• Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!

Would you sing this song in your church?

D

Dale-c

Active Member
Would you sing this song in your church or would you be opposed to it due to it's doctrine?

It was written by Isaac Watts about 300 years ago, so I don't think anyone would object due to the "style"

1. How sweet and awful is the place
With Christ within the doors,
While everlasting love displays
The choicest of her stores.

2. While all our hearts and all our songs
Join to admire the feast,
Each of us cry, with thankful tongues,
"Lord, why was I a guest?"

3. "Why was I made to hear Thy voice,
And enter while there's room,
When thousands make a wretched choice,
And rather starve than come?"

4. 'Twas the same love that spread the feast
That sweetly drew us in;
Else we had still refused to taste,
And perished in our sin.

5. Pity the nations, O our God,
Constrain the earth to come;
Send Thy victorious Word abroad,
And bring the strangers home.

6. We long to see Thy churches full,
That all the chosen race
May, with one voice and heart and soul,
Sing Thy redeeming grace.
Click to expand...
 
Scarlett O.

Scarlett O.

Moderator
Moderator
While I have never heard the song, after reading it, I don't find any personal objections to its doctrine.

But I did spot the exact lines and phrases that others would object to.
 
J

Johnv

New Member
Would you sing this song in your church?

I'm familiar with the hymn (I'm very familiar with Watts' body of work) , and have no particular objection to it beign sung in church. But I also don't rely on hymntunes as a source for doctrinal guidance. If I did, I'd have to discard "We Three Kings" from church.
 
J

Jon-Marc

New Member
The first line is enough to keep me from wanting to sing it. There is nothing awful about any place where my Saviour is. I long to be where He is.
 
J

Johnv

New Member
Jon-Marc said:
The first line is enough to keep me from wanting to sing it. There is nothing awful about any place where my Saviour is.
Click to expand...
Good point, which I neglected to point out in my earlier hasty post. Some hymnals change the word "awful" in the tune to "awesome". This is because the word "awful" used here is the Old English word, meaning "full of awe". Awful no longer means that. Several of Watts' lyrics are simialrly changed in some more recently published hymnals.

On "Cyber Hymnal", the hymn is listed as "How Sweet and Awesome Is This Place":
cyberhymnal.org/htm/h/s/hsweetaw.htm
 
A

Amy.G

New Member
Dale-c said:
I take it you would object to singing it then?
Click to expand...

No. I would sing it. But I know that this thread was started as another Cal/non Cal thread. It seems that's all that's being posted lately. Just more of the same old arguments. :sleep:
 
J

just-want-peace

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Johnv said:
Good point, which I neglected to point out in my earlier hasty post. Some hymnals change the word "awful" in the tune to "awesome". This is because the word "awful" used here is the Old English word, meaning "full of awe". Awful no longer means that. Several of Watts' lyrics are simialrly changed in some more recently published hymnals.

On "Cyber Hymnal", the hymn is listed as "How Sweet and Awesome Is This Place":
cyberhymnal.org/htm/h/s/hsweetaw.htm
Click to expand...

Interesting nugget of info for the KJVO'ers!!:smilewinkgrin:
 
J

Johnv

New Member
Amy.G said:
But I know that this thread was started as another Cal/non Cal thread. It seems that's all that's being posted lately. Just more of the same old arguments. :sleep:
Click to expand...
Well, since the ones using this board to spew the venom in that arena are arminian, you might want to take that up with them, instead of with the calvinists.
just-want-peace said:
Interesting nugget of info for the KJVO'ers!!:smilewinkgrin:
Click to expand...
I was thinking that myself. I wonder if they will insist that hymn lyrics are not allowed to be updated.
 
D

Dale-c

Active Member
We sang this Sunday evening and we also changed it to awesome. really, awesome and awful are basically synonymous terms but one is mostly used these days in a negative way (awful) and the other, awesome is mostly used positively.

Another word that has been changed is "sweetly forced" has been changed to "sweetly drew"
 
D

Dale-c

Active Member
No. I would sing it. But I know that this thread was started as another Cal/non Cal thread. It seems that's all that's being posted lately. Just more of the same old arguments.
Click to expand...
Who brought up calvinism/arminianism?

If you have no doctrinal problems with it as a non-calvinist then why should this just turn into another calvinist debate?
 
A

Amy.G

New Member
Dale-c said:
Who brought up calvinism/arminianism?

If you have no doctrinal problems with it as a non-calvinist then why should this just turn into another calvinist debate?
Click to expand...

So why do you think any on this board would object to singing this song? What about it is objectionable?
 
D

Dale-c

Active Member
So why do you think any on this board would object to singing this song? What about it is objectionable?
Click to expand...
That is the question I asked in the OP. So far no one has said that they object.

THe lyrics are certainly written from a calvinistic perspective.
The point of the OP was not just another "C/A" debate but to discuss this song because I think many do not question the lyrics to traditional songs.
 
G

Gina B

Active Member
I like it...only because it uses the word awful, and I think we should reclaim that word as it was originally intended.

However, I would refuse to sing it because there's just no way to make Feast and guest rhyme, and the rest of the song rhymes. They're not even close, unlike the other ones that are acceptable matches even if not perfectly rhymed.

As far as the doctrine, it brings to mind both the sovereignty of God and the choice of man in a beautiful way.
 
Marcia

Marcia

Active Member
Amy.G said:
No. I would sing it. But I know that this thread was started as another Cal/non Cal thread. It seems that's all that's being posted lately. Just more of the same old arguments. :sleep:
Click to expand...

Right. I'm tired of all the threads being on that topic as well. It gets old so fast, and everyone says the same thing.

They used to have a Calvinist/non-Cal forum which was good, since it all went there. But the mods got rid of it (I think because it was too contentious or mean spirited or something like that) and so it all spills over into this forum and the Baptist Theology forum.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top