By SIMON CHAN
MANY Christians are familiar
with the hymn "Come Thou Fount of every blessing, tune my
heart to sing thy grace".
The second stanza begins:
Here I raise my Ebenezer
Hither by thy help I'm come.
There is a revised version found in Anglican Church of Canada's hymnal Common Praise. It goes like this:
Here I make faith's affirmation
Thus far by thy help I've come.
It is said that poetry draws its power from a vast store of
background knowledge shared by the poet and his or her audience.
Ebenezer (meaning "stone of help") draws us back to
the rich imagery of the biblical world. It was a commemorative
stone erected by the prophet Samuel to celebrate Israel's victory
over the Philistines. It was to remind the people of Israel that
their victory was owed entirely to the Lord, not to their military
prowess. Read 1 Sam 7: 10-13.
When Robert Robinson wrote this
hymn in the 18th Century, Ebenezer would have been readily understood
and appreciated by his biblically literate audience because they
shared the same background knowledge of the Bible. That one word
conjures up images of blood and burning flesh, thunder and slaughter.
But our revisionists have wiped out all these powerful images
and replaced them with a bland, matter-of-fact, contextless phrase:
"faith's affirmation".
I can imagine the questions going through the revisionists' minds:
Does Ebenezer mean anything to the average church-goer? Getting
people to come to church is quite a task already; why make it
more difficult by cluttering our songs with obscure biblical images?
These questions boil down to one concern: How to make Christianity
meaningful to church-goers who do not read their Bibles anymore,
for whom Ebenezer makes no sense except, perhaps, as a nice name
for a household pet.
This kind of revisionism is symptomatic of a much larger problem
in our church which anyone involved in Christian education would
do well to take special note of. The experts - theologians, translators,
revisers, linguists - are all trying to make things easy to understand
for the modern church-goer, yet, ironically, biblical knowledge
has not improved among the pew-sitters or hand-raisers, or church-goers-of-whatever-preferred-postures.
In fact, everywhere, especially in so-called advanced, progressive
societies, biblical knowledge has been deteriorating at an alarming
rate. Yet, we have more versions of the Bible in the English language
than ever before. I am not suggesting that we should sanctify
archaism, but it is quite clear that making things easier for
people to understand is not helping them to understand.
The problem of understanding is not primarily an issue of ancient
versus modern, or difference in social contexts. In other words,
there may be historical and social barriers to learning, but the
more basic problem may be theological.
Perhaps, we need to go back to our doctrine of Original Sin, manifesting
itself as moral and intellectual sloth. Our spiritual forebears
were much closer to the truth when they named sloth as one of
the seven deadly sins. But sloth in our modern world has been
cleverly hidden behind a welter of legitimate activities.
As Eugene Peterson once observed, we make ourselves busy because
we are too lazy to handle the really important issues. Modern
living is not very helpful either because we are accustomed to
having everything done for us or doing everything in a user-friendly
way. For every challenge there is a "service industry"!
There is no easy way to biblical literacy or any other serious
pursuits for that matter. In the final analysis it requires self-discipline
and dogged determination. Revisionists who are always looking
for an easy way to connect with an increasingly disinterested
audience are only helping to perpetuate a deadly sin, and thereby
guilty of complicity.
The Rev Dr Simon Chan is Earnest
Lau Professor of Systematic Theology at Trinity Theological College.
QUOTE:
PROBLEM OF UNDERSTANDING
'The experts - theologians, translators, revisers, linguists -
are all trying to make things easy to understand for the modern
church-goer … The problem of understanding is not primarily
an issue of ancient versus modern, or difference in social contexts.
In other words, there may be historical and social barriers to
learning, but the more basic problem may be theological.'