Few issues cause more heated debate among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints than which sacred songs to retain, add or drop in the long-awaited debut of the global faith’s new hymnbook.
Should the Utah-based faith add the centuries-old “Amazing Grace” to the collection? Should it remove “Onward, Christian Soldiers”?
On Thursday, believers got their first peek at — and listen to — 13 songs (including at least one favorite, “Come, Thou Font of Every Blessing”) that made the cut.
It has been an arduous and unexpectedly rich six-year process to cull the best choices from some 17,000 submissions in 66 countries across the world, said President Susan Porter, head of the church’s worldwide Primary organization for children, who was on the committee overseeing the forthcoming volume, “Hymns — for Home and Church.”
About a third of the book will be children’s songs, while the rest will be for adults.
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Primary General President Susan Porter speaks to journalists at a media event announcing the release of the first 13 hymns of the church’s new global hymnbook in the Tabernacle in Salt Lake City on Thursday, May 30, 2024.
Batches from the “sacred music collection of between 450 to 500 hymns and children’s songs,” will be released digitally onto the church’s music library “every few months,” Porter said Thursday during a news conference in the Salt Lake Tabernacle on downtown’s Temple Square. The final product will be published in 2026 and available in 50 languages by 2030.
Two of the 13 songs — “When the Savior Comes Again” and “Bread of Life, Living Water” — were performed Thursday in the famed Tabernacle.
The others are:
• “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.”
• “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.”
• “Think a Sacred Song.”
• “As Bread Is Broken.”
• “Gethsemane.”
• “Hail the Day That Sees Him Rise.”
• “He Is Born, the Divine Christ Child.”
• “Star Bright.”
Composer Annette Dickman said the inspiration for her creation, “Bread of Life, Living Water,” sprang from her private worship.
“I wrote this hymn for me,” she said in a news release. “I had been studying and pondering a lot about the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and particularly how it related to me personally. I wanted to develop a closer relationship with him.”
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Sophia Andrade performs “When the Savior Comes Again” in Portuguese in the Tabernacle in Salt Lake City on Thursday, May 30, 2024. The song is one of 13 hymns included in the church’s new global hymnbook.
A key adviser to the hymnbook committee previously has identified “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” popularized in the arrangement of Mack Wilberg, music director of The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, as among the most requested for inclusion in the new volume, as was “Amazing Grace.”
When the massive hymnbook project was announced in 2018, Debra Bonner, the Black Latter-day Saint convert who directs the Unity Gospel Choir International, said she would like to see “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” added to the church’s offerings.
Now it’s there.
The new book will include, Porter said, hymns from the previous collection, songs that have been composed by Latter-day Saints over the past 40 years, selections from other Christian traditions and brand-new submissions.
She was mum on whether some children’s songs like “Follow the Prophet” or “Book of Mormon Stories” would be among those saved or whether militaristic tunes like “Called to Serve” or regional specific ones like “Utah, We Love Thee” would be jettisoned.
National anthems will not be included in the published book but can be found online at the church’s music library.
The hymnbook committee worked with the faith’s senior leaders, Porter said, to establish “five guiding principles” for the selection process.
Hymns should:
• Increase faith in and worship of our Heavenly Father and his
Son, Jesus Christ.
• Teach the core doctrine of the gospel with power and clarity.
• Invite joyful singing at home and at church.
• Comfort the weary and inspire members to endure in faith.
• Unify members throughout the church.
The goal is for Latter-day Saint congregations throughout the world to “worship with the same consolidated and unified hymnbook,” Porter said, “numbered the same across the languages most spoken in the church.”
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) General authority Seventy Isaac K. Morrison speaks at a media event announcing the release of the first 13 hymns of the church’s new global hymnbook in the Tabernacle in Salt Lake City on Thursday, May 30, 2024.
Every entry will be “personally approved” by the governing First Presidency, said Isaac Morrison, a general authority Seventy from Ghana who also served on the hymnal committee.
Music will work to “unify a global church,” the African leader said Thursday, “expanding what a hymn can be.”
In the future, as the faith relaxes rules on musical instruments allowed in Sunday services, will drums in church be OK?
It’s possible, Morrison said, if local leaders approve them.
