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#669: Rise Up, O Saints of God!
Apr. 14th, 2020 10:51 pmSo, in Googling I found that this text has a bit of an interesting backstory. Once, there was a hymn called "Rise Up, O Men Of God." This is not that hymn. However, that hymn was also sung to this melody ("Festal Song.") People realized that that was kinda, you know, sexist, so they changed it to "Rise Up, O Saints of God," basically keeping everything else the same except for that one word.
Then, someone else came along and rewrote the verses so they were less about monarchist kingdoms and more about justice and creation and baptismal grace, and basically more...20th century, I guess. And that's the version we have today. Except, when you look it up, this one kind of got merged with the "Saints" version of the original, even though that version should really be a tweak of "Men." (Compare the "representative text" here with the image. Actually, I guess the image is more useful because it gives you both side by side.)
The reason I wanted to Google for this is, it turns out that many decades ago when my old church was fundraising for their current building, the catchphrase for their pledge drive was "Rise Up, O Men of God." Referring to the old text, not the new text, the new text probably didn't exist yet.
Then, someone else came along and rewrote the verses so they were less about monarchist kingdoms and more about justice and creation and baptismal grace, and basically more...20th century, I guess. And that's the version we have today. Except, when you look it up, this one kind of got merged with the "Saints" version of the original, even though that version should really be a tweak of "Men." (Compare the "representative text" here with the image. Actually, I guess the image is more useful because it gives you both side by side.)
The reason I wanted to Google for this is, it turns out that many decades ago when my old church was fundraising for their current building, the catchphrase for their pledge drive was "Rise Up, O Men of God." Referring to the old text, not the new text, the new text probably didn't exist yet.
