Dan Schutte 1: Listening to Scripture

Despite my not having written on this blog for some months, hymn activity has hardly slowed!

I just came back from the Hymn Society National Conference in Greencastle, Indiana. Where else can you rub shoulders with great text and tune writers, have three snack breaks plus three meal breaks per day, and sing for hours every morning and afternoon?

Thursday morning, the final day of the five-day conference, I was much too groggy to introduce myself to even one new person, but I enjoyed at least listening to Dan Schutte, a composer whose works I've been singing since age nine. He gave a workshop on the Spirituality of Hymn Writing.

One of the things I appreciate most about Dan is his attentiveness to Scripture. He said that when he writes a new song, he often (always?) opens about eight translations of a scriptural text. Listening to language prompts him to develop certain metaphors for God or Christian experience which are only hinted at or bypassed in some translations, more fully expressed in others.

This philosophy of hymn writing is completely different from what I've encountered in the writings of Ruth Duck and Brian Wren, as exemplified in Wren's hymn, "Bring Many Names." Briefly, the Duck/Wren philosophies of hymn writing state that Scripture is culturally bound and therefore does not have ultimate authority in determining how we address God; rather, the Spirit releases us to find new names for God in our new age of Christian history. This puts tremendous emphasis on the individual's perception of God rather than on God's revelation of Himself.