Ditching the Redeemer

Yesterday I attended the Consecration of John Wraw as Bishop of Bradwell and Tim Dakin as Bishop of Winchester at St. Paul’s Cathedral. It was a great service with a powerful and challenging sermon from Stephen Cottrell the Bishop of Chelmsford. The hymns were traditional and predictable but I didn’t have a problem until it came to the offertory hymn Crown Him With Many Crowns. As we sang the last verse things didn’t seem quite right and my mate Graham Tomlin standing next to me identified the problem; the words of the last verse had been changed. Here’s the original:

Crown Him the Lord of years, the Potentate of time,
Creator of the rolling spheres, ineffably sublime.
All hail, Redeemer, hail! For Thou has died for me;
Thy praise and glory shall not fail throughout eternity.

And here is what replaced it in the service:

Crown Him the Lord of years, the Potentate of time,
Creator of the rolling spheres, ineffably sublime.
Glassed in a sea of light, Where everlasting waves
Reflect his throne – the Infinite! Who lives – and loves – and saves.

So why have we ditched the Redeemer? I can only assume its because the original words smack of an atonement theology the cathedral authorities or whoever drew up the service feel uncomfortable with. If that’s the case then why did we keep the opening verse?

Crown Him with many crowns, the Lamb upon His throne.
Hark! How the heavenly anthem drowns all music but its own.
Awake, my soul, and sing of Him who died for thee,
And hail Him as thy matchless King through all eternity.

I’m getting a bit fed up of all the tinkering going on with hymns at various services I attend. Our own cathedral in Chelmsford changes the lines of In Christ Alone because of the unease with the ‘Wrath of God’ in the original. Apart from it probably being a copyright infringement I can’t help wondering why we sing it if people are uncomfortable with the lyrics.

Looking at the new ending for Crown Him I'm really not sure what it means. The original speaks of Christ being praised for eternity because of all that he has done for us. The new version sounds like a discarded Beatles song from their LSD phase.

Anyway, I’m praying for our new bishop John Wraw and for Tim Dakin as he takes up his ministry in Winchester and I’ll carry on praising the Redeemer and leave others to wallow in the everlasting waves.



Update: I am grateful to the Archdruid for doing some research for me (see comments). It turns out that the last verse we sang is the original version of that verse which has since been amended over the years. The song has a long history, coloured by a bit of catholic / protestant rivalry and there is a brief summary posted here. I still think this version is bordering on the nonsensical and don't know why it was chosen over the much more familiar and I would suggest theologically accessible 'redeemer' version.