Page 2770 – Christianity Today (2024)

Our world would be poorer without two other worlds: Narnia and Middle-earth. Yet if two young professors had not met at an otherwise ordinary Oxford faculty meeting in 1926, those wondrous lands would still be unknown to us.

British author Colin Duriez, who wrote the article "Tollers and Jack" in issue #78 of Christian History, explains why this is so in his forthcoming book Tolkien and C. S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship. Duriez tells the story of how these two brilliant authors met, discovered their common love for mythical tales, and pledged to bring such stories into the mainstream of public reading taste. Tolkien and Lewis shared the belief that through myth and legend—for centuries the mode many cultures had used to communicate their deepest truths—a taste of the Christian gospel's "True Myth" could be smuggled past the barriers and biases of secularized readers.

Christian History managing editor Chris Armstrong reached Colin this week at his home in Leicester, England.

You have said that if it hadn't been for the friendship between Tolkien and Lewis, the world would likely never have seen The Narnia Chronicles, The Lord of the Rings, and much else. What was it about "fairy stories" that led these two men to want to rehabilitate them for a modern audience—adults as well as children?

They had both personal and professional reasons for this interest. Personally, they had both read and enjoyed such stories as they were growing up, in collections by the brothers Grimm, Andrew Lang, and others. Lewis had also heard Celtic myths—his nurse had told him some of the folk tales of Ireland.

Professionally, they studied and taught the literatures of medieval romance and, in Tolkien's case, the background of Norse myth. And they realized that it was only quite recently that such stories had become marginalized as "children's stories." Through much of history these were tales told and enjoyed by grown-ups. Even strong warriors enjoyed them, rejoicing in their triumphant moments, weeping at tragic turns of events. These stories told them important things about life—about who they were and what the world was like, and about the realm of the divine.

It dawned on both men that there was a need to create a readership again for these books—especially an adult readership. Lewis's space trilogy came out of this same impulse to write the sort of stories that he and Tolkien liked to read. He felt he could say things in science fiction that he couldn't say in other ways. And Tolkien had been expressing this sense already for years when the two men met—ever since World War One he had been writing hundreds of pages of a cycle of myth and legend from the early ages of Middle-earth. This, it would later turn out, would provide the "pre-history" for The Lord of the Rings, some of which was published after his death in The Silmarillion.

Early in their relationship, in 1936, after Tolkien had written the children's story The Hobbit, the two men had a momentous conversation about their desire to bring such stories to a wider audience (see below, at the end of this interview, for Duriez's re-creation of that conversation). They actually decided to divide the territory—Lewis would take "space travel," Tolkien "time travel." Tolkien never got around to finishing his time-travel story, concentrating instead on his more "adult" trilogy, in which he placed hobbits in the context of his Silmarillion stories. But Lewis did write his space books: Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength.

Lewis seems to have had the more forceful personality of the two. Yet you show that Tolkien had a deep influence on Lewis. What did he teach Lewis?

Lewis, although he used a very rational, knock-down technique in his rhetorical approach to philosophical questions, was a deeply imaginative man who regarded his imaginative self as his most basic self. Before he met Tolkien, he became friends with Owen Barfield, and the two of them had long conversations about the imagination. But as a brilliant young man who had decided that the Christian faith of his up-bringing was intellectually untenable, Lewis had no way of bringing together that imaginative side of his nature with his rational side. His rational side told him that while stories might serve to amuse, they couldn't very well teach you about the things that really mattered.

What Tolkien did was help Lewis see how the two sides, reason and imagination, could be integrated. During the two men's night conversation on the Addison Walk in the grounds of Magdalen College, Tolkien showed Lewis how the two sides could be reconciled in the Gospel narratives. The Gospels had all the qualities of great human storytelling. But they portrayed a true event—God the storyteller entered his own story, in the flesh, and brought a joyous conclusion from a tragic situation. Suddenly Lewis could see that the nourishment he had always received from great myths and fantasy stories was a taste of that greatest, truest story—of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

So Tolkien brought the imagination right into the center of Lewis's life. And then, through a gradual process, with the example of Tolkien's Silmarillion tales and Lord of the Rings before him, Lewis learned how to communicate Christian faith in imaginative writing. The results were Narnia, the space trilogy, The Great Divorce, and so forth.

What about Lewis's impact on Tolkien?

Tolkien was a private man who, when he met Lewis, had written his mythic tales for a private audience. He had very little confidence that they could speak to a wider audience. But from the beginning of their relationship, Lewis encouraged his friend to finish and publish his stories. He delighted to hear Tolkien read chapters of his epic trilogy, as he completed them, at meetings of their Oxford reading group, the Inklings. And Tolkien was immensely encouraged by those meetings. It spurred him on.

There were some instances in which Lewis gave Tolkien something to think about. In his space trilogy, Lewis introduced the concept of Hnau, the embodiment of personality and rationality in animal and vegetable beings. This seems to have influenced the creation of the Ents in Lord of the Rings. There is also evidence that Tolkien pondered a lot on the Screwtape Letters. For the most part, however, Tolkien was extremely annoyed at Lewis's popularizing of theology. He thought theology should be left to the professionals. Tolkien also disliked the Narnia series, feeling it was both theologically heavy-handed and artistically slapdash—an unfair judgment of what were among the most beautifully crafted of Lewis's works, and probably the most likely to survive the next hundred years as "classics."

You have said that Lewis and Tolkien shared three interrelated commitments—to "romanticism, reason, and Christianity." Can you elaborate?

The two friends were interested in the literature of the romantic period because many of the poems and stories attempted to convey the supernatural, the "otherworldly"—and thus provided a window into spiritual things. Lewis explored romantic themes like joy and longing, and Tolkien emphasized the nature of people as storytelling beings who by telling stories reflect the creative powers of God. But they both rejected an "instinctive" approach to the imagination. Many romantic writers were interested in a kind of nature mysticism. They looked within themselves and at the world around them and sought flashes of insight into "the nature of things"—illuminations of truth that could not be explained, reasoned, or systematized. But Lewis and Tolkien insisted that the reason and the imagination must be integrated. In any understanding of truth, the whole person must be involved.

This is where their third shared commitment came into play—this sense of wholeness was a Christian approach, distant from the neo-pagan mysticism of some romantics, the "Pan worship" of the early twentieth century. Indeed, Tolkien worried increasingly towards the end of his life that people were missing the Christian balance of his work, and were taking it almost as the basis of a new paganism. You could argue in fact that one reason Tolkien didn't finish the Silmarillion was his concern to make his imaginative creations consonant with Christianity. Obviously not wanting to make them into allegory or preachment, he was concerned his literary insights be clearly consistent with Christianity.

A Fateful Conversation: An excerpt from chapter 7 of Colin Duriez's forthcoming Tolkien and C. S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship.

Lewis looks thoughtfully out of the window of his big sitting room in Magdalen College on to the deer park it overlooks. It's the spring of 1936. … On his right hand is the reassuring sight of his favorite path—Addison's Walk—where, five years before, Tolkien, Hugo Dyson, and he had had that momentous nighttime conversation that led to his conversion.

He turns to address his friend, who is perched on a threadbare armchair, the room's handsome white-paneled walls behind him. Tolkien reaches for an enamel beer jug on the table and refills his tankard.

"You know, Tollers, there's far too little of what we enjoy in stories. You liked Williams's The Place of the Lion just as much as I did. Really it struck me how rare such books are."

Tolkien exclaims through dispersing wisps of smoke, "Not enough echoes of the horns of Elfland."

He sucks on his pipe to encourage its dying embers. "Some of the Scientifiction [science fiction] around evokes wonder—sometimes offers fleeting glimpses of genuine other worlds. There is some deplorable stuff, too, but that's true of all the genres. Space and time stories can provide Recovery and Escape." He says the last two nouns with sudden loudness, perhaps to emphasize that they should have capitals. "I hope to lecture soon on this as a quality of Fairy Story. I relish stories that survey the depths of space and time."

"To be sure, to be sure," agrees Lewis, drawing attention to the slight Ulster in his vowels. He is unusually quiet this morning. "Take H. G. Wells. Even Wellsian stories can touch on the real other world of the Spirit. His early ones I care for—it's a pity he sold his birthright for a pot of message. These kinds of stories that create regions of the spirit—they actually add to life, don't they? They're like some dreams that only come from time to time—they give us sensations we've never had before. You could say they enlarge our very idea of what's possible in human experience."

"Your Pilgrim's Regress had something of what we like—romance. It's a pity it didn't do well with the public," Tolkien puts in. "Was a bit obscure in places. It can be a deuce of a labor to get it right."

"You know, Tollers," Lewis says decisively, pipe in hand. "I'm afraid we'll have to write them ourselves. We need stories like your Hobbit book, but on the more heroic scale of your older tales of Gondolin and Goblin wars. One of us should write a tale of time travel and the other should do space travel."

Tolkien reminds his friend of a rather similar challenge well over a century ago—Lord Byron, at Lake Geneva in 1816, had challenged Percy Shelley and Mary Shelley to write a ghost story … and Mary, a mere girl at the time, went on to write Frankenstein. They needed, Tolkien continues, his eyes brightening, stories today that expose modern magic—the tyranny of the machine.

"Let's toss for it, Tollers. Heads, you write about time travel; tails, you try space travel. I'll do the other." Tolkien nods his agreement, grinning.

Lewis fishes in the pocket of his crumpled and baggy flannels and a coin spins in the air.

"Heads it is."

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In the early church, the celebration of the Eucharist was an essential part of the Christian life. In continuation of last week's tremendously popular feature article, Divided by Communion, we are featuring selections from early Christian writings that shed light on how Christians in the first two centuries celebrated Communion.

Note: We appreciated the many responses we received to last week's newsletter and have made a selection of them available for all our readers on the website.

Justin Martyr (100-165): Christian philosopher and apologist

First Apology(155 A.D), chapter 66

And this food is called among us the Eucharist of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Savior, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, "This do ye in remembrance of Me, this is My body;" and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, "This is My blood;" and gave it to them alone.

Read all of chapter 66 Christian Classics Ethereal Library

First Apology, chapter 65

There is then brought to the president of the brethren bread and a cup of wine mixed with water; and he taking them, gives praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and offers thanks at considerable length for our being counted worthy to receive these things at His hands. And when he has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings, all the people present express their assent by saying Amen. And when the president has given thanks, and all the people have expressed their assent, those who are called by us deacons give to each of those present to partake of the bread and wine mixed with water over which the thanksgiving was pronounced, and to those who are absent they carry away a portion.

Read all of chapter 65 at Christian Classics Ethereal Library

Ignatius of Antioch (35-107): Early Christian bishop and martyr

Epistle to the Ephesians, chapter 20

Stand fast, brethren, in the faith of Jesus Christ, and in His love, in His passion, and in His resurrection. Do ye all come together in common, and individually, through grace, in one faith of God the Father, and of Jesus Christ His only-begotten Son, and "the first-born of every creature," but of the seed of David according to the flesh, being under the guidance of the Comforter, in obedience to the bishop and the presbytery with an undivided mind, breaking one and the same bread, which is the medicine of immortality, and the antidote which prevents us from dying, but a cleansing remedy driving away evil, [which causes] that we should live in God through Jesus Christ.

Read more of Ignatius' Epistle to the Ephesians at Christian Classics Ethereal Library

Irenaeus (c.130-c.200): Bishop of Lyons and opponent of Gnosticism

Fragments from the lost writings of Irenaeus, chapter 37

Then again, Paul exhorts us "to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." And again, "Let us offer the sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of the lips." Now those oblations are not according to the law, the handwriting of which the Lord took away from the midst by canceling it; but they are according to the Spirit, for we must worship God "in spirit and in truth." And therefore the oblation of the Eucharist is not a carnal one, but a spiritual; and in this respect it is pure. For we make an oblation to God of the bread and the cup of blessing, giving Him thanks in that He has commanded the earth to bring forth these fruits for our nourishment. And then, when we have perfected the oblation, we invoke the Holy Spirit, that He may exhibit this sacrifice, both the bread the body of Christ, and the cup the blood of Christ, in order that the receivers of these may obtain remission of sins and life eternal. Those persons, then, who perform these oblations in remembrance of the Lord, do not fall in with Jewish views, but, performing the service after a spiritual manner, they shall be called sons of wisdom.

Read all of chapter 37 at Christian Classics Ethereal Library

Irenaeus

Against Heresies, chapter 18

But our opinion is in accordance with the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn establishes our opinion. For we offer to Him His own, announcing consistently the fellowship and union of the flesh and Spirit. For as the bread, which is produced from the earth, when it receives the invocation of God is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly; so also our bodies, when they receive the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the hope of the resurrection to eternity.

Read all of chapter 18 at Christian Classics Ethereal Library

Origen (185-254): Biblical scholar and philosopher

Against Celsus, chapter 57

We are much more concerned lest we should be ungrateful to God, who has loaded us with His benefits, whose workmanship we are, who cares for us in whatever condition we may be, and who has given us hopes of things beyond this present life. And we have a symbol of gratitude to God in the bread which we call the Eucharist.

Read all of chapter 57 at Christian Classics Ethereal Library

Didache (date uncertain—possibly late first or early second century, authorship unknown)

The document describes a code of morals for the Christian life and a manual of church order, and includes this Eucharistic liturgy:

Now about the Eucharist: This is how to give thanks: First in connection with the cup: "We thank you, our Father, for the holy vine of David, your child, which you have revealed through Jesus, your child. To you be glory forever."

Then in connection with the piece [broken off the loaf]:

"We thank you, our Father, for the life and knowledge which you have revealed through Jesus, your child. To you be glory forever.

"As this piece [of bread] was scattered over the hills and then was brought together and made one, so let your Church be brought together from the ends of the earth into your Kingdom. For yours is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ forever."

You must not let anyone eat or drink of your Eucharist except those baptized in the Lord's name. For in reference to this the Lord said, "Do not give what is sacred to dogs." After you have finished your meal, say in this way:

"We thank you, holy Father, for your sacred name which you have in our hearts, and for the knowledge and faith and immortality which you have revealed through Jesus, your child. To you be glory forever.

"Almighty Master, 'you have created everything' for the sake of your name, and have given men food and drink to enjoy that they may thank you. But to us you have given spiritual food and drink and eternal life through Jesus, your child.

"Above all, we thank you that you are mighty. To you be glory forever.

"Remember, Lord, your Church, to save it from all evil and to make it perfect by your love. Make it holy, 'and gather' it 'together from the four winds' into your Kingdom which you have made ready for it. For yours is the power and the glory forever."

"Let grace come and let this world pass away."

"Hosanna to the God of David!"

"If anyone is holy, let him come. If not, let him repent."

"Our Lord, come!"

"Amen."

Read more of the Didache at Christian Classics Ethereal Library

We'd like to know what you think about this article. Please send your response to history@christianitytoday.com.

One good collection including this and many other early Christian writings isEarly Christian Fathers, edited by Cyril C. Richardson.

Christian History Issue #37, Worship in the Early Church, is currently out of print, but the content is available in electronic form at Christian History.

Copyright © 2006 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

It's pretty common to hear complaints about the difficulty of keeping the joy of the Christmas season. Or, more commonly, we hear people talking about how this time of year is (as Andy Williams puts it) "the hap-happiest season of all." The world seems so festive and celebratory this month that we would never dream of complaining about it—after all, doesn't the world take note of Jesus at this time more than any?

Modern arguments aside, the time before Christmas hasn't always been a celebration. Like the Lenten season before Easter, Advent was once a solemn preparation for Christmas. Actually, not Christmas exactly. Originally it was a season preparing for Epiphany, January 6—which commemorates not Jesus' birth, but his adoration by the Magi (in the West) or his baptism in the Jordan River (in the East). Some people claim Advent was first celebrated by the apostle Peter, but the exact starting date of the season has been lost to history.

Whenever it started, Advent originally was a time of fasting and self-reflection (instead of today's Christmas parties and "thinking about other people for a change.") In the mid-300s, two events changed that thinking: Constantine the Great built the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, declaring Jesus' birthday a national holiday; and Julius, bishop of Rome, set the date as December 25. Christmas took on a happier, more celebratory feel and became a time of joyous anticipation. (By the mid-400s, even the Eastern church—with a few exceptions—recognized December 25 as Christmas. However, Advent is still a much more solemn occasion among Orthodox Christians, and the season begins much earlier—November 15 instead of the Sunday nearest November 30.)

Eventually, the Western church no longer required fasting during Advent, though more liturgical churches still encourage solemnity and discourage festivities. For the church, purple (and blue), not red and green, are this season's colors. Over time, Advent also became an occasion to prepare for Christ's second coming as well as to reflect on his first—which worked great for us at the magazine as we prepared an issue on the Second Coming (issue 61).

I hope I don't sound like a wet blanket. We at the magazine are "historically incorrect" too, with Christmas decorations around the office, carols playing softly in the background, and Christmas parties. But as we endeavor to "remember the reason for the season," it's helpful for us to remember that the meaning of the season has changed substantially over the centuries.

Last Friday, the Church of England announced a new "national youth strategy." This strategy, backed by a new fund, officially blesses "alternative forms of youth worship" in hopes of drawing back to Anglican churches some of the young people who are now staying away in droves. The church is now willing to sponsor such novel events as one cathedral's "raves in the nave." (Explains one online dictionary, a rave is "an all-night dance party, especially one where techno, house, or other electronically synthesized music is played.")

In America, land of the open religious market, such efforts seem less surprising. Even an all-night dance party for the Lord would fail to raise many eyebrows in this country, where massive youth rallies focused around contemporary music have been standard methodology for more than a generation.

More eyebrow-raising, perhaps, is that the elder statesman of world evangelism, Billy Graham, played a part in creating this pop-culture style of youth ministry.

Set aside for a moment the vision of Graham as the wise grandfather figure who commands the respect of the world (The Ladies Home Journal once ranked Billy as second in religious achievements only to God.) Imagine instead a younger, brasher, risk-taking Graham, who became a power in the rising youth-evangelism scene of the 1940s with a personal style akin to that of the day's zoot-suiters.

Far-fetched? When Graham and a youth ministry team, en route to England on a 1946 evangelistic tour, became stranded by weather overnight at a Newfoundland air force base, the base's social director gave them the once-over and concluded they were a vaudeville act. (Ever eager for an opportunity to preach the gospel, Billy and the team accepted the invitation to entertain the troops. When a few minutes into their "act" the base commander realized their true purpose, he flew into a rage and threatened to lock them up.)

Graham's flashy, energetic style and his tireless advocacy of relevant youth ministry helped propel what may have been the most influential Christian youth movement of American history.

Of course, Graham did not invent Christian efforts geared to adolescents and young adults. In 1844, the British-based Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) set out to reclaim for Christ a generation of young people. These were the adolescents who, in search of work, poured out of England's and America's small towns (the YMCA began its American spread from Boston in 1851) into the cities. In seedy downtowns whose taverns, brothels, and gambling dens promised pleasures and delivered dissipations that have never changed, YMCA chapters offered havens of healthy Christian camaraderie. Thus they did not so much create a youth culture as offer shelter from the underworld of the big city—and with remarkable success.

By the 1920s and 1930s, however, Protestant youth activities had entered a doldrums. Evangelicals of that era critiqued the mainline churches for their lack of fervent witness to the youth. Even their own once-powerful institutions were failing. Quipped one Philadelphia Baptist pastor in 1925, "You can take the 'C' out of the YMCA and nobody would ever notice the difference."

Over against this downward trend, such fundamentalist youth groups of the 1930s as the New England Fellowship's Surrendered Life League emerged. In the battle for adolescent souls, these groups worked in the idioms of popular culture. As historian Joel Carpenter put it in his Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism, such ministries "tuned their old-time faith to the new sounds and images of the popular entertainment world."

This new, younger breed of ministers broke out of the self-consciously conservative, even throwback evangelistic style of a fundamentalism that identified itself as "old-time religion" and spread its messages through such outreaches as radio's Old Fashioned Gospel Hour. Such 1930s evangelical leaders as ex–ad exec Lloyd Bryant pioneered pace-setting activities like rallies and radio programs that became the formula for youth-ministry success.

It was not until the 1940s, however, that consumer marketers created "youth" as a separate demographic category. These were the early days of the cult of the teenager. With fathers off to war and mothers working long hours on the home front, teens also entered the labor force and picked up pocket cash. Madison Avenue noticed, and began promoting youth music, youth clothes, and youth crazes. Jukeboxes blared the latest tunes, and teens jitterbugged their Saturday nights away. Boys donned their broad-shouldered zoot suits and girls their baggy sweaters and bobby sox. At the end of the decade, television entered the scene, further accelerating youth culture.

Youth leaders who had begun to emerge in the 1930s, like Philadelphia's Percy Crawford and New York's Jack Wyrtzen, picked up on these trends. Clothes became brighter, music more energetic and sophisticated, and the pacing of evangelistic meetings more split-second. And youth ministries reaped the rewards, their rallies soon outgrowing all but the largest halls and stadiums.

The biggest and most influential network of such ministries in the 1940s and beyond was Youth For Christ (YFC), whose motto was (and still is) "Geared to the Times, Anchored to the Rock." YFC's first full-time employee and most energetic promoter was the young Billy Graham. Wearing loud ties and bright suits, backed by girl trios and swing-band instrumentals, Graham joined other evangelists of the day in galvanizing teen-packed rallies with crackling talks delivered in the clipped, staccato manner of such radio personalities as Walter Winchell.Â

Thousands poured into rallies, Bible clubs, boat tours, and other innovative events. William Randolph Hearst and President Truman praised these efforts as effective tools against the day's newest social problem—juvenile delinquency. Soon even such venues as Madison Square Garden couldn't hold all the young people who came. The Memorial Day 1945 youth rally at Soldier Field in Chicago drew some 70,000.

As YFC's field representative, Graham in 1945 visited 47 states with youth campaigns. In the winter of 1946-47, Graham toured England, speaking at 360 separate Youth for Christ meetings—often packed, despite some British observers' considerable amusem*nt at these brash, loud Americans.

Daring to wed, as Carpenter has put it, "born-again religion to the style as well as the media of the entertainment industry," the leaders of these new youth rallies were "borrowing from the very dens of the devil—Hollywood and Radio City—to accomplish the Lord's purposes." And Billy Graham was in the midst of it.

This was not the last time Graham would provide a significant spark to contemporary-styled Christian youth work. In next week's newsletter we will look at the decades of the 1960s and 1970s, during which Graham, struggling at home with his own rebellious, "liberated" teenager, joined the Jesus People in urging that generation to "tune in, turn on to God."

* On the recent Anglican youth initiative, click here.

* For more on Graham's role in the early Christian youth movement, see such biographies as John Pollock's Billy Graham: The Authorised Biography.

* Also covering the rise of these ministries are Joel Carpenter in his Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism and, in capsule form, Steve Rabey and Monte Unger, Milestones: 50 Events of the 20th Century that Shaped Evangelicals in America (chapter 9: "Beyond Kid Stuff: Youth for Christ and the Youth Ministry Revolution).

Chris Armstrong is managing editor of Christian History magazine.

Copyright © 2002 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information

Tired of Boston's roundabouts? Sick of weaving through L.A. traffic? Try navigating the streets of Jerusalem. Finding your way through the labyrinth of shops, museums, houses, churches, synagogues, and mosques that make up the Old City of Jerusalem is more than challenging. The alleys taking you from one "quarter" of the city to another are narrow, and—to the eye of the visitor—they wind aimlessly. Buildings tower over you, blocking out the sunlight. A riot of sounds and smells overwhelms your senses. Blood from the butcher's shop runs in the street, forcing you to watch your step. A shopkeeper corners you and insists that you're there to buy his merchandise. Priests process down the street, prompting you to abort your chosen path. Israeli soldiers stop you at checkpoints or route you a different way.

Navigating the diverse family trees that make up Christianity in the Middle East can be an equally frustrating experience. Many of these Christians claim roots that go back many generations—centuries, actually—and if you don't keep the master map in your mind's eye, expect that you'll lose your way. Separating out the Eastern Orthodox from the Catholics from the Protestants (the most recent arrivals) is one thing. But what distinguishes the Armenian Orthodox from the Armenian Catholic Church of Cilicia? Are the Copts Orthodox, Catholic, or something altogether different? Who are the Greek Melkites, and how does the Assyrian Church of the East come into the story?

Any one of these questions is fodder for serious scholarship. But Who Are the Christians in the Middle East? takes on all these and more. The task is enormous in scope—kudos goes to Betty Jane and J. Martin Bailey for even attempting it, and in only 200 pages. Yet the Baileys, who spent several years living in Jerusalem and traveling throughout the region, are well positioned to write this. Their connections with the Middle East Council of Churches, and their current positions with the Middle East Office of the Common Global Ministries Board and the Hartford-based interfaith project Faith Communities Today, ensure that they speak with credibility.

By necessity the book is a survey, a Who's Who that will satisfy your initial curiosity but leave you wanting more. Don't try to read it in one sitting—start with the introductory historical essays by David Kerr, renowned professor of World Christianity at the University of Edinburgh, and Riad Jarjour, general secretary of the Middle East Council of Churches. Then, as your fancy takes you, explore the byways as you visit each "quarter" of the Christian family (Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox). You'll find plenty of surprises in unexpected corners.

Take, for example, the origins of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Did you know that the Orthodox revere the apostle Andrew as much as Roman Catholics revere Peter? According to tradition, Andrew founded the Eastern church in Byzantium in A.D. 36, and the current Orthodox patriarch is Andrew's 270th successor. Think Oxford's collection of Christian documents and artifacts has the edge on archives worldwide? The Greek Orthodox library in Alexandria, Egypt (a city once unequaled in the Roman Empire for its intellectual power, not to mention being the home of eminent theologians like Origen) has over 30,000 books dating to the ninth century. Pleased with yourself for completing two days of fasting? Egyptian Copts are expected to fast 210 days out of every year.

This fact-filled volume excels in its accessibility. The Baileys pack in so much information, however, that it's sometimes difficult to follow. For example: "In ancient times, Lebanon was famous for its wood (especially cedar) and for iron and copper. It was the home of Phoenician traders who sailed the then-known world." Next sentence, with no paragraph break: "During the Ottoman Empire and continuing until the present, the several religious communities were assigned responsibility for legal issues (including marriage and inheritance) within their own groups." The lack of transition is a bit jarring, but to be fair, the Baileys aren't trying to craft a master narrative. As they explain in their introduction, "We know that while some will read this book in its entirety, others will use it as a reference book to 'look up' a particular church, country, or holy site."

The true strength of this survey is that it gives students of Middle Eastern Christianity more than one navigation tool to work with. If the Baileys' section identifying each branch (and sub-group) of Christianity in the Middle East leaves your head spinning, the authors break it down by country or region—a compass I found easier to use. Add to that the essays in the front, and you're sure to come away with a deeper understanding of and appreciation for the major, if not minor, churches that make up Christianity there.

This book won't clear up all your questions; you may indeed finish it and find yourself still disoriented. But you will at least learn to identify landmarks along the way. And that's not a bad way to start your journey.

Copyright © 2005 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

It shows how much things have changed that Wheaton College historian Mark Noll and freelance writer Carolyn Nystrom need to remind readers what Catholic/evangelical relations used to look like. Evangelical polemics lack the bite of yesteryear, as illustrated by this 1873 quote in the introduction: "The most formidable foe of living Christianity among us is not deism or atheism, or any form of infidelity, but the nominally Christian church of Rome."

But anyone who has read Luther or Calvin and cringed at their stinging rebukes of Roman "papists" recognizes that we don't live in the reformers' days. Political cooperation in America and the moral leadership of Pope John Paul II have prompted these historical Christian rivals to temper their rhetoric.

Such a bold title promises much, but Noll and Nystrom are quick to point out that there is no simple answer to their question, "is the Reformation over?" Rather than offering a grand thesis, therefore, they survey the historical territory of Catholic/evangelical relations and measure contemporary Catholicism by the criteria of classic Reformation ideals. In doing so, they have produced an excellent guide to the ecumenical strides already taken and the serious doctrinal differences that remain.

From Top to Bottom

Noll and Nystrom cover familiar historical ground in showing how Catholics and evangelicals battled—sometimes literally—during and since the Reformation. From there the authors draw together various events and movements to explain why the battles have largely calmed. The most important change took place within the Catholic Church at the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Noll and Nystrom identify four key developments there: The council referred to non-Catholics as "brothers," encouraged lay Catholic piety, emphasized Christ's unique role as mediator, and accepted limited blame for inciting the Reformation.

Events since the Second Vatican Council compose the bulk of the authors' analysis. Noll and Nystrom provide ample descriptions of official Protestant dealings with the Catholic Church. Most notably, they recount "The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification," signed by the Lutheran World Federation and Catholic representatives in 1999. A key Reformation debate cooled with the declaration's hallmark line: "Our new life is solely due to the forgiving and renewing mercy that God imparts as a gift and we receive in faith, and never can merit it in any way."Such developments encouraged other ecumenical efforts like Evangelicals and Catholics Together, which Noll and Nystrom also carefully document.

Such top-down edicts have been significant, but no more so than 20th-century grassroots changes around the world. The growth of Christianity outside the West during the last century has challenged the Western monopoly on Christian leadership. Thus, Noll and Nystrom divide Catholic/evangelical relations into areas where traditional Western religious divisions remain strong (southern Europe and Latin America), areas where traditional Christianity has been confronted by strong post-Christian elements (North America and parts of Africa and Asia), and areas where European Christianity never took hold (most of Africa, Asia, and the Pacific).

This analysis helps explain why most Christians in Africa and Asia don't suffer lingering Reformation tensions and why Latin American Christians still do. Those who didn't experience Western history don't recognize the same theological distinctions that originated in Europe. Charismatic worship further deemphasizes the Reformation legacy as experience, rather than doctrine, provides the rallying point.

Modern History

Noll and Nystrom provide reminders of the painful schism and point to hopeful and shocking potential for reconciliation. Yet while much has changed, Catholics and evangelicals have come no closer in their understandings of the church. As they analyze the Catholic Catechism, Noll and Nystrom discuss the main issue still dividing Catholics and evangelicals: the relationship of Scripture to the church.

Protestants can't fathom why the Catechism approvingly quotes Joan of Arc saying, "About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they're just one thing, and we shouldn't complicate the matter." This is the crux of the matter, as Noll and Nystrom explain: "If Christ and his church are one, then a great deal of Catholic doctrine simply follows naturally. In a word, ecclesiology represents the crucial difference between evangelicals and Catholics." The Reformation legacy hinges on the doctrine of the church: Was this challenge to Roman authority a necessary purification of the wayward church or "an attack on Christ himself"?

But ecclesiology isn't the only thing that prevents Noll and Nystrom from answering their book's title with "yes." It's one thing to delineate the implications of 18th-century events. It's quite another to explain the significance of something that happened in the last couple decades, as the authors themselves admit. "Unfortunately, historians can only look backward," they conclude, "and therefore it falls to practitioners by their actions to show if the Reformation is really over."

Hopeful Realism

Noll and Nystrom's book balances hopeful excitement with realism. They don't gloss over lingering points of contention such as the growth of Mary veneration in the third world, which John Paul II heartily encouraged. At the same time, they find many reasons to be enthusiastic about Catholic/evangelical agreement on basic Christian beliefs such as the Trinity, original sin, and the Holy Spirit's power to transform: "The growing recognition of how deep and firm such common doctrinal affirmations are represents a great historical reversal. although agreement on foundational Christian teachings has always been present … only in recent decades have the depth and significance of these doctrinal affirmations been visible. This alteration of perspective should indicate to anyone of a historical cast of mind that we still live in the age of miracles."

It is far too soon for a careful historian like Noll and thoughtful writer like Nystrom to proclaim the Reformation over. Still, as they contrast what we know from history with what we have witnessed in the last few decades, we learn that the question is now appropriate.

Collin Hansen is an associate editor of Christianity Today.

Copyright © 2005 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

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Amid the bustle of Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter, Maundy Thursday is easy to overlook. Few calendars label it, and some churches don't observe it at all, though it may be the oldest of the Holy Week observances. It's worth asking why, and how, generations of Christians have revered this day.

"Maundy" comes, possibly by way of one or more European languages, from the Latin "mandatum," meaning "command." The reference is John 13:34: "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." Jesus spoke those words at the Last Supper, which took place the Thursday before Easter.

Protestant churches that do observe Maundy Thursday may offer a dramatic re-enactment of the Last Supper or another special Communion service. Foot-washing services and adapted Passover Seders are also fairly popular, especially in Anglican, Lutheran, and other liturgical Protestant churches. Not surprisingly, Protestants generally stick close to biblical texts when constructing a special service. Catholic and Orthodox traditions add a few other elements to the observance.

In the Middle Ages, Maundy Thursday was sometimes called Shere Thursday, "shere" meaning "pure" or "guilt-free." ("Shere" also had something to do with shearing, as it was customary for medieval men to cut their hair and beards on this day.) Medieval Christians achieved purity by performing penance throughout Lent. The Catholic church recognized the achievement by formally reconciling penitents and, in some areas, giving them a green branch. New converts who had prepared their hearts, and memorized their creed, during Lent were purified through baptism at the Thursday service.

Because of the Maundy Thursday connection with baptism, it has long been Catholic custom to consecrate the year's supply of holy oils for baptism, anointing the sick, and Confirmation on this day. Orthodox clergy take time during the liturgy to prepare the "Amnos," the Communion elements that will be given to the sick throughout the year.

A few European countries have added cultural observances to the list of church traditions. In England, the monarch distributes small purses of Maundy Money to elderly residents of the town selected for each year's service. The practice dates back to 1210, when King John gave garments, knives, food, and other gifts to poor men on Maundy Thursday in accordance with Christ's mandate to love others. Germans, who call the day "GrÜndonnerstag" ("Green Thursday"), eat green vegetables, especially spinach. The association with green may come from the gift of green branches to penitents or from a confusion of the old German words meaning "green" (grun) and "to weep" (greinen).

It's common to hear from the pulpit that no one can fully appreciate the joy of Easter Sunday without experiencing the darkness of Good Friday. But the disciples would have been bewildered by both without the lesson of Holy Thursday. The day they received the command to love, had their feet washed by a king, and first understood the link between the Passover sacrifice, Christ, and the bread of life, shouldn't be missed by any of us, even if the calendar shows a blank square.

Links:

Maundy Thursday (Catholic Encyclopedia)

Holy Week in the Eastern Orthodox Church

Maundy Thursday (German customs)

Copyright © 2002 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

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Long before I ever understood Christ's atoning sacrifice or appreciated his glorious resurrection, I formed strong associations with Easter. Sure, the candy and family gatherings created fond, joyous memories. But it was the music—the same songs every year in my Methodist church—that blossomed with new meaning after my teenage conversion.

Chief among these tunes is one most will surely recognize—"Hymn for Easter Day," written in 1739 for the inaugural service at the Foundry Meeting House, London's first Wesleyan chapel. You know the hymn as "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today," composed by the most famous hymn writer of all, Charles Wesley, one year after his conversion.

As with many of the most popular hymns, "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today" has survived the centuries thanks to a successful marriage of lyrics and music. Its tune first circulated in 1708 with the Lyra Davidica hymnal, but no composer has ever been acknowledged. However, if you examine Hymn 716 from A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists, John Wesley's hymnbook first published in 1780, you may notice a conspicuous absence. Charles Wesley's original text does not include the song's most distinctive characteristic—the "Alleluia!" that ends each line. It seems the lyrics didn't quite fit the tune, so an unknown editor added the famous alleluias later.

Given the special Easter significance of alleluia, it's a match made in heaven. Alleluia, meaning "Praise the Lord," prominently leads off Psalms 106, 111, 112, 113, 117, and 135 in the Hebrew hymnal. In the years immediately following Christ's resurrection, alleluia particularly connoted praise for Jesus' victory over death. Early Christians began greeting each other on Easter with the now-familiar call and response: "Alleluia! He is risen!" "Alleluia! He is risen indeed!" Alleluia is meant to convey emphatic joy, thanksgiving, and triumph.

John captures the triumph in Revelation 19 with his vision of the great multitude in heaven roaring, "Alleluia!" Jerome, translator of the Latin Vulgate, conveyed the joy when he wrote that Christian houses of worship in the fourth and fifth centuries shook from the intense alleluias shouted by believers. Still today, Roman Catholics and Anglicans refrain from speaking or singing alleluia during Lent, but they reintroduce the word into their liturgies to express their thanksgiving on Easter morning.

Even in nonliturgical churches, alleluia retains a kind of liturgical significance. Bernard Lord Manning, a hymnologist, historian, and observer of Methodism during the early 20th century, explained how hymns like "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today" functioned as a liturgy for John and Charles Wesley's spiritual descendants.

But in the evening at the chapel [the Dissenting church], though I was uncertain about the prayers, there was no gamble about the hymns. I knew we should have Charles Wesley's Easter hymn, "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today," with its 24 "Alleluias": and we did have it. Among any Dissenters worth the name that hymn is as certain to come on Easter Day as the Easter Collect in the Established Church. And mark this further—those 24 "Alleluias" are not there for nothing: the special use of "Alleluia" at Easter comes down to us from the most venerable liturgies. Our hymns are our liturgy, an excellent liturgy. Let us study it, respect it, use it, develop it, and boast of it.

Throughout my youth, while my theological awareness remained primitive, this melodic liturgy conveyed to me the triumphant joy that is ours on Easter morning. Alleluia! Christ is risen!

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The American Civil War sparked revival on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. Between 100,000 and 200,000 Union soldiers reportedly converted to Christ, as did approximately 150,000 Confederates. Many soldiers' quarters featured chapels, and it was during this conflict that military chaplains became common. During the fall of 1863 and the winter of 1864 alone, some 7,000 of Robert E. Lee's troops became Christians.

The same era saw a flurry of hymn-writing and carol-writing, especially in the North. In 1849, with the Mexican-American war just over and smaller skirmishes (between settlers and American Indians and between slavery-supporters and abolitionists) igniting across the frontier, Edmund Hamilton Sears expressed a longing for peace in "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear." Sears, a New Englander, was not directly involved in these battles, but as a pastor and Christian journalist, he had cause to comment on them.

As scholar Alfred Edward Bailey noted in his 1950 classic The Gospel in Hymns, Sears's carol specifically emphasizes the social significance of the Christmas angels' message. Sears writes of a "weary world," with "sad and lowly plains" where "Babel sounds" echo. He laments "two thousand years of wrong" and the fact that "man, at war with man, hears not / the love song which they [the angels] bring." The carol's last stanza anticipates the day "when peace shall over all the earth / its ancient splendors fling."

Instead of peace, the 15 years following Sears's song saw unprecedented strife. The ravages of the war directly inspired another carol, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day," which was penned by Maine native Henry Wadsworth Longfellow around 1862. The sadness of this song reflects Longfellow's grief over the 1861 death of his second wife (burned to death at home when candles ignited her clothing), his bitter opposition to the war, and the sorrow of his son Charles having been gravely injured in battle. The poet's staunch Yankee views also show through in the original version of the text, from which three particularly partisan stanzas were dropped when the poem was set to music in 1872.

The excised stanzas include such lines as "Then from each black, accursed mouth / The cannon thundered in the South" and "It was as if an earthquake rent / The hearth-stones of a continent." Retained, however, were the following two poignant passages:

"'There is not peace on earth,' I said
'For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men"

and

"Then pealed the bells more loud and deep
'God is not dead, nor doth He sleep,
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.'"

Another carol to come out of Civil War experience is "O Little Town of Bethlehem," by Phillips Brooks. A pastor in Philadelphia during the war, Brooks also ministered to Union soldiers. He called the Emancipation Proclamation "the greatest and most glorious thing our land has ever seen."

Debate over the date when Brooks his poem continues to this day, and it touches on how closely related the song is to the war and its aftermath. One theory holds that Brooks wrote the text in 1868 and that the stillness in Bethlehem mirrors the stillness in Philadelphia, where a generation of young men had been wiped out. More likely Brooks wrote the text in 1865, during a Christmastime visit to the Holy Land, and he was merely describing Bethlehem as he saw it. At any rate, the words were not set to music until 1868, after which the carol was sung annually by the children's choir at Brooks's church. Few people outside the parish knew of the carol until it suddenly appeared in newspapers about a decade later.

If Brooks had visited Bethlehem today, of course, he would have written a very different carol. Thankfully, the "hopes and fears" of even this tragic year are "met" in Jesus Christ.

* Some information for this newsletter was collected from the book Christmas Songs Made in America by Albert J. Menendez and Shirley C. Menendez (Cumberland House, 1999).

* For more on Christianity and the Civil War, see Christian History issue 33 in the CH store.

Elesha can be reached at cheditor@ChristianityToday.com.

The online issue archive for Christian History goes as far back as Issue 51 (Heresy in the Early Church). Prior issues are available for purchase in the Christian History Store.

Copyright © 2000 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

If you grew up Jewish in a certain time, there was a forbidden fruit in your Bible. You knew this book was in there. You whispered about it with your friends. You probably snuck a peek when you were sure dad and Rabbi weren't looking. It was as canonical as any other book. In fact Rabbi Akiba had said, "If all the sacred writings are holy," then this one was "the holy of holies" (Mishnah, Yadayim 3:5). But you wouldn't be allowed to read it out in the open (some sources say) until your thirtieth birthday.

In her Spring 2003 Marriage Partnership article, "In the Mood," Jill Savage tops her list of 19 ways for married couples seeking to "kick up your sexual desires a notch" with this suggestion:

"Read Song of Songs. If your spouse is willing, read it together out loud. … This is God's sex manual!"

The picture is irresistible. Pete and Paula are sitting up in their four-poster together, the family Bible propped on a few pillows. Opening it to the Song of Songs (the book is also known as "Song of Solomon" or, from the Latin for "song," "Canticles"), Pete begins:

"Your waist is a mound of wheat" (7:2). "Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon" (7:4).

Paula picks up the refrain:

"My beloved is dazzling and ruddy … His hands are rods of gold set with beryl; his abdomen is carved ivory inlaid with sapphires" (5:10,14, NASB).

OK, granted, it's hard for us to "get into" some of the imagery. But the theme is unmistakable, and it still holds our fascination after all these centuries:

"Your stature is like a palm tree, / And your breasts are like its clusters, / 'I said, "I will climb the palm tree, / I will take hold of its fruit stalks." / Oh, may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, / And the fragrance of your breath like apples, / And your mouth like the best wine! / It goes down smoothly for my beloved … '" (7:7-9, NASB)

I recently picked up the proofs of a forthcoming Eerdmans translation and commentary by Judith Ernst: Song of Songs: Erotic Love Poetry. American novelist David James Duncan writes the introduction. As he relates the history of the Song's interpretation, he says what many readers still feel—isn't it something of a miracle that this bodice-ripper is actually still in the biblical canon? I nodded, and read on:

"The survival of these openly erotic and mystical songs in the same text touted by generations of Puritans, Conquistadors, Inquisitors, misogynist priests, and fundamentalist book burners is an outright miracle of fidelity to holy writ."

Here I came to a grinding halt. The Puritans? Song-of-Songs haters?

I don't think so.

First of all, let's please get over this twentieth-century canard about the Puritans being afraid of sex and bent on making sure no one enjoyed it. As the Yale Puritan expert Harry Stout put it, "They certainly did not have sexual hang-ups. They were not prudes. … For husband and wife, sex was important, and Puritan families were routinely large. A spouse could be punished by the authorities for withholding sex from his or her partner. … They were intense lovers."

For these "intense lovers," the Song of Songs was the perfect lens on the church's—and the individual believer's—communion with Christ. Though only one of many ways in which the Song has been interpreted in Christian history, this allegorical one has a long pedigree in the church. The second-century exegete Origen (ca. 185-254) pioneered the view, which identified the song's male lover as God or Christ and its female lover as Israel, the church, or the believer. The Fathers through the medieval period followed Origen's lead, with the mystics emphasizing the personal, subjective side of the interpretation.

John Calvin—knowing that the comparison of man-woman married love to the love of Christ has the highest biblical authority (e.g. Eph. 5:31-32, the book of Hosea, and many passages in the major prophets)—also supported the allegorical interpretation.

And a century later the Calvinist Puritans joined the Catholic mystics in identifying the female lover as the individual believer and using the book as a guide for personal devotions.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the prolific nineteenth-century Baptist preacher who loved to read his Puritans, compiled an annotated list of no fewer than 57 Puritan and contemporary books devoted to the Song of Songs.

Spurgeon lavishes praise on such works as Richard Sibbes's 1639 "Discovery of the Neere and Deere Love, Union and Communion betwixt Christ and the Church" and John Gill's 1728 "Exposition of the Book of Solomon's Song" ("Those who despise it … are incapable of elevated spiritual feelings," said Spurgeon).

Then Spurgeon arrives at a book that, in two hefty volumes, manages to get through an exposition of only the first two chapters of Solomon's Song: John Collinge's 1676 "Intercourses of Divine Love betwixt Christ and his Church, metaphorically expressed by Solomon in Canticles I. And II." We can hear the great preacher's affectionate chuckle and see the shake of his head as he writes, "Nine hundred and nine quarto pages upon one chapter is more than enough. … It would try the constitutions of many modern divines to read what these Puritans found it a pleasure to write. When shall we see their like?"

At the age of sixty, dying of a painful ailment, the Puritan poet Anne Bradstreet wrote a poem, "As weary pilgrim," looking forward to the final consummation of her relationship with her beloved Lord. At the poem's peak, she reached into the language of the Song of Songs:Â "Lord make me ready for that day; then, Come deare bridgrome [bridegroom]. Come away." (See Charles Hambrick-Stowe, Practice of Piety [UNC Press, 1982].)

The great eighteenth-century Puritan Jonathan Edwards (watch for our issue, mailing this month, celebrating his 300th birthday), looking back to the late-teenage period that marked his conversion, remembered:

"Those words in Song of Songs 2:1 used to be abundantly with me, I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys. The words seemed to me sweetly to represent the loveliness and beauty of Jesus Christ. The whole book of Song of Songs used to be pleasant to me, and I used to be much in reading it, about that time; and found from time to time an inward sweetness, that would carry me away in my contemplations. … Far from all mankind, sweetly conversing with Christ, and wrapt and swallowed up in God. The sense I had of divine things, would often of a sudden kindle up, as it were, a sweet burning in my heart, an ardor of soul, that I know not how to express."

In short, there has never been a group of Christians more in love with the Song of Songs than the Puritans. Deep, strong, passionate, the love for Christ that they expressed and experienced in reading this book carried them far beyond the realm of Valentine's Day platitudes. Stout's "intense lovers" found themselves willing to use Solomon's erotic language to express their desire for their Lord.

Like the Puritans, many devout readers through the church's history have discovered this symbolically rich fruit that hangs, no longer forbidden, in the middle of their Bibles, and have found its expressions perfectly fitted to meditation on the amazing intimacy God has condescended to have with his people. In an age when so much distracts us from that intimacy, maybe the time has come for us to sit up in bed, open this book, and "kick it up a notch" in our passion for our Lord.

* * *

For the Puritan commentator that Spurgeon identified as the best of his list of 57 writers on the Song of Songs, see the Commentary on the Song of Solomon of the Scottish minister James Durham (1622-1658).

Drawing on the tradition of interpretation represented by Durham and bringing the Song's cadences into the modern hymnal with many a "love song to Jesus" was the Victorian songwriter Frances Jane ("Fanny") Crosby. Born into a family of strong Puritan ancestry in New York on March 24, 1820 and later struck blind, Crosby memorized much of Scripture in her youth, including the whole of Solomon's Song.

Chris Armstrong is managing editor of Christian History magazine.

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