Hi and welcome to this bonus episode of Giants of the Faith. In our regular episodes we're progressing through a season featuring hymnists that have produced some of the greatest hymns in the history of the Church. But it kind of begs the question - what is a hymn? To be honest, that's not something that occurred to me to ask until I was five episodes through profiling hymn writers. To me, hymns just are what they are and you know one when you hear one. But there has to be more to it than that. And while I'm certainly no musical theorist or even a garden-variety musician I'm going to try and answer that question today.

So we'll start with the definition. Meriam-Webster says a hymn is "a metrical composition adapted for singing in a religious service". And what does metrical mean? Well, it means it is composed in meter, of course. Like a metrical poem. But what it really means is that it has verses or stanzas that have a repeating pattern of syllables. So, it's a poem with repeating syllables that gets sung in a church service.

And it is a poem that can stand on its own, without music and without being sung. A good hymn has a cadence that comes out even when the tune to it is not known.

In their book Sing With Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Hymnody, Harry Eskew and Hugh T. McElrath say it this way “[A hymn] should be simple and metrical in form, genuinely emotional, poetic and literary in style, spiritual in quality, and in its ideas so direct and so immediately apparent as to unify a congregation while singing it.” 

Edith Margaret Clarkson, a modern hymn writer lists out six characteristics of a hymn that set it apart from a song. According to her a hymn is God-centered rather than self or man-centered. A hymn is theologically sound and rooted in scripture, rather than emotions. She also says a hymn has words of beauty, dignity, reverence, and simplicity. Similarly, hymns are made from good and true words that are both adult and precise. Finally, hymns unify the heart and turn them toward heaven.

By contrast, worship songs are often informal and they are centered on the music more than the lyrics. In general they are written for individual or group performances in contrast to the corporate nature of hymn singing. Of course, that doesn't mean they aren't sung corporately but, in general, that's not their design. I've seen it written that hymns are about who God IS and worship songs are about what God DOES. That's somewhat reductionist but also not too far from reality.

So in summary, a hymn is a poem set to music that is doctrinally sound, verbally efficient, and at the same time beautiful. And that's it for this bonus episode. Thanks very much for listening. Until next time, God bless.

RESOURCES

My Song in the Night: https://mysonginthenight.com/2012/10/01/what-makes-a-worship-song-a-hymn/

DifferenceBetween: http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/entertainment-miscellaneous/difference-between-song-and-hymn/

Reformed Worship: https://www.reformedworship.org/article/june-1987/what-hymn

Hymnicity: http://hymni.city/what-is-a-hymn