Church Hymnary
Church Hymnary is the official hymnal of the Church of Scotland. It was published in 2005, and is available in three editions:
- Full Music
- Melody
- Text.
In 1994 the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland appointed a committee to revise the hymnary; the convener was the minister and hymnwriter Rev Dr John L. Bell. After consultation and protracted difficulties in obtaining copyright for some hymns, CH4 appeared in May 2005. It is published by the Canterbury Press (Norwich) and contains 825 items.
In a deliberate echo of RCH, CH4 opens with a collection of psalms arranged in the order of their original Psalm numbers (Hymns 1-108). Many of these come from the Scottish Psalter, and appear here without the doxologies added in CH3. (These doxologies are included as Hymn 109, but their separation from the texts of the psalms presumably means they will be relatively seldom used.) But the section also includes psalms from other musical traditions, as well as prose psalms for responsive reading - still not common in the Church of Scotland. The volume then continues, as did CH3, with a thematic arrangement of hymns, divided into three main sections each associated with one person of the Holy Trinity and subdivided into aspects of God and the Church's response. There then follows an international section of short songs, including evangelical choruses by writers such as Graham Kendrick and pieces from Taizé and the Iona Community. A final short section contains Amens and Doxologies.
Critisiesed by evangelical churches, the hymnery does not contain lots of modern worship songs, instead still full of old hymns. CH 4 has also received critisicm for not having the music in alphabetical order, instead following a complicated index system.
In some ways this is the Church of Scotland's most ambitious hymnal to date, and certainly it is the longest. The immediate reaction of the Scottish press after publication was to report complaints of pensioners who found the volume too heavy to carry to Church, but its strength no doubt lies in the breadth of musical and theological traditions which it seeks to embrace. CH4 has a purple binding.
Music edition: ISBN 1-85311-613-0
A scripture index to CH4 is provided by George K. Barr, Selecting Hymns from CH4, no publisher, no ISBN, 2005.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymnbooks_of_the_Church_of_Scotland"
For a history of hymnals of the Church of Scotland, go to Hymnbooks of the
Church of Scotland.
See also
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