Sunday 16 November 2014

Wrath

Every now and again the Christian corner of social media goes into meltdown over the singing of Stuart Townend's In Christ Alone. The line causing so much consternation is 'Till on that cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied'. I now have a much bigger problem with the song thanks to a family argument this evening. Over a heated debate about how wrath should be pronounced one of the family said it should be pronounced like Wrath of Khan - the best of the original Star Trek film franchise. So that's the song now ruined for me, I'll never be able to sing it again without thinking of Ricardo Montalban with a mullet haircut shouting:
He tasks me. He tasks me, and I shall have him. I'll chase him round the Moons of Nibia and round Antares Maelstrom and round Perdition's Flames before I give him up!... Prepare to alter course.

2 comments:

UKViewer said...

We sang that at our main service this morning. Had to have a print out as it's not in our hymn books.

I know that there's a lot of fuss about the theology behind lots of hymns, I particularly regret the decimation or leaving out many of the hymns that have been categorised as being militaristic - when the furthest thing from the writers mind was to glorify war.

They used the visual imagery of the time, particularly like Paul's excellent depiction of putting on the Armour of God, which nobody quibbles over the reading.

Why should cultural perceptions be allowed to change soundly, theological based hymns.

I sing them with gusto. But than, I'm an ex-Squaddy :)

Sipech said...

There's another instance in your post. "He tasks me" - when did this stop being "He asks me"?

It's similar to when a couple of months ago, one of the minor characters in Star Wars had their name changed from Reg to Wedge.