061206 Wednesday Women’s Club with Pastor Ron

"Then Sings My Soul" even if it's a defferent Christmas carol with a different reason for singing!

Who would ever guess that two of our favorite Christmas Carol and hymn writers were seemingly opposed to each other’s approach and theology. Isaac Watts (1674-1748) wanted to liberate the Protestant churches from strict Psalm texts in hymn singing. For instance, his “Joy to the World” is a supposed to be a paraphrase of Psalm 98. John Mason Neale (1818-1866) translated and reinterpreted medieval plain songs to reach back into church tradition for authentic devotion in songs like “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.”

We can receive this diversity as an encouragement to be open to how music all over the world can enhance our worship and praise to God regardless of our doctrinal or stylistic variations. Robert Morgan brilliantly reviews traditional church hymnody with a bent toward discovering how we all celebrate and sing to God with different backgrounds and motivations. But our divine audience continues to turn our hearts, minds and voices into a unifying praise and harmonious whole. Then we have the hope of endorsing our earthly life with continued personal praise to God like J.S. Bach had done at the end of each of his compositions - "S.D.G." (Soli Deo Gloria; "to God alone the Glory").