Singing the Gospel: Evangelical Hymnody, Popular Religion
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SINGING THE GOSPEL: EVANGELICAL HYMNODY, POPULAR RELIGION, AND AMERICAN CULTURE; 1870-1940 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Notre Dame in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Tamara J. Van Dyken George M. Marsden, Director Graduate Program in History Notre Dame, Indiana December 2008 © Copyright 2008 Tamara Jo Van Dyken SINGING THE GOSPEL: EVANGELICAL HYMNODY, POPULAR RELIGION, AND AMERICAN CULTURE; 1870-1940 Abstract by Tamara J. Van Dyken This work traces the importance of gospel hymnody in shaping popular theology and influencing American culture. In particular, it analyzes how gospel hymns were created, defined, and performed, how they helped produce interdenominational cooperation among conservative evangelicals during the early twentieth century, and how they became part of larger American culture. In worship services, mass revival meetings, and home gatherings, music was a central feature. Increasingly though, the music used in these contexts was standardized and became a point of connection between disparate Protestant groups. This was largely achieved through the mass marketing of gospel hymns in the publications and broadcasts controlled by interdenominational institutions, such as the Moody Bible Institute. Through these channels, gospel hymnody became a point for interdenominational cooperation among conservative evangelicals. Understanding how gospel hymns were being utilized by the interdenominational evangelicals also helps delineate the parameters of evangelical culture and its relationship to broader American culture. In various evangelical denominations, debates over gospel hymns both inside and outside the church building provided a means for negotiating theological, social, and cultural boundaries. Through creating, defining, and performing music in specific ways, evangelicals placed themselves within the mainstream of American middle class culture and distinct from both an emerging separatist fundamentalism and an increasingly secular liberalism. CONTENTS Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iii Introduction: In the Sweet Bye and Bye .............................................................................. 1 Chapter One: “Sing it Again, With Feeling” ..................................................................... 9 Chapter Two: Bringing in the Sheaves ............................................................................. 43 Chapter Three: Above the Clear Blue Sky ....................................................................... 75 Chapter Four: O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing ......................................................... 103 Chapter Five: Rejoice in the Lord .................................................................................. 126 Chapter Six: By the Sea of Crystal ................................................................................. 167 Chapter Seven: Onward Christian Soldiers .................................................................... 212 Conclusion: Lord, I Lift Your Name on High ................................................................ 233 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................240 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There have been a number of people without whose support and assistance I could not have completed this project. First, my advisor George Marsden has provided constant assistance and guidance in helping me develop as an academic and produce a cohesive final work. Similarly, my committee members; Gail Bederman, Doris Bergen, and John McGreevy have facilitated and enhanced my scholarly efforts through their feedback and encouragement during my years at Notre Dame. I am incredibly appreciative of having had the opportunity to get to know and work with these wonderful teachers and scholars. I would also like to thank the Louisville Institute, who provided me with a dissertation writing fellowship during the 2004-2005 school year, a grant that was invaluable in providing me the opportunity to focus entirely on my work and offering me critical feedback from other grantees about that work. I am also grateful to the various librarians and archivists at Goshen College, Calvin College, Wheaton College, Moody Bible Institute, and the Van Raalte Institute who assisted me in gathering research. In particular, I would like to thank Joe Cataio at Moody Bible Institute, who allowed me free reign in the archives, took me to the WMBI studios looking for any undocumented records of the station, and helped me navigate Chicago public transportation. Also, I am extremely grateful for the help of Dr. Elton J. Bruins at the Van Raalte Institute. Dr. Bruins was amazingly generous with his iii knowledge and time, allowing me access to his own personal research files as well as any other texts that he thought would be useful to my work. This included a guided visit and access to the holdings of his own church, Third Reformed of Holland. I am also indebted to the history staff and faculty at Hope College, Kathi O’Connor, Janis Gibbs, Jeanne Petit, Gloria Tseng, Marc Baer, Albert Bell, Fred Johnson, and Tamba M’bayo who spoiled me with an incredible working environment and amazing collegial support during the 2006-2008 school years. Finally, I would like to thank my immediate and extended family for all their love and encouragement. To Dad and Mom, your unconditional love and support has helped me become who I am and accomplish what I have. To Karey, Chris, Steve, Jen, and Annika, thank you for always believing in me and lifting my spirits through difficult times. I am so blessed to have you all. iv INTRODUCTION: IN THE SWEET BYE AND BYE Long-haired preachers come out every night, Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right; But when asked about something to eat They will answer with voices so sweet: Chorus: You will eat, bye and bye, In that glorious land above the sky (way up high); Work and pray, live on hay, You'll get pie in the sky when you die (that’s a lie). And the starvation army they play, And they sing and they clap and they pray Till they got all your coin on the drum Then they'll tell you when you're on the bum. Holy Rollers and Jumpers come out, And they holler, they jump and they shout Give your money to Jesus they say, He will cure all diseases today. If you fight hard for children and wife -- Try to get something good in this life -- You're a sinner and bad man, they tell, When you die you will sure go to hell. Workingmen of all countries unite, Side by side we for freedom shall fight; When the world and its wealth we have gained To the grafters we'll sing this refrain: Final Chorus: You will eat, bye and bye, When you've learned how to cook and to fry;. Chop some wood, ‘twill do you good, And you'll eat in that sweet bye and bye (that’s no lie). 1 Written by union organizer and songwriter Joe Hill, this parody of the gospel hymn “In the Sweet Bye and Bye” (1868) was first published in 1911 in the Industrial Workers of the World’s Little Red Songbook. It was known by several titles, including “Pie in the Sky,” “Long Haired Preachers” and “The Preacher and the Slave,” and its biting success lay in the mass popularity of the song it imitated. Not only did such a satire reveal the ubiquitous nature of gospel hymns by the early twentieth century, but it also provides insight on the character of evangelical revivalism at the time. While the song’s theme is heaven (a common theme for hymns of all sorts), it is the evangelistic use of gospel hymns and the gospel message that was the focus of attack. Rather than providing urban workers practical relief from their social ills, the “preachers,” “starvation army,” and “holy rollers” could only urge repentance and salvation “in the sweet bye and bye.” Indeed, by the time of Joe Hill’s song, the intertwined social and evangelistic purpose of nineteenth century religious work had splintered, setting the impulse toward progressive social reform against the conversionary basis of revivalism. It was in the utilization and appropriation of popular cultural forms, in this case, gospel hymns, that this division became particularly apparent, revealing not only theological, but social and cultural fissures as well. One of the earliest and most significant works on the social and cultural context of gospel hymnody is Sandra Sizer [Frankiel]’s Gospel Hymns and Social Religion; The Rhetoric of Nineteenth-Century Revivalism (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1978). Sizer’s nuanced analysis of hymn lyrics from the most popular songbook of the nineteenth century, Ira Sankey’s Gospel Hymns and Sacred 2 Songs, established the template for much of the work on evangelical hymnody that followed. In the past five years, there has been a growing scholarship on the importance of hymnody in American Protestantism led by the work of Stephen Marini and followed by Edith Blumhofer, Richard Mouw, and Mark Noll among others.1 With the exception of Marini, whose expansive and detailed studies look at religious music in a variety of cultural contexts, the corpus of this scholarship focuses on the development of eighteenth and nineteenth century hymns and gospel songs in the historical context of American evangelicalism. The general focus is on the language of the hymns and its relation to the individualized, sentimental, and salvation-centered ethos of nineteenth