The Fullness of Knowing: Modernity and Postmodernity from Defoe to Gadamer

2. The Hymns of Isaac Watts and Postmodern Worship

37 Q THE HYMNS OF ISAAC WATTS AND POSTMODERN WORSHIP 2 Like the writers who developed narrative theology in response to the perceived shortcomings of Enlightenment approaches to Scripture, advocates of emerging forms of Christian worship are often critical of how our approach to knowledge has narrowed since the eighteenth century. For instance, they value the experience of religious art and music at least as highly as a well-formed doctrinal proposition.1 Although their attitude toward established denominations is usually negative, they often look to some form of “community” to validate their experience.2 Although most of the leaders in this movement are Protestants, they have a decided preference for an “eclectic” approach to theology rather than systematic precision, drawing on sources from the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, as well as Protestantism. In these criticisms and responses, their approach to the theology and worship of the church is anticipated in the work of the hymn writer Isaac Watts (1674–1748), a younger contemporary of Daniel Defoe. Like Defoe, Watts was a Dissenter whose roots are found in the late Puritan tradition. But unlike Defoe, Watts was conscious of the philosophical changes in the air. He knew that the work of John Locke (1632–1704) in particular represented a significant narrowing of the scope of religious knowledge. Watts responded to the Enlightenment in a variety of ways, but 38 The Fullness of Knowing Q most notably through his congregational hymns, many of which have been sung for nearly three centuries—“When I survey the wondrous cross,” “Joy to the world,” “O God, our help in ages past,” and many others.3 In Watts’ hymns, one sees a thoughtful emphasis on the experience of art—literary art, in this case—and the mysteries it enables one to experience. Watts had eclectic tastes, incorporating the sensibility of the Catholic baroque poet Matthew Casimire Sarbiewski with that of the Puritan heirs of Oliver Cromwell.4 Like his twenty-first-century descendants in the emergent church, his very choice of genre, the congregational hymn, requires the authority of a particular community for its validation.5 Watts is perhaps the most influential hymn writer in the English language.6 Like Defoe, Watts had to work against late Puritan prejudices against his chosen genre. Metrical translations of the Psalms were common and were accepted in Dissenting churches. Yet most English Dissenters, reflecting their Calvinist heritage, discouraged the composition of original texts—hymns— for church use. Some leading Dissenters, such as Richard Baxter (1615–1691), spoke up for hymns, as did a few voices in the established Church of England. Nevertheless, opposition to using original human compositions in worship (as opposed to literal translations of the Psalms) remained strong throughout the seventeenth century.7 The publication of Watts’ Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1707), therefore, proposed a major change in the worship practices of his community. When he followed with an imitation of the Psalms rather than a literal translation in 1719, the change was even more obvious.8 Watts’ two major contributions to hymnody blurred the contemporary distinction between hymns and psalms. His stated intention in the 1719 Psalms was to “accommodate the book of Psalms to [C]hristian worship” (Works, 4:118). This meant leading “the psalmist of Israel into the church of Christ” by applying the joys of David, Deborah, and Asaph to “our persons, churches, or nation” (Works, 4:123, 116). Just to give one example, what ordinary singer of “Joy to the World” can recognize it as an imitation of Psalm 98? In this hymn—really an imitated psalm— Watts completely transforms a Hebrew poem for Christian worship.9 Watts’ influence spread through Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Congregationalist communities, including those in America and in Scotland.10 For nearly fifty years after his death, Q The Hymns of Isaac Watts and Postmodern Worship 39 Watts remained the leading example and standard for hymnody. Watts also wrote many essays, sermons, and philosophical works. He promoted the revivals of the 1730s by helping to reprint Jonathan Edwards’ Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God (1737), a popular account of the First Great Awakening in America. But it is Watts’ Hymns and Psalms that have gained him lasting fame. On his two works of hymnody, both published by 1719, his legacy rests. Watts lived during a time of great revival and great controversy among the Dissenters. In 1719, the Dissenting pastors of London...