Good Christian Folk: what's your favourite hymn?

[smartferndale]

Hymns or songs

When do hymns stop and songs begin. All the non Christian posters go back to hymns ancient and modern not used by anyone but old style C. of E.
Try newer stuff by Chris Tomlin, Brenton Brown or Matt Redmond. For a band, try Delirious e.g History Maker, Rain Down, I'm not ashamed etc. Lot of really good Christian music out there. But do not try TBN a lot of American stuff.
Jakarta was it the old Westlain you attended. Great school when Fergie was head. Clark deputy and the 2 Goldsmiths were there.

 

[gregbrighton]

When do hymns stop and songs begin. All the non Christian posters go back to hymns ancient and modern not used by anyone but old style C. of E.
Try newer stuff by Chris Tomlin, Brenton Brown or Matt Redmond. For a band, try Delirious e.g History Maker, Rain Down, I'm not ashamed etc. Lot of really good Christian music out there. But do not try TBN a lot of American stuff.
Jakarta was it the old Westlain you attended. Great school when Fergie was head. Clark deputy and the 2 Goldsmiths were there.

I think the groups/song writers you describe come under "Worship Songs", a genre rooted in evangelical churches which has had far less exposure than hymns particularly in schools where I reckon the older generations get their experience of them from.

 

[West Hoathly Seagull]

When do hymns stop and songs begin. All the non Christian posters go back to hymns ancient and modern not used by anyone but old style C. of E.
Try newer stuff by Chris Tomlin, Brenton Brown or Matt Redmond. For a band, try Delirious e.g History Maker, Rain Down, I'm not ashamed etc. Lot of really good Christian music out there. But do not try TBN a lot of American stuff.
Jakarta was it the old Westlain you attended. Great school when Fergie was head. Clark deputy and the 2 Goldsmiths were there.

Archbishop Justin Welby said he found Matt Redman's Blessed be Your Name to be a great comfort when he lost his baby daughter in a car crash. I did too on one occasion when we sang it at my church in London at a time when I was really down in coping with my Dad's depression, though the tears were streaming down my face when it finished. Another excellent modern hymn/songwriter is Yorkshireman and adopted Brightonian Stuart Townend, who worships at the Clarendon/CCK church in New England Street. Probably Charles Wesley's hymns are my all-time favourites. For Christian music generally, Bach and Handel are hard to beat.

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

William Blake

[h=3]19TH-CENTURY "FREE LOVE" MOVEMENT[/h]Since his death, William Blake has been claimed by various movements who apply his complex and often elusive use of symbolism and allegory to the issues that concern them.[64] In particular, Blake is sometimes considered (along with Mary Wollstonecraft and her husband William Godwin) a forerunner of the 19th-century "free love" movement, a broad reform tradition starting in the 1820s that held that marriage is slavery, and advocated the removal of all state restrictions on sexual activity such as homosexuality, prostitution, and adultery, culminating in the birth control movement of the early 20th century. Blake scholarship was more focused on this theme in the earlier 20th century than today, although it is still mentioned notably by the Blake scholar Magnus Ankarsjö who moderately challenges this interpretation. The 19th-century "free love" movement was not particularly focused on the idea of multiple partners, but did agree with Wollstonecraft that state-sanctioned marriage was "legal prostitution" and monopolistic in character. It has somewhat more in common with early feminist movements[65](particularly with regard to the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft, whom Blake admired).

No problem with any of that.

But it doesn't mention Jerusalem at all, which I have always interpreted as being about revolutionary fervour and a quest for social justice. The Jerusalem Blake writes about is surely the "promised land" which is described in the final stages of the Biblical Book of revelations, which I actually read in its entirety recently (not just for this thread) and which struck me as something which would make a great film script for somebody like Terry Gilliam or along the lines of a Harry Potter movie.

But it is surely fantastical and about the Triumph of Good over Evil, as is Harry Potter.

And in the first lines of Blake's work:
And did those feet in ancient times walk upon .... can't remember the exact words..... must surely be about the possibility of Jesus coming to England, which I am aware many people think of as a distinct possibility.

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

And my favourite hymn is "My Song is Love Unknown". It's sung to a beautiful tune, and the very unassuming and humble words are beautifully poetic.
1
My song is love unknown,
My Savior’s love to me;
Love to the loveless shown,
That they might lovely be.
O who am I,
That for my sake
My Lord should take
Frail flesh, and die?

2
He came from His blest throne
Salvation to bestow;
But men made strange, and none
The longed-for Christ would know:
But oh, my Friend,
My Friend indeed,
Who at my need
His life did spend.

3
Sometimes they strew His way,
And His sweet praises sing;
Resounding all the day
Hosannas to their King:
Then “Crucify!”
Is all their breath,
And for His death
They thirst and cry.

4
They rise and needs will have
My dear Lord made away;
A murderer they save,
The Prince of life they slay.
Yet cheerful He
To suffering goes,
That He His foes
From thence might free.

5
In life, no house, no home
My Lord on earth might have;
In death, no friendly tomb,
But what a stranger gave.
What may I say?
Heav’n was His home;
But mine the tomb
Wherein He lay.

6
Here might I stay and sing,
No story so divine;
Never was love, dear King,
Never was grief like Thine.
This is my Friend,
In whose sweet praise
I all my days
Could gladly spend.

 

[AlbionPics&SouthCoastTwit]

A Mighty Fortress is Our God - Martin Luther

The battle hymn of the reformation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiRpUtVByxU



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY4DCG-nFBI

 

[Mellotron]

Regardless of your views on religion, O Holy Night is an incredible song. Such a perfect chord progression/melody combo.