ANCIENT & MODERN
Hymns and songs for refreshing worship
Ancient and Modern Ltd. 847 items. Full Music
edition £35.00, Melody £20.00, Words only
£12.50; various discounts for churches
ISBN (Full Music) 978 1 848 252 424
It is not only Anglicans who will notice this further landmark in the story of the world’s most successful hymn book. The fact that it is here at all is a massive and welcome vote of confidence in the future of books.
A mere 13 years since its immediate predecessor, this is the most extensive in a series which has sold 170 million copies since 1861 and with the widest range of material to date. Like that recent book, it is a huge improvement on the New Standard (1983), which still survives in some surprising places. The Preface is signed by a team of six editors, including two women. Among the expected indexes, the Thematic section surely has something for everyone; the Metrical Index does not print the opening bars of music.
Being a mainstream Anglican book, it will not command 100% approval anywhere; but with Timothy Dudley-Smith established as the leading author with 41 hymns, includes a rich heart of clear evangelical doctrine. Among the classic writers, Charles Wesley has 24 hymns and Isaac Watts (carefully?) just one fewer; most of the old favourites are here, usually in classic forms with the occasional nod towards inclusive or modernised language. J.M. Neale’s 23 are mainly translations, Montgomery has ten, Doddridge only four, while John Newton’s five include ‘Amazing grace’ without those spurious ‘ten thousand years’.
No tampering
With the happy exception of ‘The first Nowell’, the editors have not dared to tamper with familiar Christmas carols even when they are plainly wrong! But I hope a place will be found for such biblical and modern boldness as Martin Leckebusch’s ‘In the night, the sound of crying’ — on the massacre of the innocents.
‘Jerusalem’ is here; so is ‘I vow to thee, my it country’, but also Michael Perry’s alternative words to those tunes by Parry and Holst. I counted a dozen or so writers, and a similar number of composers, from the ‘Jubilate Hymns’ stable.
The ‘A&M’ doors are clearly now open to Graham Kendrick, Stuart Townend and Keith Getty (14, 12 and ten respectively), but the Scottish pair of John Bell and Graham Maule are even more dominant among cutting-edge contemporaries, though many of their contributions are shorter chants or songs.
The arrangement of contents is traditional: the first 300 or so cover the church’s year and the final 250 a less helpful ‘General’ section arranged alphabetically. 60 texts are in the ‘Holy Communion’ slot, reflecting the dominance of that service in an average parish; it would be a pity if these were all confined to sacramental use. 18 hymns on ‘The Word of God’ may seem relatively meagre, but this section actually compares well with some supposedly more evangelical books (Mission Praise, approximately two!).
But the chief message of this publication will be good news for churches using books, supplying a far wider range than is usually explored by congregations or ministers committed to PowerPoint. Even those who won’t use it regularly or approve of it wholeheartedly can hardly afford to ignore it.
