A passionate cry for hymns—new and old— that reflect Free Will Baptist theology.

No One Writes Apostasy Hymns

by Matthew J. Pinson

Southern Seminary Vice President Russell Moore recently wrote that Southern Baptist non-Calvinists could learn something about being Arminian from Free Will Baptist Bible College. He commented, “In chapel, they sang the great old hymns of the faith right along with contemporary hymns from, of all things, the Sovereign Grace church movement of C. J. Mahaney. Pinson told me he agrees with almost all the lyrics of these songs, precisely because they exalt the grace of God in Christ. ‘Besides,’ he said, ‘No one writes apostasy hymns.’” [1]

This statement brings up a whole series of questions about our hymnody and its theological content in the modern church. Sovereign Grace songs are attempts at wedding theologically deep lyrics with contemporary tunes. We have eagerly used many of these songs in our worship music at Free Will Baptist Bible College precisely because they unite contemporary arrangements with doctrinally serious poetry. And we think this helps us better embody the Apostle Paul’s teaching that the purpose of the Church’s psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs is to teach and admonish the body of Christ, thereby allowing His Word to dwell in us richly with all wisdom as we sing with grace in our hearts to God (Colossians 3:16). [2]

But an Arminian school like ours bumps up against a real problem using Sovereign Grace Music. That is precisely the doctrinal content of those songs. It almost seems as though every other song they publish teaches Calvinistic views of salvation, and that makes it impossible for us to use some of them in our worship.

Resist Empty Genres

But there is another, much more serious issue that arises from this discussion, and that is the general theological vacuity of the run-of-the-mill evangelical praise-and-worship genre—the songs that top the CCLI charts. It’s ironic that, on the one hand, we have Sovereign Grace Music producing songs somewhat more like the praise-and-worship genre stylistically but lyrically more like the grand hymn tradition of the Christian church.

Then on the other hand, most CCLI chart-toppers are all but empty in their theology—maybe helping us sing some with grace in our hearts, but hardly at all helping us teach and admonish each other, thus letting the Word of Christ dwell richly, deeply, copiously in us with all wisdom.

Reform Current Hymnody

But that brings me to my third thought, that the theological content of our hymnody has gradually become less important in the Church’s song. It’s time we had a reformation in our hymnody, getting back to the biblical vision of theologically rich worship music. One way to do this is to sing new songs like those of Sovereign Grace Music, and simply change some of the lyrics to reflect Arminian rather than Calvinist theology.

This is precisely what I saw had been done by Indelible Grace from a Calvinist perspective. Recently, our campus pastor Matthew McAffee introduced a song in chapel at FWBBC, “Arise, My Soul, Arise.” It was that old hymn text by Charles Wesley that was in every Free Will Baptist hymnal until the mid-20th century. And here it was, set to new music by, of all things, a Calvinist publisher, Reformed University Fellowship.

That organization puts out the Indelible Grace albums, setting old hymns, many long fallen out of use, to contemporary arrangements. As we were singing this new song in chapel, I noticed that they had changed Wesley’s words, “His blood atoned for all the race” to “His blood atoned for every race,” thus adjusting it to their limited-atonement Calvinist theology. (Needless to say, we changed it back to Wesley’s original wording.)

This is an interesting example of what could be done to recapture biblical depth in our singing while still singing some new songs, along with the rich music bequeathed to us by the Christian tradition. We could simply take these new songs from the Calvinists—who sometimes seem to be the only people these days interested in theologically rich song lyrics—and adapt them theologically for our own use.

This would include new tunes with new lyrics from publishers like Sovereign Grace, as well as new tunes with old lyrics from publishers like Reformed University Fellowship, Ligonier, and New Parish Psalms. And I think that’s a good strategy, one we’ve employed at our institution.

Reinforce Free Will Baptist Theology

But there’s another thing we could do, and that is bring back hymnody that reflects our own theology and either use traditional tunes, write new tunes for the old texts, or utilize recently written metrical hymn tunes (with permission) from sources like those mentioned above.
I came across just such a hymn—another Charles Wesley text—and it immediately reminded me of what I told Russell Moore that day after chapel about nobody writing apostasy hymns.

The hymn I discovered—really it was just the original last verse of a hymn that I’d known all my life—was “A Charge to Keep.” Finally, I had found an apostasy hymn!

Yet the last, original verse of that stirring hymn had been dropped or changed in just about every hymnal by the middle of the 20th century, and eventually, as hymnals from some Arminian denominations were revised over the years, they would include the edition which left out or altered the last verse.

Here are the first three verses, found in most modern hymnals and in the 1964 Free Will Baptist Hymn Book (Nashville) and 1958 Free Will Baptist Hymnal (Ayden):

A charge to keep I have,
A God to glorify,
A never-dying soul to save,
And fit it for the sky.

To serve the present age,
My calling to fulfill:
O may it all my powers engage
To do my Master’s will!

Arm me with jealous care,
As in Thy sight to live;
And O Thy servant, Lord, prepare
A strict account to give!

Wesley’s original final verse gives this sober warning, which can’t be found in most modern hymnals: [3]

Help me to watch and pray,
And on Thyself rely,
Assured, if I my trust betray,
I shall forever die. [4]

By rescuing from obscurity older hymns that reinforce our theology, we could go a long way toward recapturing the scriptural desire of our forefathers to use worship music to teach the faith and let the Word of God deeply penetrate our hearts as well as our minds. If the old saying is true that the way most people have learned their theology is from hymns, this is of utmost importance.

This could prepare the way for training up a new generation of songwriters who—drawing on the wealth of the Christian hymn tradition, diligently learning biblical theology, and carefully studying the age-old art of poetry—could write new hymns and spiritual songs and enable the church to continue to “sing to the Lord a new song, and his praise in the assembly of saints” (Psalm 149:1).

This is something we are already seeing by writers such as Keith and Kristyn Getty and Stuart Townend. And I believe our younger generation of Free Will Baptists is uniquely suited—and more ready than you think—for this momentous task.

About the Writer: Matthew Pinson is president of Welch College.

[1]Russell Moore, “Learning from Nineteenth-Century Baptists,” in David Dockery, ed., Southern Baptist Identity: An Evangelical Denomination Faces the Future (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2009), 113-14.

[2]For an excellent exposition of this passage, and an in-depth approach to the New Testament’s requirement for worship music to be theologically rich, see Jeff Crabtree, “Congregational Singing: The Mandate of Colossians 3:16,” Integrity (Summer 2008), 53-71.

[3]This verse is transcribed from my copy of Zion’s Hymns: For the Use of the Original Free Will Baptist Church of North Carolina, and for the Saints of All Denominations (Pikeville, NC: Elder Daniel Davis, 1854), no. 45. The same wording is found in countless hymnals in the 18th and 19th centuries.

[4] The American Hymnal, a well-known hymnal published in 1913, changed the last verse to the following: “Help me to watch and pray / Be with me in the strife / Thine every word may I obey / And find in thee my life.” According to Eric Routley and Peter Cutts, the last verse was commonly changed to read as follows: “And let me ne’er my trust betray / but press to realms on high,” “So shall I not my trust betray / nor shall I ever die” and “So shall I not my trust betray /nor love within me die” (An English-Speaking Hymnal Guide [Chicago: GIA, 2005], 1). A. M. Townsend’s Baptist Standard Hymnal (1924) has: “By faith assured I will obey / For I shall never die.”