Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Baptist Scholarship

This isn't exactly Hymns in the News, but I thought some of you might be interested in a recent collection of scholarly papers on various aspects of Baptist hymnody that were presented at the September 24-25 Colloquium on Baptist Church Music sponsored by the Center for Christian Music Studies at Baylor University. Even if you're not from a Baptist background, you'll probably find something of interest.

Just to whet your appetite, some of the papers include:


  • Collecting Baptist Hymnals
  • Hymns and the Baptist Presidents
  • Chinese Hymns in Chinese Baptist Hymnals
  • The Growth of Calvinism in Southern Baptist Churches
and the one I'm most looking forward to reading, with the intriguing title of More Than Half a Fool, which discusses the use of Anglican chant in Baptist churches in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

You can download and read them all at this web page:
Center for Christian Music Studies,

On other matters, the amount of traffic on this blog seems to be spiking this week for some unknown reason, with more than forty people visiting on both Sunday and Monday (average daily visits have been closer to 25-30 in recent months). Big change from the days when I pretty much knew everyone who was reading. Not that I'm complaining but it's also odd to note that at the same time, comments have substantially decreased.


If you're new to the site (or even if you're not new), please feel free to introduce yourself and join the conversation.

4 comments:

Sue Spencer said...

I stumbled on your blog while looking for information about Seth Curtis Beach ("Mysterious Presence, Source of All"). Am happy to find another hymn lover in Connecticut!

Sue Spencer
UU Congregation of Danbury

C.W.S. said...

Welcome, Sue! Hope to hear from you again.

Leland Bryant Ross said...

I've been scarcer of late in the comments than I was a year ago, and it looks like the scarcity is likely to last till at least the New Year. One major cause: my wife and I have just undertaken to buy our first house (we were married in August of 2003, and have lived in apartments ever since). Buying and moving into a home will certainly occupy a great deal of my time in the next couple months, and I'm sorry to think of all the comments I might otherwise be able to make but shan't.

Thanks for the Baylor link! That note about Anglican chant in Baptist churches is a topic of interest to me, too. My oldest Baptist hymnal, the 1883 one edited by William H. Doane, has a lengthy chant section, though it seems to be in several styles, not necessarily all of them Anglican.

Another project I am toying with ("toying" is the wrong word; actually I should say "thinking seriously about"—I'm very serious) is a bilingual Sgaw Karen-English church music resource (a hymnal, yes, but also with online and projectable components) to be published for the Judson Bicentennial (another Baptist thing) in 2013. I posted some related material on the Forum at Hymnary.org just today, here

I'm already working on a somewhat similar thing to present to my Region of ABC, the Evergreen Association, in 2012 on its 10th anniversary,and I'd like to see if I can manage to co-compile two related yet almost wholly different Baptist hymn resources at once.

I am not necessarily very optimistic...my planned novel-writing this month has already gone by the wayside, and either someone else will have to write 666 Pennsylvania Avenue or it will just have to appear late.

I did finally post a rather late and lame piece about the Hymn-Sing last month. Will try to be able to do better for the Fanny Crosby one in April.

Leland aka Haruo

PS There, that comment covers enough ground to make up for two or three of the ones I failed to make...

C.W.S. said...

Congratulations on the house! I suspect we will still be here whenever you have a chance to drop by.

I did read about your compilation. I have encountered that tune KEBLE (another melody by Charlotte Barnard / "Claribel") in the 1898 Baptist hymnal Sursum Corda (available online), though not with the same text, so it was making the Baptist rounds apparently.