Baptist Hymnal, 2008

I heard it was in the works late last  year, so Monday I was surprised to read so soon that the new 2008 edition of the Baptist Hymnal was out. I don’t know why, but I figured that it would be more than a year before a new Baptist Hymnal saw the light of day, but no. The initial tip came from Michael Spencer, who merely pointed to the article with all the info by Isaiah Six. While quite informative overall, I was actually looking for just a few words, and there they were:

One of the main concerns the folks at LifeWay addressed in compiling this hymnal was the theological depth of the material. I’ve communicated here and elsewhere many times that the theological content of what we sing is so much more important than the style in which we sing it. The new hymnal weighs that thought heavily and makes theology a hallmark of the new publication.

Last fall I had read the initial announcement at Baptist Press, of the beginning of work on a new hymnal, encouraged by the section indicating that theology was going to be a more intentional priority than with past editions. I mentioned this to my pastor at the time, who replied “That’s what they said when they began working on the 1991 edition.” So, I was anxious for confirmation, more concrete news; news which I found in the article mentioned above. Excited about the prospect, I went to LifeWay’s website to purchase a copy, only to find that both the Baptist Hymnal and the Worship Hymnal (a generic version for non-baptist or stealth-baptist congregations) were listed in the online catalog but, alas, not in stock.

Now, isn’t that just like Christianity? When some Harry Potter novel comes out you can order it ahead from Amazon or some such, so that it is shipped the day the book is released. But if it is something to do with Christianity, just because it has a release date doesn’t mean you can actually buy one any time soon.

So I guess I will have to wait some more to see if this new Baptist Hymnal pays more attention to theology. And then if it does, there’s a whole new concern: whose theology? But that should be a whole different post.

One thing I discovered in all of this is that this new hymn is not just a new hymn book, it’s a project. LifeWay has dubbed it the Worship Project in which all kinds of resources are available online that are connected to the new Baptist Hymnal. One little resource that I found interesting was a free-to-download pdf of a content comparison of the four most recent Baptist Hymnals, so that you can see what got added and what got dropped (and what got added again).

Go check it all out, but don’t order a new Baptist Hymnal. It might slow down the arrival of mine.