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Dear TG: Your post reminded me of a funny episode from a course on liturgy and spirituality that I took at Georgetown U a few years ago. The professor was an older priest - fascinating fellow, very mainstream, with a wonderful sense of humor. He passed out an article about the politically correct changes made to some versions of "Amazing Grace." Apparently, some Roman Catholic and Protestant hymnals had replaced the phrase "saved a wretch like me" with "saved and set me free." Father Professor didn't like this. He said he had long feared that Roman Catholics were slipping into "happy little felt banner theology" where it is only okay to say the happy little quotes that end up in banners for second grade Sunday school. "Don't call ME a wretch," he said smiling, "That's that 'Publican feller.' He's a SINNER don't you know." He then read some his favorite things you would never, ever see on a felt banner - mostly angry lines from prophets of old, as they shook the dust from their sandals so to speak. "Amazing Grace" is a moving hymn for me - I've always liked it when I've heard it in Roman Catholic and Protestant churches. Best renditions I've heard are from street musicians, though! But I'm not sure I'd like to hear even that hymn, though, in a traditional Eastern church - it would seem outta place. I agree w/ you on "Be Not Afraid" and a lot of the other more modern, mainstream hymns. Aargh. Give me "The Battle is O'er" over "On Eagles Wings" any day of the week. A. Originally posted by Theist Gal: I was rather disturbed when the closing hymn at last week's Divine Liturgy was that ever-popular "let's all pretend we're God" hymn, "Be Not Afraid" ...
Please -- someone -- tell me this was an aberration! This particular hymn is my own personal "It's a Small World", if you get my drift ... 
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That's funny, Annie! Yes, I have encountered that "anti-wretch" theology myself on more than one occasion ... :rolleyes: not to mention the "anti-man" faction, which would like to replace "the brotherhood of man" with (so help me) "the fellowship of peoples"!! 
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Originally posted by Annie_SFO:
Apparently, some Roman Catholic and Protestant hymnals had replaced the phrase "saved a wretch like me" with "saved and set me free." Father Professor didn't like this. He said he had long feared that Roman Catholics were slipping into "happy little felt banner theology" where it is only okay to say the happy little quotes that end up in banners for second grade Sunday school. "Don't call ME a wretch," he said smiling, "That's that 'Publican feller.' He's a SINNER don't you know." Don't call me a wretch either, thank you very much. This line comes from the heretical Protestant (Calvinist) doctrine of Total Depravity. I'm a big-time sinner, yes, it's true. "Forgive me o Lord, for I have sinned without number." But has sin destroyed the true human nature even of those born again of water and the Spirit at Holy Baptism? No. As we Byzantines would put it, sin clouds or distorts the image/icon of God that we are, but it does not destroy it. 
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Originally posted by Lemko Rusyn:
[QUOTE]Don't call me a wretch either, thank you very much. I'm sure you are a little angel, Lemko. However, regardless of the theology behind the words, I am not a big fan of "bowdlerizing" hymns or books.
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Originally posted by Theist Gal: Originally posted by Steve Petach:
[b] Now, if 'Izhe Cheruvimy' was sung to the "Be not Afraid" melody, it would definitely raise some eyebrows!!!
Steve Petach  [/b]And to think, I will be in the land of the "small world" tomorrow........ Steve
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Well, theist gal, I hope you are enjoying having planted that naughty thought; I have not been able to dislodge the melody of "It's a small world" from my brain for the past several hours! Unfortunately its nice little melody works perfectly with Izhe Cheruvimy, Otche Nash, Dostojno Jest, Jedinorodnyj Syne, Chvalite Hospodi, Budi Imja, ... Now, I imagining doing the entire blessed liturgy to that tune. Even the litanies. Ho-spo-di po-mi--luj, ... Please make it stop.
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Originally posted by djs:
Well, theist gal, I hope you are enjoying having planted that naughty thought; I have not been able to dislodge the melody of "It's a small world" from my brain for the past several hours!
Unfortunately its nice little melody works perfectly with Izhe Cheruvimy, Otche Nash, Dostojno Jest, Jedinorodnyj Syne, Chvalite Hospodi, Budi Imja, ... Now, I imagining doing the entire blessed liturgy to that tune. Even the litanies. Ho-spo-di po-mi--luj, ...
Please make it stop. Thank you...both of you...first I had Gather us In playing in my head all day...now I am singing It's a Small World... Someone light the campfire and we can all sit together for a rousing rendition of Kumbaya I'll start....Someone's singing Lord, Kummmmmmbaya
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Luckily for me, I don't know the music for "It's a Small World". However, I have - far too many times - heard the Cherubic Hymn sung in ChurchSlavonic to the tune of "Nearer, my God, to Thee", and - in a large parish in Eastern Pennsylvania - "Blessed be the Name of the Lord" - again in Church Slavonic - sung to the tune of "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean".
So let's stick with znammeny chant - it's a lot better than such phenomena as that! Incognitus
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Originally posted by Ladyhawke1017: Someone light the campfire and we can all sit together for a rousing rendition of Kumbaya Kumbaya, Hospod', kumbaya...
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Now look what you started, Dave: Someone's censing, Lord, Kumbaya...
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"Amazing Grace" shouldn't be used in any Catholic Church whether Eastern or Western. It is a Protestant hymn and espouses a Calvinist theology of grace.
In Christ,
Anthony
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I agree, Anthony. The theology of that hymn is certainly opposed to the idea of regeneration at Baptism... Who needs sacraments with hymns like that?
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Hee hee - well, one of the other Forum members (whose name I shall withhold to protect the guilty) originally put the idea into my head. (Though I'm sure he now wishes he'd never mentioned it to me! ) By the way, I would like to correct something I said yesterday. (What? CORRECTION? from Theist Gal? is it the Apocalypse already? :rolleyes: ) When I said that the Divine Liturgy is usually sung, and many of you disagreed, it occurs to me that perhaps I should have clarified "sung and/or chanted". To my Western spoken-word R.C. liturgical mind, "chant" and "sing" are almost synonymous, but perhaps that was a source of confusion. Or perhaps not. Perhaps this is simply one of those weeks when, no matter what I say, someone is going to disagree with me, just for the sheer blazing h-e-double-toothpicks of it. C'est la vie. 
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Yes, TG, exactly! Originally posted by Theist Gal: Originally posted by Lemko Rusyn:
[b] [QUOTE]Don't call me a wretch either, thank you very much.
However, regardless of the theology behind the words, I am not a big fan of "bowdlerizing" hymns or books. [/b]
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Originally posted by Theist Gal:
When I said that the Divine Liturgy is usually sung, and many of you disagreed, it occurs to me that perhaps I should have clarified "sung and/or chanted". To my Western spoken-word R.C. liturgical mind, "chant" and "sing" are almost synonymous, but perhaps that was a source of confusion.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps this is simply one of those weeks when, no matter what I say, someone is going to disagree with me, just for the sheer blazing h-e-double-toothpicks of it. C'est la vie. Dear Theist Gal, No. My disagreement was with "by the congregation and not just a few people up in the choir loft or behind the amplified speakers." Which is why I said "I am all in favor of congregational singing but it does not seem to be the norm in Orthodoxy across the board," I used your word, I am not hung up on sing versus chant. I don't know if you have been to Orthodox parishes that are not of Carpaho-Russian usage, if you have you no doubt noticed this, if not I suggest you make a visit to a "Russian" or "Greek" parish church sometime. Again, this in no way dimishes the value of congregational singing but I think one should be careful to not apply this (especially this) aspect of CR usage to the greater Byzantine Orthodox tradition and understand it to be the norm. Tony
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