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Have you ever found yourself humming a favorite childhood hymn, only to realize you could no longer embrace its message? Harry Cook explores how hymns reflect the religious beliefs of their times. He revisits the texts of popular hymns, posing such questions as: How true are they to the biblical texts that inspired them? What aspects of nineteenth and early twentieth-century piety have persisted into the twenty-first century through those hymns? And, how does one manage the conflict between the emotional appeal and the theological content of such hymns?
About the author
Harry T. Cook is an Episcopal priest whose primary area of research is first century CE texts of both Jewish and early Christian origins. He is the author of Christianity Beyond Creeds: Making Religion Believable for Today and Tomorrow (1997); Sermons of A Devoted Heretic: A Priest Offers Messages of Hope to Faithful Doubters (1999); Seven Sayings of Jesus: How One Man's Words Can Change Your World (2001); Findings: Lectionary Research and Analysis, Commentary on the Sunday Gospel Readings (2003); and A Life Of Courage: Rabbi Sherwin Wine and Humanistic Judaism with Dan Cohn-Sherbok and Marilyn Rowens (2003).
