On Sunday in my ward we sang America the Beautiful for an opening hymn and My Country, ‘Tis of Thee for a closing hymn. I’ve never really had a problem with that before. But according to this SL Trib story, the new LDS hymnal that is being produced will not include national anthems, suggesting other patriotic songs might be dropped as well. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Maybe it is becoming more of a controversial thing, which is never good in a church setting. The whole national anthem ritual in the NFL (with players standing, kneeling, or sitting) sort of stirred the pot recently, and the President threw gas on the fire by playing up the issue. That controversy hasn’t carried over to any church setting yet that I have read about. But it easily could.
When you stop and think about it, the whole idea of singing patriotic songs in church doesn’t quite fit. We don’t sing church music at civic celebrations. Why the reverse? You don’t have to be a super-patriot to be a Christian or even a Mormon. More to the point, there are good scriptural and theological grounds to think that there is an inherent tension between allegiance to God and allegiance to Caesar, or even that a good Christian (even a good Mormon) has to decide where his or her ultimate allegiance lies, to the state or to the kingdom of God but not both. Some Christians even see pledging allegiance to a national flag, any flag, as an act of idolatry.
A different issue is how those in the congregation are affected by the songs. A parent with a child serving in the US military swells with pride. Average citizens might feel more or less thrilled with the words. A foreign visitor or an illegal immigrant in the congregation might feel a little out of place. As society continues down the path of political polarization, these reactions get magnified. Some would argue it is better to skip the patriotic songs than to risk creating divisions within a congregation. This seems like a better reason to remove patriotic songs from the hymnal than the Correlation push to make every hymn book the same across the whole world.
I’m guessing most of us will sing The Star-Spangled Banner next week. Enjoy it, if that’s your thing. It might be the last time we sing it in church.
I just spent the last three years in Canada and realized how absurd it was to have American anthems in the hymnal of a global church.
I was thinking about this as we sang the patriotic songs yesterday in my ward, and it occurred to me that my children probably won’t learn those songs as well as I did. They’ll be gone from the hymn book in just a few years, and my kids might not really hear them anywhere else. That’s a little sad to me. But yeah, it’s past time for them to be gone from sacrament meetings.
This past Sunday (July 1 st) we didn’t sing any patriotic hymns in Sacrament.
I have some memory of a story I heard somewhere in the past couple of years about a General Authority visiting a country outside the U.S. and the choir happened to be practicing their national hymn. The GA disallowed their national hymn for the conference.
his visit
As a Kiwi, I never liked that we had US patriotic songs in the hymnal. We did have God Save the Queen, I suppose, which is New Zealand’s mostly ignored “co-equal” national anthem. Doesn’t really do it though. It doesn’t connect with most Kiwis, and probably rankles against many who wished New Zealand had less to do with the crown. In one ward, our British bishop, in a ward with many foreigners, directed the deacons to glue God Defend New Zealand in the back of all the hymn books and on Sundays close to national holidays we sang this anthem. It’s a beautiful hymn and anthem. I thought it was great. I loved it. So I guess I can understand why some US patriotic songs were included in the hymnal, but I’m looking forward to a hymnal that reflects the global nature of the church today.
I’ve never been comfortable with patriotic songs in a church setting. In part because of the worldwide church thing, but mostly because the kind of unthinking, jingoistic patriotism that seems to flourish in this country is exactly the kind that my Mormon colleagues seem to embrace. It’s beyond disturbing that no one at church seems to question anything about America (or the church, for that matter), its policies or its pretty woeful record on a number of fronts. I believe in celebrating the good, but also recognizing the bad. And in America and in the Mormon Church, that belief in being balanced and objective makes me a traitor to both my country and my religion. That’s discouraging, to say the least.
If leaders don’t promptly print off copies of patriotic songs each time the holiday rolls around, I’ll eat my hat.
Singing “My Country Tis Of Thee” on Sunday brought tears to my eyes.
The church is global but I am not. In what venue henceforth will I sing these songs? Church was the last and final resting place of patriotic songs.
Brother Sky observes “It’s beyond disturbing that no one at church seems to question anything”
Agreed. It is usually complaining. Did you have a question?
We sang America The Beautiful this past Sunday. It made me think a little bit about how much I love my country and a lot about how much I love The Westing Game.
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
The word for the day: jingoistic, from Brother Sky. It’s jingoistic patriotism (often the way American patriotism manifests) that’s the problem. The gentle pride of country and culture you might see in Iceland or Denmark or New Zealand isn’t the problem. It’s the One True Country variety (goes hand in hand with the One True Church mentality, it seems) that sours the sentiment.
Michael 2, I agree there aren’t any other places where such songs are sung anymore. I learned them in grade school. Not sure they do that anymore.
Not before time. Singing ‘God save the Queen’ always felt just wrong. My country is no more important than any other, and colonialism is never far enough from us. And the Queen is no more important than my mother.
Now I’d like to see ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ gone too. Not because I don’t like it, but because I find it so stirring. Completely the wrong model for the gospel of peace, and dangerous in the wrong hands.
If ‘Be Still, My Soul’ is included in the new hymnal, then Finnish Saints will have a patriotic song there. It is composed by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius and in original language it is called ‘Finlandia’. Once in a while, someone suggests that Finlandia should replace ‘Maamme’ as the national anthem.
Handlewithcare: Amen on the Christian Soldiers thing. Feels too close to the Crusades for comfort. “Dangerous in the wrong hands”. That’s brilliant.
If we’re editing the hymn book, can we please make a note to NEVER sing “We thank thee, O God, for a prophet” or “Praise to the Man” in Sacrament meeting. I don’t like the former for it’s decree that those who reject the message of Mormonism will suffer. I don’t like the latter because it just is wrong to sing a song of worship (yes, we do worship Joseph Smith) and praise for a mortal man in a meeting that is supposed to focus us on Jesus Christ.
Many LDS believe that the Founding Fathers wrote the US Constitution for the express purpose of enabling the restoration of the Gospel. In my view this drives patriotism in USA congregations. Also the mountain states in the USA tend to be patriotic and sometimes even nationalistic. I live in a ward with a Air Force Base within my boundaries. A member of our Stake Presidency is a full bird colonel. I guarantee that if the patriotic hymns aren’t in the new hymnbook they will be printed from old copies and passed out at church the week of July 4. I got the sense that there is flexibility purposefully put in place for local congregations to sing hymns meaningful for them – presumably including patriotic hymns.
That being said it makes no sense to me to include any patriotic hymns in the hymnal of a large international church. Letting local congregations sing particular hymns as needed / desired at a local level makes a lot of sense to me.
We got to sing ‘Jerusalem’ at a stake conference a couple of years ago, and again at our recent stake concert. My kids sang it all the time at school, so much so that when my daughter went away on a school residential trip several years ago there was spontaneous singing of ‘Jerusalem’ in the camp by the students.
Our current ward sing ‘I vow to thee my country’ each Remembrance Sunday.
Neither of theses are in the current hymnbook, but they are English patriotic songs.
I already submitted my lengthy suggestions for additions to the hymnbook, and was pretty ruthless about what should be cut from both the current hymnbook and children’s song book.
I enjoy having these patriotic songs in the hymnal, and I feel good about bringing them out once a year or so. I find them inspiring and uplifting. And not in an excessively jingoistic exceptionalist kind of way, but as a respectful tribute to my homeland. I served in the military and I enjoy patriotic music and ceremonies, and I believe that love of God and love of Country can coexist peacefully, if done tastefully. But, as handlewithcare put it so eloquently, some displays of patriotism can be “dangerous in the wrong hands”. I find the Fox News brand of partisan patriotism offensive, but I know many people in my ward who embrace it and would probably be religiously validated in their extreme views by singing patriotic hymns in church.
I understand the need for an international church to work towards shedding their baked-in American exceptionalism, and the hymnal is perhaps the best place to start.
I also happen to love “Onward, Christian Soldiers”, probably more for the music than the lyrics. In the German LDS hymnbook, the song is called (translated) “Onward, Christian Youth” and the lyrics are completely devoid of any military/wartime references. It’s the exact same rousing tune, but the content is about celebrating the righteousness of our youth and not at all about metaphorical war. I’m guessing it has something to with Germany’s complicated history at the intersection of religion, strident patriotism and international politics. I wouldn’t mind at all if we demilitarized the English version of the song in a similar fashion.
I don’t think anybody’s mentioned “Battle Hymn of the Republic” yet–also another old favorite of mine. When I was stationed in the rural deep South, my old-fashioned Southern branch president absolutely refused to allow this song to be sung in sacrament meeting (I was the branch music director at the time). Most of the ward members were military families from elsewhere (“carpetbaggers”). I eventually understood that this restriction was not just about the Civil War historical issues, but also a manifestation of his quiet resentment toward the continuous rotations of Mormons from “out west” who he perceived as pushing Utah cultural norms down his genteel Southern throat. Cultural divisions from our hymns are not just international.
I agree with some of the recommendations and disagree with others. I suppose we’re all like that.
Agree that the military songs which are generally from a period when war was seen as glorious need to be removed or modified.
Ther are a number of Utah hymns that need similar treatment. Firm as the mountains around us is regularly sung in our ward, which is on a coastal plain, and the highest mountain in the country is 1500k away and 2200m high.
We have our national anthem stuck in the back of the hymnbook.
Can the church just change the words of hymns? I love Jerusalem, but can you just remove the mention of english sod? Might someone object?
Dave B. writes “The gentle pride of country and culture you might see in Iceland or Denmark or New Zealand isn’t the problem. It’s the One True Country variety (goes hand in hand with the One True Church mentality, it seems) that sours the sentiment.”
Icelanders (of those I met, many) seem annoyed that the United States, a relatively recent arrival compared to Iceland, has gotten so much attention. There’s more than a little pride.
While anything on the internet is refutable, one of the least refutable claims *is* American exceptionalism. No sovereign. No crown. No king. No prince. Not even “ASBO’s” (but heading in that direction). Rights are not *created* by its constitution; simply acknowledged to exist and beyond reach of the constitution.
It seems irrational that more than one church, particularly widely variant in doctrine churches, could all be “true”. Jesus established a church, more or less (really it was the apostles that created a church); not hundreds of them. It *is* possible that all of them fall short, but some fall shorter than others.
My husband and I’s (grammar?) first argument as a couple, 15 years ago, was over whether The Star Spangled Banner should be in hymnbook. I argued that love of country is sacred. I don’t remember what he argued, but our disagreement came to an immediate end when I learned that HIS country’s anthem was not in the Spanish hymnbook. I hadn’t realized that God Save the Queen and the SSB were the only anthems included any version. I had a moment of cognitive dissonance; I’d been taught that my (North) American patriotism was part of the Gospel by the same church that wouldn’t include his patriotism in its hymnbook. I still think love of country is sacred, but I support the removal of all anthems over keeping just two.
Also, I vote for keeping Battle Hymn of the Republic because I feel like we need the reminder that fighting to end slavery was (generally speaking) a good thing.