Stirring Hymns

[rockfreak]

I suppose many of my older generation will not be believers but may still respond to the stirring hymns we used to sing in chapel. I've recently discovered an interesting set of albums by Maddy Pryor, taking one of her periodic rests from being singer with Steeleye Span, and titled "Maddy Pryor and The Carnival Band - Sing Lustily and With Good Courage". These albums resurrect what it must have sounded like in years gone by when they had local musicians playing stringed instruments in the gallery rather than an organ (something featured satirically by Hardy in one of his novels - 'Under The Greenwood Tree' or 'The Woodlanders' ? - I can't remember which). Maddy assembles a load of compulsively singalong old standards by the likes of Bunyon and the Wesleys (I'd forgotten how many great hymns they wrote - did we sing some of these in chapel in the 50s and 60s? Did we allow Methodism into our CofE liturgy? I really can't remember). Anyway, you can find all these albums on You Tube.

[MrEd]

'To be a Pilgrim', Bunyan's poem turned hymn is best known set to the tune of Monk's Gate, named https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yHJMPw8RHU, for the hamlet just south-east of Horsham, near Manning's Heath, around 3 miles from CH. A fine tune it is.

[rockfreak]

Thanks Mr Ed for putting the link to Maddy and the Carnival Band. As an old codger who came late to the internet I'm useless at putting links.
I suppose I'm what is today described as a Cultural Christian - someone who was brought up with this stuff and still has a lingering affection for it, while not actually being a believer.

I still believe that the CofE is rather a good thing because it's a broad church where you don't have to believe dogma literally and which, perhaps by being a rather woolly, broad church, has kept religious fanaticism at the margins. If you want to just turn up and sing the stirring hymns and listen to the King James Bible (which is a work of literature in its own right) and maybe run a food bank, then that's OK. I suppose that is what atheists like me would recognise as Christianity. Not for nothing is St Francis everyone's favourite saint, whether they are believers or not. In heartland America there has been an unfortunate side effect to not having an official church. Religion has gone free market and, as Dawkins observes, what works for soapflakes works for God. Heartland America is possessed with a virulent Old Testament fanaticism where any Elmer Gantry figure can get up on a soapbox and draw a crowd and do very well out of it. It's currently expressing itself in a massive support movement for Donald Trump.

I wonder when CH stopped singing these stirring hymns in chapel? I left in 1960. What has been the nature of religion since?

[rockfreak]

Talking of Bunyan, I often wonder how many people there are left who were brought up with these old hymns in chapel or school assembly. Alan Bennett (Northern, working class, grammar school in the postwar years) notes that at funerals and memorial services he is one of a declining few who can remember the words of these grand old hymns.

A few years ago I was wandering down the aisles of my local Tesco and spotted a stack of Hobgoblin beers in the drinks section. I spontaneously started softly singing: "Hobgoblin nor foul fiend shall daunt his spirit!" This, I suddenly realised, was drawing some odd looks from other shoppers, so I took to humming it without the words. But I note that even Hymns of Praise has been infiltrated by hymns that I don't recognise, almost certainly weedled in by the Evangelicals. In politics this is called Entryism (like Militant weedling its way into the Labour party), and I believe that this is a bad idea. The now resigned Rev Oilwelby (as Private Eye called him) was once an adherent to Holy Trinity Brompton, England's H/Q of evangelical lunacy (healings and miracles, speaking in tongues, and other unlikely nonsense) and I believe that this has diverted the C of E from its woolly, broad church, dogma-lite. generally well-meaning identity. The one-time Canon of St Paul's Cathedral Giles Fraser, who writes on religion, is quoted in Dawkins's book The God Delusion as saying that taking a too-serious approach to religion is dangerous. Looking at what's happening in middle America at the moment with the evangelical vote cast for Trump, it's hard to disagree.

[rockfreak]

Talking of religious lunacy, right on cue, up on this evening's news comes some far-eastern chancer who has persuaded people that slapping is a better cure than conventional medicine. Of course it turns out that he's of an evangelical Christian persuasion. Footage appears of a long line of people all busy slapping each other. Many have nasty bruises on their bodies as a result. The tragedy is that one woman who had diabetes had been persuaded by this geezer to go without her insulin and give herself a good slapping instead. As a result she has died. Even when we were getting beaten at CH in the 1950s I don't recall anyone telling us that it was a medicinal cure for our ills.

[dsm]

Likewise Freaky, never much of a believer but loved those old hymns we sang. Also, the good old leaving hymn still brings a tear to the eye.

[sejintenej]

I suspect it is a question of era, of human influences and the tune itself. The post war era is long gone and none of later generations heard the WW!! radio, saw V!s and the like, It seems to be all "me first" and damn the rest.
Growing up during WW!! one was inundated with Britain must win and similar.As to influence try growing up with an adult who spent all of WW! in prison camp and WW!! training agents going to France, to commanding a small MGB in the Channel, to always be at the front during November 11 services etc etc and one is influenced,
Ergo a strong noise factor, a marching rhythm, perhaps "Britain first" words will suits
All IMHO