Baptist Hymnody and the Christian Year -- By: C. Michael Hawn

Journal: Faith and Mission
Volume: FM 08:2 (Spring 1991)
Article: Baptist Hymnody and the Christian Year
Author: C. Michael Hawn


Baptist Hymnody and the Christian Year

C. Michael Hawn

Professor of Church Music
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven—

Ecclesiastes 3:1 (New American Standard)

De Tempore Hymnody: A Brief Overview1

The concept of Christian hymns used for specific seasons is as old as the church. In the worship of the Temple, specific songs were linked to the major seasons of the Jewish calendar including songs for the new year, the season of atonement, and Pentecost (harvest). The earliest records of Christian hymnody distinguish between hymns for Easter and hymns for the remainder of the year. There is evidence that a yearly cycle of hymns was in use throughout the Benedictine Order and thus throughout Western Europe by the end of the sixth century. This cycle of song consisted of at least sixty hymns designated for specific canonical hours or seasons of the Christian year including Nativity, Epiphany, Lent, and Easter. Liturgical reform characterized the ninth and tenth centuries, leading to a revised, expanded list of hymns that included not only the festivals of Nativity, Epiphany, Palm Sunday, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, and Trinity, but also an evergrowing number of feasts honoring Apostles, biblical saints, early Christian martyrs, and local saints.2

De tempore use of hymns was a common feature of the church before the Reformation. The de tempore hymn or Gradual was a psalm sung between the Epistle and Gospel lessons as the “hymn of the day” or “hymn of the week.” This tradition continued with the worship reforms of Martin Luther. The movements of Pietism and Rationalism placed much less emphasis upon the Gradual tradition, which died out two centuries after the reformer died.

The Gradual or de tempore psalm has experienced a great revival in the liturgical reforms of the last thirty years. The Lutheran Book of Worship (1978), The United Methodist Hymnal(1989), and The Presbyterian Hymnal (1990), to mention a few recent Protestant hymnals, reflect an increased interest not only in de tempore psalm singing, but also in the careful selection of hymns for specific seasons of the Christian year.

Baptists And The Christian Year

The influence of the Christian year upon Baptist worship has been at best

sporadic. At least two issues have been at work throughout Baptist history tha...

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