivered in a bullying tone of voice—that I initially thought this was actually what the sentence meant. I am still not quite sure that such an hysterical overreaction does not lurk in the hearts of some who subscribe to these theses; but I admit it is uncharitable of me to say so. In charity, however, I again warn ELDoNA not to fall into the error for which they wisely reproach the WELS (only not by name) in Thesis 4. I think the conclusion they make here does condemn the intended sense of what Luther wrote in his Galatians commentary, a concern this document unconvincingly attempts to answer.

Again, more evidence on this (Luther on Galatians, etc.) needs to be studied. More exegesis of Scripture and more wrestling with the full testimony not only of the age of Lutheran orthodoxy, but of the theological and historical reasons that have given the doctrine of Objective Justification the definition it has today, is not only desirable but necessary before the pastors of ELDoNA should do their "Here I stand, I can do no other. God help me, Amen." Any less than that is not only cheap, but it could have dangerous consequences, foreseen and unforeseen, far into the future. It is that serious. More is at stake here even than the fate of two tiny church bodies that want other Lutherans struggling to confess their faith to know, "Here we are, and we're not sectarian nut-jobs." After the ACLC and the ELDoNA have both passed out of human knowledge, we will be answerable for pull we exert on the faith and fellowship of Lutherans yet to be born. Theses for debate and consideration? Bring them on! A line in the sand of church fellowship? It is too early for that yet. We need to study this more. And we need to do it in, dare I repeat myself, a spirit of peace, openness, and brotherly forbearance. God help us!

---

¹Thesis 4: "It is unfitting simply to label one another as having a position identical to one in a previous battle [n.: Unless one can absolutely show such to be the case], though it may rightly be said that a position bears similarities or could lead to such a historic position [n.: If and only if it can be demonstrated that such is so.] That is, we must not condemn by the application of labels, but must address what is actually taught or not taught by any party."

Escape from Castle Cant

Escape from Castle Cant
by K. P. Bath
Recommended Ages: 11+

After I read this book, but before I started writing the review, I did a little research on the internet. Basically, I was looking for a link to the author's website (which doesn't exist). Only then did I learn that Mr. Bath was arrested in 2009 and sentenced in 2010 to six years in prison for possession of child pornography. So right off I am faced with the awkward question, whether or not I should recommend a book written for children by a man who exploited children. The librarian who wrote this editorial explored this question. It isn't a conclusive opinion, and it isn't necessarily mine, but it's a thoughtful piece. Instead of making this review about that question, I would like to refer concerned kids and their parents first to that article, and urge them to think about it, discuss it, and form their own opinion. Then you can decide whether anything else I have to say about this book is worth your time.

This book is a sequel to The Secret of Castle Cant, which I read many years ago. Like the sequels to many other books I enjoyed, I have had this one on my shelf for so long that I forgot what the original book was about and had to re-read my own review of it to refresh my memory. I understand there is a third book in the series, titled The Black Arrow of Cant, published in 2007. As far as I can tell, there is nothing in these books that would suggest anything off about the author's attitude toward children. There is perhaps a tiny hint of adult content, more implied than stated: the two young heroines, best friends Pauline Cant and Lucy Wickwright, know how babies are made. They learn, moreover, that they were both conceived through extramarital affairs. The only other surprises of a questionable or inappropriate nature are a couple of references to farting.

While we don't see adults exploiting children in these books the way their author did, we do see ambitious men trying to use the two girls' claims to the Barony of Cant to set themselves up in power, and people of all ages threatening the safety and freedom of these girls as they flee from their would-be regents. We see examples of orphaned children moving around freely with unrelated adults and, in some cases, forming warm friendships with them. I didn't see any harm in any of this while I was reading the books, but knowing what I know now... Use your judgment. It's up to you. You may also want to take into account how seemingly innocent books like this might have been used, in fact or fancy, to lure victims in, etc. Like the author of the essay previously cited, I revise my opinion on this every minute that I spend thinking about it. So don't rely on me to give you the answer.

Reading the book on its own terms, as my ignorance at the time allowed me to do, I thought a bit more highly of it than the librarian cited above. I was charmed by the whimsy of an isolated country, situated on the fold of everybody's maps, cut off by natural barriers from most modern progress and outside influence—a country capable of having a civil war over chewing gum—a country where references to present-day culture and technology ring like distant echoes into a time where vehicles are drawn by horses and mules, and battles are fought with swords and crossbows. It's a story full of humorous names such as "The Rev. Mr. Pius Frodd," where a tourism pamphlet can bear the incredible title: "VISIT FARAWAY BOONDOCK! 'The Tenesmus of Trans-Poltroon'." The adult world through which the hero girls move is both ridiculous and dangerous, and even the well-meaning grown-ups often make things worse for them through misunderstanding and failure to listen. But the girls make their share of silly, immature mistakes too, ensuring that their escape from the Barony of Cant will be as perilous, confusing, and full of setbacks as can be.

Pauline, believed to be the legitimate daughter of the late Baron of Cant, is supported by the Loyalist Faction; their leader, former Postal Commissioner Vladimir Orloff, proclaims himself her regent and plans to rule in her name. Meanwhile former lady's maid Lucy, who was raised by an adoptive family after being born to a servant girl in the castle, now turns out to be the Baron's acknowledged daughter. The Causist rebels, led by Oxford-educated firebrand Arden Gutz, mean to use Lucy as just such another figurehead—while, at the first taste of power, they prove to be no different from the old ruling class they mean to replace. You may think the resulting civil war is a meaningless trifle, but what it's really about is the gum trade. Whoever controls it, holds the real power in the Barony of Cant.

There is something sinister and wrong about how addictive this gum is, which is specially manufactured for import into the Barony. Ultimately Pauline and Lucy conclude that neither of them can rule securely until the gum industry has been cut off at the root. But to do that they must escape not only the castle, but the whole country. And that means surviving betrayal by gypsy-like Tinker children, an attack by pirates, a wilderness survival ordeal, and a hair-raising scene at a public execution. Meanwhile their allies, such as stuttering astronomer Luigi Lemonjello and poteen smuggler Lillian Lungwich, have adventures of their own that blend slapstick comedy and deadly menace with a surreal seamlessness.

It isn't perfectly done. At times the plot line seemed a bit slack and arbitrary. There were times when, for reasons I can't put a name on, my attention wandered. But the main characters share a warm friendship, and their vivaciousness and passion and willingness to grow makes their story quite effective. I guess the bottom line is that I read it, I enjoyed it, and I do not begrudge the time I spent with it; so I feel that I owe the book, if not its author, credit for that much. Whether, in light of facts that lie outside this book, I would recommend it to parents and children, is another question. I do try to uphold the principle of freedom from censorship, and that includes the soft censorship of consigning disgraced authors to the damnation of memory. But being so far from knowing my own mind in this case, I leave it up to you.

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
by Robert Louis Stevenson
Recommended Ages: 12+

The title of this book varies from one edition to another. Sometimes it is published with a "The" at the beginning. Sometimes "Strange Case of" is omitted. Sometimes it is even given simply as Jekyll & Hyde. It's not as though the printer needs to save ink; it's a very short book, a novella really. There are even more versions of Stevenson's story than variants of its title. Next to A Christmas Carol, it has probably seen more adaptations for stage and film than any other work of English literature, including parodies and re-imaginings that (ha, ha) transform the original story almost out of recognition. I have seen and read several of these re-tellings, which share little in common except the essential concept of a man who, by taking a potion, transforms himself into another person—in most versions, an identity compounded of all the dark, evil parts of himself. And of course, the trouble that bad Mr. (or Ms.) Hyde gets into, always complicates things for Dr. Jekyll as well.

What I never realized until now, on finally reading the story as Stevenson wrote it, is how different his novella is from any and all of the dramatizations, abridgements, contextualizations, and "for dummies" versions on the market. The popular idea of what this story is about is also quite out of order. It isn't about split personalities or "dissociative identity disorder." It is about a man's struggle with the conflicting powers of good and evil within his one personality, and the tragedy that takes place when he experiments with a drug to separate the two. It is a story about the course of a life-destroying addiction, together with a man's losing struggle against moral corruption, guilt, and the terror of justice. It is a true tale of horror. It resembles nightmares I have had and—assuming that I'm not alone in this—explores something that troubles many people with a well-developed moral conscience and an understanding of the evil nature within each of us. And it does this in a story that combines shock, suspense, mystery, and a really chilling final confession, as only a master writer can. Here is a sample of the story you thought you knew, in case you've never read it:

This was the shocking thing; that the slime of the pit seemed to utter cries and voices; that the amorphous dust gesticulated and sinned; that what was dead, and had no shape, should usurp the offices of life.

When I started reading this story, I thought the quote I was going to drop into my review was going to be, "'If he be Mr Hyde,' he had thought, 'I shall be Mr Seek.'" At first it doesn't seem to take the Jekyll/Hyde mythology as seriously as it ought to, judging from more recent redactions. Pretending that we don't know what the story hasn't openly revealed to us (though we do know, we do), we don't find out what's up with Jekyll and Hyde until almost the end of the story. We come at the truth slowly, through the investigations of a lawyer friend of Henry Jekyll's, named Gabriel Utterson.

Lawyer Utterson knows something fishy is going on between the good doctor and his bad protege. He worries that, by making his will in favor of the violent and amoral Edward Hyde, Jekyll puts himself in harm's way. But Jekyll tells him not to worry. Then Hyde is seen committing a notorious murder, and worrying is back on the menu. But the mystery only grows more perplexing as Hyde disappears and as Jekyll, after a season of unusually sociable behavior, suddenly goes into strict seclusion. A mutual friend of Jekyll and Utterson's, a physician named Lanyon, suddenly suffers a physical and mental breakdown and dies within weeks, leaving Utterson a sealed letter to be read only on the death or disappearance of Jekyll. The crisis finally comes when Jekyll's servants appeal to the lawyer for help, suspecting that Hyde has done away with Jekyll. They break down the door of the chemist's laboratory and make the kind of ghastly discovery that can only be understood after reading the last testament of both Lanyon and Jekyll. And the chill deepens the farther you read, all the way down to the bone.

This isn't about a man innocently, accidentally, and (at first) uncontrollably being split into two persons, one good and the other evil, and then having trouble keeping his double life from being detected. It is, rather, about a man who struggles with the spiritual duality within himself. He thinks he can create two persons out of one, and separate the bad from the good; but when he tries it, he discovers that he was wrong. The Jekyll part of him remains as he was before, with both the good and bad held in constant tension; the Hyde side, however, is deformed, stunted, and purely evil. Because of this imbalance in favor of evil, and the weakness of Jekyll's human nature, and the wicked abandon of Hyde, and the decreasing effectiveness of the drug, all working together, what starts as a weird experiment quickly becomes an addiction. And while Jekyll increasingly loses control, Hyde has become a hunted man, doomed to the gallows if captured.

Any civilized and decent person must be able to imagine and sympathize with the horror a man feels as he sees himself becoming a monster, and knows that his identity will soon be lost. The top horror fetishes of the moment—zombies, vampires, and werewolves—can also be understood in the light of losing yourself and becoming something monstrous. But Dr. Jekyll's situation is, if anything, even more cruel: he has, at least to start with, the ability to come back to himself at will. But through his own weakness, errors, and the biochemistry of addiction, he lives through the agony of losing that saving grace, bit by tiny bit. And all the while, he knows that he brought it on himself by choice; nothing bit him or scratched him to make him this way. This is what he chose, rather than having to struggle between his high aspirations and his low appetites. It's an instructive horror, then, for the rest of us who sometimes feel discouraged as we fight our own inner demons. But it's also a horrible horror, and no mistake. I, for one, will have something new to pray about tonight, after finishing this book. I might as well pray anyway, since I'll be lying awake!