Hymns and such

The other day I was looking on youtube for hymns and became quite absorbed in them. I was thinking it would be nice to post videos of hymns I like, but it's hard to find exactly what I do like. I looked for "Be Thou My Vision," but didn't find any that included all the verses, usually just two or three, as well as various instrumental versions -- nice, but not what I was looking for. I looked up various others also and ended up looking for one that is simple and sentimental and short, the Gaither song, "There's something about that name." There's a part of me that is uncomfortable with the schmaltziness of Gaither-type songs, and another part of me that revels in the sentimentality. Anyway, every version I looked at had people blabbing away either before or during their singing. I tend to wish in church settings that people who assist in leading worship would talk less and let songs, scripture, benedictions, and sacraments speak for themselves.

So I didn't post the "Something about that name" song. But today I tried to think what would be an appropriate song to post. Since it's October, we're coming up on Reformation Day, October 31, the day that Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenburg church and set in motion the Protestant Reformation. He wrote the hymn "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," and it comes up often at Reformation celebrations. I found a good soloist singing all the verses. He's a little theatrical in his gestures for my very buttoned-up taste, but not over the top. And at least his gestures relate to the song's meaning and are not just showing off. And he sings it so well. His name is Steve Green:



I do hope I did that "embed video" correctly. Then I thought, Wouldn't it be nice to have one with video that showed, oh, European churches and so forth, and I found one that shows paintings and drawing and architecture from the Reformation period. In this one a choir is singing. The people in the drawings and paintings are important figures of the time. There's Martin Luther himself, of course, also various clergy. I saw Philip of Spain flash by; the Inquisition was active during his reign. I also saw Henry VIII of England, some of his churchmen, and even Lady Jane Grey, a devout Protestant and brilliant scholar of the English royal family who became a political pawn and ended up beheaded at age sixteen. (Hmm. I just looked again, and maybe that was Jane Seymour (Henry VIII's 3rd wife), not Jane Grey. Oh, well.) In this version, a choir sings and I can't follow all the words because it's not the one I grew up with. It must be a new translation, for Luther's hymn was written in German and translated into English:



I tried to locate a video with the hymn in German but couldn't find one on youtube.

Note: Post edited on 11/06/07