RICHMOND, Va. (ABP) – This year’s gathering of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society was atypically melodic, featuring a hymn festival May 17 celebrating hymnody in various genres.
Fred Anderson, the society’s executive director, said the hymn singing at Grace Baptist Church in Richmond would have earned the approval of Andrew Broaddus, an early 19th-century Virginia Baptist minister who compiled some of Baptists’ earliest hymnals. Anderson displayed a tiny, pocket-sized version of one of Broaddus’s hymnal, part of the society’s collection.
Fred Anderson (left) displays a 19th-century pocket-sized hymnal to musicians Deborah Carlton Loftis and Bill Roberts. The hymnal is in the Virginia Baptist Historical Society's collection.
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“Andrew’s father hoped he would be an Episcopal priest, but he was lured away to the Baptists because of the music, which he said sounded like choirs of angels,” said Anderson. “We are a singing denomination in part because of him.”
The hymn festival was planned as a highlight of the society’s annual meeting “in hopes that together we will sound like one of Andrew Broaddus’s choirs of angels,” said Anderson.
Underpinning the singing of about a dozen hymns was diverse musical accompaniment, including a folk arrangement of "God of Grace and God of Glory," with two guitars; a jazz version of "It Is Well With My Soul," with keyboard and brushed cymbals; and a triumphant "Holy, Holy, Holy," with pipe organ and oboe.
“Sometimes when we sing very familiar hymns, we let our minds go on autopilot and we don’t think much about what we’re singing,” said Deborah Carlton Loftis, executive director of the Hymn Society of the United States and Canada. “That’s OK sometimes, but on occasion, singing a favorite in a new way can awaken us to fresh understanding and appreciation. That’s what we’re about tonight.”
Loftis, who also is visiting professor of church music at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, organized the hymn festival along with Bill Roberts, professor of church music at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Va.
“I hope that the additions and changes will add new meaning and enjoyment to your singing — maybe a little like new spices added to a favorite recipe,” said Loftis. “With the new hymns, we’ll have a taste of what poets and composers are contributing in our time to the body of hymnody to help praise God through song.”
Added to the mix of hymns was a song from the Taize tradition, featuring a congregational ostinato, or repeated chorus, beneath cantored verses. Betty Pugh Mills, Grace Baptist’s pastor, sang the cantor’s melody.
“The Taize community in France centers its worship around short, repeated songs that are sung prayer,” said Loftis. “Using just a few words they express a basic reality of faith, quickly grasped by the mind. As the words are sung over many times, this reality gradually penetrates the whole being. Meditative singing thus becomes a way of listening to God.”
Among the instrumentalists at the hymn festival were several from the American Youth Harp Ensemble, whose home base is at Grace Baptist. The group uses music education as a catalyst to develop children’s personal growth and sense of community service.
“I wanted to make sure you knew about this treasure right here in Richmond,” said Loftis, “The group has played at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the White House and in other prestigious concert settings around the world.”
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Robert Dilday is managing editor of the Religious Herald.