New Year, New HymnsA New Hymn Resource Focusing on Women
By Lyn Loewi In 1997, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church passed a resolution calling for a supplement to the Episcopal The Hymnal 1982 to emphasize “liturgical music, hymns, and other songs by women composers and poets, both historical and contemporary.” Due to this resolution, Voices Found—an ecumenical and interfaith hymnal by, for, and about women—was released by Church Publishing in 2003. For the 20th anniversary of Voices Found, the Women’s Sacred Music Project issued a call for hymns. Over 200 submissions were received, evaluated, and sorted, with the final compilation, titled Resounding Voices, released online on December 14, 2023.
Like its predecessor, Resounding Voices is a hymn collection by, for, and about women; the Women’s Sacred Music Project published it in partnership with the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada. Although only half the size of Voices Found, Resounding Voices captures the spirit of the older hymnal. One noticeable change after 20 years is that there are more hymns by women clergy, including Ellen Clark-King (the first woman dean of King’s College London), Victoria Sirota, Erika L. Takacs, Janet Wootton, and Jann Aldredge-Clanton.
What does Resounding Voices contribute to sacred music? Resounding Voices, like Voices Found, has made three significant contributions to hymnody: celebrating biblical women, mystics, and women of the church; expanding the language for God, including through the use of the feminine pronoun; and addressing issues that directly impact women: justice, healing, invisibility, etc. It should come as no surprise that women write more hymns than men about biblical women and female saints: Hannah and Miriam, Julian of Norwich and Teresa of Ávila, and other women of valor whom we may not know. These writers preserve stories that are otherwise overlooked. When, for example, was the last time you sang about Dorcas, as in this text by Rae E. Whitney?
In other hymns, God becomes “her,” defying the simplified icon of God as man, king, and father. Julian of Norwich wrote in the 14th century that, as surely as God is our Father, God is also our Mother. This radical view affirms God’s divinity in every person, opening new theological vistas, as in this hymn by Jacque B. Jones:
Topics like justice, healing, and ecology—as well as invisibility, inequality, and suffering—frequently appear in women’s hymns. Often situated away from the centers of power, women are perhaps more apt to see the suffering of the marginalized, as shown in these words by Shirley Erena Murray:
Why do we sing new songs? Rev. Jack Reiffer, a retired pastor in the Christian Reformed Church and a Women’s Sacred Music Project board member, says we sing new songs because the lectionary changes:
Jewish cantor Rosalie Will, also a Women’s Sacred Music Project board member, writes:
As president of the Women’s Sacred Music Project, I would add that new songs can open our hearts and minds. As people of faith committed to inclusivity and justice, we diversify our singing to honor our varied gifts. And yet, new songs can also be met with resistance. In the article “Publishing Privileges the Published,” Katie Graber and Anneli Loepp Thiessen explore the persistent reuse of published sacred music. The problem, according to the authors, is our learned, implicit bias for “masculine” four-part strophic hymns. German chorales and Anglican hymns with dense, highly intellectual texts are valorized as superior. Yet many of these are the same hymns that missionaries used to colonize the “heathen” and quash indigenous kinds of music. The result is a racialized and gendered power imbalance, a “restrictive feedback loop,” or what Becca Whitla calls “musicoloniality.” Moving beyond the all-male canon is as essential in the church as it is in art, literature, theater, and dance. We acknowledge the Creator’s gifts in people of all races and genders. Selections from Resounding Voices Example 1: “Take My Life, and Let It Be” (words by Frances Ridley Havergal, music arr. Marty Wheeler Burnett) “Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee.” These familiar words were written by Frances Ridley Havergal in 1874 and are typically sung to the tune Hendon. Reprinted in over 1,000 hymnals, the hymn seems to celebrate the obedient, sacrificial spirit of the poet. In this new musical setting by Marty Wheeler Burnett, associate professor of church music at Virginia Theological Seminary, the words soar with a Chopin-esque accompaniment. The long phrases and rich melodic turns lend power and joy to the text, providing a welcome contrast to the demure, corseted, and harmonically static 19th-century version. Example 2: “For Everyone Born” (words by Shirley Erena Murray) “For Everyone Born, a Place at the Table” was written by Shirley Erena Murray in 1998. Her text was groundbreaking at the time, pushing against the inequalities that prevented “everyone born” from taking a place at the table. In 2023, Rev. Carl P. Daw revised the words to be more inclusive— we can assume that Murray would have approved of the changes. For example, the binary phrase “For woman and man” was replaced with “For all who share life.” Resounding Voices offers two new settings of this extraordinary text: Joy Patterson and Jane Marshall. According to one report, when sung at a same-sex wedding, there were many in the room with tears of joy. Example 3: “O Wondrous Souls of Light” (words by Rev. Victoria Sirota) Rev. Janet Wootton, past president of the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland, said that challenges to patriarchal norms would lead to tectonic shifts in language and thought. “The solid ground of old certainty begins to break up, and new vistas resound with joy and hope, that the world can be different, and call us to action, to be participants, even agents in this new world. . . . Wisdom has set her table, and laid out her feast. This is no time to be picky! Dive in, and be blessed.” the songs and hymns in this collection inspire our spiritual quests for a more just and compassionate world. How do I use this collection? Click here to go directly to Resounding Voices. You may download it for free and find all the necessary copyright information for using this music within the hymnal. If you already have a copyright license, such as One License, the publishers—Hope, Augsburg, Selah, etc.—may be covered. If the author has retained copyright, you must contact them and get permission to use this music. The copyright contact information is listed in the back of Resounding Voices. Likewise, if you do not have a blanket license contract, you must ask the publisher for permission to use this music. We are a nonprofit; we make no money from this collection. When you report use or request permission, you pay the authors themselves or Hope Publishing Company, where authors have released permission.
Lyn Loewi serves on the AGO Task Force for Gender Equity. She is president of the Women’s Sacred Music Project and associate organist at St. John’s, Lafayette Square, in Washington, D.C. | Navigating Liturgies in Times of Political Turmoil and Injustice Keep Singing: Congregational Song in a Time of Grief, Rage, and Terror What is the Future of Worship Music? Inviting the Poet's Voice into Worship New Year, New Hymns - A New Hymn Resource Focusing on Women Seven Ways to Use Videos in Worship Cliff Notes: The Service of Worship If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, He’s Going to Transform Your Church The Importance of Sacred Dance in Worship Previous Articles that Encourage Out-of-Box Worship Ideas We, Your Children, Offer Our Prayer MUSIC DOWNLOAD Words and Music by Charles David Denler UCC CHURCHES
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