United Methodist Hymnal

Finding the Methodist hymnal a treasure trove of faith history while in seminary, I chose to find every Biblical reference the authors either quoted from, or framed the words of their hymn.

Professor Al Hass taught hymnology at Drew Theological Seminary, and was a member of the national hymn committee commissioned to make up the projected new hymnal. That hymnal was published with OT references noted on the left side of the hymn title, (most often the first line of the hymn) and the New Testament on the right side.

I make no reference to cause and effect, but I have my wishful thinking that there is a connection between this project and the inclusion of scripture references noted with a hymn. My hymnal project had the OT ref on the left and the NT ref on the right. Having a collection of hymnals going back to 1700s, I find this is a new inovation.

It is to be also noted that since the publishing of that hymnal,1961, each hymnal published since has deleted some of these acknowledgements of text reference.